Barbary Coast

"Barbary" redirects here. For other uses, see Barbary (disambiguation) and Barbary Coast (disambiguation).

Not to be confused with Barbaria (region).

A 17th-century map by the Dutch cartographer Jan Janssonius showing the Barbary Coast, here "Barbaria"

The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) was the name given to the coastal regions of central and western North Africa. More specifically, the name refers to the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, as well as the Sultanate of Morocco from the 16th to 19th centuries. The term originates from an exonym for the Berbers.

Political Diversity

Ex-voto of a naval battle between a Turkish ship from Algiers (front) and a ship of the Order of Malta under Langon, 1719

Barbary was not always a unified political entity. From the 16th century onward, it was divided into four political entities—from west to east—the Alawi Sultanate, the Regency of Algiers, the Regency of Tunis, and the Regency of Tripoli. Major rulers and petty monarchs during the times of the Barbary states' plundering parties included the sultan of Morocco, the dey of Algiers, bey of Tunis, and pasha of Tripoli, respectively.

Naval capabilities

In 1625, the pirate fleet of Algiers, by far the largest, numbered 100 ships of various sizes, carrying 8,000 to 10,000 men. The corsair industry alone accounted for 25 percent of the workforce of the city, not counting other activities of the port. The fleet only averaged 25 ships in the 1680s, but these were larger vessels than had been used since the 1620s, so the fleet still employed some 7,000 men. In addition, 2,500 men manned the pirate fleet of Tripoli, 3,000 in Tunis, and several thousand more in the various minor pirate bases such as Bona, Susa, Bizerta, and Salé. The corsairs were not solely natives of the cities where they were based; while many were Arabs and Berbers, there were also Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Syrians, and renegade Italians, especially Corsicans, among their number.

Conflict with Western Powers

Purchase of Christian captives in the Barbary states

Spain

Main article: Spanish relations with the Barbary Coast

In Spanish history, the region known as the Barbary Coast held great importance as a host territory for the Moriscos. During the reigns of Philip III and Philip IV, the Moriscos were especially active in piracy. The Republic of Salé, for example, was governed by Barbary pirates, who exploited the knowledge the recently arrived Moriscos had of the Spanish coasts to ravage the Spanish Levante for much of the 17th century.

The Castilians turned Seville (conquered in 1248) into a major port and an arsenal. With the assistance of the Portuguese, Aragonese, Genoese, and French and German knights, they seized Algeciras—an event celebrated in Christendom as much as the fall of Jerusalem. The Muslims lost control of the strait. Castile began the conquest of Granada. The Nasrid Kingdom of Granada was supported by North African tribes that supplied weapons, horses, ammunition, and grain, while offering refuge to fugitives. In return, they received silk, fruits, ceramics, and slaves from Granada.

Once the Kingdom of Granada had disappeared, Ferdinand the Catholic launched several expeditions to fight Barbary piracy and capture important strongholds in North Africa. In 1497, Melilla was taken—then a safe haven for Turkish and Algerian pirates who plundered the southern and eastern Spanish coasts, places where they enjoyed the support of the Moriscos. In 1506, the fortified town of Cazaza—near Melilla on the Tres Forcas peninsula—was captured. However, it was lost in 1536 due to the treason of some of the convicts stationed as its garrison. Also in 1497, and departing from Sicily, the Spaniards occupied the island of Gelves (Djerba). This occupation did not last long because, with the outbreak of the War of the Holy League in 1500, the island was abandoned.

In 1505, departing from Málaga, the Spanish seized Mazalquivir, a town near Orán. An attempt to capture Orán in June 1507 failed. From 1508 to 1522, the Castilians occupied the Peñón de Vélez de la Gomera, despite this territory lying within the Portuguese zone; it was lost later and subsequently fell into the hands of Barbarossa, the Turkish Bey of Algiers. In 1509, a fleet and army sailing from Cartagena wrested the city of Orán from the Zayyanid dynasty. In 1510, Bugía and Tripoli were taken, while the cities of Tunis and Algiers offered vassalage (paying tribute) to the Catholic King. However, in 1510 the Spanish armies could not capture Gelves.

Emperor Charles V continued pressing the offensive on Barbary strongholds, from Melilla to Tripoli. In 1535, the expedition of Charles V seized La Goletta for Spain and took Tunis, which he ceded to his vassal King Muley Hacen. The pirate activities of Barbarossa, in the service of Ottoman Emperor Suleiman the Magnificent, multiplied across the Mediterranean with great success. Another attempt by Charles V to take Algiers, in 1541, failed, and the Mediterranean remained effectively an Ottoman sea until the Battle of Lepanto (1571). Tripoli held out until 1551, when it fell to Barbarossa and Dragut.

After the Christian victory over the Ottomans at Lepanto (1571), Christians and Muslims continued to fight at sea. In the 17th century, Turkish-Barbary pirates, who included Moriscos expelled from Spain and a large number of Christian renegades, adopted European shipbuilding and armament methods. They expanded their corsair activities to the Atlantic, even reaching as far as Iceland during their raids.

In 1614, the Spanish captured La Mámora (now Mehdya). The decision to conquer it arose from the campaign against piracy along the Moroccan coast, which had already led to the capture of Larache (1610). This was in response to negotiations between the Dutch and the Saadi dynasty to occupy the port and more easily harass the Spanish treasure fleet, despite the ongoing Twelve Years' Truce. Renamed "San Miguel de Ultramar," the fortress remained under Spanish control for 67 years, until it was taken in 1681 by the Alaouite Sultan Isma’il of Morocco.

In 1617, Turkish-Barbary pirates began striking northwestern Spain (Galicia), attacking the Vigo Estuary and sacking and burning Cangas. Throughout the entire century, they threatened maritime trade and coastal villages, seizing inhabitants and damaging fishing operations. Around 1621, the Spanish formed a fleet to defend against Barbary corsairs and the Dutch, but it barely achieved its goal.

United States

The United States fought the Barbary Wars from 1801 to 1805 with some of the Barbary states leading to the Battle of Derna the first overseas military land action of the United States and inspiring the opening line of the Marines' Hymn "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli...".

See also

• Beylik of Tunis – North African monarchy (1705–1881)
• Tunisian navy (1705–1881) – Navy of the Vilayet of Tunis
• Turkish Abductions – Barbary slave raids against Iceland
• Corsairs of Algiers – 1516–1830 unit of the Algerine army
• Barbary slave trade – Slave markets in North Africa

Sources

• London, Joshua E. (2005). Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc. ISBN 0-471-44415-4.
• LAFI (Nora), Une ville du Maghreb entre ancien régime et réformes ottomanes. Genèse des institutions municipales à Tripoli de Barbarie (1795–1911), Paris: L'Harmattan, 2002, p. 305

External links

• Media related to Barbary Coast at Wikimedia Commons
• "When Europeans Were Slaves: Research Suggests White Slavery Was Much More Common Than Previously Believed", Ohio State University