The Barbary Pirates 15th-17th Centuries

by Angus Konstam

  The Ottomans

  Following their capture of Constantinople (Istanbul) in 1453, the Ottoman Turks had pursued their own campaign of expansion. The collapse of the Byzantine Empire led first to the consolidation of Turkish power in Greece, and then to a renewed offensive aimed at driving back the forces of Christendom both in the Balkans and in the Eastern Mediterranean. While neither the Mamluks in Egypt nor the Ottoman Turks had been in a position to support the last Muslim rulers of al-Andalus with expeditionary forces, the Turkish Sultan Bayezid II had been able to offer help of another sort. He encouraged Turkish privateering captains to establish themselves in the Barbary ports, where they could support the Iberian Moors by harrying Spanish shipping, raiding the coast, and keeping open lines of communication with the remaining Moorish enclaves.

  One of the first of these privateers was Kemal Reis, a Turkish captain who had spent the previous two decades commanding a band of privateers based on the Greek island of Negroponte (now Euboea). He arrived in North Africa in 1487 with a small squadron of galiots, and established bases at Bougie (now Béjaïa) and Bône (now Annaba) between Algiers and Tunis. Kemal Reis led raids on Malaga and the Balearic Islands, and before the final fall of Granada five years later he evacuated thousands of Muslim and Jewish refugees from al-Andalus to North Africa. He was recalled to Istanbul in 1495, but many of his sailors stayed on in North Africa, their numbers augmented by vengeful Moorish exiles from Spain.

  Unfortunately for the Berber rulers, continuing Ottoman support came at a price. Within a few decades the Ottomans would annex the North African states (with the exception of Morocco) and establish their own rulers – men who would defend their territories, but who owed their allegiance to the Ottoman sultan. The intermittent Spanish campaign of attempted coastal conquests, which lasted for the best part of a century, attracted the arrival of a new group of Turkish captains, who would first establish the fearsome reputation of the Barbary pirates. It was under their leadership that the Berber states would develop into a major thorn in the side of the Christian powers of southern Europe.

  KEMAL REIS, (c. 1451–1511)

  Kemal was unusual in that he began his career as an orthodox Turkish naval commander, and only became a privateer when ordered to support Moorish resistance to the Reconquista. In 1488, a year after arriving on the Barbary Coast, he embarked Berber troops and led a major raid near the port of Malaga, which had recently been captured by the Spanish. He duelled with Spanish coastal batteries, captured and destroyed Spanish shipping in several ‘cutting out’ expeditions, and took hundreds of prisoners. After 1492, reinforced with refugees from Spain, he led raids on the Balearic Islands, Corsica and the coast of Tuscany.

  Recalled to Istanbul in 1495 to command a fleet in Greek waters, he spent four years reducing Venetian strongholds in southern Greece and Crete. This prompted a Venetian counterattack, and in August 1499 Kemal won a decisive victory in the battle of Zonchio off Pylos in the Peloponnese. He repeated this success the following year off Modon, leading to the Turkish capture of this key Venetian port.

  In 1501 Kemal returned to the Barbary Coast, this time accompanied by his nephew Piri, who was a gifted cartographer. While Kemal led large-scale raids to Corsica and the Balearics, Piri Reis charted the coasts, and continued this work when Kemal extended his operations to the Mediterranean and Atlantic coasts of southern Spain. One of the prisoners taken was a seaman who had sailed with Columbus, and Piri’s 1513 map incorporated what he had been told of the new lands beyond the Atlantic.

  Kemal continued his forays against Christian shipping and settlements all over the Mediterranean until his death in a shipwreck in early 1511. His legacies were the integration of Moorish refugees from Spain into pirate crews, and a Barbary Coast which had grown reliant upon privateering.

  The brothers Barbarossa

  In the mid-summer of 1504 two Papal galleys were making their way south through the Tyrrhenian Sea, on a voyage from Genoa to Civitavecchia, a small port 50 miles north of Rome. The larger of the two was a lanterna, a flagship galley – one of the most imposing vessels of its day. Even its smaller companion was an impressive warship, with a powerful battery of forward-facing guns. Their crews did not really expect any trouble, so the captain of the lanterna was surprised to see a small oared vessel appear from behind the island of Elba, and turn to face him in the 4-mile-wide channel between Elba and the Italian mainland. This stranger was a galiot, one of the small galleys favoured by the Turks and their new-found Barbary allies. It seemed no match for the two larger Papal warships, but it showed no sign of fleeing as the big galleys drew closer. In fact, the galiot’s red-bearded commander, Oruç (or Aruj) Reis, had already ordered half his men to slide their oars overboard, thus ensuring that they could not retreat even if they wanted to.

