Pirates and Slavery

In seven years, between 1609 and 1616 African pirates captured  466 British vessels.

(1609 is recalled at the landing of the first ship carrying African slaves in what would become the United States.)

A list, printed in London in 1682, has 160 British ships captured by Algerians in the three years between
1677  and 1680.

So powerful were these Corsairs that they didn’t just attack ships at sea, they raided coastal settlements.

Deep in darkness, they would run their craft onto an unguarded beach, sneak up on sleeping villages, snatch their victims and retreat before alarm could be sounded.

Almost all the inhabitants of the village of Baltimore, in Ireland, were taken in this way in 1631, and other attacks were launched against coastal villages in Devon and Cornwall.

Although reaching as far as Iceland, most Corsairs concentrated on slave capturing from lands close to Africa, especially Spain and Italy.  

Slavers raided the coasts of Valencia, Andalusia, Calabria and Sicily so often that eventually it was said that ‘there was no one left to capture’.

How many slaves were taken is unknown as accurate records were not kept. What we do know is that slaves in Barbary fell into two broad categories; public and private.

‘Public slaves’ belonged to the ruling pasha, who by right  of rulership could claim an eighth of all Christians captured by the corsairs and buy the others he wanted at reduced prices.

These slaves were housed in large prisons and were mostly used to row the corsair galleys in the pursuit of loot  and more slaves, work so strenuous that thousands died or went mad while chained to the oar.

During the winter these ‘galeotti’  worked on state projects;quarrying stone, building walls or harbour facilities,felling timber and constructing new galleys.

The pasha bought most female captives, some of whom were taken into his harem, the majority, however, were purchased for their ransom value.

“Private slaves” were owned by one master, and their treatment and work varied.

Wealthier Europeans attempted to buy their people out of slavery, but no real system emerged before the 1640s. Then the attempts became more systematic and were sometimes state subsidised, as in Spain and France.