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

treaties. 130 Not recognizing Algiers as a legitimate polity, i.e., maintaining that
Algiers was a pirate state, would have implied that the European states were
also ‘outlaw states’ because treaties are concluded between legal counterparts,
i. e.: between a state and another state—not between states and pirates who are
technically outlaws. In other words, according to Zingg, to describe Barbary
policy “exclusively in terms of piracy denies the execution of authority of the
Maghribi governments over their charges [and] strains the legitimacy of any
concluded treaties.” 131
From the 1670s onwards, Algiers “became a de facto independent
polity” recognized by all—Ottomans and Europeans alike. 132
Its fleet was
meticulously organized and regulated as well as the men who served on it.
Corsairing was a state-authorized maritime activity regulated by treaties with
the European powers; therefore, it could by no means be tagged ‘piracy’ unless
one denies Algiers its recognized status as a de facto independent state or least,
its legal status as a province of the Ottoman Empire. Yet, Christians’ hostility
towards Algiers went unabated undoubtedly because it resisted the most
powerful European countries and brought them to accept treaties according to
its own conditions—the least being the truce signed with Spain in 1786 after
almost three hundred years of fruitless aggressions, which Spaniards and other
130 For a counter-argument see Thorup, “The Horror of the ‘Enemy of Humanity,’” p. 10. Thorup
maintains that “Although we here see a recognition of the Barbaresque-states as sovereign their
practice is still considered illegitimate, being warfare without legitimate purpose, that is, just an excuse
for plunder.”
131 Zingg, “One-Dimensional History,” p. 153.
132 Oded Löwenhiem, Predators and Parasites: Persistent Agents of Transnational Harm and Great
Power Authority (Detroit, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2006), p. 81.
103