  Oruç and Khizr ‘Barbarossa’ (so named by Italian contemporaries, from their red beards). The brothers did much to turn the Barbary Coast into a pirate haven during the first half of the 16th century, and in the process helped to halt Spanish expansion in the area. After Oruç was killed at Tlemcen in 1518 Khizr succeeded him as Beylerbey of Algiers. His exploits over the following 28 years were too numerous to recount here (readers will find a detailed account in Ernle Bradford’s The Sultan’s Admiral–see ‘Further Reading’). However, his most notable successes in the service of the Ottoman sultanate were his capture of Tunis (1534), his victory at Preveza (1538), and the reduction of Venetian settlements in Greece and the Aegean.

  When the lanterna was a mile ahead of its consort, and unable to turn away, Oruç ordered his men to unleash a flurry of arrows; he then drove his smaller galley hard alongside the Papal vessel, and led his men straight up her side. Unlike the galiot, all of whose rowers were free men who joined in the fight, the Papal galley was crewed by slaves, chained to their rowing benches and unable to escape. Within minutes the lanterna’s crew were either killed or overpowered, and Oruç Reis was in control of the ship. The Papal captain surrendered, then he and his men were led below into the galley’s narrow central hold. If the rowers expected to be freed they were soon disappointed; instead, Oruç ordered them to turn the ship around. As his men dressed in the Papal crew’s clothing and armour, a tow-rope was rigged between the bow of the galiot and the stern of the lanterna; then Oruç set off to capture his second prize of the day.

  To the crew of the Papal galley it looked as if their flagship had just captured a pirate galiot. As the two ships closed most of the Turks hid below the bulwarks of their prize, and the rest pretended to be the crew of the lanterna. Once alongside, Oruç ordered his men to spring up and loose a storm of arrows onto the galley’s deck. The second Papal warship was taken completely by surprise, and by the time the privateers swarmed aboard the fight was as good as won. An 18th-century chronicler of Algerine pirates wrote that ‘The galley was instantly boarded and carried, with very little further bloodshed or resistance.’ It was a stunning victory, and because the galleys were in the service of Pope Julius II it was one that caught the attention of Europe’s Christian powers. It was clear that Christian mariners in the Western Mediterranean now faced a threat that was no longer confined to the waters off the North African coast.

  After his victory Oruç Reis returned to Tunis, 250 nautical miles to the south – the white-walled port at the head of the Gulf of Tunis. Contemporary Arab chroniclers described it as ‘the white, the perfumed, the flowery bride of the West’ (less kindly writers would later call it ‘odoriferous’, thanks to the smell of the salt pans that ringed the city and of the stagnant lagoon on its seaward side). Oruç and his men were welcomed by cheering crowds, who realized that nothing like this had been attempted before. The Spanish historian Diego Haedo wrote: ‘The wonder and astonishment that this novel exploit caused in Tunis, and even in Christendom, is not to be expressed, nor how celebrated the name of Aruj [Oruç] Reis was to become, from that very moment – he being held and accounted, by all the world, as a most valiant and enterprising commander
. And, by reason that his beard was extremely red … from thenceforward he was generally called Barbarossa, which in Italian signifies “Red-Beard’’.’ The dramatic career of the first of the great Barbary pirate leaders had begun, and in fact the renown of his nickname would be extended for decades by the fact that Oruç (c. 1474–1518) had a younger brother, Khizr (c. 1478–1546), who also became a privateer. Collectively they became known as the ‘Barbarossa brothers’, and they are generally regarded as being the two founding fathers of the Barbary pirates.

  DEFEAT AT BOUGIE, 1512

  Even the Barbarossas were not always successful, and the fearless Oruç was prone to taking unwise risks. In 1512 the brothers were invited to help drive the Spanish from Bougie (now Béjaïa) between Algiers and Djidjelli – a substantial port fortified by the Hafsid dynasty. In preparation, Oruç had land carriages made for heavy guns captured on Christian ships; 1,000 janissaries were embarked along with Moorish exiles and local Berber troops, and the expedition sailed north from Djerba.

