Name of Object:

Declaration by the Bey of Tunis assuring that in future wars with any European power prisoners will not be enslaved

Location:

Turin, Italy

Holding Institution:

State Archives of Turin

 About MIBACT | State Archives of Turin, Turin

Holding Institution (original language):

Archivio di Stato di Torino

Date of Object:

Palace of Bardo (Tunis), 17 April 1816

Description:

This declaration was an annex to a treaty between the King of Sardinia (who ruled over Piedmont, Genoa and Sardinia) and the Bey (who ruled Tunis), concluded by British Admiral Baron Exmouth, who lead a military expedition against the Berber states in 1816. The Bey declared that in case of future wars with any European power, “none of the prisoners made on either side shall be consigned to slavery, but treated with all humanity as prisoners of war, until regularly exchanged according to European practice”.
The Exmouth expedition was aimed at stopping Barbary corsairs from raiding European shipping in the Mediterranean. At the time, privateering was considered a legitimate form of warfare by European and North African countries alike. Only in 1856 did France, the United Kingdom and other European powers (except from Spain) declare privateering illegal.

Type of Object

Printed Treaty (archival document)

Archival or Bibliographical Reference:

ASTo,Materie politiche per rapporto all'estero, Trattati diversi, mazzo 4 seconda addizione, fasc. 7

Citation of this web page:

Edoardo Garis, Giulia Barrera "Declaration by the Bey of Tunis assuring that in future wars with any European power prisoners will not be enslaved" in "Sharing History", Museum With No Frontiers, 2026.
https://sharinghistory.museumwnf.org/database_item.php?id=object;AWE;it;92;en

Prepared by: Edoardo Garis, Giulia Barrera
Copyedited by: Anne Dowell

MWNF Working Number: IT1 092