Ottoman Corsairs and English Renegades 1600 To 1700 - Coastal Kent and Sussex Pirates (By Sevket Akyildiz, 2020)

COPYRIGHT: BY-NC-ND. OPEN ACCESS RESEARCH NOTES.
SEVKET AKYILDIZ, MAY 2020
ottoman Corsairs and English renegades

1600 – 1700 CE:
COASTAL Kent and Sussex and pirates
A study on
the Barbary
Corsairs and
Privateers,
and South-
East England
Author:
Sevket
Hylton
Akyildiz
Summer 2020
1
COPYRIGHT: BY-NC-ND. OPEN ACCESS RESEARCH NOTES. SEVKET AKYILDIZ, MAY 2020
Abstract
This extended essay investigates the Ottoman corsairs (also known as Barbary corsairs or North
African corsairs) and their impact on South-East England. Of particular interest are the English
renegade privateers and pirates who worked alongside the Ottoman sailors. John Ward (b.1553-
d.1623 CE), the most notorious English renegade, was a Kentish man. Indeed, my paper
explains that during the early 1600s, numerous Ottoman corsair captains originated from
ostensibly Christian European families. This paper aims to collate and review a sample of the
historical scholarship and sources on the subject. My research questions ask: What do the
secondary sources tell us about the impact of the Barbary corsairs on coastal Kent and Sussex
(South-East England)? How does South-East England fit into the framework of Barbary
corsairs? What role did the English renegades from Kent and Sussex play in corsair history?
Part one traces Barbary corsair history between 1500 and 1700 CE. Part two describes the
English renegades operating in the Mediterranean and the English Channel. Part three reviews
the historical scholarship and secondary sources about the Barbary corsairs and Sussex and
Kent and is presented chronologically from 1605 to 1712 CE. While the secondary literature
contains little evidence on Barbary corsairs attacking South-East coastal sites; nevertheless,
my essay explores what contemporary historians have recorded.
Keywords: Barbary corsairs, English renegades, John Ward, Kent, Sussex, Turkish pirates.
Author: Sevket Akyildiz1
COVER PAGE IMAGE 1: A Barbary Corsair in Costume

(A Native of North Africa or a European Renegade?)
Source: Jacques Grasset de Saint-Sauveur (France, 1757-1810), Labrousse. France, circa 1797,
Prints; engravings hand-tinted engraving on a paper sheet. Copyright Free – Image in the Public
Domain. Available: https://collections.lacma.org/node/208461 (accessed 14 April 2020).
1
Sevket Akyildiz is a freelance post-doctoral researcher. He received his PhD in Middle East and
interdisciplinary studies (the history, culture, ethnicity, religion and politics of Soviet era Central Asia) in June
2011 from SOAS, University of London. He has several articles, essays, and book chapters published.
Sevket’s site: https://www.sevket-akyildiz.com/about
Dedication: A big thank you to everyone that has ever made me rethink my outlook through shared laughter,
and to folk who have been kind and honest.
2
Contents
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 4
Glossary of terms .................................................................................................................................... 6
PART 1: Motivation, geography, raids, and renegades........................................................................... 9
Defining the Corsair ............................................................................................................................ 9
Motivating factors: Barbary corsairs................................................................................................... 9
Place and geography: England .......................................................................................................... 12
Ships, men, and cargo: England, Wales, and Ireland ........................................................................ 13
Ransoming captives .......................................................................................................................... 14
PART 2: Renegade European and English corsairs ................................................................................ 16
Renegade European corsairs ............................................................................................................ 16
English corsair bases in the Mediterranean...................................................................................... 19
English Channel after 1620 ............................................................................................................... 20
PART 3: Sources: Kent and East Sussex ................................................................................................. 23
Source 3.1: Kent: John Ward/Jack Ward/Captain Yusuf ................................................................... 23
Source 3.2: East Sussex, Rye ............................................................................................................. 25
Source 3.3: Kent: Renegades ............................................................................................................ 26
Source 3.4: West Sussex, Cuckfield................................................................................................... 26
Source 3.5: ‘Lawrence of Dover’, Kent, & Sir Henry Mainwaring Lieutenant of Dover Castle ......... 27
Source 3.6: Earl of Sandwich, English military base in Tangier, Morocco ........................................ 27
Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 28
Appendices............................................................................................................................................ 32
Moor travellers to Southern England ............................................................................................... 32
Barbary corsairs ................................................................................................................................ 33
Select Bibliography................................................................................................................................ 36
By the same author................................................................................................................................ 37
3
Introduction
The following research investigates the subject of Barbary corsairs and South-East England.
