The Barbary Pirates 15th-17th Centuries

by Angus Konstam

  Later, a growing number of Christian pirates were lured to the Barbary Coast by the prospect of plunder, or the chance to escape from the authorities in Europe. One of these men was John Ward, a former Elizabethan privateer, who was pressed into English naval service in 1603. He promptly deserted in a small sailing craft, taking several others with him. After a brief piratical spree in the English Channel he headed into the Mediterranean, where he continued his pirate cruise. In 1605 he appeared in Salé, where his band was augmented by other European renegades, and the piracy continued. Two years later he moved his operation to Tunis, using the port as his base until 1622, when he retired from his piratical career. Ward was unusual in that when he arrived on the Barbary Coast he already had his own ship and crew. In 1608 the English ambassador in Venice provided an unflattering description of him: ‘John Ward, commonly called Captain Ward, is about 55 years of age, very short, with little hair, and that quite white, bald in front, swarthy face and beard. Speaks little, and almost always swearing. Drunk from morn to night. Most prodigal and plucky. Sleeps a great deal…’ If Ward was one of the elite of the European renegades, it doesn’t say much for the other members of his community.

  Three English pirates, pictured during a hard-drinking night out in Algiers (see Plate G). Many former English privateers turned to outright piracy after the end of the war with Spain in 1604, and operated out of the Barbary ports. (From 17th-century reprint of De Nicolay’s Les Quatres Premiers Livres de Navigations Orientales, 1568)

  This comment about drinking chimes with observations made in Barbary itself. These ‘Franks’ were seen as a race apart, abiding by their own rules. In 1606 the Sieur de Brèves, a French nobleman, wrote: ‘The great profit that the English bring to the country, their profuse liberality and the excessive debauches in which they spend their money before leaving the town and returning to war (this they call their brigandage on the sea) has made them cherished by the janissaries of all other nations. They carry their swords at their side, they run drunk through the town … they sleep with the wives of the Moors … in brief every kind of debauchery and unchecked licence is permitted to them.’ This misbehaviour was tolerated because these men were needed; they were skilled seamen, and often had a better knowledge of technical matters than was usual in the Mediterranean. Just as importantly, they provided fresh manpower to a privateering fleet based on a coast that lacked either a large population or a strong tradition of long-range seafaring.

  Galley slaves

  The main difference between Barbary galiots and larger galleys (see above, ‘The Ships’) was that the smaller vessels were almost always crewed by free men. The oarsmen were not shackled slaves, so they could pick up a scimitar, dagger or musket and take part in a boarding action. On galleys, however, the rowers were invariably slaves, just as they were in Christian galleys. While this reduced the number of men who could fight, and demanded constant vigilance of the rowing benches, Christian slaves were in relatively plentiful supply and could easily be replaced.

  Life as a galley slave was horrendous. The men lived, worked and slept chained to their benches, and all human waste was simply allowed to lie beneath them in the well of the rowing deck. Occasionally the decks were hosed down with sea water, but slave galleys were notoriously noxious; while they looked elegant, contemporary observers claimed that they could be smelt from half a mile away.

  In stark contrast, this 17th-century engraving shows Christian slaves, whose appearance recalls the memoirs of captives who served on galleys, attempting to escape from the Barbary Coast in a small open boat rigged with a makeshift mast and sail. (Illustration from contemporary Dutch history of the Barbary states)

  The only respite tended to come at night, when the galley put into a sheltered cove, or when the vessel was under sail alone. The slaves were still kept chained, almost always naked, unkempt, and often suffering from malnutrition, exposure, or the attention of the overseer’s whip. By contrast, Christian slaves who served in Barbary sailing vessels went unfettered most of the time, so that they could climb the rigging and move around the ship; they were only shackled or locked below decks if an action was imminent. Of course, any hint of rebellion could easily lead to a beating or – worse – being transferred to a galley. Conversion usually brought freedom, and if they were experienced mariners then they could join a pirate crew and share in the plunder. It says much for the power of religion during this period that many preferred to endure a living hell at the oars rather than renounce their faith.

  This colourful Turkish depiction of a galley is part of a work commemorating the siege of Famagusta (1570–71). Of equal interest are the Turkish soldiers on the shore, including a contingent of janissaries (right) wearing coats of blue, green and red. The galley is depicted as all red, including the oars, apart from the upperworks at the stern in ochre or pale natural wood. The stern canopy is shown as blue inside, and red with white or yellow patterning outside. The flags are particoloured red and black.

  G EUROPEAN RENEGADES, c. 1620

  In the early 17th century a growing number of European ‘renegadoes’ – pirates who were willing to convert to Islam in return for a secure base of operations – made their way to the Barbary Coast. They were welcomed for their skills – for example, in handling square-rigged ships, and gunnery – but earned a reputation for drunkenness and wild behaviour. Under the disapproving eyes of a Turkish official (left), the three main figures here are based upon an engraving from a 17th century reprint of N. de Nicolay’s Les Quatres Premiers Livres de Navigations Orientales, first published in 1568, which shows three drunkards (probably Englishmen) squabbling over their last flask of liquor during a ‘run ashore’ in Algiers. Two of them (1 & 3) wear a mixture of Turkish and North African garb, including the odd but apparently popular slashed hood-like cap. (2) retains largely European clothing, though with the white turban marking him as a Muslim convert; his Germanic dagger is perhaps a souvenir of former employment as a mercenary.

