Algiers in the Age of the Corsairs

Centers of Civilization

by William Spencer

The story of Algiers is one of the great paradoxes in the annals of western Mediterranean civilization. The city's origins were obscure, its history much like that of other towns in the region. But a thousand years of anonymity ended abruptly in the 1500's, when the city emerged as the dominant maritime power of the Barbary Coast.
It was one of the ports conquered by Spain after the Spaniards had freed themselves from Moorish rule in 1492. Among the Muslim sea captains who helped dislodge the Spaniards from North Africa were the two Barbarossa brothers-corsairs, pirates whose business was preying on shipping from Christian countries plying the Mediterranean.
In this book William Spencer tells how the Barbarossas gained control of Algiers, with permission to rule it as a dependency of the Ottoman Empire, and built it into a highly efficient city-state that prospered from its main business-piracy-and endured for more than three centuries.
The most important commodity taken by the corsairs was prisoners. Some were sold into slavery, but many were ransomed at a better price. The Western world shuddered at the horror of being captured by Barbary pirates, but in fact the prisoners had the freedom of the city and lived much as did the troops of the Algiers garrison.
Stephen Decatur defeated the corsairs in 1815 and forced them to respect American shipping. Great Britain defeated them in 1816 and made them observe international agreements. But the corsair state remained in business until the French invaded in 1830, ending the Golden Age of Algiers.

Genres: History, Africa

200 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1976

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

Reviews

[Gionatan Samo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bellino ma non ha le noteeeeeeeeeeee

[Bob Newman · Rating 4 out of 5]

About a little known place and time

When I studied American history in high school we read a few paragraphs about an American expedition to Tripoli (now in Libya) to give notice to the North African pirates that their time was up. (“from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli”). In World History, I’m afraid Algeria, or for that matter, all of North Africa, didn’t rate a mention except as a location for Carthage, some bad dudes extinguished by the Romans. What a joke! In my university days, I was more focused on Asia. So, if I were curious about Algeria and its history, I realized I’d have to do it on my own. And I’m still doing it.
Other than the lack of a decent map, this book offers a very interesting view of a part of the world that still is not much written about, at least in English. We start off with a good overview of the early history of Algiers. The country of Algeria today is far larger than the earlier city state. Algiers was a backwater or a secondary port for centuries. Major historical events took place elsewhere. But by the 1300s it had become a trading center for the local Arabs and Europeans who sailed across the Mediterranean. The Arabs equally visited some of the southern ports of the Italian states and France. By the 1500s, the Ottoman Turks had extended their empire to North Africa. Their rule was more of a protectorate than an outright colony. If Algerians paid tribute, housed a number of Ottoman soldiers, and maintained Ottoman officials, they were allowed to have local governors and customs. They were glad to have the support of the Turks because for some years the Spaniards had been capturing, menacing and fighting locals all along the North African coast, continuing the Reconquista. In the early 1500s, the Barbarossa brothers appeared and rose to power, beginning a long tradition of piracy or corsair activity, eliminating European interference for a long time, making Algiers into a major port and powerful adversary.
Pirates prey on anyone, while corsairs attack only ships of enemy powers. (Well, there could have been some “errors”.) Algiers was never under a definite leader or ruler “until….the establishment of active diplomatic relations with Europe in the eighteenth century” there was no “serious effort to identify the Algerine state with a single leader” and even then “the rulers didn’t claim to be absolute sovereigns.” (p.28) There was, however, a leader called a “Dey”. After chapters on the city plan, architecture and population, Spencer praises the stability of government over several centuries even though he says Europeans saw Algiers as unstable. He then immediately notes that of the 27 deys in charge of the city from 1504 to 1830 only two lived beyond their reign. (!!) We’ll leave that one to the experts.
The economy of the city was based largely on piracy. The loot was only part of it; they also ransomed many captives for large sums and enjoyed free labor while the prisoners waited for release. It was no doubt a pirate state, viewed from Europe. But the same Europeans engaged in the slave trade as much as they could and did not allow ransoms. Many captured Europeans turned Muslim and were immediately freed, often to join the corsair crews. Other Europeans came on their own to join the pirate enterprise. They became a powerful element in Algerine society in which friction between corsairs and largely Turkish military arose.
Another chapter describes the often-Turkish influenced social life—the bathhouses, the clothing, the festivals, food and diversions. It seems that agriculture flourished more during the Ottoman rule than later during the French occupation.
The long period of corsair activity on the Mediterranean, of attacks on numerous European towns and villages and kidnapping of thousands of people over the centuries
(they even attacked Iceland one time), didn’t come to an end easily because there was no unity among European nations. Some paid the corsairs off, some made treaties…usually honored…and also, the naval power of Algiers equaled that of any one power in Europe. Only when the industrial revolution brought better ships and weapons were the Algerine pirates brought to heel.
Algiers was a mighty power on the seas for three centuries, but it ended with the French takeover in 1830 which opened the floodgates of colonial rule in Africa.

[Walid Auressien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good