Early in the morning of February 1, 1748, the lateen sails of an impressive Ottoman galley were spotted sailing past the Grand Harbour, skimming the stormy horizon. The arrival of the Lupa in Maltese waters was to set off an unprecedented chain of tumultuous events even Hollywood couldn’t dream up, culminating in high treason, horror and bloodshed.

A mutiny had taken place on the Lupa and the owner of the galley, Mustafa, the Pasha of Rhodes, was now a captive at the mercy of his erstwhile slaves, among them Maltese rowers who quickly handed him over for Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca to ransom.

While negotiations were underway for his return to Rhodes, Pasha, who wished to recover his loss of face with the Sultan for having allowed himself to be captured by his underlings, lost no time in plotting a revolt to be executed by Malta’s Muslim slaves. The uprising was to begin with the assassination and decapitation of Pinto, progress with the annihilation and rape of the islands’ Catholic priesthood and end with the enslavement of a large percentage of the population.

Although there have been references made to the uprising in some history books, particularly Carmel Testa’s biography of Pinto’s rule and Godfrey Wettinger’s Slavery in the Islands of Malta and Gozo, this riveting struggle for liberty had been mainly regaled to an obscure footnote in the local literature, particularly because of the presumed dearth of primary sources.

Professor William Zammit had not initially set out to write a book on the slave revolt of 1749. While carrying out research at the Archivio Apostolico Vaticano in Rome, he accidentally stumbled upon a batch of intriguing letters exchanged bet­ween the inquisitor of Malta and the Vatican secretary of state, providing blow-by-blow accounts of the conspiracy.

In his dual role as inquisitor and apostolic delegate (nuncio), Paolo Passionei was duty-bound to report anything of note that took place on the Maltese islands in minute detail.

“What makes this correspondence unique is its freshness. We are talking about letters that were being written as events were evolving. During the interrogations and executions of the slaves, the inquisitor, who had regular audiences with the grand master and was privy to sensitive information, is writing to Rome explaining and describing what is going on,” Zammit explains.

Writing the book was not without its challenges.

“There was a lot of secrecy and hidden diplomacy involved”, especially given that Mustapha Pasha, the plot’s ringleader, was under the protection of the French court, keen to maintain diplomatic relations with the Ottoman Empire.

“Much of the goings-on were highly confidential; you are dealing with a delicate matter, which makes it difficult to trace sources, some 260 years later,” Zammit stresses.

The book features a set of 19 numbered drawings contemporary to the chain of events that depict and greatly assist in corroborating Passionei’s accounts “to a fault”. The surviving images, originally a set of 24, were passed onto the Malta Museum around 1909-10 by a certain J.R. Barlow and inheri­ted by Heri­tage Malta when it replaced the Department of Museums in 2003.

Zammit’s research prompted the cleaning and restoration of these drawings, which Heritage Malta’s Conservation Laboratories painstakingly carried out. During their cleaning, specific details came to light, which, in turn, helped illuminate the research process.

For example, a previously obscured coat of arms of the Grand Prior of the Order of St John, who was elected in 1758, indicates that the set was painted at least a decade following the actual revolt but given their historical accuracy “by someone who must have witnessed the events”.

Another drawing portrays a slave being interrogated on a cavalletto, a triangular wooden contraption used as a form of torture. Emerging from beneath the patina of time, a lighted candle was revealed in the cleaning process. Placed strategically in front of the “unfortunate’s chest”, the candle prevented him from leaning forward to obtain relief from the extreme discomfort of the cavalletto.

The inclusion of the paintings in Zammit’s book ensures that the visual element is very strong.

I couldn’t let my discovery simply remain unrecorded

The result, entitled Slavery, Treason and Blood, is an exquisitely illustrated tome, the fourth in an exclusive series of Heritage Malta monographs.

Photographer Daniel Cilia is responsible for designing the monograph, an eight-year project in the making.

“History is a time-consuming thing,” Zammit chuckles.

Initially, the intention was only to publish the correspondence between the inquisitor and the secretary of state.

“I couldn’t let my discovery simply remain unrecorded,” he adds.

However, Zammit decided to flesh out the daily dispatches, presented in their original Italian text, with a synopsis in English preceded by six chapters, providing context to the events and their perception.

“The book goes well beyond the plot.”

It offers socio-political, religious and cultural insight into notions of slavery in the early-modern age, the motivations for rebellion and the probabilities of suc­cess. In his por­traiture, Grand Master Pinto is depicted as an omnipotent prince of the Ancien Régime, yet, in reality, his powers were heavily circumscribed. Similarly, modern audiences may be shocked by the gore and severity of the punishments meted out, not least by the conversion of slaves found guilty.

“One must understand that we are talking about high treason here, a premeditated assault on the state in the personhood of the grand master and on the Catholic religion by members on the lowest rung in society. The logic behind the conversions was: you have done something terrible against the state and will lose your life as a result but I am there to save you from eternal damnation.”

The reprisals were brutal. Though subjugated in body, a few slaves refused to extend the imposed bondage to their souls in a final act of almost superhuman defiance. The first lot of exe­cutions began on July 5, 1749.

Mishud, a 43-year-old slave and native of Algiers, was publicly tortured, pieces of flesh torn away from his body with heated pincers, his limbs broken with an iron hammer as he was led around Valletta on a cart. Together with Haec Musa, a Muslim slave and religious leader (papasso), Mishud was then quartered alive in the Grand Harbour.

“When the caiques being rowed in different directions did not manage to quarter the two condemned,” Passionei writes in one riveting dispatch to Cardinal Secretary of State Silvio Valenti Gonzaga, “the executioner’s axe was put into use”.

Many who converted were spared similar horrors and despatched by strangulation, their corpses suffering the humiliation of beheading and burning, a desecration in the eyes of Islam. Others were whipped and branded with the letter ‘R’ for ‘rebelle’ (rebel) below their right eye and sentenced to life in chains as rowers on the Order’s galleys.

The spectacle of retribution demonstrated “how far an assertive absolutistic State could go to emphasise its efficacy when it felt itself threatened”, Zammit writes.

Nevertheless, the relevance of Slavery, Treason and Blood to modern audiences “is not to pass judgement on the past but to appraise it in the context of its times and see how much we have evolved for the most part, as humans”.

The book is available at https://heritagemalta.mt/store/.

Warren Bugeja is principal officer, Heritage Malta.