NORTHERN CAPTIVES (en Inglés) - Karl Smári Hreinsson;Adam Nichols

In the summer of 1627, Barbary corsairs raided Iceland. They killed dozens of people and captured over four hundred, packing the captives aboard their ships and transporting them to North Africa to be sold in the slave markets there. The first place the corsairs attacked in Iceland was Grindavík. This book recounts the story of that attack and its aftermath-a story that has never before been told.

The very last thing the inhabitants of Grindavík expected, living as they were on an island close to the Arctic Circle in the middle of the turbulent North Atlantic, was to be attacked by Barbary corsairs from North Africa. So when a lone ship silently approached the harbour early on a June morning in 1627, nobody on shore took alarm. Barbary corsairs had a reputation for brutal violence, but they also used stealth when it suited their purposes. By the time the people of Grindavík realized what was happening, it proved too late, and the corsairs, howling like a pack of wolves, were upon them.

This book recounts the events of the raid on Grindavík, as well as what happened afterward when those captured were taken to Salé, a notorious corsair capital on the Atlantic coast of Morocco, and sold into slavery there. In particular, it follows the fortunes and misfortunes of one of the prominent farm families of the time, two generations of which were captured in the raid. The full story of the Grindavík raid has never before been told. This book recounts for the first time the details of what happened and the terrors and triumphs of the Icelanders caught up in the raid.