It was an adventure of the early nineteenth century, largely forgotten today.  But it remains a remarkable story of survival.  I speak of the fate of a crew of American soldiers whose ship, due to a navigational error, ran aground on the shores of West Africa, far, far from help and home.  Barely had the crew emerged from the ocean, more or less alive, when various Bedouins and desert tribes captured and enslaved them.  In a curious reversal of the prevailing triangular trade that consigned Africans to slavery in the Americas, these Americans were subjected to slavery in Africa.

    For some, their enslavement lasted two months.  For others, it was a lifetime.  As members of the crew were split up among the captors and taken into a range of situations, only a few managed to eventually escape.  The others never left the desert, spending the remainder of their lives toiling in the unspeakably hot and sandy wastes of the Sahara.  They died without ever seeing their families again.

    It only through prevarication and subterfuge that one part of the crew managed to get to the British consul in Morocco and eventual freedom.  William Riley, the ship's captain and part of this group, wrestled highly with the ethics of his choice.  Should he lie to gain his freedom?  Should anyone?

    This ethical dilemma reminds us of the choice that American rock climber Tommy Caldwell made to free himself and three other climbers who had been captured by Kyrgyz rebels in 2000.  When only one rebel was guarding the group, Caldwell pushed him off a cliff and the four escaped to freedom. (Happily, they later learned that the rebel had survived.)

    Life long slavery, life long imprisonment.  Killing and lying.  What would you do?