In the summer of 1634, Father Dan, a French Trinitarian friar, took part in a diplomatic mission to Algiers. His job was to ransom French captives. Unfortunately, negotiations broke down, no captives were freed, and Farther Dan moved on to Tunis, where he successfully redeemed about forty Frencmen. (See the two-part Father Pierre Dan and the 1634 Ransoming Expedition to Algiers posts in the Captives section of this blog (March 2018) for details of this unsuccessful ransoming expedition.)
Upon his return to France, Father Dan became Minister Superior of the Trinitarian Order (Ordo Sanctissimae Trinitatis et captivorum (the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of Captives) headquartered at Fontainebleau, nearish to Paris, in France.
Based on his own personal experience in Algiers and Tunis, and on interviews with both the friars who returned from ransoming expeditions across North Africa and the freed captives whom they brought back with them, Father Dan wrote Histoire de Barbarie et de ses corsaires, des royaumes, et des villes d’Alger, de Tunis, de Salé, et de Tripoly (History of the Barbary Coast and its corsairs and kingdoms, and of the towns of Algiers, Tunis, Salé, and Tripoli), first published in 1637 and then revised and re-published in 1649—the year of his death.
Histoire de Barbarie is an encyclopedic compendium of information about Barbary corsairs, based on actual first-hand experience—both Father Dan’s and others’. Last week’s blog post (Father Dan on Salé, November 3, 2019) presented details about Salé, the infamous corsair capital on Morocco’s Atlantic coast. This week’s post presents details, drawn from Histoire de Barbarie, about the Algiers corsairs.
There are lots of details available about Barbary corsairs from lots of sources, but Father Dan presents the kinds of details that can only come from direct eye-witness testimony.
So here is father Dan on the corsairs of Algiers (as with last week’s post, the excerpts below are translated directly from the original seventeenth century French and slightly abridged).
The corsair captains—a corsair captain is referred to as a Reis—equip their ships at their own expense if they have the means to do so. If they do not, they partner with other investors who supply the required funds, perhaps providing a half of the necessary financing, or a quarter, or whatever they arrange among themselves. They jointly furnish all the requisite ammunition—powder, shot, and so on—along with provisions, which typically include biscuits, oil, vinegar, rice, and vegetables, of which they give each person aboard the ship his allotted portion every day.
Once the equipment and supplies have been seen to, they take onboard such Janissaries or such soldiers as they wish, of which they accommodate the number to the size or capacity of the ship. These armed men of war are put under the command of a Bouloucbaschi, or of an Odabaschi, [officers on the janissary corps] who hold command as both leader and judge. Without the consent of these men, the Reis of the vessel cannot accomplish anything. It is thus absolutely necessary that the Reis depend on them, and that he defers to their judgments.
Once they have fully equipped and crewed the vessel, and obtained permission to leave the port from the Divan [the governing council of Algiers], they set sail and go off to seek their fortunes, either eastwards or westwards, taking whatever route they wish.
Before leaving Algiers, however, the Reis never fails to visit some of the most famous marabouts [Muslim holy men], to consult with them about his upcoming expedition, and to ask them to recommend him in their prayers. This, the marabouts willingly do. They also provide the Reis with strong and healthy sheep to sacrifice at sea—in the manner that I will describe below—such sacrifices being made in case of some great turmoil or of extreme necessity. Since the Reis is indebted to the marabouts for the favor of these sheep, he does not fail to recognize this debt, and, on his return, will make several rich gifts to them.
Once all these preparations are completed, the corsairs embark. As they leave the port, they salute, with several barrages of cannon fire, one of their principal marabouts, a man named Sidi Butica, for whom they have in great veneration, and who is buried in a small oratory just outside the city .
As soon as the corsair ship is out of sight of Algiers, they take down the flags they have been flying—some of which are very ornate and worth more than a thousand or twelve hundred livres—and also anything else that could mark them for what they are: corsairs from Algiers. Then, in place of the flags they have removed, they sport those of France or Spain, or of whichever county they wish, in order to fool Christians about the true nature of their ship and so as to not appear frightening. No matter how much they try to disguise themselves, however, they are all too easily recognizable in the end—like the lion in the fable who tried to cover himself with a lambskin, but whose clawed foot stuck out, revealing him for the vicious creature he was.
When Christian merchants realize they are confronted by a corsair vessel, they seek by all means imaginable to flee. The corsairs then give chase, but only if the Christian ship is weaker than theirs, or if they are two or three ships against one, or at least some great ship against a very small one. Then they attack. These infamous pirates will only fight if they feel they have a great advantage. They have learned caution, having often experienced what Christians are worth when defending their ships, especially when the Christians have resolved to preserve themselves. As long as such men have ammunition, they fear no ship-to-ship confrontation—especially , the French and the English.
It is a frightful thing to see how furious these corsairs are when they attack a ship. They appear at first on the deck, their sleeves rolled up to their elbows, scimitars in their hands, screaming frightfully to reduce the courage of those who hear them. Maintaining this intimidating front, they command the ship they have cornered to surrender to them—unless the guns aboard that ship persuade them to change their resolution.
The corsairs do not trust the Christian slaves aboard their own ships. These are mostly sailors who manage the vessel, for the corsairs of Barbary know very little about sailing. Their gunners, too, are almost all renegades. Because of the corsairs’ mistrust of these slaves, they chain these Christians up before any fighting begins, shackling their hands and their feet to large iron bars. In this way, they make sure that such slaves cannot revolt against them during the fray.
Once the corsairs make themselves masters of a ship they have attacked, they immediately remove the Christians, and send them, or take them themselves, to the ports of their cities, putting Turks in their place aboard the captured ship.
Some Christian ships, however, put up such strong resistance that the corsairs fail to capture them. This can be confirmed by the example of a polacre [a kind of smallish sailing ship] out of Marseilles, named the Sainte Marie Bonaventure. This polacre, captained by Louis Croiset, was armed with six medium-sized cast iron cannons and two smaller pieces.
As the Sainte Marie Bonaventure was returning from Smyrna, in the Levant, not more than sixty miles distant from Marseilles, they were attacked by a large corsair ship of no less than twenty-five cannons.
To see how the Sainte Marie Bonaventure fared, and for more detail about Algiers corsairs, see the next part in this series of posts, Father Pierre Dan on Algerian Corsairs – Part 2.
For those who may be interested…
These details about corsairs come from from Book 3, Chapter 1 of Father Pierre Dan’s Histoire de Barbarie.
The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson
The story of the Barbary corsair raid on Iceland in 1627
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