  Arriving off Bougie in August, the force disembarked a little way from the city. The defences had been strengthened since the Spanish captured it two years previously, and new coastal batteries had been installed. Barbarossa’s gunners bombarded Bougie for a week, and when a practical breach had been made Oruç led the assault in person at the head of the janissaries. They were met by a storm of artillery and small-arms fire; according to Haedo’s History of Algiers: ‘As [Oruç] was leading his men to the attack, a shot took away his left arm above the elbow.’ The assault faltered, and the attackers withdrew carrying their grievously wounded commander. As the expedition headed southwards for home a fast galiot carried Oruç north to Tunis, where skilled Arab physicians were able to save his life.

  The brothers’ only consolation was Khizr’s capture of a richly-laden Genoese vessel during his own voyage to Tunis, but the Genoese quickly took their revenge. A squadron led by the great admiral Andrea Doria took the Berbers of Tunis by surprise, and stormed La Goletta; the defences were destroyed and the village burnt, and a dozen Barbary galiots were carried off.

  Like any that have been passed down the centuries in different tongues, the names of the brothers can cause some confusion. In Turkish Khizr was known as Hizir, but Hayreddin or Kheir ed-Din were also used, and even Hizir Hayreddin. For his part, Oruç is known as Aruj in the Spanish and Italian histories which are our major sources; in this book we choose to give the brothers’ names in their original forms, Oruç and Khizr.

  A romanticized 19th-century impression of Oruç Barbarossa leading the attack that put the Barbary pirates on the map of the Christian powers – the capture of a Papal lanterna in the summer of 1504. (Illustration by Leopold Fleming in Charles Farine’s ‘biography’ of the Barbarossa brothers, Deux Pirates, 1869)

  Oruç was born on the Aegean island of Midilli (now Lesbos) in 1474, the son of a retired Turkish soldier turned potter. Khizr was born four years later, and eventually the two became first seamen, and then Turkish privateers. In about 1490 Oruç was captured by the Knights of St John based on Rhodes, and spent about three years as a galley slave before the Turkish governor of Antalya (on the south-west coast of Asia Minor) secured his release. Oruç returned to privateering and it was claimed that he rose to command a group of galleys based at Antalya. He later returned to Lesbos, which he and his brother turned into a privateering base. By now both were seasoned commanders of some standing. It is unclear why they left their home region; one source has them travelling to Egypt in two galiots, and thence west to the Barbary Coast. Diego de Haedo claims that they went to Tunis independently, but it is more likely that they were sent by the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II as part of his scheme to bolster the defences of the Barbary states.

  In any event, they probably arrived in Djerba towards the end of 1502, leading a small force with two galiots. They set about conducting raids on the coasts of Sicily and the islands of Gozo and Malta, and while there is no record of it they must have been successful, since by the spring of 1504 they were invited to Tunis by the city’s Hafsid sultan, Muhammed IV. The capture of the Papal galleys that summer was the brothers’ first major success. When word of it spread, other Turkish privateers sailed west to join them, while local Berber warriors and seamen also joined this burgeoning pirate community. For the rest of that year and in successive cruising seasons the brothers roamed off the coastlines of Sicily and Calabria, garnering a lucrative crop of prizes, and prisoners to be sold in the slave-markets of Tunis. These successes encouraged yet more sailors to join them, while Berber and Turkish merchants alike proved increasingly willing to furnish the brothers with ships in return for a healthy share in the profits from the privateering enterprise. Rulers, merchants and corsairs alike were all winners, the only losers being their Christian victims.

  CHRONOLOGY, 1450–1660

  For geographical clarity, the modern names of Algeria, Tunisia and Libya are used here even though they did not then exist as states. The inhabitants of Algiers in our period are referred to as Algerines.

  1453 Ottoman Turks capture Constantinople, renamed Istanbul; final collapse of Byzantine Empire.

  1471 Portuguese capture Tangier.

  1487 Arrival of Kemal Reis on the Barbary Coast.

  1491 Moorish corsairs from Granada establish new base in Morocco.

  1492 Moorish Kingdom of Granada conquered by Castile and Aragon.

  1497 Spanish capture Melilla on Mediterranean coast of Morocco.

  c. 1502 The Turkish corsair brothers Oruç and Khizr ‘Barbarossa’ arrive on the Barbary Coast.

  1504 Oruç Barbarossa captures two Papal galleys off the coast of Tuscany.

  1505 Spanish capture Mers-el-Kebir on the Algerian coast.

  1510 Spanish capture Bougie and Algiers in Algeria, and Tripoli in Tunisia, but their attack on Djerba island off the Tunisian eastern coast is repulsed.

