The Algerine In The Early American Literature

Abstract

Quite overlooked, if not unheard of, is the early American fiction which deals with the first encounter between the newly-born United States and the Regency of Algiers (1785). Though captivity narratives have been, in general, extensively studied, Barbary accounts do not seem to receive the necessary attention. Hence, the overarching concern of the present paper is to examine the representation of the Algerine in two notable American early works of fiction namely: Peter Markoe’s The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania (1787) and Royall Tyler’s The Algerine Captive (1797). The tension between the two nations was heightened by the capture of two American ships by Algerian privateers which led to a considerable amount of captivity narratives and travel accounts. Such literature can be seen as an inward-gazing medium for it comments on the American status quo as much as it meditates on the Other. Accordingly, this study attempts to highlight the contribution of these early American fictional texts in the construction of a discourse which serves at once for the self-conceptualization of ‘the American’ and the “othering” of an ‘Oriental’ culture.