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TheBarbary corsairs,Barbary pirates,Ottoman corsairs,[1] ornaval mujahideen (in Muslim sources)[2] were mainly Muslim corsairs andprivateers who operated from theNorth African coast, known inEurope as theBarbary Coast, in reference to theBerbers.[3] Slaves in Barbary could be of many ethnicities, and of many different religions, such as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.[4] Their predation extended throughout theMediterranean, south alongWest Africa'sAtlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north asIceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizingmerchant ships, they engaged inrazzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also inBritain andIreland,[4] and Iceland (commemorated as theTurkish Abductions).[5]
While such raids began after the Muslim conquest of theIberian Peninsula in the 710s, the terms "Barbary pirates" and "Barbary corsairs" are normally applied to the raiders active from the 16th century onwards, when the frequency and range of the slavers' attacks increased. In that period,Algiers,Tunis andTripoli came under the sovereignty of theOttoman Empire, either as directly administered provinces or as autonomous dependencies known as the Barbary states. Similar raids were undertaken fromSalé (seeSalé Rovers) and other ports inMorocco.
The raids were such a problem that coastal settlements were seldom undertaken until the 19th century. Between 1580 and 1680, corsairs were said to have captured about 850,000 people as slaves and from 1530 to 1780 as many as 1.25 million people were enslaved.[4] However, these numbers are estimated and provided by only one historian, Robert Davis, and have been questioned by others like David Earle.[6] Some of these corsairs were European outcasts andconverts (renegade) such asJohn Ward andZymen Danseker.[5]Hayreddin Barbarossa andOruç Reis, the Turkish Barbarossa brothers, who took control of Algiers on behalf of the Ottomans in the early 16th century, were also notorious corsairs. The European pirates brought advanced sailing and shipbuilding techniques to the Barbary Coast around 1600, which enabled the corsairs to extend their activities into theAtlantic Ocean.[5] The effects of the Barbary raids peaked in the early-to-mid-17th century.
Long after Europeans had abandonedoar-driven vessels in favor of sailing ships carrying tons of powerful cannon, many Barbary warships weregalleys carrying a hundred or more fighting men armed withcutlasses and small arms. The Barbary navies were not battle fleets. When they sighted a Europeanfrigate, they fled.[7]
The scope of corsair activity began to diminish in the latter part of the 17th century,[8] as the more powerful European navies started to compel the Barbary states to make peace and cease attacking their shipping. However, the ships and coasts of Christian states without such effective protection continued to suffer until the early 19th century. Between 1801 and 1815, occasional incidents occurred, including twoBarbary Wars waged by theUnited States,Sweden and theKingdom of Sicily against the Barbary states. Following theNapoleonic Wars and theCongress of Vienna in 1814–15, European powers agreed upon the need to suppress the Barbary corsairs entirely. The remainder of the threat was finally subdued for Europeans by theFrench conquest of Algeria in 1830 andso-called "pacification" by the French during the mid-to-late 19th century.
The Barbary corsairs were active frommedieval times to the 1800s.
