Sack of Naples | |||||||
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Map of the Bay of Naples | |||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||
Kingdom of Naples | Regency of Algiers | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
Unknown | Unknown | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
7,000 enslaved | Unknown |
The sack of Naples occurred in 1544 when Algerians captured the Bay of Naples and enslaved 7,000 Italians.
In 1544 Algerian corsairs sailed into the Bay of Naples and captured it. They then took an astounding amount of 7,000 Italian slaves. [1] [3]
The number of slaves taken by the Algerians drove the price of slaves so low that it was said “you could swap a Christian for an onion”. [4] [2] [1] Moreover, it was said to be “raining Christians in Algiers”. [2]
The Barbary pirates, Barbary corsairs, or Ottoman corsairs were mainly Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from the largely independent Ottoman 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, the Netherlands, and Iceland.
Saqaliba is a term used in medieval Arabic sources to refer to Slavs, and other peoples of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe. The term originates from the Middle Greek slavos/sklavenos (Slav), which in Hispano-Arabic came to designate first Slavic slaves and then, similarly to the semantic development of the term in other West-European languages, foreign slaves in general.
The sack of Baltimore took place on 20 June 1631, when the village of Baltimore in West Cork, Ireland, was attacked by pirates from the Barbary Coast of North Africa – the raiders included Dutchmen, Algerians, and Ottoman Turks. The attack was the largest by Barbary slave traders on Ireland.
Slavery in medieval Europe was widespread. Europe and North Africa were part of a highly interconnected trade network across the Mediterranean Sea, and this included slave trading. During the medieval period (500–1500), wartime captives were commonly forced into slavery. As European kingdoms transitioned to feudal societies, a different legal category of unfree persons—serfdom—began to replace slavery as the main economic and agricultural engine. Throughout medieval Europe, the perspectives and societal roles of enslaved peoples differed greatly, from some being restricted to agricultural labor to others being positioned as trusted political advisors.
Aruj Barbarossa, known as Oruç Reis to the Turks, was an Ottoman corsair who became Sultan of Algiers. The elder brother of the famous Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa, he was born on the Ottoman island of Midilli and died in battle against the Spanish at Tlemcen.
White slavery refers to the enslavement of any of the world's European ethnic groups throughout human history, whether perpetrated by non-Europeans or by other Europeans. Slavery in ancient Rome was frequently dependent on a person's socio-economic status and national affiliation, and thus included European slaves. It was also common for European people to be enslaved and traded in the Muslim world; European women, in particular, were highly sought-after to be concubines in the harems of many Muslim rulers. Examples of such slavery conducted in Islamic empires include the Arab slave trade, the Barbary slave trade, and the Black Sea slave trade, among others. It was common for Europeans to be traded alongside Africans, Turks, Iranians, and sometimes other Arabs.
The history of Islam in Sicily and southern Italy began with the first Arab settlement in Sicily, at Mazara, which was captured in 827. The subsequent rule of Sicily and Malta started in the 10th century. The Emirate of Sicily lasted from 831 until 1061, and controlled the whole island by 902. Though Sicily was the primary Muslim stronghold in Italy, some temporary footholds, the most substantial of which was the port city of Bari, were established on the mainland peninsula, especially in mainland southern Italy, though Muslim raids, mainly those of Muhammad I ibn al-Aghlab, reached as far north as Naples, Rome and the northern region of Piedmont. The Arab raids were part of a larger struggle for power in Italy and Europe, with Christian Byzantine, Frankish, Norman and local Italian forces also competing for control. Arabs were sometimes sought as allies by various Christian factions against other factions.
Slavery has historically been widespread in Africa. Systems of servitude and slavery were once commonplace in parts of Africa, as they were in much of the rest of the ancient and medieval world. When the trans-Saharan slave trade, Red Sea slave trade, Indian Ocean slave trade and Atlantic slave trade began, many of the pre-existing local African slave systems began supplying captives for slave markets outside Africa. Slavery in contemporary Africa is still practised despite it being illegal.
