Pirates Then and Now

The Pirates of the North coast of Africa ruled the seas for centuries. Not only the seas, but they would often land on a beach at night and capture the inhabitants.

Those who could not be ransomed, (the majority), would be sold into slavery.  There were many thousands, perhaps millions of European slaves in North Africa. 

To express how powerful the Barbary  pirates were,  in the seven years between 1609 and 1616, African pirates captured 466 British vessels.

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

In 1627 Barbary corsairs reached as far as Iceland, taking around 400 prisoners, the population of Iceland being estimated to have been then about 60,000.  These prisoners were sold into slavery and due to the poverty of Iceland could not be redeemed.

Villages, such as Baltimore in Ireland, had its entire population removed. The beaches of Spain and Italy were
deserted, people moving far inland to prevent abduction.

The North Coast of Africa was not a country, but many satraps under the Ottoman Empire. Each warlord had his own army/navy and economy.  

After the Tripolitan war with America and the Napoleonic Wars, the Barbary states were forced to give up piracy.

In 1819 Tripolitania’s economy began to crumble as piracy had been the main income earner. An attempt was made to compensate by getting involved in the slave trade, but with abolitionist sentiment on the rise in Europe, and the U.S. having outlawed the importation of slaves, this was unsuccessful.

Starved of funds, Barbary Piracy was virtually over.

In the 21st century, East African Pirates

are in a very similar position to those of North Africa two hundred years ago.

Firstly there is no central government in Somalia, nor has been for about twenty years.  Hence there is no authority to which one can complain, no authority which can or will take action. 

Unlike the Barbary Coast where there was some Pasha somewhere one could contact, Somalia is hundreds of war lords, and  Piracy is a main foreign exchange earner.

As each band of pirates is autonomous, capturing or killing one group has little effect on piracy as a whole.

As wars were fought against the North African territory from which the pirates operated in the 1800s, the same western powers might be provoked to capture and control much of the coastal region.