Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

outlawed. More, the Europeans gave it its name, theorized about it, and enacted
statutes regulating it. So, even by European standards, the corsairs of Algiers
were not operating in a legal international vacuum and certainly were not the
innovators of corsairing and even less its exclusive possessors.
Piracy, however, is much older; perhaps it is as old as humanity itself.
Christian Europeans practiced and excelled in it long before the Muslim Arabs
and Turks, or Saracens as the latter were commonly known in Europe, reached
the waters of the Mediterranean. Accustomed to the desert of the Arabian
Peninsula and steppes of Central Asia, Arabs and Turks roamed those vicinities
on the backs of sand-vessels and horses rather than aboard water vessels. Arabs
and Turks, in fact, did only learn from the Christian inhabitants of the shores of
the Mediterranean how to ride sea and plunder merchant shipping. With no
naval tradition, the Muslims realized how it was difficult for them to
counterbalance the power of Christian Europe. This same Europe made it
imperative for the Ottoman Empire and its North African provinces to develop
and maintain a navy. 77 Khayreddin Barbarossa realized the vitality of the issue
and explained to Suleyman the Magnificent “that he who rules on the sea will
rule on the land also.” 78 The Spanish Reconquista, however, involuntarily made
it possible: the expulsion of the Andalusians, skilled, entrepreneur but also
resentful and revengeful, contributed much to the growth of Algerian
77 For the strategic and religious dimension of Muslim and Christian naval power see Rose, “Islam
versus Christendom,” pp. 561-78.
78 Currey, Sea-Wolves, p. 28.
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