Lady Pirates: Queen of the Barbary Corsairs

The life of Sayyida al-Hurra is difficult to discuss. So much of this lady’s life is unknown to us that the temptation is great to fill in the blanks with imagination and fiction. The Brethren know that’s not what I’m about; at least not for the purposes of Triple P. So I will give you the facts that are available and let you decide on the rest.


Sayyida al Hurra was born some time around 1485 in or near Granada, Spain. Her family, the Banu Rashid, was Moroccan and when Ferdinand and Isabella brought their war against the Moors to Andalusia, Sayyida and her family returned to Morocco. This was in the early 1490s; Sayyida settled in Chaouen (now Chefchaouen in northern Morocco) with her family. According to Fatima Mernissi’s biographical sketch of her in her book The Forgotten Queens of Islam, Sayyida had a happy childhood but was not allowed to forget the disgrace her family suffered in being ejected from Granada.

At the age of about 16, Sayyida was married to the Sultan al-Mandri of the city-state of Tetouan. He was thirty years her senior but clearly pleased with his young bride. He raised her to the status of his chief wife and looked to her for advice on matters of state. When he died in 1515, apparently leaving no male heir, Sayyida ascended to the position of Governor of Tetouan and took the title al-Hurra which denoted a woman wielding sovereignty over a state.

Around the time Sayyida became governor, Tetouan began trading with Spain and Portugal. The impetus for this move is unknown, but Tetouan did make money on the deal. Sayyida’s savvy leadership brought the attention of the King of Morocco, Ahmed al-Wattasi, who wooed Sayyida from his capital in Fez. When the two married, the King travelled to Tetouan for the ceremonies as Sayyida refused to give up her governorship.

At some point between the death of her first husband and 1520, Sayyida developed a hatred for the Portuguese. Looking for a way to avenge whatever slight had been perpetrated by them against her personally, her city-state or both, she contacted the famous corsair brothers known today as Barbarossa. Shortly after her meeting with them, Tetouan began amassing a fleet of galleys and attracting a group of Rais or pirate captains. Sayyida sent her flotilla out in 1520 with specific orders to sink, burn or take as prize any Portuguese ships they encountered. She took a great number of prisoners from this enterprise, making slaves of them and filling Tetouan’s treasury with money from ransoms.

For over twenty years, Sayyida al-Hurra was the “… undisputed leader of [the Islamic] pirates in the Westen Mediterranean”, terrorizing Christian shipping there while the Barbarossa brothers ruled the Eastern Mediterranean. Perhaps her most famous raid is documented, again according to Mernissi, in Spanish government papers dating from 1540. Sayyida’s pirates went ashore on Gibraltar taking both loot and prisoners and forcing the Spanish government to negotiate directly with the governor of Tetouan, Sayyida al-Hurra. Though it seems that she herself never boarded ship, she certainly led a maritime force to be reckoned with.

The pirate queen’s predations ceased in 1542 under a veil of some mystery. Mernissi speculates that a coup led by one of Sayyida’s sons-in-law overthrew her in that year. It appears that, after 27 years as sole governor of an important Moroccon city-state the lady who took on the mantel of al-Hurra was deposed and to a large degree forgotten. There seems to be no record of her later life or death.

Such a skeletal outline of what must have been a remarkably rich life is difficult for those interested in history to swallow, but it is all we have for now. Let us hope that more comes to light, and sooner rather than later, on the lady known as Sayyida al-Hurra

Header: Iranian Warrior woman, painting from between 1501 and 1722 via Skyscrapercity

Booty: Terrifying Pirates

Last Friday, much to my surprise and delight, the good folks at Cracked.com produce an article entitled the “The 7 Most Terrifying Pirates from History”. The title in and of itself has a wry humor to it: “pirates from history” rather than “historical pirates” makes it sound rather like History offers these guys at her restaurant, probably under the seafood portion of the menu. But, rereading that sentence, that may just be my own warped sense of humor coming through.