  (4) A Kuloghi arquebusier, one of the levies of part-Turkish parentage who served the Barbary rulers in return for exemption from taxation. While they were principally cavalrymen they did sometimes serve as gate guards, though they were forbidden from entering the city itself. (5) The mounted Berber warriors in the background are based on the Codice de Trajes (1547), which shows them armed with long, flexible lances, straight broadswords, and straight daggers fastened to their left forearms. Tapestries commemorating the Emperor Charles V’s conquest of Tunis in 1535 show them in action.

  Janissaries

  The other major element of a privateering crew were the janissaries. A full-sized galley could carry as many as 100 to 140 of these soldiers, while smaller galiots or sailing craft carried proportionately fewer. Not all Barbary privateers carried janissaries (their deployment was at the whim of the Bey de Camp and the Capudan Pasha), but all galleys and most galiots did. As already noted, they took no part in the working of the ship; their job was simply to fight. The janissaries were symbolic of the close relationship between the Barbary rulers and the Ottoman sultan. In the Turkish armies the janissaries, conscripted as boys from Christian populations to be converted and trained, were prized as a highly disciplined elite infantry corps. They were intensely loyal to the sultan, and their courage, professionalism and esprit de corps set them apart from most soldiers of the period, both in Asia and in Europe. They could fight with bow or musket, but just as easily as shock troops, charging home with swords and round shields; this naturally made them particularly useful at sea.

  The first janissaries to arrive on the Barbary Coast were sent directly from Turkey, and formed part of the troops used to conquer the Berber states in the name of the sultan. They stayed behind to help maintain order, and to safeguard the regencies from internal or external threats. These Turkish soldiers served until death or retirement, and were replaced by a provincial ocak (corps) recruited either in the Middle East or even from among the ranks of southern European renegades. While t
he quality of these provincial recruits has been questioned, few doubted the ability of the janissary officers to turn them into prime soldiers. Service brought valuable privileges, and a swaggering superiority over the inhabitants of the Barbary regencies. Janissaries enjoyed high social status, comfortable barracks with slaves attending to their needs, good pay and good food. They were also allowed to make money on the side by pursuing a trade when they were off duty.

  Detail from a highly stylized 16th-century woodcut showing a Barbary galley in the midst of a sea battle; note, in the centre, janissary archers shown standing on the arrumbada platform above the heavy ordnance.

  In return they were expected to fight, unquestioningly and unflinchingly. They had three principal duties. One was to take part in expeditions into the interior, to gather the annual tribute or to subdue unruly Berber or Bedouin tribes. Another was to garrison the cities and ports of the regencies, to serve their artillery and defend their walls, and generally to maintain the security of the state. This also involved ensuring the security of the regent himself (or at least, when janissary officers were not involved in plotting a coup against him – which was why the inner sanctum of the ruler’s kasbah was usually protected by independently recruited palace guards). Their third duty was to serve at sea, and this was a popular assignment: not only did it mean they were actively fighting their Christian foes, but they also directly profited from a share of the plunder.

  In the centre foreground of this detail from a painting by Matteo Perez d’Aleccio, showing a scene during the great siege of Malta (1565), red-coated Turkish janissaries await the order to assault the Christian fortifications.

  What seemed to amaze observers was the ease with which these diverse Barbary pirate crews could co-exist in relative harmony. According to Luis del Marmol-Carvajal, quarrels were rare, despite the presence of soldiers who did not work the ship, crewmen and gunners from widely differing backgrounds, and slaves whose only escape was death or conversion. This co-operative atmosphere may have owed something to the fact that cruises by galiots and galleys were of reasonably short duration, often little more than two to three weeks.

  TECHNIQUES & TACTICS

  Limitations

  A number of factors limited the timing and duration of a privateering cruise, particularly by a galley. Cruises were limited to the period from mid-spring to late autumn; during the winter months the Western Mediterranean is prone to storms, particularly along the coast of the Maghreb and in the Gulf of Sirte. Galleys and galiots tended to make their first sorties in April after wintering in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli or Djerba.

  The other limiting factor was their ability to remain at sea. A galley or galiot had a lot of men crammed into a small, narrow hull, and there was little spare room for water or provisions. The minimum daily water requirement in the hot Mediterranean summer is estimated to have been about 90 gallons per galley per day, and a galley’s storage capacity to have been 1,800 gallons, or enough for 20 days.

  Barbary pirate galiots, pictured in action against Christian galleys or galiots off the northeast coast of Sicily in a mid 17th-century watercolour by the English sailor Edward Barlow. Amid the billowing clouds of gunsmoke the Barbary vessels are distinguishable by their black and red pennants; their opponents are shown flying the white-cross-on-red of the Knights of Malta.

