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was extinguished only in the 19th century.
From 1659 onwards the coast cities of Algeria
and Tunisia, though nominally forming parts
of the Turkish empire, were in fact anarchical
military republics which chose their own
rulers and lived by plunder. The maritime side
of this long-lived brigandage was conducted
by captains, or reiJeq, who formed a class or
even a corporation. Cruisers were fitted out by
capitalists and commanded by the reiJeq. The
treasury of the pasha or his successors who
bore the title of Agha or Dey or Bey, received
10% ofthe value ofthe prizes.... Until the 17th
century the pirates used galleys, but Simon
Danser, a Flemish renegade, taught them the
advantages of using sailing ships. In the first
half of the 17th century more than 20,000 captives
were said to be imprisoned in Algiers
alone. The rich were allowed to redeem themselves,
but the poor were condemned to slavery.
Their masters would not in many cases
allow them to secure freedom by professing
Mohammadanism. In the early part ofthe 19th
century, Tripolitania, owing to its piratical
practices, was several times involved in war
with the United States. After the general pacification
of 1815, the British made two vain
attempts to suppress Algerian piracy, which
was ended only by the French conquest of
Algiers in 1850.
28
Note that Islam is called "Mohammadanism". Note that
these piratical "Mohammadans" refused "in many cases" to
permit conversion; the logical conclusion is that in ,;orne cases
they iJiiJ permit it-but the author prefers to avoid this conclusion,
and to speak only in negative terms about mere
"Mohammadans" and pirates.
Two interesting political terms are used here-"anarchical"
and "capitalists"-which may not be quite appropriate.
"Capitalist" sounds too 18-19th century to describe the merchants
and ship-owning captains who fueled the economy of
the corsair states. Moreover, I presume the author is not
thinking ofanarchMm when he uses the term "anarchical" but
is simply brandishing this word to indicate .,iolent iJMoriJcr.
Algiers was subject to the Ottoman Empire, and thus could
not have attained an anarchist form of organization in any
strict sense of the word. As for the charge of "violent disorder",
some scholars have asked how Algiers could have survived
for centuries as a "corsair state" without some kind of
internal continuity and stability. Earlier Eurocentric historians
and sensationalist writers on piracy give us an impression
of Algiers as a kind of ravening horde in a state of perpetual
arousal; while more recent and less chauvinistic scholars
like William Spencer (1976) tend to emphasize the stability
of Algiers and to seek for possible explanations for its
successful duration. The quasi-moralistic horror embedded
in a term like "anarchical", as applied to North Africa, tends
to obscure the secret fact that historians are frequently in the
business of providing retrospective justifications for the
imperialism and colonialism-the truly hideous rapacity-of
I8-19th century Europe. IfAlgiers can be shown as a sinkhole
of all decent human values, then we are permitted to go
on believing in the mission" of Europe's subsequent
African and other colonial adventures. Hence the need
for a massive rCPMing of history as written by European (and
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