The work contains three interconnected themes: corsairs, place, and interculturality. The
context of the study is elite patrons and rogue sailors during the 17th century CE. The topics
examined are the North African based corsairs, the English renegade privateers, and South-
East England. The English counties of Kent and East Sussex, and West Sussex form the
regional focus of the case study. With this in mind, the historical evidence of the Barbary
corsairs attacking coastal sites here is sparse. Most of the published academic and popular
history studies about Barbary corsairs examine the South-West of England, notably Cornwall
and Devon, and Southern Ireland. Nonetheless, my paper aims to collate and review a sample
of the published and online secondary sources on South-East England and the Barbary corsairs.
My work does not claim to be an extensive account of the events and people connected with
the Barbary corsairs along the Sussex and Kent coast. Instead, this is an introductory study
written to share ideas and thoughts. The target audience for this work is the general reader.
Online sources and public library texts are used to tell a story unknown to many readers. Also,
I trace a narrative that, someday, a scholar might wish to deepen and expand.
The period studied will begin in the 1500s (the Tudor period) when Barbary corsairs and
Spanish corsairs were active in the Mediterranean. However, I emphasise events and people
during the 1600s and early 1700s (the Stuart England period of 1603 to 1714 and Georgian era
of 1714 to 1837 CE). It was an era when European renegade captains sailing in big ships
enabled the Barbary corsairs to undertake raiding campaigns in the North Atlantic Ocean and
along the shores of the English Channel—and as far as Iceland.
The approach taken will highlight elements of the geographic, socio-economic, and
intercultural themes found in the primary and secondary sources. In the Barbary corsairs and
South-East coastal England context, I ask what happened, when, why, and where? However,
this paper will not explore in detail the corsairs and regional power politics, inter-religious
conflicts, local and regional economies, racism, gender issues, sexual abuse, military strategy,
or the psychology of fear. I am less interested in the ‘clash of civilisations’ thesis and the inter-
religious wars (crusade and jihad) in the paper. While these topics are important in
understanding corsair historiography, they have been discussed extensively by academics,
popular historians, and journalists for some time now. In the footnotes, there are examples of
such authors and their works. Likewise, I do not explain why an Englishman would turn
renegade and prefer a different culture and society from that of his birth. These themes listed
are all worthy, but they deserve analysis in a separate paper.
The paper’s research questions ask: What do the secondary sources tell us about the impact of
the Barbary corsairs on coastal Kent and Sussex (South-East England)? How do coastal Sussex
and Kent fit into the framework of Barbary corsairs? What role did the English renegades from
Kent and Sussex play in corsair history? There are two categories of ‘renegades’: (Group A
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the ‘seafarers’) European and English renegade corsairs, and (Group B the ‘land dwellers’) the
European and English renegade subjects (men, women, and children). It is Group A that is the
focus of my paper. Also, I acknowledge that corsairs included African, Jewish, and South and
East Asian mariners; however, the article concentrates upon European, English, and
multicultural Muslim Ottoman sailors.
My paper will not sensationalise or romanticise the accounts of the Barbary and European
corsairs and pirates. In its simplest form, the corsair was a privateer involved in crime, violence,
and human slavery and oppression; the pirates and corsairs lived in a complex and amoral
milieu. Economics, psychology and ego shaped their decision-making, as did the pressures and
machinations of the great powers.
