We ended last year (2023) with a description of early seventeenth century Algiers written by Jean-Baptiste Gramaye, the Flemish academic who was a captive in Algiers in the summer of 1619. I thought we could begin the new year (happy New Year one and all!) with an account of the history of Algiers provided by Father Pierre Dan in his book, Histoire de Barbarie (the second edition, published in 1649).
I’ve posted a number of extracts from Histoire de Barbarie over the years in this blog. Father Dan was, remember, a Trinitarian friar.
There were two famous Catholic religious orders founded specifically for the redeeming—the ransoming—of captives held in North Africa: the Order of Our Lady of Mercy for the Redemption of Captives (Ordo Beatae Mariae de Mercede redemptionis captivorum), known as the Mercedarians, and the Order of the Most Holy Trinity and of the Captives (Ordo Sanctissimae Trinitatis et captivorum), known as the Trinitarians. These orders raised large sums of money—from private, corporate, governmental, and royal donors—and then organized ransoming expeditions to various cities in North Africa and bought the freedom of anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred enslaved Catholics at a time.
In the early 1630s, the redoubtable Cardinal Richelieu, the French King Louis XIII’s chief minister at the time, wanted to stem the hemorrhaging of ships and sailors resulting from the continued depredations of the Algerine corsairs. In the summer of 1634, he sent Sanson Le Page, First Herald of the Armies of France, to Algiers to negotiate a treaty.
Richelieu also wanted to redeem the hundreds of French slaves in Algiers. Father Pierre Dan led this aspect of the mission.
The whole thing was a disaster, and the expedition returned home empty handed, having neither negotiated a treaty nor freed any French slaves. That failure was mitigated somewhat, however, when Father Dan and his Trinitarian brethren ransomed some forty French slaves from Tunis.
After this, Father Dan was appointed Father Superior at Fontainebleau, the Trinitarian order’s headquarters located in the Royal Château just outside Paris. There, he settled in to write Histoire de Barbarie, a remarkable book filled with an amazing wealth of detail about Barbary corsairs and North Africa—including the detailed history of Algiers excerpted below.
To my knowledge, Father Dan’s text has never been translated into English before. So here, for the first time in English, is Father Pierre Dan’s history of Algiers.
Abuferiz, powerful King of Tunis, having conquered the city of Bougie, and by the right he had, and by force of arms, wanted to gratify Abdala Haziz, the youngest of his children. For this purpose, he transformed the province of Bougie into a Kingdom by means of some other adjacent land that was annexed to it.
After the death of his father, the new King [Abdala Haziz], wishing to expand the limits of his State, and by an excess of ambition, manufactured a difference of opinion over some land, which became his excuse for taking up arms against the King of Tremecen. Abdala Haziz declared himself against the King of Tremecen, and the matter went so far that the citizens of Algiers, a city which is not far from Bougie, and that depended on the city of Tremecen, found themselves beset by this new King’s violent and unwelcome depredations.
The Algerines either had more passion for their personal interests than for those of their legitimate King, or they believed their King not strong enough to defend them, for these people and some of their neighbors established an agreement with Abdala Haziz, on condition that, by paying to him every year, out of gratitude, a certain tribute which they would agree upon, they would remain free in the future and could establish themselves together as a Republic.
Things continued this way until the year 1510, when Count Pierre Navarre, having become master of the cities of Oran and Bougie on behalf of Ferdinand, King of Spain, so terrified the people of Algiers that, because of their apprehension, they fell within his power. Not believing they were strong enough to secure their city and their freedom, they voluntarily submitted to Selim Eutemi. This greatly powerful Moor, who was Shiek and Prince of the Arabs who were residents of Mutijar, an extensive area of land near Algiers, took the Algerines under his protection and maintained the peace during the course of several years.
However, following the ordinary vicissitudes of states and of the things of the Earth, the city of Algiers and all its surroundings came under the domination of the Turkish Empire by means of Aruch Barbarossa.
