Horrors of Slavery z subterranean lives

Chronicles of Alternative America

Bradford Verter, series editor

Subterranean Lives reprints first-person accounts from the nineteenth and twen- tieth centuries by members of oppositional or stigmatized subcultures; memoirs by men and women who lived, whether by circumstance, inclination, or design, outside of the bounds of normative bourgeois experience. They include tramps, sex workers, cultists, criminals, drug addicts, physically disabled people, sexual minorities, bohemians, revolutionaries, and other individuals who have survived on the margins, within the interstices, and across the boundaries of American society. Each volume presents either a book-length memoir or a selection of shorter texts in their entirety, together with an introduction and notes.

Autobiography of an Androgyne, Ralph Werther Scott Herring, editor

The Hasheesh Eater: Being Passages from the Life of a Pythagorean, Fitz Hugh Ludlow Stephen Rachman, editor

Horrors of Slavery: or, The American Tars in Tripoli, William Ray Hester Blum, editor

The Road, Jack London Todd DePastino, editor

With the Weathermen: The Personal Journal of a Revolutionary Woman, Susan Stern Laura Browder, editor Horrors of Slavery z

or, The American Tars in Tripoli

William Ray

Edited and with an Introduction by Hester Blum

rutgers university press new brunswick, new jersey, and london Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Ray, William. Horrors of slavery, or, the American tars in Tripoli / William Ray ; edited and with an introduction by Hester Blum. p. cm. — (Subterranean lives) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 978-0-8135-4412-0 (hardcover : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8135-4413-7 (pbk. : alk. paper) 1. Ray, William. 2. United States. Navy—History—Tripolitan War, 1801–1805—Personal narratives. 3. Slavery—Africa, North. 4. Philadelphia (Frigate) I. Blum, Hester. II. Title. III. Title: Horrors of slavery. IV. Title: American tars in Tripoli. E335.R39 2008 973.4'7092—dc22 [B] 2008007763

A British Cataloging-in-Publication record for this book is available from the British Library.

Horrors of Slavery was first published by Oliver Lyon in Troy, New York in 1808. Introduction to this edition and scholarly apparatus copyright © 2008 by Hester Blum

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