A night at the villa
On the evening of 18 May 1904, men led by Mulai Ahmed er Raisuni, a leader among the Jebala tribes, seized Ion Perdicaris and his stepson, Cromwell Varley, a British subject, at the house in the Rmilat forest and took them into the hills.
Warships and a famous message
Raisuni’s demands included a ransom of $70,000, the release of prisoners and control of several districts. President Theodore Roosevelt sent American warships to Tangier, and in June Secretary of State John Hay’s message “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead” was read to the Republican National Convention.
Freed in June
The Sultan’s government accepted the terms, the ransom was paid and both men were freed in late June 1904. It later emerged that Perdicaris had registered as a Greek citizen in 1862, which complicated the question of whose citizen had been taken.
