NOTHING WAS SIMPLE – Corsairs & Captives

The relationship between the North African Barbary corsair states and European countries was, of course, an adversarial one. The borders between the two adversaries, however, were far from impermeable. People crossed over all the time: captives from both sides were taken and were ransomed and returned, or they escaped; members of the redemptive orders—the Mercedarians and the Trinitarians—visited North Africa regularly; a wide variety of merchants crossed the borders to conduct business; there were also official consuls and envoys from both sides who regularly crossed over.

The adversarial relationship itself was subject to change. Treaties came and went. One year, Algiers and the Netherlands might be at peace and would leave each other’s’ ships strictly alone. The next… they would be at war again. This sort of topsy-turvy relationship held true for most European countries.

In short… nothing was simple.

In 1623, an event occurred that illustrates just how not-simple things could get.

In the late fall of that year, several Barbary corsair ships entered the English Channel after running afoul of a bad storm. They limped into harbor at Veere, in the Netherlands, fully expecting that they would be offered shelter, for their home port and the Netherlands had entered into a treaty that guaranteed the inviolability of ships on both sides.

This—not surprisingly—presented a problem for the Dutch authorities.

Here are the details of the event as related in a contemporary seventeenth century Dutch source:

In November of the year 1623, there was a tremendous storm at sea that caused major damage to ships and goods. Because of this terrible storm, two Turkish pirate ships were forced to enter the English Channel and from there to the Heads near Veere in Zeeland. There they had to repair their badly damaged ships and get provisions, as they had nothing left. Their commander was a renegade, or a renounced Christian, from Haarlem. He had on his ship also some Dutch crew members.

It has to be remarked here that the pirates from Algiers, Tunis, Salé, and Tripoli had become so powerful because of the help provided them by captured Dutchmen, who crewed their pirate ships. These Dutchmen, partly because of their suffering, acquiesced to live according to the Turkish religion, but they were also lured by the large gains to be had. The worst is that they taught the Turkish pirates seamanship and sea combat.

The wife and children of the aforementioned renegade captain from Haarlem came to beseech him ardently to leave his ship and stay with them. This was also done by the parents of the rest of the Dutch crewmembers, but they would not change their minds. On the one hand, they were too embittered towards the Spaniards, on the other, too enamored with the loot they got.

The two Turkish pirate ships were in a bad and weak condition. The men aboard gathered themselves together onto one ship, which they equipped sufficiently. Some people of our country wanted to join them, but the government forbade them to do so. But some still managed to join them in secret anyway. However, the Turkish pirates lost some Spaniards who were their slaves. The Spaniards were hidden by some citizens out of compassion. The Turks found it very strange that the Zeelanders, who were bitter enemies of the Spanish, would free them from slavery. They called this a misguided compassion. They could not understand this behavior and claimed it was going against the treaty between their country and ours. They threatened to take revenge at some future time, robbing our ships and those of our allies and declaring them acceptable booty.

Towards the end of the year 1623, pirates from Tunis and Algiers had gone out against Spain with two fleets. Near Malaga, they captured three Dutch ships, loaded with raisins, figs and wine since, according to the treaty, Dutch ships could not do business with their enemies. The Turkish pirates which came to Veere had planned to be at the Spanish coast in the spring with seventy-two other ships, but the misfortune with the weather that we related in the beginning of this chapter overtook them.

Here is more on the Veere event from another contemporary Dutch source:

Having read aloud the missive from the Representative Councils at the Zeeland Admiralty received on the 15th of this month, and communicated to His Excellency pertaining to the two Turkish corsair ships now having entered Zeeland, it has been resolved to reply to the aforementioned Representative Councils that they employ all diligence that the two corsair ships take to the sea as soon as possible, in order to, as much as is possible, prevent and lessen scandal to the neighboring princes…

The States General find the idea of escorting the Turkish ships through the Heads near the Spanish Sea to be very questionable. If these Turkish ships want to attack any others, our escort ships would not be allowed to prevent them without being in danger of losing our contracts and incurring the risk of later being attacked by French or English ships. So we deem it better, and to be the least harmful, if the pirates take to the sea on their own, and that this should be hastened as much as is possible…

We would have found it a good tactic to have the Algerian ships sunk by one of the war ships in the Heads, under Spanish flag, so that no reports of that would reach Barbary. It would serve that scum right.

The corsair ships refitted and sailed out of Veere in the early spring of 1624. On their way back to the Mediterranean, they attacked and captured some French ships. This, nor surprisingly, began an acrimonious row between the French government and the government of the Republic of the Netherlands, with the French accusing the Dutch of aiding and abetting the corsairs.

Such was the not-so-simple state of affairs in the world at the time.

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For those who may be interested….

The first excerpt above comes from pages 57-59 in Historie van barbaryen, en des zelfs zee-roovers (The History of Barbary and its sea pirates), which can be found in

Simon de Vries, Handelingen en geschiedenissen voorgevallen tusschen den staet der vereenighde Nederlanden en dien van de zee-roovers in barbaryen … van 1590 tot 1684 (Acts and Histories Befalling the State of the United Netherlands and those of the Pirates of Barbary, namely Algiers, Tunis, Salé, and Tripoli… from the year 1590 to 1684), published in 1684.

The second series of extracts comes from K. Heeringa, ed., Bronnen tot de geschiedenis van den levantschen handel 1590-1896 (Sources to the History of Levant Trade 1590-1896), Volume 2, published in 1910, pp. 915, 916, and 980 respectively.

To my knowledge, this is the first time any of these extracts have been translated in full into English. I would like to thank Wijnie de Groot for her work on the translation.