THE BARBARY CORSAIR RAID ON HEIMAEY IN 1627 – PART 3

(This post is a continuation of The Barbary Corsair Raid on Heimaey in 1627– Parts 1 & 2. If you haven’t done so already, it’s best to read that post before continuing on here.)

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

Barbary corsairs knew—from long experience—how to effectively conduct inland raids, especially against islands. Such raids were essentially military operations, and like all military operations, to be successful they needed both a competent commander and an efficient chain of command. This applied especially to the larger raids where the movements of hundreds (or even thousands) of men had to be coordinated.

The Algerine corsairs who raided Heimaey clearly had such a competent commander.

There is some confusion about the two raids on Iceland, and they are frequently described as a single attack led by Murad Reis, the (in)famous Admiral of Salé. The Icelandic texts make it perfectly clear, however, that there were two separate raids led by two separate commanders. They also clearly name and identify those commanders: Murad Reis (the Icelandic texts render the name as “Amórað Reis”), leader of the corsairs from Salé, and Murate Flamenco (the Icelandic texts render the name as “Mórað Flaming”), leader of the corsairs from Algiers.

Murate Flamenco was one of the foremost Algerine corsair captains. He was a Dutchman by origin, and like his compatriot Murad Reis, Murate Flamenco had been a Dutch privateer who turned rogue for one reason or another and made his way to Algiers—part of an influx of Dutch ex-privateers—to take up a new life there as a Muslim corsair. It was, in fact, quite common during this period for corsair captains to be European renegades.

Murate Flamenco was audacious enough to attempt the raid on Iceland, seaman enough to make the voyage successfully, and tactician enough to keep several hundred men functioning in organized units under chaotic conditions. In the East Fjords, his men hunted with systematic precision for more than a week, taking over 100 captives and suffering no damage or casualties themselves.

Murate Flamenco was also, it seems, an absolutely iron willed and ruthless man. Tyrkjaráns-Saga (The Turkish Raid Saga), the Icelandic source that identifies him as the leader of the Algiers corsairs, refers to him as “that soul ripper named Mórað Flaming.” In another section, this same source says this about him: “The most soul-hungry and blood-thirsty of the corsair captains is that poisonous dragon, Mórað Flaming, may his soul rot in hell.”

So this was the man who loosed two to three hundred corsairs on the defenseless inhabitants of Heimaey.

It may seem a bit surprising that he had so many men at his disposal, but Barbary corsair ships carried very large crews, both for the sheer “shock and awe” value—imagine seeing a Barbary corsair ship approaching you with its decks absolutely seething with howling, heavily armed corsairs—and to provide overwhelming force if it came to a fight.

Much of the time, though, fighting proved unnecessary; the mere sight of such a massive show of armed might was enough to prompt surrender.

Murate Flamenco had two well-equipped, well-crewed, seaworthy vessels, with a total of something like 300 men. During the attack, he would have left the smallest crews possible aboard his ships—to maintain them and guard the more than a hundred captives already taken—and put as many men as he could ashore so as to form an overwhelming force that would sweep across the island like a tsunami.

It was an organized tsunami, though. Murate Flamenco—good tactician that he was—divided his men into three groups, sending one up the east side of the island, one up the west side, and the third up the middle.

They must have been a fearsome sight indeed, a horde of a hundred or more men rushing forwards in a mass, bristling with weapons, brandishing red banners above their heads, howling like mad things.

The group of corsairs that had been sent up the middle of Heimaey were a hundred and fifty strong. They had hustled northwards from the beach at Brimuð, snatching anybody they could, driving people and livestock before them. Their route took them past the island’s church—the Landakirkja.

The church was a large, solid building, the only building on the island entirely constructed of wood. The corsairs fired their muskets at its planked walls and hacked at the door with axes until they had smashed a way through and spilled inside. They then looted the place, taking anything of value they could. Some of the corsairs dressed themselves up in the vestments that lay draped across the church’s altar and pranced about, ridiculing Christian rituals. These were no doubt renegades—Christians who had converted to Islam. Such men were notorious for the aggressive vigour with which they persecuted their erstwhile coreligionists (more on renegades later).

Having despoiled the church, this band of corsairs continued on, making quick detours to capture any islanders they saw but moving steadily northwards towards the harbor. They must have been a violent bunch, for one contemporary report says, “Those who could not move as fast as the pirates wished, they beat to death and left lying behind. So bloodthirsty were they, that they turned back to hack and strike the dead for the sick pleasure of it.”

As these corsairs was making their way to the harbor at the island’s north end, driving their captives ahead of them, the group quartering the west side of the island was having its own violent success.

For more on the Barbary corsair attack on the island of Heimaey, see the next post in this series here in this blog.