The article includes such familiar-to-the-Brethren favorites as Bartholomew Roberts, Blackbeard and Benjamin Hornigold and hits the usual “high notes” as far as what each man achieved in the way of a blood soaked “short life but merry one.” Some curiosities do jump out to those who have a particular interest in piratical scholarship, however.

It is gratifying to see both Francois L’Olonnais and Jean “Lafitte” (misspelled; again) on the list. Even a casual Cracked reader will know that labeling not just one but two Frenchmen “terrifying” was probably a painful exercise for their writers. I personally would have ranked L’Olonnais much higher, if it were up to me. The crazy adds to the terrifying exponentially. I also salute Cracked for including William Dampier; he, much like Hornigold, rarely gets the press he deserves.

The surprising addition of Stephen Decatur jumped out at me immediately as well. Though undeniably terrifying to his enemies, the Hero of both Barbary Wars would surely have bristled at being called a “pirate” which, in all fairness, he was not.

Not surprisingly there is the usual sloppy failure to mention either Uruj or Pierre, the equally important brothers of Khair ad-Din Barbarossa and Jean Laffite.

But that’s all splitting hairs. The point is the funny, after all, and the post certainly brings that. Then too, their choice of a certain familiar site for at least some of their research gets them extra credit on this assignment.  Happy Friday, Brethren!

Header: Dead Men Tell No Tales by Howard Pyle

People: The Brothers Barbarossa Part II

Yesterday we saw the rise of one time galley slave Uruj known as Barbarossa from merchant’s son to governor of Algiers. And everything owed in large part to piracy. But when the elder brother lay in the Moroccan sand with a Spanish pike through his body, the younger took up the leadership, the war and the name with a vengeance.

When word of his brother’s death reached him in Algiers, Hizir cagily decided that it was time to bring in the big guns. He sent messengers to Istanbul asking Sultan Selim I for reinforcements to help in the fight against Spain. Hizir promised nothing less in return than “… all or the greatest part of Barbary” for the Ottoman Empire whose only holding in Africa at that time was Egypt. The Sultan jumped at the chance. Selim immediately declared Algiers an Ottoman province and made Hizir the official Governor. After that, he sent thousands of elite Turkish troops to reinforce Hizir’s new province, particularly the coasts.

Hizir managed to retake Tlemcen with his larger forces. Once that old score was settled he turned to making a navy out of his corsair galleys. By 1529 he was spoken of as “… nothing less dreaded” than his famous brother. He took the fortress of El Penon at the head of the harbor of Algiers from the Spanish and shortly thereafter began construction on what would be known as the Great Mole. The 300 yard long earthwork connected the island of El Penon with Algiers proper and enclosed the harbor against both storms and invaders. With things secure at home, Hizir returned to the sea.

The younger Barbarossa set up a campaign of terror against the European coast. He raided Gibraltar, Southern France, Italy, Sardinia and Sicily, destroying harbors and towns as he went while amassing enormous wealth in loot and particularly slaves. The governor of Algiers’ consistently large tribute payments caught the attention of the new Ottoman Sultan, Sulaiman, who called Hizir to Istanbul in 1533. Overjoyed at the success of the now middle aged corsair, Sulaiman made Hizir Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, governor not just of Algiers but all of North Africa, and bestowed on him the title of Khair ad-Din which loosely translates to “Upholder of the Faith”.

Hizir, now known as Khair ad-Din Barbarossa, spent some time in Istanbul evaluating the Empire’s naval strengths and weaknesses. When word reached the capital that Tunis had fallen to the Spanish, Hizir decided to see what his navy could do. With a force of 20 war galleys and over 50 smaller ships, he successfully lead his forces in retaking Tunis. It was a shallow victory, however. Hizir returned to his raids on Europe and the King of Spain Charles V, who had recently been crowned Holy Roman Emperor as well, retook the city within a year. Certain that the populace had something to do with Hizir’s success, Charles had all Muslims expelled. When Hizir heard of this affront, he vowed revenge.

