An Authentic Narrative of the Loss of the American Brig "Commerce"
by James Riley
A Journal, Comprising an Account of the Loss of the Brig "Commerce," of Hartford, (Con.) James Riley, Master
by Archibald Robbins
A great American naval adventure of the early nineteenth century
The year 1815 was a momentous one. On the muddy slopes of Waterloo in Belgium Napoleon, who had set Europe ablaze for two decades, was brought to ruin. Across the Atlantic the United States of America had concluded its war with Britain having ended the conflict with a famous victory at New Orleans. Meanwhile in the eastern Atlantic an American merchant vessel and its crew underwent a drama which, although it was not significant to the world at large, would mean catastrophe, slavery and death for some of them. The brig Commerce out of Connecticut was sailing between Gibraltar and the Cape Verde Islands on a trading voyage when she ran aground on Cape Bojador off the coast of the Western Sahara desert. The ship and crew were attacked by local tribesmen of the Sahrawi. One man was killed and the rest of the crew, after terrible ordeals, were captured by Bedouin tribesmen. They suffered constant brutality at the hands of their captors as they were force marched through the desolate landscape and suffered dehydration and starvation before their eventual liberation. This Leonaur edition contains two accounts by crew members including one by the ship's master, James Riley. Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States cited Riley's book as one as the most significant and inspirational books he read as a youth. Indeed, Riley's account was a phenomenal bestseller in America at the time of its first publication selling over 1,000,000 copies. The second account here is by Archibald Robbins and is included to give readers a perspective on the incident from by one of the ship's able seamen.
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This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

The Commerce was a Connecticut-based American merchant sailing ship that ran aground in 1815 at Cape Bojador, off the coast of what is now Western Sahara. This is the story of one of the crew who survived the shipwreck and who went on to become a slave in one of the local tribes who captured them. Captain James Riley and crew were attacked and ransacked on shore by Sahrawi natives. The crew escaped by rowboat but when their supplies ran low they again went to shore. They were taken captive by nomads of the Oulad Bou Sbaa tribe. They spent months dehydrated, starved and suffering brutality. This is an account of that time.