The theory used in this paper (to be inserted later) will analyse two strands, firstly, the Barbary
corsairs as a group and their activities. Secondly, the renegade as the ‘trickster’ will be studied.
The anthropological approach of Shannon Lee Dawdy and Joe Bonni is noteworthy. They say
that the pirates are ‘organisational social bandits’, … ‘who appear on the scene as folk heroes
when contradictions and inequalities built into a political economy peak to the breaking
point’.2 I will emphasise the socially and economically deprived background of the English
renegades, their sense of alienation, and the attraction of social mobility found in the
multicultural corsair city-states.
In compiling this essay, it became clear that the printed and online secondary sources on the
Barbary corsairs and Sussex and Kent counties are not extensive. It is the case because most
corsair raids occurred in the South-West of England and Southern Ireland. However, it is worth
collating the few available stories of the Barbary corsairs and South-East England, as they
reveal the influence of these ‘agents of empire’3 in a geographic region not commonly
associated with their presence. Furthermore, to clarify this requires a visit to the National
Archives at Kew, London; here, primary documents about South-East England corsair raids
and visitations might exist. On page 24 below, I have provided a list of archives that a
researcher might wish to access and interrogate.
The essay structure has three parts. Part one, ‘Motivation, geography, raids, and renegades’,
describes the Barbary/Ottoman corsairs’ motivating factors and summarises their 200-year
history from 1500 to 1700 CE; the structural approach is thematic. The discussion introduces
the South-East England region and the corsairs, and their targeting of ships, men, and cargo.
Included in this part is an explanation of the ransoming of captives by the corsairs and how this
worked. Part two will investigate the ‘Renegade European and English corsairs’ and their
activities in the Mediterranean (pre-1620 CE) and the English Channel (after 1620). In part
three (‘Sources: Kent and East Sussex’), I review what the secondary sources say about the
Barbary corsairs and Sussex and Kent chronologically from 1605 to 1712 CE. A notable
character mentioned is Kentish-born sailor John Ward/Captain Yusuf (d. 1623 CE); he
2
See Shannon Lee Dawdy and Joe Bonni, ‘Towards a General Theory of Piracy’, Anthropological Quarterly, Vol.
85, No. 3 (Summer 2012): 673-699; 673.
3
A term that I have taken from the title of Noel Malcolm, 2016, Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and
Spies in the Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World (London: Penguin).
5
voluntarily sailed to the Barbary Coast to join the Ottoman corsairs and became a renegade
Englishman.
MAP 1: The Barbary Coast showing Sale, Algiers, and Tunis Ports
Glossary of terms
Alboran Sea The westernmost part of the Mediterranean Sea, stretching from the
Iberian Peninsula (Spain), the Gibraltar Straits, and North Africa.
Algiers Situated in coastal North Africa. From about 1600 to the early 1800s, it was a
city-state. During this period, it was a region associated with the Barbary corsair activities.
Today it is part of the country of Algeria.
Barbary Coast Also known as the Berbery or Berber Coast. The name derives from its
ethnic Berber inhabitants. However, ‘Barbary Coast’ is a European term. It was used between
the 1600s and 1800s about the North African region, towns, ports, harbours, and societies that
stretched from Mediterranean Tripoli Town to the Atlantic coast of Western Morocco
(including Sale port).
Barbary pirates See North African pirates.
Barbary wars A series of military conflicts resulted in two wars between the United
States, including Sweden, and the Barbary city-states. The battles raged from 1801 to 1815.
Corsair Originally a French term for a fast-sailing boat. Later, a corsair was known as a
type of ‘mercenary coastguard’. It refers to an individual who sails in a boat or ship to attack,
rob and loot other seafaring people and coastal settlements. Corsairs operated in the
Mediterranean region and off North-West European coasts. What distinguishes corsairs and
6
privateers from ‘pirates’ is that during the 1600s and 1700s, they were permitted, in return for
a tithe or payment or share of goods, by their government(s) to roam and pillage, for example,
by the Ottoman Sultan, and Queen Elizabeth I. In the English language primary sources, the
label Turkish corsairs mean Barbary corsairs.
