The Barbary Coast (also Barbary, Berbery, or Berber Coast) was the name given to the coastal regions of central and western North Africa or more specifically 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]
Barbary was not always a unified political entity. From the 16th century onward, it was divided into the political entities of the Regency of Algiers, Regency of Tripoli, Regency of Tunis, and the Alawi Sultanate. Major rulers and petty monarchs during the times of the Barbary states' plundering parties included the dey of Algiers, pasha of Tripoli, bey of Tunis, and the sultan of Morocco. [6]
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. [7]
The establishment of the U.S. Constitution in 1789 empowered the federal government to levy taxes and maintain a military, authorities previously absent under the Articles of Confederation. The nascent nation's first naval vessels were commissioned in 1794 to counter Algerian piracy. Subsequently, in 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli declared war on the United States, citing unpaid tribute. [8]
The first military land action overseas of the United States was executed by the US Marines and the US Navy in 1805 at the Battle of Derna, at Tripoli, a coastal city now in eastern Libya, in April 1805. It was part of an effort to destroy the Barbary pirates and end piracy between warring tribes by the Barbary states, which were themselves member states of the Ottoman Empire. The opening line of the Marines' Hymn refers to this action: "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli...". [9]
The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Tripolitan War and the Barbary Coast War, was a conflict during the 1801–1815 Barbary Wars, in which the United States and Sweden fought against Ottoman Tripolitania. Tripolitania had declared war against Sweden and the United States over disputes regarding tributary payments made by both states in exchange for a cessation of Tripolitanian commerce raiding at sea. United States President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay this tribute. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800. The First Barbary War was the first major American war fought outside the New World, and in the Arab world, besides the smaller American–Algerian War (1785–1795).
The Barbary Wars were a series of two wars fought by the United States, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Sicily against the Barbary states and Morocco of North Africa in the early 19th century. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800 and was joined by the newly independent US. The First Barbary War extended from 10 May 1801 to 10 June 1805, with the Second Barbary War lasting only three days, ending on 19 June 1815. The Barbary Wars were the first major American war fought entirely outside the New World, and in the Arab World.
The Second Barbary War, also known as the U.S.–Algerian War and the Algerine War, was a brief military conflict between the United States and the North African state of Algiers in 1815.
The Treaty of Tripoli was signed in 1796. It was the first treaty between the United States and Tripoli to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from local Barbary pirates.
The Barbary pirates, Barbary corsairs, Ottoman corsairs, or naval mujahideen were mainly Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from the largely independent Barbary states. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, in reference to the Berbers. Slaves in Barbary could be of many ethnicities, and of many different religions, such as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, and Iceland.
Occhiali was an Italian privateer and admiral who served as the commander of the Regency of Algiers and Grand Admiral of the Ottoman fleet.
The Barbary Treaties refer to several treaties between the United States and the semi-autonomous North African regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, known collectively as the Barbary Coast.
The Regency of Algiers was an early modern semi-independent Ottoman province and tributary state on the Barbary Coast of North Africa from 1516 to 1830. Founded by the privateer brothers Aruj and Hayreddin Reis, also known as the barbarossa brothers, the Regency succeeded the crumbling Kingdom of Tlemcen as an infamous and formidable pirate base that plundered and waged maritime holy war on European Christian powers. Ottoman regents ruled as heads of a stratocracy; an autonomous military government controlled by the janissary corps, themed Garp ocaklarılit. 'Western Garrison' in Ottoman terminology.
The Karamanli dynasty was an autonomous dynasty that ruled Ottoman Tripolitania from 1711 to 1835. Their territory comprised Tripoli and its surroundings in present-day Libya. At its peak, the Karamanli dynasty's influence reached Cyrenaica and Fezzan, covering most of Libya. The founder of the dynasty was Ahmed Karamanli, a descendant of the medieval Karamanids. The most well-known Karamanli ruler was Yusuf ibn Ali Karamanli who reigned from 1795 to 1832, who fought a war with the United States between 1801 and 1805. Ali II was the last of the dynasty.
Yusuf Karamanli, Caramanli or Qaramanli or al-Qaramanli, (1766–1838) was the longest-reigning Pasha of the Karamanli dynasty of Ottoman Tripolitania. He is noted for his role in the Barbary Wars against the United States.
