The Barbary Corsairs - Pirates After All?

[Daniel]

The Muslim corsairs who operated out of Algiers, Sale, Tunis and Tripoli from the 1500s through the early 1800s were called "Barbary pirates" by English speakers throughout most of history. But most secondary sources from the 1970s or so onward do not call the North African corsairs pirates, insisting that these corsairs were really privateers acting under commissions from the government, and that they should properly be regarded as privateers.

But, David Hebb makes a contrary argument in Piracy and the English Government, 1616-1642 (a very interesting book which I will report on later). Hebb says that the Barbary corsair ports, while each under their own Pasha (or Bashaw, the same thing), were all under the formal leadership of the Sultan of Morocco. He says that the Sultan of Morocco did not authorize corsair raids, and that the Sultan was in fact powerless to control the pirates. That, and the fact that the Barbary corsairs were treated as pirates by European laws, leads Hebb to call the Barbary corsairs pirates, just as most English speakers called them until a few decades ago.

Hebb doesn't say whether the pashas of the Barbary Coast cities gave their corsairs letters of marque or otherwise formally legalized their subjects' piracy. It seems obvious to me that given the huge traffic in slaves and ransomed prisoners that the corsairs brought in, all of which was done completely in the open, the pashas must have given some kind of legal recognition to the corsairs' robberies. Perhaps we should understand Algiers and Sale as being much like Muslim versions of Port Royal, and their pashas as being Muslim versions of Governor Modyford; places where pirates with dubious commissions or no commissions at all flourished, theoretically illegally but in reality encouraged and condoned by the government.

[Fox]

Another point to consider is what the legal status of the European "renegades" was in these ports. Not all of the pirates/corsairs were of North African origin. Simon Dansekar and John Ward spring to mind as the famous Europeans who "turned Turk", but William Bishop, Henry Mainwaring, and a handful of others were involved there as well.

[Elena]

One man's pirate is another man's corsair... or hero. It depends who had signed the letters of marque (or gave approval - because how do we know if the Muslims operated with letters of marque and not with another kind of agreement?).

This applies exactly as with Sir Francis Drake and many other privateers: for Britain, they were privateers and heroes, for Spain - damn pirate enemies.

[Bos'n Cross]

as to try and answer the question of the legal status of renegades who "turned turk".....there was a young man, son of a bristol merchant, who after being a slave and converting to islam, rose to become the Dey of the Algiers treasurer(a dey is simply the ruler of an area). It is given in an account that in 1586 he interceeded on the behalf of a few englishmen who were to be sold as slaves, making easier the process of their ransom,and return to europe. I have this from an excerpt from The Barbary Slaves by Stephen Clissold, though the excerpt doesnt mention the former slaves name......or Clissold's sorces.......in he also goes into a bit about former captives becoming pyrates as fox mentioned.......he also describes that upon converting, they often had better opportunities than back home, and converted sailors were much valued for their experience and he writes were "promoted accordingly"......take that as you will.........So it would seem, that status wise, converting to islam gained one a good footing...though im sure that wasnt aaalllwwaayyss the case..........

[Daniel]

Part of the difficulty in calling the Barbary corsairs privateers is that the Sultan of Morocco, and his master in turn, the Ottoman Sultan in Constantinople, were most often at peace with England, Spain, and the other countries that the corsairs preyed on. The Ottomans in the early 17th century were locked in a death struggle with Poland; the last thing they wanted was more wars that would weaken their efforts against Poland. So the corsairs weren't privateers in the classic sense of private sailors and ship owners who help their monarch fight a war in return for plunder, because their monarchs weren't at war with their victims. Again, it's a lot like Port Royal, where Henry Morgan looted Spanish Panama after a peace treaty was signed, which made his attack legally piratical, but he conspicuously avoided punishment.

One reason that the Ottoman sultan wasn't willing to clamp down too hard on the corsairs, even though they endangered the very valuable and profitable trade between Ottoman Turkey and England, was that the Ottoman Sultan wanted the corsairs available to join his navy in case of war with Venice, Spain, or another Mediterranean power. The Ottomans' navy was all oared galleys, but the corsairs had developed tall ships, thanks in large part to those two fellows Foxe mentioned, Simon Danseker and John Ward. The Ottoman Sultan (or his mom, who was often really in charge) needed those tall ships in case of war, so he couldn't afford to stop them from taking the prizes that maintained their existence and their crews' training.