By now the Ottoman navy could claim over 100 massive war galleys and Hizir Khair ad-Din turned them en mass against Spain. He raided Charles V’s coast from Portugal to France, taking foodstuffs, livestock, goods and humans away with him. The final blow to the Spanish King came when Francois I of France, who was grumbling about being left out of all the pillaging over in the New World, entered into a treaty with Sulaiman against Spain in particular. Part of this pact was France’s agreement to pay the Ottoman Empire a yearly fee (which amounted to a bribe) for safe passage of her ships in the Mediterranean and beyond. Thus began the long-standing system of payments to Barbary that was only broken up by the Second Barbary War in the early 1800s.

By the winter of 1543, the Barbary corsairs were so chummy with the French that the majority of Hizir’s fleet, and the Admiral himself, spent the winter in Toulon. Francois even ordered his own subjects out of the city, effectively forcing them to give up their homes to the pirates. The walled city could not contain the vast horde, however, and a sea of brilliantly colored tents sprang up around Toulon’s walls.

Having amassed an unimaginable fortune, embarrassed the crown heads of Christendom and wrecked havoc in the Mediterranean and Atlantic, Hizir returned from Toulon, paid his respects to Emperor Sulaiman in Istanbul, and retired to a palace built for him on the Bosphorus in 1545. The merchant’s son turned pirate, Admiral and Governor, who was described in his lifetime as tall, “… portly and majestic, well-proportioned and robust” died at his home on July 4, 1546 at around the age of 68. His son Hasan took over the Governorship of North Africa.

Throughout the glory days of the Barbary corsairs Hizir Khair ad-Din was something of a seafaring saint. In the 18th century a European traveler wrote that “… no voyage is undertaken from Constantinople by either public or private persons without their first visiting [Hizir’s] tomb.” The pirates that sailed from Algiers, Tripoli and Sale were said to offer prayers to both brothers’ names for safe passage and rich prizes. Pretty impressive for a pair of boys from a small island village.

Header: Hizir Khair ad-Din as an elder statesman (the trident in this and the painting posted yesterday indicates his status as a corsair)

People: The Brothers Barbarossa Part I

When speaking about piracy, one usually hears the same names thrown out as shining examples of successful high seas thievery and debauch. Henry Morgan and Blackbeard always jump to the fore. Mary Read and Anne Bonny come up invariably and they drag their pathetic pirate pal Jack Rackham along with them. Sometimes more seaworthy names come up, Jean Bart, Francis Drake, Bartholomew Roberts or Jean Laffite (who has become the go-to name for any of the great privateers who sailed from Barataria when they are spoken of at all), and sometimes “exotic” names are raised like Cheng I Sao.

What I find unfortunate is that two of the most successful pirates that every sailed, the men who virtually singlehandedly and overnight turned the Barbary Coast into a corsair monopoly, are almost never spoken of. If Barbarossa comes up at all, someone has veered off into the Disneynified fiction of piracy. And at that point, I’m out.

The Barbarossa brothers, who were called that by their Italian enemies once their careers took off (Barbarossa, of course, means Red Beard), were born in Greece at some point in the late 1400s. Where in Greece they were born and what ancestors they could claim is open for debate. Some sources say they were Greek or Albanian or both and most of those sources claim the brothers were baptized Christians. Others say they were Islamic, of Turkish descent, and many of these place their natal region as the Greek island of Lesbos. Some claim their father was a seaman, either a fisherman or a privateer. Others put forth that he was retired from the Turkish army and he ran a business, perhaps as a potter or merchant or both, in Greece. Even the brothers’ names are a confusing jumble of spellings and monikers that becomes hard to wade through. Really, the story is open for debate up until one fateful incident that changed the lives of the brothers permanently.

Uruj, the older of the famous brothers whose name is also given as Oruc, Horusce and Aruja, was on one of his father’s boats some time around 1490. The most plausible story to my mind is that he was in charge of the boat which was returning from delivering his father’s goods to an unknown port. With him was his youngest brother Ilyas. The boat came into the waters around the Island of Rhodes and was attacked by a galleasse of the Knights of St. John – also known as the Knights of Malta – who had held Rhodes since the crusades.

