Pirates!
Recently my wife and I went to a travel club slide presentation on a member's visit to Morocco. The images I remember best were of a stork "condo" ( a radio tower with a stork's nest on every platform) and a Berber encampment (with nomad life enhanced by the presence of a solar-powered satellite TV).
My short story "A Pirate's Ken" (Grantville Gazette 15) described an encounter between one of the Sallee Rovers and a Spanish merchantman.
https://grantvillegazette.com/article...
Sallee was a "pirate republic," founded by Moriscos across the Bou Regreg river from modern Rabat, Morocco. The corsair ship in question is captained by Murad Reis -- the renegade Dutchman Jan Janszoon.
He married a Muslim woman (without divorcing his Dutch wife) by whom he had several children. One, Anthony, emigrated to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1629. He became a wealthy (if rather litigious) landowner, sometimes called "the Turk" or "van Salee," and had four children, all of whom married other settlers.
So, after "A Pirate's Ken" was published, I got an email from one of his descendants! He wanted to know whether I had any information about Anthony's third daughter, Sara, who married Jan Emans. (I didn't, since my focus was on Jan.) Anthony's other descendants, by the way, include the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Humphrey Bogart.
The 1632 universe is a shared universe, and "A Pirate's Ken" ties in to stories written by others. The most unusual item in the loot taken by the corsairs is a plastic (a new material to the 17th century) Barbie doll carried by an Italian merchant. He is the second cousin of the Italian merchant mentioned in Gorg Huff's "The Sewing Circle" (Grantville Gazette 1). Anthony had a Dutch half-sister, Lysbeth Janszoon van Haarlem, and she is the subject of two gazette stories by Andy Rogers ("The Doom of Sallee" and "A Pirate Made").
As for what happened to Murad Reis' unfortunate captive, I will talk about him in another post.
My short story "A Pirate's Ken" (Grantville Gazette 15) described an encounter between one of the Sallee Rovers and a Spanish merchantman.
https://grantvillegazette.com/article...
Sallee was a "pirate republic," founded by Moriscos across the Bou Regreg river from modern Rabat, Morocco. The corsair ship in question is captained by Murad Reis -- the renegade Dutchman Jan Janszoon.
He married a Muslim woman (without divorcing his Dutch wife) by whom he had several children. One, Anthony, emigrated to New Amsterdam (New York) in 1629. He became a wealthy (if rather litigious) landowner, sometimes called "the Turk" or "van Salee," and had four children, all of whom married other settlers.
So, after "A Pirate's Ken" was published, I got an email from one of his descendants! He wanted to know whether I had any information about Anthony's third daughter, Sara, who married Jan Emans. (I didn't, since my focus was on Jan.) Anthony's other descendants, by the way, include the Vanderbilts, the Whitneys, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis and Humphrey Bogart.
The 1632 universe is a shared universe, and "A Pirate's Ken" ties in to stories written by others. The most unusual item in the loot taken by the corsairs is a plastic (a new material to the 17th century) Barbie doll carried by an Italian merchant. He is the second cousin of the Italian merchant mentioned in Gorg Huff's "The Sewing Circle" (Grantville Gazette 1). Anthony had a Dutch half-sister, Lysbeth Janszoon van Haarlem, and she is the subject of two gazette stories by Andy Rogers ("The Doom of Sallee" and "A Pirate Made").
As for what happened to Murad Reis' unfortunate captive, I will talk about him in another post.
No comments have been added yet.
