The History of Andalucia - The End of the Barbary Pirates

The Barbary Pirates operated from ports on the North African coast

The Barbary coast, from Egypt to Tangier was notorious from the time of the Roman Empire to the beginning of the 19th century for its piratical inhabitants; getting its name from the most famous pirate of them all, Barbarossa, who terrorised shipping in the 16th Century from his bases in Algeria and Morocco.

The pirates had a simple working relationship with the potentates that ruled the various countries along the coast. In return for shelter in that country’s harbours, they would pay a portion of their ill-gotten gains to the ruler of the day. It was an early example of state sponsored terrorism.

Due to the Gibraltar Strait, every ship that enters or leaves the Mediterranean can be seen from the north Moroccan coast and, historically, the Moroccan potentates were favourably inclined towards the pirates, or at least the money they produced. Morocco also has a sheltered bay to the east of Ceuta with a number of well protected harbours and anchorages like Martil and Mdiq, ideal for the corsairs. Today the old harbour at Martil is silted up but visitors to Mdiq, about 20 kilometres south of Ceuta, can visit the harbour that, apart from a few modern buildings, is largely unchanged since the days of Barbarossa.

No lumbering merchantman was safe from the fast corsair galleys that preyed on them from the small harbours on the coast. Cargoes were stolen and passengers and crew were taken hostage. Some were ransomed and some were sold into slavery, many to row the pirate galleys against their fellow seamen. The pirates would also raid coastal towns, particularly in Andalucia, the coast nearest north Africa.

Although the pirates were brigands from many countries their numbers were hugely augmented after 1492 by Spanish Moors and Jews who were encouraged to leave Spain following the reconquest, all vowing vengeance on Spain. The number of raids increased and led to the depopulation of most of the Andalucian coast. Many of the coastal torres were built at this time manned by militia who could warn the population of approaching corsairs. The coastal population, mostly fishermen, could then retire to the white villages, perched on rock buttresses a few kilometres inland and easily defendable.

The only wonder is that the pirates existed for so long after the European countries started to depend on overseas trade. Merchantmen from countries like Holland, Britain, France, Spain and Portugal all suffered at the hands of the pirates at one time or another and yet all had strong navies. Spain twice blockaded Martil and there were numerous campaigns, some multinational, to wipe them out. All failed.

Some countries paid the corsairs an agreed amount to leave their ships alone whilst powerful merchant organisations like the British and Dutch East India Companies paid a levy and treated it the same as normal shipping insurance. They were even given notice when the premium had increased. The corsairs simply took another ship and ransomed it back to its owners at the new rate.

There appeared to be a sort of tolerance on both sides. Europeans realised that the practice of breaking an existing agreement when a Moslem deemed it out of date was seen as normal behaviour by the Moslem. Conversely the Moslems knew that if they went too far they would end up with a gunboat in their harbours. On the European side, overseas trading was seen as risky both in terms of investment and in the actual practice. Piracy was viewed as just one hazard amongst many. This uneasy relationship could have continued if it were not for the arrival of the Americans.

In 1783 the American War of Independence resulted in an independent nation, America. Up until that date the British navy had provided some protection to American merchantmen but after Independence that stopped. Morocco, the first country to recognise America as a sovereign nation in 1783, was, the following year also the first to condone the taking of an American merchantman by pirates. American merchantmen were seen as easy and legitimate prey, after all they were not paying tribute and they were undefended, there being no sign of a United States Navy on this side of the Atlantic. As losses mounted the United States took a lesson from other nations’ books and came to a financial arrangement with the various rulers on the Barbary Coast. They soon found that a policy of appeasement without the necessary show of force only resulted in more ships and more captives being taken and the Muslim rulers demanding more and more tribute.

In 1801, Thomas Jefferson was elected President of the United States. He believed that appeasement conveyed weakness that only encouraged further treachery. He sent a squadron to North Africa. By the time they arrived, the Bey of Tripoli Pasaf Yusuf Karamanli, convinced America was a weak tribe and too far away to be much of a menace, had declared war on the United States. For two years the squadron bombarded the pirate lairs along the Barbary Coast but Karamanli remained defiant. Then in 1803 Jefferson sent an ‘Ironside’, the USS Constitution, across the Atlantic. She and her sister ship the USS Constellation had been commissioned in 1795 specifically to deal with the Barbary pirates. Tripoli harbour and the Pasha’s palace were bombarded and ruined. By a mixture of military action and political intrigue Karamanli was brought to heel in 1805 and forced into an agreement that stopped the paying of tribute to all the Muslim potentates and effectively brought an end to the Barbary pirates.

The action of 1801 to 1805 is now seen as the first United States stand against terrorism. It was to sow the seeds of a continued hatred by the closely-knit Moslem families of the Middle East towards America. The belief that sparked that action still motivates the United States today and, two hundred years on, they are still fighting the same enemy.