Category: Background

In 1835, the Reverend Michael Russell published a book on North Africa titled History and Present Condition of the Barbary[…]

From the mid sixteen through to the beginning of the nineteenth centuries, the Barbary corsair enterprise was huge. Corsairs ranged[…]

Both the Trinitarian and Mercedarian orders functioned quite effectively and pursued their virtuous goal of ransoming captives throughout the era[…]

These days, we have access to enormous amounts of information about the world. Documentaries take us down into the black[…]

Something a little different this week… Living in the twenty-first century as we do, with access to Google Earth, Google[…]

Father Pierre Dan (born around 1580, died in 1649) was a French Trinitarian friar. The Trinitarians, a Catholic order originally[…]

Early modern currency was fiendishly complicated by modern standards. Today, there are, of course, multiple currencies—the American/Canadian/Australian/New Zealand dollar, the[…]

(This post is a continuation of Early Modern Currency – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best[…]

The city of Salé was a famous corsair capital during the seventeenth century. It was (and still is) actually composed[…]

(This post is a continuation of Salé, the Turbulent City – Part 1. If you haven’t done so already, it’s[…]