The lionkeeper of Algiers : how an American captive rose to power in Barbary and saved his homeland from war

In 1785, just a few years after U.S. Independence, a young American named James Leander Cathcart is kidnapped at sea and carried as prisoner to the maverick North African statelet of Algiers, where he is held as a political hostage along with hundreds of other seamen captured on the open seas. The piratical corsairs of Algiers have decided, without any warning, to exploit the vulnerability of the newborn United States by seizing its mariners and holding them for ransom while ruthlessly exploiting their free labor. Today, the name of James Leander Cathcart has been all but forgotten by history. And yet he was one of the most remarkable figures in the early story of the fledgling United States. The Lionkeeper of Algiers reveals the extraordinary and unlikely story of Cathcart, who, thanks to his flair for languages and his formidable human intuition, rose steadily up the ranks from lionkeeper at the Dey’s private zoo to become Chief Clerk at the Palace, along the way amassing a chain of taverns in Algiers that functioned as safe houses and food banks for American prisoners. Eleven years later, just one among more than one hundred US hostages in Algiers, Cathcart was paroled back to America and charged with delivering a vital letter to President George Washington, saving a tenuous peace deal and bringing the other captives home. Remarkably, his sense of honor compelled him to go back to Algiers – where he had never formally been made free – to see the peace project through. Cathcart would go on to become a U.S. diplomat in the lands where he was held captive for more than a decade. Featuring some of the most prominent Americans of the era like Thomas Jefferson and John Adams, as well as ordinary citizens like Hannah Stephens, the wife of a sea captain who tirelessly lobbied Congress until she was finally reunited with her husband after more than a decade, author Des Ekin’s captivating storytelling brings this adventure to life. This page-turning narrative follows the twists and turns of Cathcart’s own life upon the international stage of diplomacy, trade, and maritime statecraft at a time when America’s place in the world was hanging in the balance. The First Captive -- The Twelve-Year-Old Midshipman -- 'The Crazy Capital' -- Cast into the Den of Lions -- 'Our Sufferings is beyond your Conception' -- 'A Black Eye, A Broken Leg, and Credentials from Congress' -- The Undiplomatic Diplomat -- The Threshold of Pain -- 'If There Were No Algiers, I Would Have to Build One' -- Hannah and Isaac -- Lions and Tigers and Rats -- The Man who Made a Million -- The Hassan Whisperer -- Welcome to the Mad House -- It's a New Dawn, it's a New Dey, it's a New Life -- 'That is Our Liberty in Sweet America' -- Cape Desolation -- Clipping the Eagle's Wings -- Scipio -- 'Now I Have Got You, You Shall Eat Stones' -- The Attack on Scipio -- An Englishman and Two Irishmen Walk into a Bar -- 'Get Out of My Sight, Thou Dog Without a Soul!' -- 'A Dazzling Meteor in a Dark Night' -- The One That Got Away -- A Poet in Purgatory -- The Dey's Last Command -- 'Scipio Was in his Grave before Sunset' -- A Voyage to Save the Peace -- 'An Adieu to the Land of Bondage' -- Afterlives "This page-turning narrative follows the twists and turns of the life of hostage-turned-diplomat James Leander Cathcart upon the international stage of diplomacy, trade, and maritime statecraft at a time when America's place in the world was hanging in the balance"-- Provided by publisher