Even before this change happened, however, these barbarians, who were already practiced at being corsairs with some brigantines [galleys] they had, continued their plundering, attracting by their example many Moors from Spain living on the Barbary Coast, especially after Ferdinand had conquered the Kingdom of Granada, which occurred in the year 1492.
A short time later, King Ferdinand, who apparently saw the great damage done to his subjects by the city of Algiers and its corsairs, who kept pillaging the nearby islands, mainly those of Majorque, Minorque, and Levisse [the Balearic Islands], finally resolved to dislodge these birds of prey, or at least reduce them to such a degree that they could not, in the future, attack any further, nor continue their pillaging, or, if so, only with great difficulty.
For this purpose, he once again sent the same Pierre Navarre, with a powerful army, against the city of Algiers. Seeing itself so strongly pressed, Algiers bowed under the yoke of Ferdinand, with the consent of Sheik Selim, and promised to pay Ferdinand, as homage, a certain tribute every year, and agreed not to go corsairing at sea in future. However, because Ferdinand knew full well that, unless they were prevented by some powerful obstacle, the Algerines would not abandon their piratical occupation, he had a fortress built in Algiers on a small island where nowadays is located the port, and he put about two hundred men in garrison there, with much ammunition and food.
These barbarians, constrained by force of arms, were unable for some time to cause any trouble to trade or to disturb Christians. But death, which does not spare kings’ scepters nor shepherds’ crooks, took Ferdinand from the world, which happened in the year 1516. Those infamous robbers then resumed their previous course, and, like the infidels they were, they did not keep the oath which they had solemnly given to a king on whom they were dependent. On the contrary, seeing that his death presented them with a favorable opportunity to throw off the yoke of the Christians, they sent an envoy to Aruch Barbarossa, of whom we have spoken above.
Aruch Barbarossa, who was Greek, became a renegade Turk, gained great wealth as a sea-going pirate, and won the title of the most dreaded corsair of his time. When Algiers sent out people to find him, he was in small town called Gigery, located one hundred and eighty miles from Algiers, where there is a good port. The Algerines petitioned him to amass his ships and all his forces and to come and liberate them from the power of the Christians, with the promise that if he did them this favor, they would recompense him very well.
Barbarossa was perfectly agreeable to this request, which seemed to him the best opportunity he had ever had to achieve his designs and to satisfy the secret ambition that he had to become Sovereign of Algiers. He allowed himself to be easily swayed by the prayers of these people and promised them willingly any kind of assistance.
After having armed six galleys that he had, in which he placed five hundred native-born Turks, and with a few other corsair ships, all Mohammedan, who had come to see him in Gigery as friends and who provided him with more men and money, he ordered their departure. With these forces, to which he added three thousand Moors from the city of Gigery, who recognized him as their Prince and were his subjects, whom he sent overland along with three hundred Turks, he came to Algiers, whose inhabitants received him with applause and gave him the same good reception they gave their Sheik, Selim Eutemi.
The first thing Aruch Barbarossa did upon his arrival was to attack with all his cannon the small fortress that the Spaniards had built. After that—only a few days after, it seemed—for ambition is such a cruel tyrant and so powerful that neither courtesies nor beneficence had enough charm to prevent these tragic and bloody acts, this faithless Prince Aruch Barbarossa conspired against Selim Eutemi. The Sheik had accommodated Barbarossa in his palace, giving infallible proof of his benevolence by the good treatment he offered. But when the opportunity to discard him was presented, Barbarossa did not pass it up, and he strangled Selim Eutemi in a bath, where, according to the Mohammedan tradition, Selim was washing himself before going to pray.
The news of this sudden death spread throughout the whole city. The inhabitants did not know who to blame. Although Barbarossa was the perpetrator, he nonetheless acted as if he were dismayed and protested that he wanted revenge. As it happened, his people were the strongest in the city, and they proclaim him King of Algiers. They persevered so hard in this that the local Moors did not dare to oppose them, and so they were forced to recognize Barbarossa and proclaim him their sovereign in the year of our Lord 1516. This is how the reign of Sheik Selim ended.
For the next installment of Father Dan’s history of 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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