The Conspiracy of the Slaves (Maltese: il-konġura tal-ilsiera or il-konfoffa tal-ilsiera; Italian: congiura de schiavi) was a failed plot by Muslim slaves in Hospitaller Malta to rebel and assassinate Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca of the Order of St John, in an attempt to facilitate the capture of Malta by the Ottoman Empire in June 1749.
The plot is believed to have been instigated by Mustafa, Pasha of Rhodes, an Ottoman official who had been captured following a revolt by Christian slaves on his galley Lupa in January 1748. He was enslaved upon the galley's arrival in Malta in February 1748, but he was given comfortable living quarters due to his high rank and he was formally freed in May 1749 following French intervention due to the Franco-Ottoman alliance.
The revolt involved a planned takeover of the Grand Master's Palace and other key locations in Valletta and Birgu, an uprising among slaves on board the Hospitaller galley squadron, and naval support from the Barbary states and the Ottomans. The uprising was to take place on 29 June 1749, but plans leaked to the Hospitallers in advance, and the plot was foiled before it could be implemented.
Some 150 people – including Muslim slaves and Christian neophytes – were arrested and interrogated under torture in the subsequent trials. 35 were executed between July and October 1749, while 3 others died in custody and 72 were condemned to the galleys. Due to French influence, Mustafa was not punished for his role in the plot, and he returned to Constantinople in 1751.
Background and prelude
During the mid-18th century, Malta was ruled by the Knights Hospitaller. At the time slavery was practiced throughout both Christian and Muslim-ruled territories around the Mediterranean, and the majority of slaves on the Maltese Islands were Muslim men who had been captured at sea by the Hospitaller fleet or by Malta-based corsairs. Some were forced to work as galley slaves while others worked on land as labourers and had a variety of duties ranging from manufacturing to domestic roles. The slave population typically stood at around 2,000 people, although some sources claim that in 1749 there were up to 9,300 slaves in Malta. The proportion of slaves was higher in Malta's main urban area around the Grand Harbour, where slaves constituted about 10% of the population.
Although there were laws which prevented slaves from interacting with the Maltese people, these were not regularly enforced and some slaves worked as merchants and sold wares in the streets and squares of the capital Valletta. At night publicly-owned slaves were confined to prisons known as bagnios: the main one was the Gran Prigione in Valletta, while similar prisons existed in the cities of Birgu and Senglea. Slaves were allowed freedom of religion and were able to gather for prayers.
Although large-scale slave revolts were a rare occurrence, several successful escapes and unsuccessful escape attempts by Muslim slaves in Malta are known to have occurred prior to 1749. These include a 1531 attempt to take Fort St. Angelo, uprisings on the galleys Caterinetta and San Giacomo in 1548 and 1557 respectively, and a 1596 mass escape attempt from Valletta. In 1609, suspicions were raised that slaves were planning to poison bread in order to facilitate a Muslim invasion of Malta, and in 1627 slaves were accused of plotting to poison bread at the Grand Master's Palace in order to assassinate Grand Master Antoine de Paule.
Lupa revolt
In January 1748, Hungarian, Georgian and Maltese slaves on board the Ottoman galley Lupa revolted, massacred most of the crew, commandeered the ship and imprisoned the remaining Ottomans on board, including Mustafa, the former Pasha of Rhodes. Among the planners of this revolt was Cara Mehmed, a Muslim slave who had been granted freedom by Mustafa's father but who had continued to be treated as a slave by Mustafa. The rebel slaves sailed the ship to Malta, where they arrived in the beginning of February. Mustafa was subsequently enslaved, although he received special treatment due to his high rank, initially being accommodated in comfortable living quarters at Fort Saint Elmo before being moved to a house in Floriana in July 1748.
On 5 May 1749, Mustafa was freed from slavery following French efforts to procure his release as a result of the Franco-Ottoman alliance. He refused offers of leave the island upon his release, claiming that he wanted instructions from the Ottoman sultanate before doing so. Cara Mehmed also remained in Malta, and in June 1748 he was baptised as a Catholic and was given the baptismal name of Giovanni Battista. He married a Maltese woman and obtained employment as a liveried groom to Grand Master Manuel Pinto da Fonseca.
Plot
At the time of his capture, Mustafa's governorship of Rhodes had just ended and he had been expecting to be appointed to another post. He is believed to have been motivated to attempt to take over Malta by instigating a slave revolt in order to redeem his honour and regain favour with the Ottoman sultan. Mustafa orchestrated the plot through the use of other people as intermediaries, and he made efforts to ensure that he would not be blamed personally if the plot was discovered prematurely. Mustafa was able to discuss the planned revolt with other conspirators while he was living in Floriana. At least two meetings are known to have taken place; Mustafa was personally present in the second one, and all those involved took an oath of secrecy. The plotters included Pinto's valet Imselleti, Rais Hassan, Mishud, the papasso Haec Musa, and Giovanni Battista (formerly Cara Mehmed).
The revolt was planned to take place on the day of the feast of Saints Peter and Paul (Maltese: L-Imnarja). At the time, Valletta was expected to be quiet since many people would be celebrating the festivities in the inland city of Mdina and the nearby Boschetto, while the Hospitaller naval squadron would be at sea. Although this meant that the galley slaves could not be part of the land-based revolt, there would be fewer soldiers and sailors who could put down the rebellion. Between 1,000 and 1,400 slaves are believed to have been on the island at the time.