Freebooter A soldier working for booty and plunder: a profit-sharing mercenary.
Hornacheros Arabic-speaking refugees from the Hornachos region, Extremadura,
Iberia. During the early 1600s, they fled from the advancing Spanish military forces to the
towns of Sale and Rabat in Morocco.
Intercultural Means communication and interaction between cultures, or something
or practice derived from two or more different cultures.
Janissaries (Ottoman Turkish: yeniceri, meaning new soldiers) Elite infantry units. Often
Ottoman Christian children were taken and raised for the military role.
Kent A county in South-East England.
Morisco (Spanish meaning ‘Little Moor’, a derogatory term). Hispano-Muslims
converted to Christianity (after 1500 CE), fled, or were expelled (ethnic cleansing), circa 1609
to 1614, from Al-Andalusia by advancing Spanish Catholic conquerors. (See Mudejar, Moor.)
Moor (European origins: French ‘More’, Greek ‘Mauros’) A Muslim living in Spain
and Portugal. Moors were an ethnic mix of Arabs, Africans, white Europeans, and Berbers.
They built the Andalusian society and Granada. However, over centuries of internal and
external conflicts, they succumbed to a newly unified Spanish crown. They started to become
refugees during the 1400s and resettled in the North African city-states. Their final expulsion
from Iberia was in 1609-10 CE. (See Morisco.)
Mudejar (Spanish from Arabic mudajjan ‘allowed to stay’.) Muslim subjects of Catholic
monarchs during the ‘reconquest’ of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors (1000s to 1400s).
They were allowed to retain Islamic laws (sharia) and Islamic practices in return for loyalty
and acquiescence to a Spanish Christian ruler.
North African pirates Also referred to in the historical documents as the Barbary
pirates/corsairs, Ottoman corsairs/pirates, and Turkish corsairs/pirates. They were groups of
ethnically diverse male pirates and privateers based in the coastal city-states of Sale/Sallee
(Morocco), Algiers (Algeria), Tunis (Tunisia), and Tripoli (Libya).
Ottoman Empire (Osmanli Empire 1301 CE to 1922-1923 CE) A Turkish and Muslim
dominated multilinguistic and multi-ethnic empire; its head was the Osmanli family dynasty.
It reached its military and political zenith during the 1600s and 1700s. The metropolis (since
1453 CE) was Istanbul, formerly Constantinople.
Pirate A sea bandit or sailor who forcibly seizes people and property.
7
Privateer Pirates who operate with a legal licence from a state government to attack
enemy ships and ports during wartime, keeping a share of seized goods. The patron (either
local or the head of state) would receive an agreed percentage of the booty.4
Ra’is (Arabic, ‫ )رئیس‬A leader, chief, or captain of a boat or ship.
Renegade (renegado) A person who turns his or her back on their native culture and
society. For instance, a European Christian who converts to Islam after travelling to a Muslim
society. It might have been true conversion or undertaken for pragmatic reasons (by former
captives and slaves). Renegades were considered apostates by Europeans. ‘Renegade’ was a
negative label during the 1600s, with corsair men being one example. (See ‘Turn Turk’.)
‘Turn Turk’ (Take the Turban) A term for individuals, either traders or hostages/slaves,
who converted to Islam while in North Africa. Also, it means any European who became
corsair by cohesion or by choice. The Ottoman state during the 1600s was a Muslim
‘superpower’ with cultural capital. Consequently, Christians or Jews who converted to Islam
were said to have joined this polity.
Sale / Sallee A port town beside Rabat Town in Morocco. It was connected from 1624 to
1668 CE with the trade of white European hostages/slaves. Sale was independently governed
by competing elite groups associated with the slave trade. The inhabitants of this multicultural
town included North Africans, European renegades, Iberian Andalusian refugees, and others.
