by James Riley (Author)
Previously published: New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1965. First published in 1817 under title: An authentic narrative of the loss of the American brig Commerce.
Back Jacket
In this classic tale of adventure, a young American sea captain named James Riley, shipwrecked off the western coast of North Africa in 1915, was captured by a band of nomadic Arabs, and sold into slavery. Thus begins an epic adventure of survival and a quest for freedom that takes him across the Sahara desert. This dramatic account of Captain Riley's trials and sufferings sold more than 1,000,000 copies in his day, and was even read by a young and impressionable Abraham Lincoln. The degradations of a slave existence and the courage to survive under the most harrowing conditions have rarely been recorded with such painful honesty. Sufferings in Africa is a classic travel-adventure narrative, and a fascinating testament of white Americans enslaved abroad - during a time when slavery flourished through the United States.