Helen Gloag

Helen Gloag (29 January 1750 – c. 1790) was a Scottish woman who was taken into slavery. She was an influential favourite slave consort of Mohammed ben Abdallah the Sultan of Morocco, and as such has been famously referred to in Scottish history as the "Empress of Morocco".

However, despite her account, some doubt that she ever lived in Morocco. Dr. Lempriere, who was granted permission to visit Sidi Mohammed's harem in 1789, made no mention of a Scottish slave, concubine, or wife named Helen.

Life Gloag was born on 29 January 1750 to blacksmith Andrew Gloag and his wife Ann Kay in the village of Wester Pett, just south of Muthill in Perthshire, and was the eldest of four siblings. Her father remarried after her mother died, but Helen did not have a good relationship with her stepmother, and left home at the age of 19 to take a passage from Greenock to South Carolina. The ship was captured by Barbary corsairs, pirates from Morocco, two weeks into the voyage. She was not the first slave wife of the Sultan: he was also married to Marthe Franceschini (1755–1799), another European woman captured and enslaved by Corsairs.

In Scotland, she is claimed to have been given the title of Empress. The habit of Europeans to equalize local customs to their own equivalents in this way may have caused confusion. In reality, there was no equivalent of an Empress consort or a Queen consort at a Muslim court, where the ruler could have many wives and concubines, and his four wives were to be treated equally according to Islamic law. The first royal consort to bear an official title in Morocco is in fact Lalla Salma.

As a favourite of the Sultan, Helen Gloag had some influence in the harem. Her intervention was said to be instrumental in the releases of seafarers and slaves captured by the Salé pirates. Gloag was able to write home and to receive visits in Morocco from her brother Robert, who was responsible for her story finding its way back to Scotland. Perthshire in history and legend By Archie McKerracher The biographical dictionary of Scottish women By Elizabeth Ewan, Sue Innes, Siân Reynolds, Rose Pipes The Thistle and the Crescent By Bashir Maan A Gift for the Sultan by Olga Stringfellow