THE BARBARY CORSAIR RAID ON HEIMAEY IN 1627 – PART 6

(This post is a continuation of The Barbary Corsair Raid on Heimaey in 1627– Parts 1 through 5. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read those posts before continuing on here.)

This week, we conclude the story of the Barbary corsair attack on the island of Heimaey, taken from Stolen Lives, the book my Icelandic colleague, Karl Smári Hreinsson, and I published last year.

---

Towards the middle of the first day of the raid, as droves of new captives were being continually herded into the harbor, the wind changed, and the corsair ships were able to sail straight into the port—which was no longer defended. By this time, the corsairs had brought in so many captives that they were running out of room in the Danish houses, and dazed islanders were milling about on the flagstones in front of them.

It was time to start loading captives aboard the ships.

The first step was to sort through the mass of islanders to see which ones would fetch the best prices at auction in the Badestan—the Algiers slave market. The young, the fit, and the beautiful were the first choice, especially young women and boys (we will look more at this in the chapter dealing with what happened after the captives arrived in Algiers).

Murate Flamenco and the Bölükbaşı (the Captain) of the janissaries had the captives paraded before them and began making selections. The Heimaey islanders were in general a fit bunch—the weak had been culled by the rigors of Icelandic living—and they quickly began to fill up the boats that would row them out to the corsair ships.

As this was happening, Reverend Ólafur Egilsson went down on his knees before Murate Flamenco and begged for mercy on behalf of the islanders. The corsair commander was not the sort of man to be swayed by such supplication, and the only result was that he irritably dismissed Reverend Ólafur as being too old and infirm to bring a worthwhile price at the Badestan and said he would leave the Reverend behind.

When Ásta, the Reverend’s young, pregnant wife heard this, she begged him not to abandon her. He swore he would not, and that he would share in whatever fate befell her. As a result, they and their children were all loaded together aboard the next available boat and rowed out to Murate Flamenco’s ship—the largest of the three corsair vessels—where it lay at anchor out in the deepest part of the harbor.

This ship already housed a mass of captives from the East Fjords, who had been kept chained down in the ship’s hold for several days with nothing to eat. When the Heimaey islanders were brought onboard, the captives from east Iceland were loosed from their chains, and the two groups were given food and water and permitted to mingle.

At this point, Reverend Ólafur Egilsson was called to the back end of the ship. The Reverend must have impressed Murate Flamenco as a man of standing on the island, for the corsair commander singled him out for special treatment.

Barbary corsairs trafficked in human beings in order to make a profit, but they were interested in more than just captives. They wanted booty as well. It was standard practice at this point in a raid to single out a few of the most important captives for interrogation—to ask them about any local money or treasure that might exist. So Murate Flamenco, who had returned to his ship, called Reverend Ólafur to the stern, where he stood waiting.

Here is Reverend Ólafur’s account of what happened:

__________

I was called to the stern of the ship and commanded by the pirate Captain to sit down. At once, two of the Turks took my hands and bound them tightly together while others bound my feet. The Captain then beat me, striking and kicking me along my back while I screamed helplessly with the pain of it. I do not know how many blows he gave me, but he beat me as hard as he could until I was too hoarse to scream any longer. Then a man was brought forward who spoke German. He asked me if I knew about any money that might be anywhere. I said forcefully that I knew of none, and that I wanted only that they beat me to death quickly and have done. They left me alone then, raised me up, and ordered me back to the bow of the ship. I could hardly stand or walk, so badly had they hurt me.

__________

There was certainly no hidden treasure anywhere on Heimaey—the islanders were far too poor for that. The corsairs must have accepted this, for they did not waste time or energy interrogating anybody else. Instead, they focused on ferrying captives out to their ships.

By the end of that first day of the raid, as the bright northern daylight ebbed and the twilight that passed for summer night descended, there were a hundred and fifty or more miserable, terrified people—men, women, and children—either crammed into the Danish houses or loaded aboard the ships in the harbor.

For the Algerine corsairs, that first day had been a complete triumph.

They spent the next day—Wednesday, July 18—quartering the island hunting for more captives.

As one Icelandic chronicler of the raid put it: “The Turks searched in every corner and in every hole. They rooted about everywhere, like boars.” The day before, they had burned the Landakirkja church—the only wooden building on the island—to the ground. Now, they set out to finish the job, and as they roamed the island, they torched every building they could.

According to Reverend Ólafur, by the end of this second day, the corsairs had captured a total of two hundred and forty-two people and murdered thirty-four. Also according to Reverend Ólafur, the violence that had so marked the assault on the island ceased once the captives were brought aboard the corsair ships:

__________

But so that you, honest reader, should know the truth, I must say that after the people came aboard the ship at this time, the pirates did not annoy anyone except me but behaved well towards them all, and they were even kind to the children—though this does not make the story any happier.

__________

By the morning of the third day—Wednesday, July 19—the captives had all been packed into the corsair ships, and the raid was complete. Nobody had come to the Heimaey islanders’ rescue.

As in the East Fjords, Murate Flamenco, the corsair commander, had orchestrated a well-organized, efficient operation, with the corsairs suffering neither casualty nor injury. For the corsairs, the raid was a triumph—and a triumph that would bring them a great deal of money back in Algiers. As they prepared to depart for their home port, they must have been jubilant.

After unreefing the sails, they shot off nine cannons in celebration, joined their little fleet of ships together (they had managed to refit the Krab, the Danish merchant ship moored in the harbor, and make it seaworthy, despite Captain Thomasson’s efforts to scupper it), and set course for Algiers.

When the captive Icelanders aboard the corsair ships saw their homeland disappearing behind them, there was, in Reverend Ólafur’s words, “much wailing and lamentation.”

Their lives as they had known them were over.