ABSTRACT
For many Europeans in the early modern period, falling victim to Barbary corsairs meant not only facing the threat of grueling slave work, torture, or death, but it could also mean facing a personal identity crisis. For example, the narrative of Thomas Pellow, who was captured in 1716 at the age of eleven and remained in Morocco for 23 years, contains hidden evidence of such a crisis. As a man who was thrown into a foreign environment during adolescence, he experienced trouble trying to re-integrate into his home society later in his life. This essay looks at a number of examples of similar experiences and mechanisms of reintegration in European captivity narratives.
