The lionkeeper of Algiers

by Des Ekin

ISBN: 9781633888630

Published: 2023-03-15

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...