Slavery in the Ottoman Empire was a major institution and a significant part of the Ottoman Empire's economy and traditional society. The main sources of slaves were wars and politically organized enslavement expeditions in the Caucasus, Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, Southeast Europe, and Africa. It has been reported that the selling price of slaves decreased after large military operations. In Constantinople, the administrative and political center of the Ottoman Empire, about a fifth of the 16th- and 17th-century population consisted of slaves. Statistics of these centuries suggest that Istanbul's additional slave imports from the Black Sea slave trade have totaled around 2.5 million from 1453 to 1700.
The Barbary slave trade involved the capture and selling of 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 the Netherlands, Ireland, and the southwest of Britain, as far north as Iceland and into the Eastern Mediterranean.
Slavery on the Barbary Coast refers to the enslavement of people taken captive by the Barbary corsairs of North Africa.
Slavery in Ethiopia existed for centuries, going as far back as 1495 BC and ending in 1942. There are also sources indicating the export of slaves from the Aksumite Empire. The practice formed an integral part of Ethiopian society. Slaves were traditionally drawn from the Nilotic groups inhabiting Ethiopia's southern hinterland and Oromos. War captives were another source of slaves, though the perception, treatment and duties of these prisoners was markedly different. religious law banned Christian slave masters from taking christians as slaves, slaves were from Muslim and other non-Christian groups.
Slavery in Spain can be traced to the Phoenician and Roman eras. In the 9th century the Muslim Moorish rulers and local Jewish merchants traded in Spanish and Eastern European Christian slaves. Spain began to trade slaves in the 15th century and this trade reached its peak in the 16th century. The history of Spanish enslavement of Africans began with Portuguese captains Antão Gonçalves and Nuno Tristão in 1441. The first large group of African slaves, made up of 235 slaves, came with Lançarote de Freitas three years later. In 1462, Portuguese slave traders began to operate in Seville, Spain. During the 1470s, Spanish merchants began to trade large numbers of slaves. Slaves were auctioned at market at a cathedral, and subsequently were transported to cities all over Imperial Spain. This led to the spread of Moorish, African, and Christian slavery in Spain. By the 16th century, 7.4 percent of the population in Seville, Spain were slaves. Many historians have concluded that Renaissance and early-modern Spain had the highest amount of African slaves in Europe.
The history of slavery in the Muslim world began with institutions inherited from pre-Islamic Arabia.
Concubinage in the Muslim world was the practice of Muslim men entering into intimate relationships without marriage, with enslaved women, though in rare, exceptional cases, sometimes with free women. If the concubine gave birth to a child, she attained a higher status known as umm al-walad.
The trans-Saharan slave trade, part of the Arab slave trade, was a slave trade in which slaves were mainly transported across the Sahara. Most were moved from sub-Saharan Africa to North Africa to be sold to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern civilizations; a small percentage went the other direction.
Slavery existed in Morocco since antiquity until the 20th-century. Morocco was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa until the 20th-century, as well as a center of the Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the Barbary pirates until the 19th-century. The open slave trade was finally suppressed in Morocco in the 1920s. The haratin and the gnawa have been referred to as descendants of former slaves.
The sack of Vieste was led by Dragut and took place on the 15th of July in 1554. This sack resulted in the capture of the fortress, a massacre and the enslavement of thousands.
Slavery in Egypt existed up until the early 20th century. It differed from the previous slavery in ancient Egypt, being managed in accordance with Islamic law from the conquest of the Caliphate in the 7th century until the practice stopped in the early 20th-century, having been gradually phased out when the slave trade was banned in the late 19th century. British pressure led to the abolishment of slavery trade successively between 1877 and 1884. Slavery itself was not abolished, but it gradually died out after the abolition of the slave trade, since no new slaves could be legally acquired. Existing slaves were noted as late as the 1930s.
Slavery is noted in the area later known as Algeria since antiquity. Algeria was a center of the Trans-Saharan slave trade route of enslaved Black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa, as well as a center of the slave trade of Barbary slave trade of Europeans captured by the barbary pirates.