Summary of Mediterranean piracy
The Mediterranean Sea has seen endless commercial voyages, naval battles and other activities throughout the centuries. In this lesson from a TEACHER we bring you a summary of Mediterranean piracy focusing on the well-known Berber piracy since, over the centuries, the different states of the North Africa, those who have been in charge of developing these illicit activities, which have reached the day of today.
Index
- Pirates in the Ancient Age
- Berber piracy
- Pirates in the 17th century
- The 19th century and piracy
Pirates in the Ancient Age.
We begin the summary of Mediterranean piracy in the Ancient Age since, from Phoenician times, we find some texts in which it warns of the problem of the coasts of the North of Africa where the Phoenicians had created a series of colonies, as was the case of Carthage.
In some bays, groups of sailors waited for the precise moment to board the ships loaded with products that they sold later; in the same way they also imprisoned the people who were in the ships and then sold them as slaves to the caravans of merchants.
On the islands of Corsica, Sardinia, Sicily and the Balearic Islands, since the beginning of the Punic Wars and until the end of the Roman Empire, pirate nuclei were created that made the naval trade quite dangerous, therefore, Rome would launch a series of campaigns to exterminate the pirates, both from the western part of the Mediterranean and the eastern part.
Image: El Confidencial
Berber piracy.
Without a doubt, the longest and most intense period of piracy, took place from the beginning of the Middle Ages to the Contemporary Age. For this reason, in this summary on Mediterranean piracy, we place special emphasis on the action of the Berbers.
Around the 9th century the first incursions into this type of activity began, date in which we know that a large part of the Mediterranean was under muslim rule, including the coasts of the Iberian Peninsula.
This meant that the Muslim pirates had enough aid to be able to carry out their activities without fear of reprisals. for only the Christian kingdoms of Italy and France, together with the Eastern part commanded by Byzantium, could face these. In this way, from the shores of North Africa, especially from Tunisia, Tripoli, Algiers, Salé, Yerba and other locations in Morocco, prepared and launched their attacks on the rest of the Mediterranean.
The main goal by which they carried out these raids was recruit slaves, since people of European race were in high demand throughout the Muslim Empire (the more northerners, the better).
The leaders of piracy in the Middle Ages
For the most part, the pirates were outcasts, that is, marginalized from Muslim society that they were forced to pillage in order to survive. In the same way, it will not be strange to find Europeans on the shores of the Maghreb from the year 1600 seeking their fortune together with the Berbers, because in their places of origin they were not well received.
We must also mention the corsairs, a kind of pirates who were protected by states to carry out their activity, as long as they were not against the ships of their nation or their allies. Within this group we will find admirals like Barbarossa himself, who destabilized the commercial relations between the Christian kingdoms after the Reconquest.
Image: Region of Murcia Digital
Pirates in the 17th century.
We continue with the summary on Mediterranean piracy delimiting the period of maximum splendor of the pirates. In this age, Muslims and Protestants joined to fight the Catholic Church and therefore punish both Spain and Rome, since they were the two great defenders of Christianity.
During that time, Spain and the Turkish Empire would have an infinity of confrontations in which, various places in North Africa changed sides until the War of the Spanish Succession (1700-1714) dates by which the Turkish Empire finished taking the remaining places in the Maghreb from Spain, such as Oran and Mers-el-Kebir, further strengthening the Turkish presence.
The fruit of the various confrontations that took place throughout the Modern Age were slaves because, from both worlds became prisoners of war who in some cases were changed to save others prisoners.
One of the best known men in Spain, Miguel de Cervantes, was a slave in Algiers for a time after his boat fell into the hands of Algerian pirates.
The 19th century and piracy.
The end of Mediterranean piracy came with the start of colonialism of Africa. The great European powers and the USA decided, as of the year 1810, to stop paying tribute to the Berber leaders who had on the coasts of the Maghreb thus initiating a series of offensives on the African coasts, in order to destroy the bases and fleets.
In 1816 a large part of the Algiers fleet had been destroyed and in 1830 it was conquered by France. After that, the disintegration of the Turkish Empire It caused piracy to decline, the last strongholds being Morocco and Tunisia.
Once we entered the 20th century, Berber activities ceased, although today we can find a series of activities carried out from the north of Africa related to trafficking in women and children, immigration activities (boats) and assaults on fishing boats and other tourist vessels at the hands of criminals.
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