The Sale ‘statelet’ was referred to by locals as the Republic of Bouregreg.
Sale / Salle Rovers English vernacular name given to the corsairs and privateers operating
from Sale.
Slave An individual forcibly taken as property and used as unfree labour. Barbary
corsairs used captured Europeans (from sea raids and coastal sites) for ‘ransom farming’ and
‘hostage trading’, as much as labour intensive unpaid work (galley slavery and major building
works). The Spanish and Maltese used Muslim galley slaves.
Sussex A county of South-East England consisting of two counties: East and West
Sussex.
4
See Lee Dawdy and Bonni, ‘Towards a General Theory of Piracy’: 673-699; 673.
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PART 1: Motivation, geography, raids, and renegades
Defining the Corsair

Noel Malcolm distinguishes the corsair’s characteristics from those of the pirate. However, he
highlights that the corsair has both a contemporary and a sixteenth-century interpretation. In
the sixteenth-century vernacular, the terms were interchangeable, though each was a different
type of armed seafarer -
‘In modern terminology there is a clear distinction between a pirate and a corsair. A pirate will
rob and raid indiscriminately, complying with no law and recognizing no superior authority. A
corsair acts with the authorization of his ruler, targets particular enemies, follows a code of
conduct… In the sixteenth-century Mediterranean, the word ‘corsair’… was widely employed in
its various forms, the word ‘pirate’ … existed, but was much less commonly used. In Ottoman
Turkish, korsan … could mean either type’.5
Motivating factors: Barbary corsairs

The motivations behind the actions of the Barbary corsairs and the privateers are explainable
by some medium- and long-term factors. The general factors included: inter-religiopolitical
and inter-communal tensions; the fall of Muslim Iberia (Spain) and fleeing refugees; the
politics of revenge; the renegade mentality; united Ottoman Barbary and English hostility to
the Spanish crown; the nature of local economies; and local and imperial patronage. However,
four critical factors noted are –
Al-Andalusian refugees and Hispano-Muslim exiles.
In January 1492, Granada, Al-Andalusia surrendered to Isabel and Fernando’s army. In the
following decades, there began a process of the marginalisation of the Moor population, their
forced conversion to Catholicism, and a series of mass expulsions (ethnic cleansing) of the
non-Catholic population (ending a 750-year Iberian Muslim civilisation). The last wave of
expulsions happened in 1609-14. The Mudejar, Morisco, Hornachero, and Al-Andalusian
refugees settled in the Arab-Berber towns of North Africa. They came from different socio-
economic backgrounds and joined Barbary societies and city-states that were experiencing
increasing economic prosperity.6 In this knowledge transfer, the Muslim refugees brought
valuable skills, trades, agricultural expertise, learning, and leadership experience. Some of the
refugees and emigrants joined the North African corsairs in ports like Sale and passed on their
coastal Spain and Spanish shipping knowledge.
Patrons, government policy and organisational aid.
Local dignitaries and monarchs funded the privateers and corsairs. Indeed, many nations were
involved in organised piracy. In 1491, Isabel and Fernando encouraged Spanish corsairs to
plunder North African coastal towns. Likewise, the Maghrebi (North African) pirates attacked
5
Malcolm, Agents of Empire, p. 79.
6
Jonathan Bloom and Sheila Blair, 2001, Islam: Empire of Faith (London: BBC), pp. 194-199.
9
Iberian Spanish boats and coastal sites. English Queen Elizabeth I (r.1558-1603 CE) supported
Francis Drake (d. 1596 CE) and Walter Raleigh’s (d. 1618 CE) pirate attacks on the Spanish
Main (Spanish shipping routes). However, the official attitude towards privateers was dynamic
and influenced by diplomacy and international politics; for instance, English King James I (r.