Uruj Barbarossa and his men put up a valiant fight but their numbers were slim and they were easily overwhelmed. Ilyas was killed in the mêlée and those who remained alive among Uruj’s crew were stripped and chained as galley slaves. It is at this point where the story of the brothers being born Christian rings false, at least to my way of thinking. Male prisoners were stripped by both Islamic and Christian pirates in the Mediterranean not only as a form of humiliation but also as a way to identify their religious proclivities. Muslims would be circumcised; Christians would not. If the Knights of Malta had found Uruj to be a Christian, it is highly unlikely that he would have been put to the oar.

During the three to four years that Uruj labored as a slave, he occupied his mind with the strategies and seafaring capabilities of his enemy. He learned their language and their way of piracy and stored this information away in what must have been a remarkably intelligent brain. Meanwhile his remaining brother, Hizir (Khizr, Horuk or Hareaden), went into the business of privateering for the Ottoman Empire. It does not appear that Hizir held a base in Greece and in fact, by the time he was able to buy his older brother’s freedom, he seems to have been using the Turkish port of Anatalya as a base.

Once Uruj recovered from his ordeal the brothers went to sea together, establishing what author Adrian Tinniswood describes as a “sea-jihad” against all Christians and the Spanish in particular. While Uruj had been suffering under the oppression of the Knights of Malta, Spain’s King and Queen had accomplished their reconquista and kicked out all the Jews and Muslims they had not imprisoned or killed. The Spanish Muslims moved into North Africa, particularly Tunis where the brothers set up shop around 1504, and their horror stories only encouraged Hizir and particularly Uruj in their hatred of Christendom.

The brothers, who by now were known in the Mediterranean as “Barbarossa” collectively (much like the Laffite brothers are known now almost exclusively as “Jean”), were well established privateers by 1510 and they ran the Island of Djerba fifty miles from the coast of Tunis. Though neither of them had been recognized by the Ottoman Empire, aside from their commissions, they became the go-to defenders of their area from invasion by the Spanish.

Spain, who was experiencing great success in colonizing the New World, began to move in on North Africa as well. The brothers repulsed Spanish attacks in modern Morocco and Libya with the help of local warlords. Uruj led more than one assault on the Spanish held Algerian port of Bejaia between 1513 and 1515, even losing his left arm in the siege of 1513. He wore a false arm made entirely of silver, including articulated fingers that could be manipulated to hold a goblet or pick up grapes, for the rest of his life.

Though he could not retake all of Bejaia (Spain continued to hold a large fortress there until 1530), Uruj had been largely successful in the endeavor that lost him an arm. And he was not ready to stop. Along with Hizir he took Algiers and became its de facto ruler. From there he moved his forces westward and Christendom became fearful of the seemingly unstoppable brothers Spain had once called “pirate rabble.”

In 1517 the brothers set their sights on the religious center of Tlemcen which was also held by the Spanish. Though the town was easily overcome the Spanish were not finished. They appeared to retreat into the Moroccan desert where they came to an agreement with local Bedouin chieftains who were not entirely on board with Islam. Spain and her Bedouin allies mounted an attack on Tlemcen and a horrible, six month siege ensued.

Hizir was in Algiers during the time, and probably most distressed at the lack of word from his brother. He appears not to have known about the siege of Tlemcen and besides, he had his work cut out for him with the Spanish still in Bejaia.

At some point in early 1518, Uruj seems to have tried to escape the siege and take his best warriors back to Algiers for reinforcements. The plan failed when Spanish troops overtook Uruj and his men. A day long battle ensued but only death awaited the silver-armed pirate and his men. Uruj’s forces were slaughtered including Barbarossa himself. Legend has it that he was pierced through with a pike but continued to fight for another half an hour before falling dead.

The death of Uruj Barbarossa is by no means the end of the story, however. Come back tomorrow and find out what happens to Hizir who will become known as Khair ad-Din Barbarossa.

Header: Contemporary portrait of Hizir Barbarossa in his prime