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Barbary Coast

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"Barbary" redirects here. For other uses, see Barbary (disambiguation) and Barbary Coast (disambiguation).
Not to be confused with Barbaria (region).
A 17th-century map by the Dutch cartographer Jan Janssonius showing the Barbary Coast, here "Barbaria"

The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) was the name given to the coastal regions of central and western North Africa. More specifically, the name refers to the Maghreb and the Ottoman borderlands consisting of the regencies in Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, as well as the Sultanate of Morocco from the 16th to 19th centuries.[1][2][3] The term originates from an exonym for the Berbers.[4][5]

Political Diversity

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Ex-voto of a naval battle between a Turkish ship from Algiers (front) and a ship of the Order of Malta under Langon, 1719

Barbary was not always a unified political entity. From the 16th century onward, it was divided into four political entities—from west to east—the Alawi Sultanate, the Regency of Algiers, the Regency of Tunis, and the Regency of Tripoli. Major rulers and petty monarchs during the times of the Barbary states' plundering parties included the sultan of Morocco, the dey of Algiers, bey of Tunis, and pasha of Tripoli, respectively.[6]

Role of Slavery

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Purchase of Christian captives in the Barbary states

The slave trade was not just an economic lifeline to the Barbary States, but was often justified as a form of jihad against Christian states. Although mainly captives from sea piracy and coastal raiding around the Mediterranean,[7][8] [9] there were also Atlantic raids as far as Iceland.

The Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean was the scene of intense piracy.[10] As late as the 18th century, piracy continued to be a "consistent threat to maritime traffic in the Aegean".[11] Slaving came to an end in the early years in the 1830s after the French conquest of Algeria.[12][13]

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In 1625, the pirate fleet of Algiers, by far the largest, numbered 100 ships of various sizes, carrying 8,000 to 10,000 men. The corsair industry alone accounted for 25 percent of the workforce of the city, not counting other activities of the port. The fleet only averaged 25 ships in the 1680s, but these were larger vessels than had been used since the 1620s, so the fleet still employed some 7,000 men. In addition, 2,500 men manned the pirate fleet of Tripoli, 3,000 in Tunis, and several thousand more in the various minor pirate bases such as Bona, Susa, Bizerta, and Salé. The corsairs were not solely natives of the cities where they were based; while many were Arabs and Berbers, there were also Turks, Greeks, Albanians, Syrians, and renegade Italians, especially Corsicans, among their number.[14]

Conflict with Western Powers

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Spain

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When the fall of Granada completed the Reconquista in Iberia, Ferdinand II launched campaigns to curb Barbary piracy, taking North African cities including Melilla,[15] and Charles V installed his vassal Muley Hacen in Tunis,[16] though much of the Mediterranean under Ottoman influence until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. In the 17th century, Barbary pirates, now including expelled Moriscos adopted European naval tactics most notably in the Republic of Salé whose Moriscos’ exploited their familiarity with Spanish shores to raid the Spanish Levante in the 17th century. From 1617 onward, pirate raids targeted the northwest of Spain (Galicia), prompting the formation of a Spanish fleet around 1621 to defend against Barbary corsairs and the Dutch, albeit with limited success.[17]

United States

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The United States fought the Barbary Wars from 1801 to 1805 with some of the Barbary states[18] leading to the Battle of Derna the first overseas military land action of the United States and inspiring the opening line of the Marines' Hymn "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli...".[19] The Second Barbary War ended with an agreement that American ships had free passage without the need to pay tribute.[20]

References

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  1. ^ Ben Rejeb, Lotfi (2012). "'The general belief of the world': Barbary as genre and discourse in Mediterranean history". European Review of History: Revue européenne d'histoire. 19 (1): 15. doi:10.1080/13507486.2012.643607. S2CID 159990075.
  2. ^ Hinz, Almut (2006). "Die "Seeräuberei der Barbareskenstaaten" im Lichte des europäischen und islamischen Völkerrechts". Verfassung und Recht in Übersee / Law and Politics in Africa, Asia and Latin America. 39 (1): 46–65. JSTOR 43239304.
  3. ^ The Department of State bulletin. 1939. p. 3.
  4. ^ "Barbary | historical region, Africa". Britannica. Retrieved 2021-12-14.
  5. ^ Murray, Hugh (1841). The Encyclopædia of Geography: Comprising a Complete Description of the Earth, Physical, Statistical, Civil, and Political. Lea and Blanchard.
  6. ^ Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Barbary Pirates" . Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 3 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 383–384.
  7. ^ Graf, Tobias P. (2017). The Sultan's Renegades: Christian-European Converts to Islam and the Making of the Ottoman Elite, 1575–1610. Oxford University Press. p. 74. ISBN 978-0-19-879143-0.
  8. ^ Malcolm, Noel (2015). Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the Sixteenth-century Mediterranean World. Oxford University Press. p. 208. ISBN 978-0-19-026278-5.
  9. ^ "When Europeans Were Slaves: Research Suggests White Slavery Was Much More Common Than Previously Believed", Ohio State University
  10. ^ Bradford, Ernle (1968). Sultan's Admiral. the Life of Barbarossa (First ed.). Harcourt Brace World.
  11. ^ Ginio, Eyal (2001). "Piracy and Redemption in the Aegean Sea during the First Half of the Eighteenth Century". Turcica. 33: 135–147. doi:10.2143/TURC.33.0.484. consistent threat to maritime traffic in the Aegean
  12. ^ Ellis, Chris. "Research Guides: Battle Studies, Country Studies, & Staff Rides: Barbary Wars & the Battle of Tripoli". grc-usmcu.libguides.com. Retrieved 2025-03-05.
  13. ^ Sessions, Jennifer E. (2011). By Sword and Plow: France and the Conquest of Algeria (1 ed.). Cornell University Press. doi:10.7591/j.ctt20fw60j. ISBN 978-0-8014-5652-7.
  14. ^ Gregory Hanlon. "The Twilight Of A Military Tradition: Italian Aristocrats And European Conflicts, 1560-1800." Routledge: 1997. Pages 27–28.
  15. ^ Guerra en el norte de África
  16. ^ CORSARIOS O REYES. De la saga de los Barbarroja a Miguel de Cervantes.
  17. ^ After Lepanto: Turkish and Barbary corsairs on the coasts of Galicia in the seventeenth century
  18. ^ U.S. Department of State. (November 2, 2024). "Barbary Wars". U.S. Department of State, Office Of The Historian.
  19. ^ U.S. Marines attacked Derna, Tripoli, Naval History and Heritage Command
  20. ^ "The Second Barbary War: The Algerine War". UM Clements Library. Retrieved 2025-03-05.
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