A Tale of Two Guns

Bibliographic Data

ID20074286
AuthorsMeredith Martin (0000-0002-9509-1907), G Wei (0000-0002-9220-7871), Gillian Weiss
Year2019
Pages27-48
Publication date2019-07-23
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeCHAPTER
VenueMobility of People and Things in the Early Modern Mediterranean (SOURCE_BOOK)
PublisherRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.4324/9781351042062-3
OpenAlexW2963644072
ISBN9781351042062
LanguageEN
Citations received2

This chapter tells the story of two guns: one cast in Toulon by Jean Baubé in 1680, the other supposedly fired at Algiers in 1683. Both made of bronze to launch massive cannon balls, these weapons are linked by more than material and functional similarities. They are symbols of Mediterranean servitude and the ways it has been celebrated or concealed since the seventeenth century. During the 1680s, about two thousand esclaves turcs (enslaved Turks) labored for Louis XIV, and the chained head of one of them decorates the knob of Baubé’s gun. Such a cannon belonged on a first-line warship, the sort that France sent to bomb Algiers in this decade. Countering one of these xviassaults, the Algerian navy used a different gun, nicknamed “Baba Merzoug” (Lucky Father), to execute French consul Jean Le Vacher. Seized as war booty during France’s 1830 invasion of Algiers, it is now displayed near Baubé’s cannon at the naval port of Brest, despite Algerian demands for its repatriation. By considering the production and circulation of these two guns, this chapter reexamines slavery in the Mediterranean not only as a mode of Louis XIV–era representation but also as a theme of colonial and postcolonial commemoration

Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Maritime Security and History · Ottoman and Turkish Studies

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