Dark Side History: The Barbary Pirates in the North Atlantic! (16-18th cent.)

The barbary pirates, coming from the coasts of north Africa, were highly organized fleets that raided almost all of the settlements along the Mediterranean Sea, but what is less known is that they also raided settlements in the North Atlantic sea too, going as far as Iceland in 1627. This video is about these barbary pirates and their raids in the North Atlantic, which mostly occurred in between the 16th & 18th centuries.
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Other videos of interest:
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This video is part of the dark side history series: • Dark Side History
And can also be seen in the all history playlist: • All history
Also, this video is part of the videos connected to Middle Eastern, North African and "Islamic" history • Middle Eastern & "Isla...
Sources and further reading:
Auchterlonie, P. (2012). Encountering Islam: Joseph Pitts: An English Slave in 17th-century Algiers and Mecca. Storbritannien: Arabian Publishing.
Barbary Captives: An Anthology of Early Modern Slave Memoirs by Europeans in North Africa. (2022). USA: Columbia University Press.
Berg, Marcus, Svensk slav i Marocko: en bearbetning av Beskrifning öfwer barbariska slafweriet uti Fez och Marocco i korthet författad af Marcus Berg, den 30 augusti 1756, Textab, Arboga, 1993
Boulton, C. (2019). Five Million Tides: A Biography of the Helford River. Storbritannien: History Press.Capp, B. (2022). British Slaves and Barbary Corsairs, 1580-1750. Storbritannien: OUP Oxford.
Callow, John (2017-01-02). "British captives and slaves in North Africa". The Seventeenth Century. 32 (1): 103-107.
Davis, R. C. (2001). Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast. Past & Present, 172, 87-124.
Davis, Robert C., 2003, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, The Barbary Coast, and Italy, 1500-1800. Palgrave Macmillan, New York.
Davis, Robert, , "British Slaves on the Barbary Coast", BBC, 1 July 2003
Egilsson, Ólafur (1741). En kort Beretning Om De Tyrkiske Søe-Røveres onde Medfart og Omgang, da de kom til Island i Aaret 1627, og der borttoge over 300 Mennesker, ihjelsloge mange, og paa tyrannisk Maade ilde medhandlede dem : sammenskreven af Præsten Oluf Eigilssen, som tillige blev ført derfra til Algier, og 1628 kom tilbage igien.
Egilsson, Ólafur (1852). Lítil saga umm herhlaup Tyrkjans á Íslandi árið 1627. Edited by Hallvarður Hængsson and Hrærekur Hrólfsson. Reykjavík.
Egilsson, Ólafur (2016). The Travels of Reverend Ólafur Egilsson: The Story of the Barbary Corsair Raid on Iceland in 1627. Translated from the original Icelandic text and edited by Karl Smári Hreinsson and Adam Nichols. Washington, D.C.: Catholic University of America Press.
Ginio, Eyal (2001). "Piracy and Redemption in the Aegean Sea during the First Half of the Eighteenth Century". Turcica. 33: 135-147.
Grimberg, Carl. ”569 (Svenska folkets underbara öden / V. Karl XII:s tid från 1710 samt den äldre frihetstiden 1709-1739)”.
Jamieson, A. G. (2012). Lords of the sea: a history of the Barbary corsairs. London: Reaktion
Kristjánsdóttir, Dagný (2013). "Tyrkjaránið og Guðríður Símonardóttir sem blæti". Ritið. 13 (3): 27-46.
Kreüger, Johan Henrik, 1856, Sveriges förhållanden till barbaresk staterna i Afrika, Norstedt, Stockholm
Magnusson, Sally (2018). The Sealwoman's Gift. London: Two Roads.-
Personal experience working with diplomatic manuscripts & slave sale contracts & lists of slaves in the barbary states in connection to barbary piracy & Swedish diplomatic missions
Schwarz, S. (2014). Ransoming Practices and “Barbary Coast” Slavery: Negotiations Relating to Liverpool Slave Traders in the Late Eighteenth Century. African Economic History, 42, 59-85.
Þorsteinn Helgason, The Corsairs’ Longest Voyage: The Turkish Raid in Iceland 1627 (Boston MA: BrillVon
Schierbrand, Wolf (March 28, 1886). "Slaves sold to the Turk; How the vile traffic is still carried on in the East. Sights our correspondent saw for twenty dollars--in the house of a grand old Turk of a dealer"
Östlund, J. (2014). Saltets pris: svenska slavar i Nordafrika och handeln i Medelhavet 1650-1770. Sverige: Nordic Academic Press.
Östlund, J., 2022, Barbary Captives: An Anthology of Early Modern Slave Memoirs by Europeans in North Africa. Klarer, M. (red.). Columbia University Press, s. 281-306
#babary #pirates #African #Barbarypirates #barbary #History,#Barbary_pirates #northatlantic

[@theculturedjinni]

I hope you liked this video introducing these Barbary Pirates. Please, don't be afraid to comment or voice any questions as I love interacting with you my dear viewers and I will try to respond as quickly as possible to you (though currently due to internet issues this might take a while). Also, please like, subscribe & push the bell icon as those actions do help this channel to grow!

[@thehistoriographer]

Video Idea: Tripoli raid

[@theculturedjinni]

The question is then, which one?😄 There has been a few.

[@dk2.026]

Were there many Sephardic Jews among the Barbary Pirates?

[@theculturedjinni]

I am going to be honest when I say I actually do not know how common it was, but one of the reasons why Henrik Azzeveda was chosen by the Swedish crown was due to the fact that he did have contacts among several of the Barbary fleets and political entities, which at the very least implies that Sephardic Jews were not outsiders to that world. I do know that some of the Barbary pirates at times actually allied with certain christian groups and political entities in Europe against their other enemies and even fought together, and allowing Jews to participate would not be out of the question either. The slavery & raiding despite being dressed up in a lot of religious justification was at the end mostly a matter of economics, hence a lot of pragmatism existed within it, which would allow Sepherdic jews, or anyone else, a place there. I just don't know if it was common or not for Sephardic Jews to participate.

[@dk2.026]

@@theculturedjinni There were some famous Jewish Barbary Pirates of Sephardic background that operated alongside the Muslims. I believe most of them held great contempt for the Christians after being expelled from their homeland in Iberia during the brutal Spanish Inquisition. Working with the pirates and raiding Christian lands was a way to exact revenge. But generally speaking, Jews at the time preferred working with Muslims over Christians.

[@theculturedjinni]

@@dk2.026 👍 Sinan Rayyis was one such person, and yes at this time generally there would be a lot of resentment towards particularly the Spanish crown. This was not an aspect that I ever focused upon in my studies of the Barbary pirates, but I might dig deeper into this for future videos.

[@dk2.026]

@@theculturedjinni Perhaps Jewish involvement in the Barbary Piracy would make for a whole video on its own. It will really be dark side history due to its understudied nature. Jews had nowhere else to go except in Islamic lands in North Africa with the rest of the expelled Muslims of Iberia. They suffered just as much at the hands of the Spanish crown as Muslims, so it would be natural they'd find piracy against Christians appealing.

[@theculturedjinni]

@@dk2.026 Yes indeed 100%.

[@MrGriguta]

Maghrebis at their best!

[@theculturedjinni]

👍You gotta admit that they were pretty good at what they were doing, it took a lot of skill to sail around like they did in enemy waters and do these raids.