James Riley (captain)

{{Infobox person

| name = James Riley

| image = Captain James Riley (1777–1840).png

| image_size = 270px

| alt =

| caption =

| birth_name =

| birth_date = {{Birth date|1777|10|27}}

| birth_place = Middletown, Connecticut

| death_date = {{Death date and age|1840|03|13|1777|10|27}}

| death_place = At sea

| resting_place =

| occupation = Ship captain, writer

| employer =

| spouse = {{Marriage|Phebe Miller|January 1802}}

| children = 5

| relatives =

| awards =

| education =

}}

James Riley (October 27, 1777 – March 13, 1840) was the captain of the United States merchant ship {{ship||Commerce|1815 ship|2}}.{{cite book

| last = King

| first = Dean

| title = Skeletons on the Zahara

| publisher = Little, Brown and Company

| year = 2004

| isbn = 978-0-316-83514-5

| title-link = Skeletons on the Zahara

}}

Early life

James Riley was born in Middletown, Connecticut on October 27, 1777.{{cite web|url=http://www.onlinebiographies.info/oh/merc/riley-j-jw.htm|website=Online Biographies|title=James Riley}} At age 15, he began serving as a cabin boy on a trading vessel in the West Indies. By age 20 he had become a ship captain.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rD8VAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA313 |title=History of Mercer County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens |volume=1 |editor-first=S. S. |editor-last=Scranton |publisher=Biographical Publishing Company |location=Celina, Ohio |pages=313–314 |year=1907 |access-date=2020-08-11 |via=Google Books}}

He married Phebe Miller in January 1802, and they had five children.

''Sufferings in Africa''

Riley led his crew through the Sahara Desert, after they were shipwrecked off the coast of contemporary Western Sahara in August 1815, and wrote a memoir about their ordeal. This true story describes how they came to be shipwrecked and their travails in the Sahara. The book, published in 1817 and originally titled Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig 'Commerce' by the 'Late Master and Supercargo' James Riley, is modernly republished as Sufferings in Africa.{{cite book|author=Riley, James|title=Sufferings in Africa|isbn= 978-1-59048-108-0|date=1817|publisher=Long Riders' Guild Press }}

Lost in this unknown world, Captain Riley felt responsible for his crew and their safety. He told of the events leading to their capture by marauding Sahrawi natives who kept them as slaves. Horribly mistreated, they were beaten, sun-burnt, starved, and forced to drink their own and camel urine. A slave would be worked until close to death and then either traded or killed.{{citation needed|date=March 2014}}

File:A Map of part of Africa - drawn by the latest authorities to illustrate the narrative of Captain James Riley LOC 2009583840.jpg

Riley eventually persuaded another Arab, Sidi Hamet, to purchase him and his shipmates and take them to a port city far to the north, where Riley hoped to gain their freedom. He told Hamet falsely that he had a friend in the city who would reward Hamet for their release. Upon their arrival, Riley wrote a note to the local British consul, who then presented himself as Riley's long lost friend and secured the enslaved Americans' release.

Aftermath

Once back on American shores, Riley devoted himself to anti-slavery work but eventually returned to a life at sea.

He died March 13, 1840, on his vessel the Brig William Tell which he was sailing from New York to "St. Thomas in the Caribbean"{{efn|The relevant "Saint Thomas" is not clearly specified in available sources: it may be Saint Thomas Island, now in the U.S. Virgin Islands.}}{{cite news |title=Cromwell Native's Voyage Was Grist for a Bestseller |url=https://www.courant.com/1998/06/03/cromwell-natives-voyage-was-grist-for-a-bestseller/ |work=Hartford Courant |date=3 June 1998}} "of disease caused by unparalleled suffering more than twenty years previous during his shipwreck and captivity on the desert of Sahara".{{cite news|last1=Josiah Riley|title=Obituary of Capt. Riley|work=Alton Weekly Courier|via=Newspapers.com|date=3 June 1853}} The lives of his crew were foreshortened, no doubt, from complications caused by their hardships in the African desert. The last surviving crewman was the cabin boy, who lived to be 82.{{citation needed|date=April 2014}}

