FATHER PIERRE DAN ON SALÉ – Corsairs & Captives

Father Pierre Dan (born around 1580, died in 1649) was a French Trinitarian friar. The Trinitarians, a Catholic order originally founded at the end of the twelfth century, were dedicated to the ransoming of (Catholic) Christians held captive in North Africa. Father Dan, who held a Bachelor of Theology degree from the University of Paris, spent half a century with the Trinitarians, and became an important man within the order, serving as Minister Superior at the Trinitarians’ headquarters in Fontainebleau, France, for fourteen years.

In the summer of 1634, Father Dan took part in a diplomatic mission to Algiers, a mission personally overseen by no lesser an eminence than Cardinal Richelieu, King Louis XIII’s chief minister. The mission had two aims: to negotiate a proper treaty between France and Algiers and to ransom French captives held in Algiers. Father Dan coordinated the ransoming. Negotiations in Algiers broke down, however, and no captives were freed. Farther Dan then went on to Tunis in the autumn of that year, where, after several months, he was able to redeem some forty or so French captives. (See the two-part Father Pierre Dan and the 1634 Ransoming Expedition to Algiers posts in the Captives section (March 2018) of this blog for details of this expedition.)

Upon their return, the Trinitarians triumphantly paraded the captives ransomed from Tunis across France in a carefully choreographed, dramatic procession. Riding this success, Father Dan became Minister Superior at Fontainebleau.

As Minister Superior, Father Dan talked indefatigably with other friars returning from ransoming expeditions across North Africa as well as with the freed captives whom they brought with them. Relying on his own personal experience and on the testimony of the friars and captives, Father Dan spent the first couple of years after his return from North Africa composing a monumental book on North African corsairs: 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.

The information that Father Dan provides in Histoire de Barbarie is not always completely reliable. The only places in North Africa he actually visited were Algiers and Tunis, and he was only there for a few months. Nevertheless, through the combination of his own experience and that of the friars and the captives he interviewed, he managed to accumulate an encyclopedic knowledge of North Africa, and his book contains an incredible amount of specific—and mostly dependable—detail.

The excerpts below—translated from the original seventeenth century French and slightly abridged—are about Salé.

The ancient glory of the town of Salé, having for a long time been buried in its own ruins, caused by several wars of the country, has only recently been revived by the raiding and the brigandage of those who now inhabit it.

It owes this change to the disgraced Moriscos who were driven from Spain twenty-five years ago, who are otherwise called Andalusians, Grenadines, or Tagarins; for though long ago the town of Salé had some small corsair ships when it was entirely under the empire of the King of Morocco, the legitimate sovereign Prince who now takes the title of Emperor, their pirate activities were nevertheless so small as to be hardly spoken of, whereas the corsairs of Salé are no less famous now than any of the most formidable of Barbary pirates because of the large number of the corsair ships they have and for the situation of their harbor.

Salé is located only fifty leagues from the Straits of Gibraltar. This position allows them to easily ambush the merchant ships which constantly pass through there heading eastwards to the Levant and westwards out into the Atlantic Ocean.

Being native Spaniards and renegades, the inhabitants of Salé know the language and the country of Spain, where they often go in disguise to spy on ships that use the ports there. They know the countryside well, too, and they lead raids inland and take everything they can find from people along the coast.

Some say that the King of Spain’s motive in driving the Moriscos out of his country was to exterminate the race entirely, or to have them educated in the Christian religion so that they would forget the old errors of the Alcoran, and that he did not want to drive them to Africa and Barbary. But these same Moriscos, having settled in several cities and kingdoms of that country, have caused an infinity of evils to Christendom, for they have taught the infidels the use and manufacture of arms, together with several other trades, along with the geography and language of Spain, where they once lived.

Abdelrezzac, or Abdelmelec, Emperor of Morocco, to whom belonged the city of Salé, taking pity on some of these wretched Moriscos expelled from Spain, either in favor of his Mahometan religion, or that he thought them useful in his Kingdom, to teach the arts of their professions, allowed them to dwell in Salé, granting them the same graces and privileges that were customarily enjoyed by the natives of the country. The Moriscos lived in Salé for some time with the honor and obedience that true subjects owe to their Sovereign, but they later renounced their allegiance.

They had brought much wealth from Spain, and they bought a few ships and armed them as corsair vessels. With these ships, they began to hunt at sea, taking as their pretext at the beginning that it was only the Spaniards whom they wanted to harm, and that they sought only to avenge themselves for their wrongful banishment.

Under an appearance of commerce, and with the banner of Spain, which they would fly on their ships, they stole the property of others, always claiming to be Spanish—as indeed they were from birth and language. But after a time, having finally been recognized, they removed the mask they had worn and openly declared themselves pirates and enemies of all Christians.

At first, they paid tribute to the Emperor of Morocco, giving him ten per cent, either in captives or in goods. Yet these pernicious and cunning Moriscos, seeing themselves prosper, and not having abandoned their ambitions, sought the opportunity to shake off the yoke of their rightful Prince and, having found it, did not fail to execute, either by finesse or by force, the enterprise which they had secretly set upon. They made themselves masters of the Alcassave, the castle of Salé, and then of the city itself. That done, they disarmed the officers whom the Emperor of Morocco held there; and to have people of whom they could be assured, they summoned to their aid a number of other Moriscos, by whose aid they began to strengthen themselves, with the resolution of keeping their independence.

The city of Salé is quite well populated by Moors, natural Turks, and renegades. There are several beautiful mosques in the city, all around which are their cemeteries. They are all professors of Mahometanism, men and women, and dress in the Turkish custom, like those of the other cities of Barbary.

Salé’s income consists of the customs charges imposed on the goods which enter and leave the port and taxes on merchandise manufactured and sold in the city. They also receive a portion of all the prizes brought in by the corsairs, who must pay ten per cent to certain receivers, whom they call Recorders, to whom they render their account every three months.

Across the river from Salé is the city of Rabat, which is said to have been powerful formerly, and of great extent; but it is now in a bad state, and quite sparsely populated by Moors and Arabs, who are always quarreling with those of Salé, for they do not wish to recognize the Andalusians, holding them all for rebels and infidels.

Salé’s port is small, and is blocked by a sandbar created by the river Bou Regreg, which is very wide but shallow, having not more than a foot and a half of water, and flowing up against one side of the city walls. Being on the ocean, the ebb and flow of the tide brings in at certain hours as much as 11 or 12 feet of water, and then ships may sail into the port. But up to that time they must necessarily remain at the mouth of this river where it discharges into the sea—what is called the Salé bar.

Because of the shallow depth of this harbor, the Salé corsairs employ scarcely anything but light vessels such as carracks, pinnaces, or polacres. But what they lose on the one hand, having vessels that are not as formidable as those of Algiers and Tunis, they gain on the other, since their ships are quicker and lighter and better at the chase. They increase daily the number of ships of this sort, and now have more than thirty, whereas no more than fifteen years ago, they had but eight or ten.

For those who may be interested, the passages on Salé are taken from Chapters I and II of Livre Second, Relation Troisiesme (Second Book, Third Relation) of the 1649 edition of Father Pierre Dan’s Histoire de Barbarie.