Both Europeans (e.g., theDum Diversas) and Muslims considered themselves to be waging holy wars against each other during this era. European and American historical sources bluntly consider these operations to be a form of piracy and that their goal was mainly to seize ships to obtain spoils, money, and slaves. Muslim sources, however, sometimes refer to the "Islamic naval jihad"—casting the conflicts as part of a sacred mission of war under Allah, differing from the more familiar form of jihad only in being waged at sea. Accounts of Andalusian Muslims being persecuted by theSpanish Inquisition—willingly abetted by theCatholic Monarchs of Spain, who (though inaugurating what would later become Spain's "Golden Age") were initially faced with the post-Reconquista necessity of binding their (hitherto-divided) territories together, and hence adopted a militantly Christian national identity[9]—provided more than enough justification, in Muslim eyes.[10]
In 1198, the problem of Barbary piracy and slave-taking was so significant that theTrinitarians, a religious order, was founded to collect ransoms and even to exchange themselves as a ransom for those captured and pressed into slavery in North Africa. In the 14th century, Tunisian corsairs became enough of a threat to provoke aFranco-Genoese attack onMahdia in 1390 (also known as the "Barbary Crusade"). Moorish exiles of theReconquista andMaghreb pirates added to the numbers, but it was not until the expansion of theOttoman Empire and the arrival of the privateer and admiralKemal Reis in 1487 that the Barbary corsairs became a true menace to shipping from European Christian nations.[11]
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From 1559, the North African cities of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, although nominally part of the Ottoman Empire, were autonomous military republics that chose their rulers and lived by war booty captured from the Spanish and Portuguese. There are several cases ofSephardic Jews, includingSinan Reis andSamuel Pallache, who uponfleeing Iberia attacked theSpanish Empire's shipping under the Ottoman flag.[12][13]
During the first period (1518–1587), thebeylerbeys were admirals of thesultan, commanding great fleets and conducting war operations for political ends. They were slave hunters, and their methods were ferocious. After 1587, the sole object of their successors was plundering, both on land and sea. The maritime operations were conducted by the captains, orreises, who formed a class or even a corporation.Cruisers were fitted out by investors and commanded by thereises. 10% of the value of the prizes was paid to thepasha or his successors, who bore the titles ofagha ordey orbey.[14]
In 1544, Hayreddin captured the island ofIschia, taking 4,000 prisoners, and enslaved some 2,000–7,000 inhabitants ofLipari.[15][16] In 1551,Turgut Reis enslaved the entire population of the Maltese island ofGozo, between 5,000 and 6,000, sending them toOttoman Tripolitania. In 1554, corsairs under Turgut Reis sackedVieste, beheaded 5,000 of its inhabitants, and abducted another 6,000.[17]
In the early years of the 17th century, the Barbary states attracted English pirates, many of whom had previously operated as privateers underQueen Elizabeth I. Still, they found themselves unwanted by her successorKing James VI and I. Whereas in England, these pirates were reviled, in the Barbary states, they were respected and had access to safe markets to resupply and repair their ships. Many of these pirates converted to Islam.[18]
A notable Christian action against the Barbary states occurred in 1607, when theKnights of Saint Stephen (underJacopo Inghirami) sackedBona in Algeria, killing 470 and taking 1,464 captives.[19] This victory is commemorated by a series of frescoes painted byBernardino Poccetti in the"Sala di Bona" ofPalazzo Pitti,Florence.[20][21] In 1611, Spanish galleys fromNaples, accompanied by the galleys of theKnights of Malta, raided theKerkennah Islands off the coast ofTunisia and took away almost 500 Muslim captives.[22] Between 1568 and 1634, the Knights of Saint Stephen may have captured about 14,000 Muslims, with perhaps one-third taken in land raids and two-thirds taken on captured ships.[22]
Ireland was attacked similarly. In June 1631,Murat Reis, with corsairs from Algiers and armed troops of the Ottoman Empire, stormed ashore at the little harbor village ofBaltimore, County Cork. Theycaptured almost all the villagers and took them away to a life of slavery in North Africa.[14] The prisoners were destined for a variety of fates—some lived out their days chained to the oars as galley slaves. At the same time, women spent long years asconcubines in harems or within the walls of the sultan's palace. Only two of these captives ever returned to Ireland.[23][page needed]England was also subject to pirate raids; in 1640, 60 men, women and children were enslaved by Algerian corsairs who raidedPenzance.[24][25]
Another major figure wasMoulay Ismail, the second ruler of the'Alawi dynasty of Morocco. He was not a pirate himself, but encouraged and benefited from their operations, especially the slaves they captured and delivered.[26]
More than 20,000 captives were said to be imprisoned in Algiers alone. The rich were often able to secure release through ransom, but the poor were condemned to slavery. Their masters would, on occasion, allow them to secure freedom by professing Islam. A long list might be given of people of good social position, not only Italians or Spaniards but German or English travelers in the south, who were captives for a time.[14]
In 1675, aRoyal Navy squadron led by SirJohn Narborough negotiated a lasting peace with Tunis and, after bombarding the city to induce compliance, with Tripoli.[27]
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Piracy was enough of a problem for some states to enter the redemption business. In Denmark:
At the beginning of the 18th century, money was collected systematically in all churches, and a so-called 'slave fund' (slavekasse) was established by the state in 1715. Funds were brought in through a compulsory insurance sum for seafarers. This institution ransomed 165 slaves between 1716 and 1736.[28]
Between 1716 and 1754, 19 ships from Denmark-Norway were captured with 208 men; piracy was thus a serious problem for the Danish merchant fleet.[28]
Until theAmerican Declaration of Independence in 1776,British treaties with theNorth African states protected American ships from theBarbary corsairs. During theAmerican Revolutionary War, the Corsairs attacked American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean. However, on 20 December 1777, SultanMohammed III of Morocco issued a declaration recognizing America as an independent country, and stating that American merchant ships could enjoy safe passage into the Mediterranean and along the coast.[29] The relations were formalized with theMoroccan–American Treaty of Friendship signed in 1786, which stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendshiptreaty[30][31] with a foreign power.