Ottoman Tripolitania, also known as the Regency of Tripoli, was officially ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1912. It corresponded roughly to the northern parts of modern-day Libya in historic Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. It was initially established as an Ottoman province ruled by a pasha (governor) in Tripoli who was appointed from Constantinople, though in practice it was semi-autonomous due to the power of the local Janissaries. From 1711 to 1835, the Karamanli dynasty ruled the province as a de facto hereditary monarchy while remaining under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. In 1835, the Ottomans reestablished direct control over the region until its annexation by Italy in 1912.
The Barbary slave trade involved the capture and selling of white European slaves at slave markets in the largely independent Ottoman Barbary states. European slaves were captured by Barbary pirates in slave raids on ships and by raids on coastal towns from Italy to Ireland, and the southwest of Britain, as far north as Iceland and into the Eastern Mediterranean.
Siemen Danziger, better known by his anglicized names Zymen Danseker and Simon de Danser, was a 17th-century Dutch privateer and Barbary corsair based in Ottoman Algeria. His name is also written Danziker, Dansker, Dansa or Danser.
The conquest of Tunis in 1574 marked the conquest of Tunis by the Ottoman Empire over the Spanish Empire, which had seized the place a year earlier. The event virtually determined the supremacy in North Africa vied between both empires in favour of the former, sealing the Ottoman domination over eastern and central Maghreb, with the Ottoman dependencies in Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli ensuingly coming to experience a golden age as corsair states.
The Tripolitanian civil war was a conflict from 1790 to 1795 which occurred in Tripolitania – inside what is today the country of Libya. It involved a war of succession between leading members of the Karamanli dynasty, an intervention by Ottoman officer Ali Burghul who claimed to be acting on the sultan's orders and controlled Tripoli for 17 months, and an intervention by the bey of Tunis Hammuda ibn Ali to restore the Karamanlis to power.
Ottoman Tunisia, also known as the Regency of Tunis, refers to the Ottoman presence in Ifriqiya from the 16th to 19th centuries, when Tunis was officially integrated into the Ottoman Empire as the Eyalet of Tunis. The Ottoman presence in the Maghreb began with the takeover of Algiers in 1516 by the Ottoman Turkish corsair and beylerbey Aruj, eventually expanding across the entire region except for Morocco. The first Ottoman conquest of Tunis occurred in 1534 under the command of Khayr al-Din Barbarossa, the younger brother of Aruj, who was the Kapudan Pasha of the Ottoman Fleet during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent. However, it was not until the final Ottoman reconquest of Tunis from Spain in 1574 that the Turks permanently acquired the former territories of Hafsid Tunisia, retaining it until the French occupation of Tunisia in 1881.
Until 1815 the Beylik of Tunis maintained a corsair navy to attack European shipping, raid coastal towns on the northern shores of the Mediterranean and defend against incursions from Algiers or Tripoli. After 1815 Tunis tried, with limited success, to create a modern navy, which fought in the Greek War of Independence and the Crimean War.
The French-Algerian War of 1681–1688 was part of a wider campaign by France against the Barbary Pirates in the 1680s.
The ta'ifa of raïs or the Raïs for short, were Barbary pirates based in Ottoman Algeria who were involved in piracy and the slave trade in the Mediterranean Sea from the 16th to the 19th century. They were an ethnically mixed group of seafarers, including mostly "renegades" from European provinces of the Mediterranean and the North Sea, along with a minority of Turks and Moors. Such crews were experienced in naval combat, making Algiers a formidable pirate base. Its activity was directed against the Spanish empire, but it did not neglect the coasts of Sicily, Sardinia, Naples or Provence. It was the taifa which, through its seizures, maintained the prosperity of Algiers and its finances.
The history of the Regency of Algiers includes political, economic and military events in the Regency of Algiers from its founding in 1516 to the French invasion of 1830. The Regency of Algiers was a largely independent tributary state of the Ottoman Empire. Founded by the corsair brothers Aruj and Khayr ad-Din Barbarossa, it became involved in numerous armed conflicts with European powers, and was an important pirate base notorious for Barbary corsairs.
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