12. Barbary Pirates

The Barbary Pirates, sometimes called Corsairs, were Ottoman and Berber Pirates and Privateers who operated from the Barbary Coast in North Africa. 

Barbary Pirates plundered Mediterranean shipping for over 300 years.  These pirates claimed they were merely taking their revenge for what had been done to them by Europeans.  None expressed this attitude like the Pirate Queen Sayyida al-Hurra.

Sayyida al Hurra, was the queen of Tétouan, in northern Morocco, from 1515-1542.  She fled with her family from Granada to Morocco when Ferdinand and Isabella (Catholic Monarchs of Spain) conquered the Muslim kingdom of Granada in 1492. 

Sayyida could neither forget nor forgive being forced to flee Granada. In her wish to avenge herself on the "Christian enemy", she turned to piracy.  She made an alliance with Turkish Corsair, Barbarossa of Algiers.  Under the control of al Hurra and Barbarossa piracy provided a quick income of booty and ransom for captives.  If the ransom was not paid, the Barbary Pirates sold their captors into slavery.  

The Barbary Pirates ransomed European and American hostages and it is estimated that one million hostages were enslaved by Barbary Pirates between the early 17th to the mid-19th century.

In 1785, Presidents John Adams and Thomas Jefferson travelled to London to negotiate with the ambassador of Tripoli an end to piracy and white slavery. The ambassador refused on the grounds that as Muslims, they could enslave non-Muslims.  The United States led the 1st and 2nd Barbary wars in 1801 and 1815 and curbed the piracy threat. The ship the U.S.S. Constitution was the flagship of the Mediterranean Squadron and instrumental in defeating Barbary Pirates.