  1512 Oruç Barbarossa wounded in failed attack on Bougie, Algeria. Genoese admiral Andrea Doria attacks Barbarossa’s base at La Goletta, Tunisia.

  1516 The Barbarossa brothers gain control of Algiers.

  1517 Oruç Barbarossa repulses Spanish attack on Algiers under Diego de Vara, and captures Tlemcen.

  1518 Spanish besiege and recapture Tlemcen; Oruç is killed during a skirmish.

  1519 Spanish assault on Algiers repulsed.

  1522–23 Ottomans besiege and capture the stronghold of the Knights of St John on Rhodes. In recompense, the Holy Roman Emperor gives them Tripoli.

  1529 Khizr Barbarossa captures Spanish fortress outside Algiers.

  1530 Knights of St John re-establish themselves on Malta.

  1533 Barbarossa is summoned to command an Ottoman fleet.

  1534 Barbarossa captures Tunis.

  1535 Spanish recapture Tunis. Barbarossa raids Minorca.

  1536 French and Ottomans form an alliance.

  1538 Holy League formed to resist Ottoman expansion. Barbarossa defeats Holy League fleet at battle of Preveza.

  1541 Spanish attack on Tunis is repulsed.

  1543 Barbarossa joins French to recapture Nice from Spain’s Genoese allies, and raids Spanish coast around Barcelona.

  1546 Barbarossa dies in Istanbul.

  1550 Turgut Reis captures port of Mahdia in Tunisia, but it is retaken by Spanish. Andrea Doria defeats Turgut Reis at Tripoli, but he escapes to Istanbul, where the sultan gives him command of an Ottoman fleet.

  1551 Turgut Reis and Sinan Pasha raid islands of Malta and Gozo, then recapture Tripoli.

  1552 Turgut Reis and Sinan Pasha, with an allied French squadron, defeat Spanish–Italian fleet under the 86-year-old Andrea Doria off Naples.

  1553 Turgut Reis assists French attack on Spanish in Corsica.

  1555 Salih Reis and Algerines recapture Bougie.

  1556 Turgut Reis installed as ruler of Tripoli.

  1558 Turgut Reis raids Minorca.

  1569 Turgut Reis and Piali Pasha defeat Spanish expedition against Djerba.

&n
bsp; 1561 Turgut Reis defeats Spanish squadron off Lipari Islands north of Sicily, and enslaves population.

  1563 Algerine attacks on Mers-el-Kebir and Oran are repulsed.

  1565 Unsuccessful Ottoman siege of Malta; death of Turgut Reis.

  1568 Uluj Ali becomes ruler of Algiers.

  1570 Uluj Ali captures Tunis, but Spanish continue to hold La Goletta.

  1571 Holy League is reformed to counter Ottoman expansion. Ottomans defeated by Holy League fleet at battle of Lepanto. Uluj Ali is given command of an Ottoman fleet.

  1573 Spanish capture Tunis.

  1574 Uluj Ali and Sinan Pasha recapture Tunis.

  1575 Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes is captured by Algerine pirates.

  1580 Spanish and Ottomans establish a truce throughout the Mediterranean.

  1585 Algerine corsairs raid Canary Islands.

  1587 Uluj Ali dies in Istanbul.

  1601 Storm disrupts a Spanish attempt on Algiers.

  1606 English pirate John Ward (Yusuf Reis) arrives in Tunis.

  1609 Franco-Spanish raid on La Goletta.

  1617 Barbary corsair raids on Atlantic coast of Galicia, northern Spain.

  1618 Algerine fleet defeated by Dutch and Spanish fleet off Gibraltar.

  1619 Salé privateers declare independence from Moroccan sultanate.

  1620 Algerine fleet defeated by Spanish fleet off Cartagena, and Suleiman Reis is killed.

  1621 Ali Bitchin becomes leader of the Algerine corsairs.

  1622 Treaty between Algiers and the Dutch Republic.

  1623 Treaty between Algiers and England. Death of English corsair Yusuf Reis.

  1625 Salé corsairs (‘Sallee Rovers’) take shipping in Bristol Channel and off south coast of south-west England, and raid coastal villages: reportedly, 60 souls captured in Mount’s Bay, and Looe burnt down. Shipping to and from Newfoundland Grand Banks hard hit, and fear of sailing damages fishing economy; mayor of Poole, Dorset, complains to Privy Council that in ten days some 27 ships and 200 persons had been taken by ‘Turkish’ pirates.