He wrote The Personal Narrative of the Sufferings of J. Stephanini pleading to the American people to raise money to free his family from the bondage of slavery.
The Greek Slave Movement evolved and American abolitionists used the subject matter.
[6] When the Greek War of Independence broke out Joseph was captured and sold into slavery.
The soldiers spared his life because his father was a wealthy merchant and could pay a large ransom.
The soldier took a large pistol and pressed it against his head and pulled the trigger but the gun misfired.
[9][10] Stephanini survived the torture but because he was unwilling to convert to Islam he was installed as a lower servant.
On several occasions, Mustafa or his friends had to intervene to save Stephanini's life from a lynch mob.
In some instances, babies and young children were mercilessly beaten to death against the city walls.
Mustafa personally served Stephanini one hundred and fifty strokes of the bastinado.
During his final stay in Patras, Stephanini acted as an Italian translator because a Genoese sea captain and trader named Spalla did not speak Greek or Turkish.
Mustafa wanted to purchase cargo for the garrison and Stephanini was the only person in the household that spoke Italian.
Stephanini convinced Spalla to sneak him out of Patras Castle in the middle of the night.
When they arrived they offloaded their cargo Stephanini once again witnessed countless Greek slaves on the island of Crete.
[17] Afterward, they sailed back to Smyrna where they were contracted to take olive oil from Mytilene to Genoa.
He boarded the brig Abeona with Captain Fairchild and traveled to New York City.
He encountered the Greek Committee and begged for help to travel back to Greece to find his family.
Recall he sent countless letters to everyone he knew in Greece searching for his family before he left Gibraltar for the United States.
In Nafplio he witnessed thousands of Greek refugees starving, destitute, and dying.
Samuel Gridley Howe and Jonathan Peckham Miller were distributing food to the refugees.
After a while, Stephanini traveled to New York and worked at a drug store called O & W Hull.
He advised Stephanini to write a book about his adventure which would raise money to free his family from slavery.
The book was highly recommended by people of distinguished character namely: Jonathan Mayhew Wainwright, Ezra Stiles Ely, John K. Kane, and Thomas Smith Grimké.
[20] Stephanini's book began to circulate throughout the United States and he gathered enough money to travel back to Greece.
He departed the United States on October 27, 1829, on the ship Six Brothers with Captain Lee.
He traveled with the editor of the Statesmen newspaper Nathaniel Hazeltine Carter, Dr, Phillip H. Thomas, and Major John E. Lewis.
He traveled to Messina, Italy, on the brig Danube with Captain William Beecher.
He sent a letter to the American consul John L. Payson in the Kingdom of Two Sicilies explaining that he safely arrived.