Here’s a story on a defining 7th June – not the one you know and get a day off work every year to commemorate, but another one preceding it by 170 years.
It had seemed like a mundane Saturday afternoon, when one day earlier – on 6th June 1749 – three slaves walked into a popular wine and coffee place located near Valletta’s slave prison, and approached local Giacomo Cassar, offering him a part in their plot.
The slaves in question were Cara Mehmet, hailing from Tripoli and of Ethiopian descent, nicknamed ‘the Negro’ (Cara meaning black in Turkish), and two other conspirators, who were seeking further collaborators to aid their carefully devised plan, essentially leading the way for an Ottoman takeover of the islands.
In a not yet fully understood switching of loyalties, Cara Mehmet, who had successfully spearheaded the overthrow of his former master Mustafà Pasha on the Lupa galley the year before, was now at the helm of a network of local Muslim slaves seeking to fulfil the Pasha’s desire for revenge over his Christian captors.
The brawl that followed Cassar’s refusal to give a response to the trio proved to be Malta’s salvation. The onlooking owner of the shop, Giuseppe Antonio Cohen, the neophyte Jew who had settled in Malta with his family, quickly threw everyone outside the shop except for Cassar. The latter divulged the slaves’ plans, and Cohen urged him to reveal everything to the Grand Master immediately. Later that evening, Cohen waited for Cassar in vain and instead proceeded to the Palace himself.
A brutal crackdown of all conspirators – except Mustafà Pasha himself as a high-stake diplomatic protégé – ensued right after. On the 7th of June, a wave of mass interrogations and torture that reverberates through time till nowadays was set in motion. Marking the 275th anniversary of the failed slaves’ revolt of 1749, as it later came to be called, Heritage Malta is today launching an immersive exhibition at the Inquisitor’s Palace and the National Museum of Ethnography in Birgu.
The exhibition, entitled ‘Betrayal and Vengeance: The Slaves’ Conspiracy of 1749 in 19 Historical Drawings’, analyses one of the most intriguing and tumultuous periods in Maltese history through more than 58 news sheets exchanged between the Inquisitor and Apostolic Delegate Paolo Passionei and the Vatican between 1748 and 1751.
A collection of 19 contemporary drawings, recently restored by Heritage Malta, serve as the centrepiece of a narrative that delves deep into the political, social, and cultural dynamics of 18th-century Malta. The drawings illustrate intensely graphic scenes which corroborate Passionei's accounts and offer a rare and unflinching look at the brutal realities of the past. Reports drafted at the time, sermon sheets, and more recent literature on the subject supplement the display.
Entrance to the exhibition is included in the Inquisitor’s Palace and the National Museum of Ethnography experience. Persons with impaired mobility may find access to the exhibition hall challenging, given the historic building’s structural limitations. Further information can be accessed on the Heritage Malta website.
Were you familiar with this dramatic event in Malta's history?