The city of Algiers wasn’t always a powerful corsair capital. In fact, it wasn’t a particularly important city at all until the early-middle 1500s. Algiers emerged as a corsair capital in large part because of the Spanish.
In 1492, the Spanish vanquished Grenada, the last remaining Muslim kingdom in Spain. As a result, a flood of Spanish Muslim refugees spread across North Africa—bent on revenge. The Spanish figured it was best to take the fight to them in order to ensure that the Spanish homeland wasn’t attacked. So they launched a series of expeditions to pacify North Africa.
If this sounds a little familiar… it ought to.
Just as the American attempt to pacify Afghanistan and Iraq in the early years of this century (in hopes of keeping the American homeland safe) created blowback—increased Taliban influence, the emergence of Al-Qaida in Iraq, ISIS—so the Spanish invasions of North Africa did the same: Barbary corsairs in general, and Algiers in particular, emerged as a response to the Spanish. And just as Americans faced famous adversaries in our own time—Osama bin Laden, Mullah Mohammed Omar, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi—so the Spanish faced famous adversaries back in the sixteenth century: the (in)famous Barbarossa brothers, Arūj and Khiḍr.
Father Pierre Dan tells this story of Spanish incursions and North African blowback in his Histoire de Barbarie. Here is his account.
In the year 1510, the 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 a Sheik and Prince of the Arabs who were residents of Mutijar, an extensive area of land near Algiers, took the Algerians under his protection and maintained the peace with the Spanish during the course of several years. However, following the ordinary vicissitudes of States and 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, though, these barbarians, who were already practiced at being corsairs with some brigantines they had, continued their plundering, attracting by their example many Moors from Spain now living on the Barbary Coast, especially after Ferdinand had conquered the Muslim 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, 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 Xeque Selim, and promised to pay Ferdinand, as homage, a certain tribute every year, and agreed to not go corsairing at sea in future. However, because Ferdinand knew full well that, unless they were prevented by some powerful obstacle, the Algerians 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 save 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, or Hariaden, Barbarossa, of which 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, where there is a good port, located one hundred and eighty miles from Algiers. The Algerians 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 more men and money, he ordered their departure. With these forces, to which he added those of the city of Gigery, that recognized him as their Prince, consisting of three thousand Moors who were his subjects and whom he sent overland, combined with another 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 due to 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 noise 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.
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For the next installment of Father Dan’s history of Algiers see Father Pierre Dan on the History of Algiers – Part 2.
For those who may be interested…
Father Dan’s account of the history of Algiers comes from Book 2, Chapter 1 of Histoire de Barbarie. As with the other extracts from Histoire de Barbarie in this blog, I translated the above directly from the original seventeenth century French text.
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