The Barbary threat led directly to the United States founding theUnited States Navy in March 1794. While the United States did secure peace treaties with the Barbary states, it was obliged to pay tribute for protection from attack. The burden was substantial: from 1795, the annual tribute paid to theRegency of Algiers amounted to 20% ofUnited States federal government's annual expenditures.[32]
In 1798, an islet nearSardinia was attacked by theTunisians, and more than 900 inhabitants were taken away as slaves.[33]
After the ending of theNapoleonic Wars in 1815, theRoyal Navy no longer needed the Barbary states as a source of supplies forGibraltar and their fleet in theMediterranean Sea. This freed Britain to exert considerable political pressure to force the Barbary states to end their piracy and practice of enslaving European Christians. Treaties were made, but the treaty withOmar Agha theDey of Algiers was broken by the massacre of 200Corsican,Sicilian, andSardinian fishermen who were under British protection. This resulted in thebombardment of Algiers (1816) by an Anglo-Dutch fleet under the command of AdmiralEdward Pellew, 1st Viscount Exmouth. The following day when the allied fleet sailed back to renew the bombardment the Dey of Algiers capitulated. On the allied side casualties were 900 dead and wounded and the conflict was considered more ferocious than theBattle of Trafalgar in 1805.
The Barbary states had difficulty securing uniform compliance with a total prohibition of slave-raiding, as this had been traditionally of central importance to the North African economy. Slavers continued to take captives by preying on less well-protected peoples. Algiers subsequently renewed its slave-raiding, though on a smaller scale. Europeans at theCongress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818 discussed possible retaliation. In 1824, a British fleet under Admiral SirHarry Burrard Neale was fired on and had to threaten to bombard Algiers again before the 1816 treaty was renewed.[34]
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Corsair activity based in Algiers did not entirely cease until Franceconquered the state in 1830.[14]
TheTreaty of Larache was a treaty betweenSweden-Norway,Denmark, and SultanAbd al-Rahman of Morocco as a result of theMoroccan expedition of 1843–1845. The expedition was conducted by the combined navies of Sweden-Norway and Denmark to pressure the Moroccan sultanate into agreeing to the reversal of several old unfair treaties and to put a halt to the annual payment of tribute to Morocco in exchange for safe passage through the Mediterranean.[35] The finalbombardment of a Moroccan city in retribution for piracy occurred in 1851 atSalé.[36]
From bases on the Barbary Coast, North Africa, the Barbary corsairs raided ships travelling through the Mediterranean and along the northern and western coasts of Africa, plundering their cargo and enslaving the people they captured. From at least 1500, the corsairs also conducted raids along seaside towns of Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, England and as far away as Iceland, capturing men, women and children. On some occasions, settlements such asBaltimore,Ireland were abandoned following the raid, only being resettled many years later. Between 1609 and 1616, England alone had 466 merchant ships lost to Barbary corsairs.[37]
At night the slaves were put into prisons called 'bagnios' (derived from the Italian word"bagno" forpublic bath, inspired by the Turks' use of Roman baths at Constantinople as prisons),[38] which were often hot and overcrowded. Bagnios had chapels, hospitals, shops and bars run by captives.[39]
Although the conditions in bagnios were harsh, they were better than those endured bygalley slaves. Most Barbary galleys were at sea for around eighty to a hundred days a year, but when the slaves assigned to them were on land, they were forced to do hard manual labor. There were exceptions:
galley slaves of the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople would be permanently confined to their galleys, and often served extremely long terms, averaging around nineteen years in the late seventeenth-century and early eighteenth-century periods. These slaves rarely got off the galley but lived there for years.[40]
During this time, rowers were shackled and chained where they sat, and never allowed to leave. Sleeping (which was limited), eating, defecation and urination took place at the seat to which they were shackled. There were usually five or six rowers on each oar. Overseers would walk back and forth and whip slaves considered not to be working hard enough.
