The French Galley Slaves
To the chagrin of those who saw Turks and the inhabitants of the Barbary as ungodly savages who tortured and beat their prisoners into submission, Europe treated its own people (as well as captured Turks) with equal cruelty. The galley slaves that rowed the many galleys of the French royal navy were often literally worked to death. While sentencing a criminal to the galleys was often done for a proscribed period of years, most did not last the length of their terms. Roughly 150 slaves were used per vessel, and those men were chained to the oar they rowed. As the galley moved through the water, a third of the slaves rowed at one time, trading off as each crew tired.
While on shore, the galley slaves were kept, in chains, in dockside prisons. It was these prisons that Vincent and his followers would visit to minister to the exhausted men. There is no evidence that Vincent ever took up the chains of a galley slave, and this image is most likely symbolic in nature.
The use of galley slaves in the 17th century Mediterranean was not a simple dichotomy of North African Muslims enslaving Christian Europeans or vice versa. In France, for example, the galleys were also a destination for criminals and perceived religious schismatics. France was a Catholic monarchy, and Protestantism was considered a serious crime. French Protestants, often Calvinist Huguenots, were convicted and sent to the galleys as punishment for their religious faith.
This early 18th century English translation of the French original contains 17th century accounts of French Protestants condemned to the oars. As a martyrology, this translation was prepared for an English Protestant audience, and reminds us that these accounts were often subsequently used to further religious and political agendas.
Similarly, later in the 17th century, English abolitionists utilized the corpus of Barbary Coast slave narratives to advertise the horrors of all slavery and gather support for their cause.