Hayreddin Barbarossa, the famed admiral of the Ottoman Empire, effectively became the master of the Mediterranean during the first half of the 16th century. Between 1543 and 1544, he raided numerous towns along the Spanish coast as well as the Genoese coast. This was nothing new, as he had been doing so for years; what […]
Barbary
The Sacking of the Irish Town of Baltimore by Barbary Corsairs in 1631
Although the general idea is that the Ottomans and Barbary corsairs limited their naval raids to the Mediterranean, this is a mistake, as ships and even entire fleets dared to pass through the Pillars of Hercules and sail into the Atlantic Ocean to attack not only the Canary Islands and Madeira but even the British […]
The Sad Story of Icelanders Captured and Sold into Slavery by Barbary Corsairs in the 17th Century
Previously we dedicated a couple of articles to recounting the exploits of the Barbary pirates in the Atlantic, chronicling their attacks on the Canary Islands, the south of England, the Irish city of Baltimore, the archipelagos of Shetland and Faroe, the coast of Denmark, and even the East coast of what are now the United […]