  This was no particular problem if a galley was operating on its own. The Western Mediterranean coast offered many secluded bays where streams or springs could be used to replenish water supplies. Indeed, Piri Reis – the nephew of Kemal Reis – produced a folio of maps of the Mediterranean coast marked with suitable watering-places. But if ships were operating as part of a larger squadron or even a fleet, most inlets offered insufficient concealment, and it took a dangerously long time to fill all the barrels from a single water source. The same was true of provisions: while the crew of a single galiot could put in somewhere and kill a few goats, this was not an option for a larger force. Another limitation of oared vessels was that they had to put in somewhere safe at night. This was one reason why the Spanish developed a string of fortified bases running along the North African coast, as the Venetians did on the Adriatic and Peloponnesian coasts.

  For Barbary privateers there was no such luxury once they left their own coast, so they tended to establish temporary bases further afield. For example, in the Tyrrhenian Sea small islands like Stromboli, Ustica, Gigilio, Montecristo, Ponza and Palmarola were all used as watering points and temporary refuges. Other islands used in this way included Lampedusa and Pantellaria between Tunis and Sicily; Vacca, off the southern coast of Sardinia; Formentara in the Balearic Islands; and Îles d’Hyères off the French Riviera. Once again, these were practical for one or two vessels or even a small squadron, but not for a whole galley fleet. All these limitations – the need to replenish water and provisions, and to find secure overnight anchorages – became exponentially worse with each extra galley. The larger the fleet, the shorter its range of operation, and so the more limited its operational options.

  A clash between galley squadrons operated by the Barbary pirates and the Knights of Malta, from a mid 16th-century engraving illustrating a treatise on naval tactics. Cannon were mainly used prior to boarding, and battles were usually fought hand-to-hand.

  Despite this, the Barbary pirates certainly put large groups of ships to sea. The largest of the Barbary fleets was that based in Algiers; it was estimated that as many as 50 galleys and galiots were based there in the mid 16th century, and occasionally these would operate together if summoned to do so by one of the great leaders such as Khizr Barbarossa, Turgut Reis or Uluç Ali. More usually, however, galleys or galliots hunted singly or (more commonly) in pairs, and sometimes in small squadrons of between three and six vessels. Interestingly, the figures for the mid 1620s tell a very different story: by then only six galleys were operating out of Algiers, but the port was also home to about 60 large sailing privateers and 40 smaller ones. At the same time Tunis had 34 pirate craft based in its harbour, but Tripoli less than half a dozen, all of them sailing vessels. This shows a general decline in numbers of galleys, particularly in the two smaller ports, and a steady increase in the number of sailing vessels used for privateering.

  H BARCA LONGAS, EARLY 17th CENTURY

  1: The barca longa (foreground) was one of the smallest craft used by Barbary privateers. These light coastal vessels, commonly found throughout the Western and Central Mediterranean, were widely employed by pirates as well as small traders and fishermen. They carried one or two short masts, and while the rig varied according to local customs all were capable of being powered by oars as well as sails. The victim in the centre of this scene, loosely based on a contemporary engraving, is a smaller Sicilian fishing boat powered by a small gaff-rigged sail and oars; interestingly, its rowers face forwards and use inboard-mounted rowlocks. Beyond it a second Barbary barca longa is closing in to cut off any chance of escape, while a small swivel gun mounted on the bow of the nearer vessel is fired across the quarry’s bows to encourage it to heave to. The sail patterns on the Barbary vessels are taken from contemporary illustrations, as are the red and black taffeta flags flown by the pirates.

  2a: Example of large 17th-century galley under sail, with square-rigged mainmast but a large lateen yard and sail lying along the deck.

  2b: Northern European caravels were potential prey for 16th-century corsairs; this example has square-rigged main and foremasts and a lateen on the mizzen. The caravel was built in a range of sizes and was immensely versatile.

  2c: (Not to scale) Small two-masted caravel with lateen rig. Recent research even suggests that Columbus’s Nina may have been lateen-rigged at some stage.

  Hunting-grounds and prey

  Having left port, either sailing alone or with a consort or two, a typical privateering galiot would set a course for one of its favoured hunting-grounds, which often depended on the vessel’s home base. Algerine pirates tended to head towards either the Strait of Gibra
ltar or the Balearic Islands. From the Strait they could range out along the Atlantic coast of Spain and Portugal; from the Balearics they could sweep clockwise around the Western Mediterranean, towards Sardinia, Corsica and the southern coast of France. If this did not produce enough profit they could enter the Tyrrhenian Sea and cruise off the west coast of Italy. Privateers based in Tunis tended to operate in the Tyrrhenian Sea and off either coast of Sardinia or Corsica, or else headed east past Malta to cruise the Central Mediterranean south of Crete. The Tripoli corsairs preferred to operate around Sicily, particularly the island’s eastern coast, where shipping passed through the bottleneck of the Strait of Messina. Alternatively they could follow their colleagues from Tunis and operate south of Crete, hoping to snap up Christian trading ships bound for the Levant.