The Barbary Coast
What is the Barbary Coast?
The Barbary Coast was named for the Berber people of North Africa, who began their habitation of the region in prehistoric times. The coast stretches from Morocco in the west to Libya in the east, and by the 17th century was comprised of several different kingdoms, states, and sultanates with constantly-shifting levels of affiliation. The 16th century had seen major conflicts between Spain and the Ottoman Empire for control over the coast, which in turn gave rise to a type of state-sponsored piracy called privateering. Privateers, also called corsairs, allowed governments to take a portion of pirated plunder, which gave pirates a kind of carte blanche to participate in illicit activities without fear of legal reprisal. Sailors from across the Mediterranean region--Spaniards, Sicilians, Moroccans, Albanians, Algerians, Greeks, and Turks--all turned to corsairing, oftentimes against their own governments, to make their living.
By the time of St. Vincent's birth in 1580, small pirate settlements were popping up throughout the Barbary Coast to take advantage of the privateering trend, while existing cities had become hubs for black-market activity. Two of the major hubs were Tunis and Tripoli, in present-day Tunisia and Libya, respectively. Under Ottoman reign, both cities became centers of the slave trade. Indeed, St. Vincent himself told his own tale of being sold at a Tunisian slave auction.
The Piratical Kingdom of Algiers
The Kingdom of Algiers, also known as the Regency of Algiers, was a semi-autonomous domain of the Ottoman Empire until 1830. It was composed of four regions: Algiers (the seat of the Sultan), Oran, Constantine, and Titerry. To the south lies the territory of the Biledulgerid (Bheladal Dsherid, or “Country of Dates”). Algiers had changed hands several times in the 16th century, with both the Spanish and the Ottomans variously in control of the city. The famous Turkish privateer Barbarossa finally took Algiers into Ottoman control for good in 1529, and soon afterward it became the center of piracy throughout the Mediterranean.
Over the next century, the many European attempts to take Algiers failed miserably. France, under Louis XIV, attempted and ultimately failed to defeat the Kingdom in its effort to contain privateering and the enslavement of Christian travelers. Until the conquest of Algiers by the French in 1830, tribute had to be paid by states to the Sultan for the safe passage of their ships.
Rich in topographical detail, the cartographer, Nicholas Sanson, goes to great lengths to illustrate the complex orography of the Tell Atlas and Saharian Atlas ranges. Coastal features are meticulously documented, as are political boundaries. Nicholas Sanson (1600–1667) was a member of the illustrious Sanson family, one of France’s most important cartographer dynasties, and enjoyed the patronage of Louis XIII and Louis XIV.
Tripoli
The Ottoman Empire took Tripoli from the Christian Knights of St. John in the mid-16th century, and soon afterward the city became a bustling center of trade, both legal and illicit. As a nominally Ottoman, corsair-run city, Tripoli was an important objective of the French navy, though the most direct 17th century European attack against the city was the failed English campaign of 1675. By 1720, Tripoli had begun operating semi-autonomously from the Ottoman Empire. This gave rise to even more acts of piracy, kidnapping, and blackmail; these illegal activities eventually led to a series of wars with the then-young United States of America.
The main themes of this particular map are the quality of the port, and the disposition of forts and city fortifications. The enumeration of artillery pieces and munitions parked on fortification platforms and forts gives the map a decidedly martial character. The absence of any vernacular urban morphology highlights the few sites that de Fer chose to highlight: the ruler’s castellated palace and the main mosques and shrines.