(You may want to read my article in the Muslim News)
‘On December 21, 1608, a strange exchange transpired onboard the Ascension, the flagship of the fourth voyage of the East India Company. This was between the crew and a group of six or eight captives brought on board after the English captured their three small vessels. The total number of captives was about forty. The incident occurred near Pemba, Zanzibar (now part of Tanzania).
The English were particularly suspicious of the six or eight ‘comparatively pale and fair’ skinned captives. They looked different from the other regional ‘moors’ that they had encountered. So, they accused them of being Portuguese. But the prisoners denied this and claimed, as proof, that, unlike the Portuguese, they were circumcised. The journal entry does not elaborate on this issue or what happened next.’