RENEGADE CORSAIR CAPTAINS: THE TALE OF SIMON DANCER – PART 1

Barbary corsairs were Muslims operating out of North African ports, but they were not all North Africans. Quite a number of them were renegados (from the Spanish for “renegade”). That is, quite a number of them were European Christians who had renounced their own religion and converted to Islam—‘turned Turk’ as the expression was.

North African Muslims welcomed European converts to their religion. More importantly, after such new converts had adopted Islam, they became fully accepted members of the Muslim community. In Europe, renegados were universally detested as traitors to the true faith. Nonetheless, many Europeans did convert and made new and successful lives for themselves, plying their trades, marrying, and raising families, often becoming important and respected—and completely accepted—members of their communities in the process.

Some of these European renegados no doubt became Muslims because they underwent a true transformation of faith, but others seem to have switched religions for more pragmatic reasons: slaves who converted could find a pathway to freedom, or at least to less onerous conditions; captives who converted quickly enough could sometimes avoid slavery entirely. One sub-group of Europeans seemed especially prone to pragmatic conversion: pirates. In the uncertain times of the early seventeenth century, numerous European pirates settled in North African ports, where many of them became renegados and were welcomed.

In fact, European pirate captains did not necessarily even have to become renegados. Just the mere possibility that one day they might convert was sometimes enough for them to be welcomed—as long as they were bringing in sufficient loot.

One of the most famous of these non-renegado pirate-turned-corsair captains was Simon Dancer.

Simon Dancer was a Dutchman, likely born in Dordrecht, in the Netherlands, around 1570. By his thirties, he had become a privateer Captain. Such privateers received official letters of marque from the States General, the ruling body of the Republic of the Netherlands, authorizing them to harass Spanish shipping (the Republic of the Netherlands fought its own war for independence, against the Spanish, two centuries before the Americans fought theirs against the English). Each privateer expedition was financed by private backers who invested in the expedition in hopes of making a profit on the sale of any booty the privateer ship managed to acquire. So privateers were employed by the States General for a political end—helping to winning the war of independence against Spain—but they were also a species of entrepreneurial businessmen out to make their (and their backers’) fortune.

Simon Dancer was a particularly successful privateer Captain. He picked up the name “Dancer,” so the story goes, because he reliably returned to his home port at the end of each expedition (loaded with booty), and that sort of cruise—out and back again to the same port—was commonly referred to as a round dance.

That ‘round dance’ reliability did not last, though. In the middle of what appears to have been a successful career as a privateer captain, Simon Dancer abruptly changed course.

Sometime around 1605-06, he wound up in Marseille. Exactly what he was doing there is not clear. He might have had a letter of marque authorizing him to hunt in the Mediterranean, but he might simply have taken off on his own, for if the stories about his actions in Marseille are true, he certainly did not behave like an honest privateer. In fact, it looks like he might have intended to abandon privateering entirely.

Perhaps it was for love. One version of his story has him marrying the daughter of the “Governor” of Marseille. Things did not go well, though. He quarrelled bitterly with the city authorities (and thus also with his new father-in-law) and accumulated ruinous gambling debts, as a result of which he lost his ship (perhaps the debt and the quarrel with the authorities were connected). Whatever the case, the new life he had tried to make for himself in Marseille disintegrated quite spectacularly.

In desperation, he stole a fishing boat from out of the Marseille harbor and fled the city.

Dancer must have been a charismatic character, for he was able to entice a crew—perhaps members of his privateering crew—to help him steal the fishing boat and follow him out of Marseille into the unknown.

Using that stolen Marseille boat, Dancer and his men captured a large merchant ship (some sources say it was English). They then sailed both vessels to Algiers, where, as Dutchmen and thus fellow enemies of Spain (the Algerians were perennially at war with Spain), they were allowed to land and sell their booty.

Dancer then proceeded to launch an astonishingly successful career as a corsair operating out of Algiers—without converting to Islam. At some point, he fell in with Captain John Ward, an English renegado Captain based in Tunis, and for several years, the two of them ravaged the Mediterranean with a fleet of ships. Dancer became known as the Dali Rais, the Devil Captain, partly because of his fearless daring and ruthlessness, but also because he refused to convert to Islam and so, from the Muslim perspective, was indeed a kind of devil incarnate.

Dancer liked to sail in large ships, one of which was described as being equipped with 55 cannons and a crew of 400. His crews were composed of both Europeans (mainly Dutchmen) and North African Muslims. During the time he operated out of Algiers, he captured an average of something like fifteen European ships a year and sank an untold number of others, a success rate that enabled him to amass a huge fortune and live in an opulent mansion in Algiers when he was ashore.

Dancer and Ward not only enjoyed successful careers as corsair Captains, they also had an important influence on their hosts: they are credited with being the men who began the process of teaching the Barbary corsairs how to build and sail European-style, square-rigged sailing ships—Ward in Tunis and Dancer in Algiers.

Dancer’s corsair career was spectacularly successful, but it only lasted three years. By that time, he seems to have had enough (or had amassed enough wealth). He had also begun to develop enemies in Algiers, and his continual refusal to convert was becoming a provocation. Perhaps all along he had planned to spend only a few years as a corsair.

Whatever the reason, he began negotiations with several European powers for a pardon.

When all else failed, European monarchs and governments dealt with well-known pirate Captains by granting them an official pardon for their piratical deeds and providing them with a new place of residence. It might not have been actual justice, but providing pirates with legal forgiveness and a haven where they could settle down unmolested with their loot (and so retire from piracy) effectively took them out of commission and so made the seas a little safer.

Dancer managed to arrange a pardon from the French King Henry IV.

At first, this was a great success all around. King Henry rid the seas of a notorious pirate (and incidentally received a handsome gratuity from a grateful Dancer as well), and Dancer settled down peacefully in Marseille.

And lived happily ever after.

Well… not quite.

To find out what happened to Simon Dance in his retirement, read Renegade Corsair Captains: the Tale of Simon Dancer – Part 2.