Three days before the revolt, Mustafa planned to ask Pinto to allow him to move back to Fort St. Elmo after claiming that the air in Floriana was causing him harm. The uprising was to commence with Pinto's assassination at around 14:00 on 29 June 1749, following a celebratory banquet at the Grand Master's Palace. Imselleti was to kill the Grand Master using a poisoned knife, aided by Giovanni Battista and some other slaves. The assassins then planned on throwing a vase into one of the courtyards and exposing Pinto's head. This was a signal for the remaining slaves to rise up, kill the other Christians within the palace and take over the Palace Armoury, where they would arm themselves.
A simultaneous uprising was planned among the slaves working in the Forni della Signoria, who were to link up with the palace slaves and then proceed to free and arm the other Muslims in the Gran Prigione. They then planned to assault Fort St. Elmo, while Mustafa was to lead an uprising within the fort itself to facilitate its takeover and allow him to take charge of the uprising.
Further revolts were planned in the Birgu and Senglea bagnios upon a signal from St. Elmo; the slaves in these cities were to occupy Fort St. Angelo and capture stores of gunpowder. The revolt was intended to be the prelude for an Ottoman takeover of Malta, and Mustafa secretly arranged for naval assistance from the North African regencies of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers and from the Ottomans in the Morea and Constantinople, who were to send a fleet to enter Malta's harbours following a signal from St. Elmo.
A separate uprising was planned among the slaves on board the Capitana, San Luigi and San Nicola, the three ships which constituted the Hospitaller naval squadron. Before these ships departed Malta on 5 May, Mustafa had distributed arsenic to a group of galley slaves who were to find an opportune moment to poison the knights and rise up, take over the ships and sail them back to Malta to support the uprising on land.
Discovery and aftermath
6–7 June 1749
On the evening of 6 June 1749, three conspirators – the papasso Ibrahim, Giovanni Battista, and a Persian neophyte employed in the Grand Master's guard named Antonio de Viguier – met inside a tavern or coffeehouse in Strada Fontana (now St Christopher's Street) in Valletta and attempted to persuade Giacomo Cassar, a soldier in the guard of Armenian origin, to join in the plot. This was not the conspirators' first attempt to recruit him, and a quarrel ensued when Cassar refused and he was physically assaulted by Giovanni Battista. The tavern's proprietor – Giuseppe Cohen, a recent convert from Judaism to Catholicism – overheard parts of the conversation and confronted Cassar, who told him about the plot.
Cohen persuaded Cassar to meet him at dawn the following day so that they could notify the Grand Master of the conspiracy together. At around 20:00, Cassar revealed what he knew of the plot to his commanding officer, the Knight Commander de Viguier, but the latter did not understand the significance of this due to a language barrier. De Viguier asked Cassar to meet him the following day with an interpreter, and at around 22:00 de Viguier notified Pinto of what he knew so far.
On 7 June, Cassar did not show up to his planned meeting with Cohen, so the latter went alone to the palace and requested an audience with Pinto. He informed the Grand Master of what he had learnt from Cassar, corroborating de Viguier's account and providing additional details. Since Cassar had been aware of the plot for weeks prior to 6 June, it was Cohen who received the credit for uncovering the plot rather than Cassar.
Trials, torture and executions
The trial of the conspirators was held at the Gran Corte della Castellania in Valletta. Cassar was the first to be interrogated, followed by Giovanni Battista and Antonio de Viguier who were arrested on 8 June. Interrogations initially began without the use of torture, but Pinto directly authorised the use of torture on Giovanni Battista in an attempt to compel him to reveal more information about the plot. He was subjected to the corda and cavalletto and quickly confessed and named some of the other slaves involved. He never named Mustafa, suggesting that he had been unaware of the latter's role in the plot.
When the seriousness of the plot was realised, Pinto ordered that the trial be administered according to military lines; this effectively removed limitations on the use of torture, allowed for longer interrogations, and restricted the proceedings in secrecy. Three judges – Giacomo Nataleo, Giulio Cumbo and Pietro de Franchis – were appointed, while Carlo Guicciardi and Fortunato Bencini led the prosecution and the notaries Onorato Grillet Sciberras and Pietro Antonio Buhagiar served on the tribunal.
De Viguier was the second person to be interrogated using torture, and other individuals followed suit as more details of the plot and names of other conspirators were revealed. Following further confessions, Mustafa was suspected of being the mastermind behind the plot by 21 June, and a week later he was placed under house arrest.
By 5 July, around 80 slaves were implicated in the plot and had been tortured. On that day two slaves – Haec Musa and Mishud – were paraded through the streets of Valletta while being beaten and tortured with pincers, before they were executed by being quartered by boats rowing in separate directions in the Grand Harbour; this is the only recorded instance of quartering ever being used in Malta. Prior to their execution, attempts were made to compel the slaves to convert to Christianity; Mishud agreed to be baptised while Haec Musa did not.
One slave died during torture on 10 July; his body was subsequently buried at the Marsa mosque. By mid-July, several Greek Christians were also under suspicion of being involved in the plot. On 21 July, four slaves were tortured with pincers while being paraded through Valletta bound on carts, before they were executed outside Porta Reale. Two who had been baptised prior to execution were strangled while those who refused baptism were stabbed to death; the bodies of all four were beheaded post mortem.
Giovanni Battista, two Muslim slaves (one of whom was baptised), and two Christian soldiers in the Grand Master's guard were executed on 23 July. The Christians were strangled and beheaded post mortem, while the Muslim was tortured with pincers before being beheaded. Four palace slaves were executed on 28 July; all were tortured with pincers, and two who were baptised were strangled and beheaded post mortem while two who were not were beheaded alive.