The number of slaves captured by Barbary corsairs are difficult to quantify. According to Robert Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary corsairs and sold as slaves inNorth Africa andOttoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries.[41][42] However, to extrapolate his numbers, Davis assumes the number of European slaves captured by Barbary corsairs were constant for a 250-year period, stating:
There are no records of how many men, women and children were enslaved, but it is possible to calculate roughly the number of fresh captives that would have been needed to keep populations steady and replace those slaves who died, escaped, were ransomed, or converted to Islam. On this basis it is thought that around 8,500 new slaves were needed annually to replenish numbers—about 850,000 captives over the century from 1580 to 1680. By extension, for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the figure could easily have been as high as 1,250,000.[6]
Historians welcomed Davis's attempt to quantify the number of European slaves, but were divided as to the accuracy of the unorthodox methodology which he relied on in the absence of written records. The historian David Earle, author ofThe Corsairs of Malta andBarbary and The Pirate Wars, questioned Davis, saying "His figures sound a bit dodgy and I think he may be exaggerating." He cautioned that the true picture of European slaves is clouded by the fact that the corsairs also seized non-Christian whites from eastern Europe and black people from west Africa. He wouldn't "hazard a guess about their total". Professor Ian Blanchard, an expert on African trade and economic history at the University of Edinburgh, said that Davis's work was solid and that a number over a million was in line with his expectations.[6]
Davis notes that his calculations were based on observers reports of approximately 35,000 European Christian slaves on the Barbary Coast at any one time during the late 1500s and early 1600s, held in Tripoli, Tunis and, mostly, Algiers.[43]
The history of Muslim enslavement of white Europeans has been cited by some as contextualising the importance of subsequent European and American enslavement of blacks. Scholar Robert Davis noted that the larger picture isn't so one-sided: during a "clash of empires... taking slaves was part of the conflict," and at the same time 2 million Europeans were enslaved by Muslims in North Africa and the Near East, 1 million Muslim slaves in Europe.[44]
As Dr. John Callow at University of Suffolk notes, the experience of enslavement by the Barbary corsairs preceded the Atlantic slave trade and "the memory of slavery, and the methodology of slaving, that was burned into the British consciousness was first and foremost rooted in a North African context, where Britons were more likely to be slaves than slave masters."[45]
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According to historian,Adrian Tinniswood, the most notorious corsairs were European renegades who had learned their trade asprivateers, and who moved to the Barbary Coast during peacetime to pursue their trade. These outcasts, who had converted to Islam, brought up-to-date naval expertise to the piracy business, and enabled the corsairs to make long-distance slave-catching raids as far away asIceland andNewfoundland.[5] Infamous corsairHenry Mainwaring, who was initially a lawyer and pirate-hunter, later returned home to a royal pardon. Mainwaring later wrote a book about the practise of piracy in the Mediterranean, aptly titled theDiscourse of Pirates. In the book, Mainwaring outlined potential methods to hunt down and eliminate piracy.[5]
Native Maghrebins andMoorish exiles from Spain were always to remain active as corsairs in North Africa throughout the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, but it was Ottoman corsairs under Kemal Reis, moving to the Maghreb around 1487, who ushered in the great days of the Barbary corsairs.[46]
The most famous of the corsairs in North Africa were the Barbarossa brothers,Aruj andKhayr al-Din. They, and two less well-known brothers all became Barbary corsairs in the service of the Ottoman Empire who later became "Kings" when they established a new state in theMaghreb known as the OttomanRegency of Algiers.[47] They were called the Barbarossas (Italian for Redbeards) after the red beard of Oruç, the eldest. Oruç captured the island ofDjerba for theHafsids in 1502 or 1503. He often attacked Spanish coasts and their territories on the coast of North Africa; during one failed attempt inBéjaia in 1512 he lost his left arm to a cannonball. The eldest Barbarossa also went to capture Algiers in 1516. Well aided by his Berber allies from theKingdom of Kuku, he vanquished aSpanish expedition intended to replace the Spanish vassal ruler of Algiers that he executed with his son along with everybody he suspected would oppose him in favor of his Spanish foes, including localZayyanid rulers. He was finally captured and killed by the Spanish inTlemcen in 1518, and put on display.
