This week we continue the series of posts about Algiers, describing what the experience would have been like for European captives who were brought into the city. Last week, we looked at the city of Algiers itself. This week, we look at the process by which captives became slaves.
All newly arrived captives in Algiers had to be officially processed before they could be put up for auction in the Badestan—the market where captives were sold into slavery. So captives were not marched straight from the ships to the Badestan to be sold. First, they had to be formally declared a ‘good prize’—that is, legal and legitimate booty.
Deciding whether or not a particular group of captives was legal booty could be complicated.
During this period, Algiers found itself involved in a running series of treaties and agreements with various European powers—agreements specifying that ships from European signatory nations were supposed to be left alone.
Things were not always quite that simple, though.
For example, during a period when a treaty was in place between, say, Algiers and the Netherlands, Algerine corsairs were officially prohibited from attacking Dutch shipping. Even so, the corsairs could still legally board Dutch ships to inspect their documents and cargo. If a corsair captain stopped a Dutch ship and discovered that it was transporting Spanish wine, or had non-Dutch sailors among its crew, or was carrying non-Dutch passengers, he could forcibly take over the ship and bring it to Algiers—for neither Spanish cargo nor non-Dutch nationals were protected by the treaty.
Once in Algiers, the ship’s merchandise would be brought ashore and the crew and passengers (if any) marched through the twisty streets of the town to the residence of the Ottoman Governor of the city: the Pasha’s Palace, known as the Dar es-Sultan (House of the Ruler). This was an imposing three-story structure that was often described as the most beautiful in the city, located in the middle of the city’s al-Wata district, on al-Souk al-Kabir.
Set into the northern face of the Dar es-Sultan was a courtyard about eighty feet (twenty-five meters) square. In this courtyard, much of the official business of Algiers was conducted: the Divan (the governing council of Algiers) met on a weekly basis there, janissary troops received their pay, criminals were judged and condemned, ransoms for European captives were paid. (The illustration at the top of this post depicts an assembly in the Dar es-Sultan courtyard.)
And it was there that the Algerine authorities would typically convene to officially determine whether or not a ship (in the example we are considering, a Dutch ship), and the booty and captives it contained could be declared a good prize.
All new prizes brought into the harbor had to go through this same official legitimization process. In the case of the Dutch ship, the Dutch Consul in Algiers would attend the assembly to speak on behalf of the new captives, arguing that, since the Netherlands and Algiers were at peace, the ship and all its contents, crew, and any passengers aboard it should be set free.
The corsair captain’s riposte would have been that the treaty did not cover non-Dutch cargo or non-Dutch nationals, and so the ship and everything in it ought to be considered a good prize.
Such disputes could be quite lengthy, and quite complex, but the end result was usually the same: the merchandise and captives were declared a good prize. (The real point of the assembly, after all, was to legitimize plunder.)
In this Dutch example, the Dutch consul would probably have been able to ensure that the Dutch sailors went free and that they got their ship back, but the cargo would be forfeit, and any non-Dutch nationals—crew and passengers—would be dragged away to be sold as slaves.
All captives went through this official legitimization process. Once they had been declared legitimate booty, word would have gone out quickly: “A good prize! A good prize! Slaves and loot!”
After the official finding was announced, captives were beyond any hope of a reprieve. They were destined now to be sold as slaves.
They still would not have been herded directly to the Badestan, though. First, they had to go before the Ottoman Governor of Algiers—the Pasha.
——
Algiers was officially a regency of the Ottoman Empire, and in the early seventeenth century, the city was ruled by a Pasha appointed by the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul—at least in principle. The reality was somewhat more complicated.
During this period, the Pashas were appointed for three-year terms, though “appointed” is perhaps not the right word. Would-be Pashas essentially bought their position, lavishing costly bribes on officials in Istanbul in order to smooth the way. They did this because three years as Pasha in Algiers could make a man wealthy enough to retire to a pleasant little country villa for the rest of his life—if he managed to survive the three years, of course.
Algiers was a complicated place. Power was not held simply by the Pasha. It was shared between the Pasha, the Divan, and the Taifa.
The Divan, made up of officers from the janissaries, was the ruling council of the city. The janissaries—elite Ottoman troops—maintained a permanent garrison of perhaps as many as 10,000 in Algiers (contemporary accounts vary). They were a major power, for theirs was the brute physical force that maintained order in the city.
The Taifa was the council of corsair captains. The Taifa, too, played a major role in the city’s power politics, for it was the corsairs who brought in the wealth that kept Algiers alive.
Of these three power blocks, the Pashas were the weakest. Their authority came primarily from their prestige and their connection to the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul. The Sultan lived a long way off, though, and their short, three-year tenures did not give most Pashas sufficient time to cement effective local alliances. Over the years, a significant number of them were assassinated—poisoned, strangled, blown out of cannons. Eventually, the janissaries ousted the Pashas and took direct control of Algiers.
The Pashas were still the titular rulers of Algiers, though, and they kept control of important revenue streams—like their traditional right to claim one eighth of all booty and captives brought to the city. Not only that; the Pasha got first choice.
So as soon as newly arrived captives had been officially declared legitimate booty, it was time for the Pasha to collect his one eighth of the catch.
For the next installment of this series of posts on Algiers, see the next post here in this blog.
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
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