In 1851, eleven years after Riley's death at sea, the publishing firm of G. Brewster issued the book Sequel to Riley's Narrative: Being a Sketch of Interesting Incidents in the Life, Voyages and Travels of Capt. James Riley{{nbsp}}[...].{{cite book|date=1851|publisher=G. Brewster|author1=Riley, James |author2=Riley, William Willshire |title=Sequel to Riley's Narrative: Being a Sketch of Interesting Incidents in the Life, Voyages and Travels of Capt. James Riley, from the Period of His Return to His Native Land, After His Shipwreck, Captivity and Sufferings Among the Arabs of the Desert, as Related in His Narrative, Until His Death|url=https://archive.org/details/sequeltorileysn00rilegoog}}

Influence

Riley founded the midwestern village of Willshire, Ohio, which he named for William Willshire, the man who redeemed him from slavery.{{cite book|author=King, Dean |date=2004|title= Skeletons on the Zahara|publisher= Little, Brown and Company|isbn= 978-0-316-83514-5}}

Abraham Lincoln, who later became president of the United States, listed Sufferings in Africa as one of the three most influential works that shaped his political ideology, particularly his views on slavery. The others were the Bible and The Pilgrim's Progress (1678).{{cite news|title=To the Shores of Tripoli |url=http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/fivebest/?id=110010159|author=Oren, Michael|work= Wall Street Journal}}

Published accounts

[http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b8469656z {{lang|fr|Carte d'une partie de l'Afrique dessinée d'après les dernières découvertes pour servir à l'intelligence de la relation du capitaine James Riley}}], New York: John H. Eddy, cartographe; Collin, graveur; 1816 [Bibliothèque nationale de France / Gallica].
{{cite book|isbn=1585740802 |title= Suffering Africa - Astonishing Enslaved African|last1=Riley |first1=James |date=2000 |publisher= Lyons Press}} Reissue of the original.
{{cite book|isbn=0316835145 |title=Skeletons on the Zahara: A True story of survival |last1=King |first1=Dean |year=2004 |publisher=Little, Brown }}
{{cite news|url=http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/6619/|work= History Matters: The U.S. Survey Course |title='I found him to be a very intelligent and feeling man': Enslaved James Riley Encounters an Arab Trader, 1815}} Brief summary of the historical context of Riley's ordeal, as introduction to an extract from Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig "Commerce", an 1817 edition of Riley's memoir.
{{cite book |last1=Maislish |first1=David |title=White Slave: Based on the Journal of James Riley; Wrecked with His Crew Off the Coast of Africa, Enslaved and Seeking Redemption in the Desert |date=2005 |publisher=Pen Press |isbn=978-1-904754-98-5 |edition=First |language=English}} Based on the original account, rewritten for modern readers; with additional explanatory material.
{{cite book |last=Winchester |first=Simon |title=Atlantic: Great Sea Battles, Heroic Discoveries, Titanic Storms, and a Vast Ocean of a Million Stories |date=2010|publisher=Harper |isbn=978-0-06-170258-7 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/atlanticgreatsea00winc_0/page/239 239] |url-access=registration |url=https://archive.org/details/atlanticgreatsea00winc_0/page/239}}

Notes

References

External links

{{cite web|url=http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=008176.html&StartPage=76&EndPage=94&volume=81¬es=&newtitle=Volume%2081%20Page%2076|website=Ohio History|title=Publications: Life of Riley and later antislavery work in Ohio|access-date=March 20, 2007|archive-date=September 29, 2007|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929120442/http://publications.ohiohistory.org/ohstemplate.cfm?action=detail&Page=008176.html&StartPage=76&EndPage=94&volume=81¬es=&newtitle=Volume%2081%20Page%2076|url-status=dead}}
{{cite news|url=http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/10/03/slavery-in-north-africa-%E2%80%93-the-famous-story-of-captain-james-riley/ |title=Slavery in North Africa - The Famous Story of Captain James Riley |author=Davis, Robert C. Davis |work=The Public Domain Review |date=2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111007212132/http://publicdomainreview.org/2011/10/03/slavery-in-north-africa-%E2%80%93-the-famous-story-of-captain-james-riley/ |archive-date=2011-10-07 }}

Category:1777 births

Category:1840 deaths

Category:Maritime history of the United States

Category:African slave trade

Category:Sea captains

Category:19th-century American memoirists

Category:Writers of captivity narratives

Category:Shipwreck survivors

Category:People from Van Wert County, Ohio

Category:Slavery in Africa