Oruç, based mainly on land, was not the best-known of the Barbarossas. His youngest brother Hızır (later called Hayreddin or Kheir ed-Din) was a more traditional corsair. After capturing many crucial coastal areas, Hayreddin was appointed admiral-in-chief of theOttoman sultan's fleet. Under his command the Ottoman Empire was able to gain and keep control of the Mediterranean for over thirty years. Barbaros Hızır Hayreddin Pasha died in 1546 of a fever, possibly theplague.
English corsair Jack, or John, Ward was once called "beyond doubt the greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England" by the English ambassador to Venice. Ward was a privateer for Queen Elizabeth during her war with Spain; after the end of the war, he became a corsair. With some associates he captured a ship in about 1603 and sailed it to Tunis; he and his crew converted toIslam. He was successful and became rich. He introduced heavily armedsquare-rigged ships, used instead of galleys, to the North African area, a major reason for the Barbary's future dominance of the Mediterranean. He died of plague in 1622.
Sayyida al-Hurra was a femaleMuslim cleric, merchant, governor ofTétouan, and later the wife of the sultan ofMorocco.[48][49] She was born around 1491 in the city ofChefchaouen, she came from a family of noble Andalusian origins from theEmirate of Granada, but her family was forced to flee toMorocco to escape theReconquista. In Morocco, she gathered a crew largely of exiledMoors, and launched pirate expeditions against Spain and Portugal to avenge the Reconquista, protect Morocco from Christian pirates, and seek riches and glory. Sayyida al-Hurra became wealthy and renowned enough for the Sultan of Morocco,Ahmad al-Wattasi to make her his queen. Notably, however, she refused to marry in his capital ofFez, and would not get married but inTétouan, of which she was governor. This was the first and only time in history that a Moroccan monarch married away from their capital.
Hamidou ben Ali, known asRaïs Hamidou (Arabic:الرايس حميدو), orAmidon in American literature, born around 1770, and died on 17 June 1815, nearCape Gata off the coast of southernSpain, was an Algeriancorsair.[50] He captured up to 200 ships during his career.[51] Hamidou ensured the prosperity of theDeylik of Algiers, and gave it its last glory before theFrench invasion. His biography is relatively well known because the French archivist Albert Devoulx has found important documents, including a preciousregister of prizes opened by the authorities of the Deylik in 1765.[52] Songs and legends have also taken hold of this charismatic character.
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Barbary corsairs are protagonists inLe pantere di Algeri (the panthers of Algiers) byEmilio Salgari. They were featured in a number of other noted novels, includingRobinson Crusoe byDaniel Defoe,The Count of Monte Cristo byAlexandre Dumas, père,The Wind in the Willows byKenneth Grahame,The Sea Hawk and theSword of Islam byRafael Sabatini,The Algerine Captive byRoyall Tyler,Master and Commander byPatrick O'Brian, theBaroque Cycle byNeal Stephenson,The Walking Drum byLouis Lamour,Doctor Dolittle byHugh Lofting,Corsair byClive Cussler,Tanar of Pellucidar byEdgar Rice Burroughs, andAngélique in Barbary byAnne Golon.
Miguel de Cervantes, the Spanish author, was captive for five years as a slave in thebagnio of Algiers, and reflected his experience in some of his fictional (but not directly autobiographical) writings, including the Captive's tale inDon Quixote, his two plays set in Algiers,El Trato de Argel (The Treaty of Algiers) andLos Baños de Argel (The Baths of Algiers), and episodes in a number of other works.
InMozart's operaDie Entführung aus dem Serail (aSingspiel), two European ladies are discovered in a Turkish harem, presumably captured by Barbary corsairs.Rossini's operaL'italiana in Algeri is based on the capture of several slaves by Barbary corsairs led by thebey ofAlgiers.
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