1603 to 1625), in 1603, prohibited English privateers. Corsairs from Malta, particularly the
Christian Knights of Malta (Knights Hospitaler), attacked Ottoman merchant ships.
Theoretically, ‘the prime purpose of the Knights of Malta was to counter’ the Barbary corsairs.
In reality, the Knights of Malta also raided shipping in the Levant and the Greek archipelago;
their prime motivation was ‘booty: merchandise, people (for enslavement or ransom) and
ships’.7 Furthermore, the French and Dutch had many pirate groups actively competing against
the nations above.
Malcolm says the ‘irregular powers’ or raiding societies (corsair societies), operating from
North Africa, Malta, and the Balkans - the frontier zones between the Ottomans and
Christendom -, were ‘… conjoined in a complex system of inter-power relations with regular
ones. Often they caused serious trouble not only to their enemies but also to their sponsors’.
Notwithstanding, the relationship was mutually beneficial for the irregular powers and the
empires (state systems).8 Alan G. Jamieson highlights an important point about the status of
the North African corsairs and social mobility in the Ottoman society: Barbary corsairs were
not formally part of the imperial government, and military officials educated and trained in
Istanbul. Nonetheless, if a corsair rose through the ranks and succeeded militarily, they might
be rewarded by the sultan with the highest naval roles.9 10
Ottoman expansion into the Western Mediterranean threatened the Spanish Hapsburgs.
The Ottomans took Egypt in 1517 and made Cairo their provincial capital. They expanded
westwards along the coast and established provincial governorates in the city-states of North
Africa. The economies in Tunis and Tripoli, under Spanish or Ottoman rule, were linked with
corsairism. Ottoman suzerainty extended to Algiers (1529), Tripoli (1550s), and Tunis (1574),
forcing the Spanish11 out of the region (the North African Maghrib). The Ottomans made
Algiers a centre for its Janissary soldiers and allowed corsairing (with the mixed heritage
Barbarossa brothers, Turgud Reis, Ulaj/Kilic Ali as their leaders). Malcolm claims the ‘corsairs
were the most skilled sailors and maritime fighters in the entire Ottoman fleet...’;12 ‘...
7
Malcolm, Agents of Empire, pp. 78-79. A truce not to attack each other was agreed between the Ottomans,
the Kinights of Malta (Spain), and Venice between 1581 and 1587 (p. 275).
8
Malcolm, Agents of Empire, pp. 327-29.
9
Jamieson, Lords of the Sea, p. 61.
10
Malcolm’s Agents of Empire explains how the Ottoman dynasty created -- not only corsairs -- but an elite
social group consisting of uprooted and ‘cosmopolitan’ subjects: ‘… in the upper reaches of the Ottoman
administration there were many ‘renegades’ (converts to Islam), from Italy, Croatia, Hungary, Austria and
elsewhere, whose native language and mental formation were Western – or, at least, Christian and non-
Ottoman – European. It was a basic feature of the Ottoman system that the government consisted primarily of
slaves of the Sultan, who owed him their undivided allegiance because they had been uprooted from, or had
never belonged to, any local interest-group within the empire(p. 224.)…; ‘As for the renegades: while there
were no equivalents to them on the Christian side – no converts from Islam installed in sensitive governmental
positions’ (p. 229).
11
Spanish Hapsburg dynasty ruled from Spain between 1516 and 1700 CE.
12
10
Ottomans described the Tatars and the North African corsairs as the Sultan’s two “wings”’.13
State patronage partly explains why the 1500s and 1600s are remembered today as the Barbary
corsairs' so-called ‘golden age’. At the same time, the 1600s saw the ‘institutionalisation’ of
the corsairs by the Spanish and Ottomans.
However, Algiers developed de facto independence from Istanbul and its Beys/Deys (local
leaders) and established diplomatic relations with the major European powers. In faraway
Morocco, Sale was always independent of Istanbul. One Moroccan leader, Ahmad al-Mansur
(r. 1578-1603), openly traded with European countries and England. The English Barbary
Company of London negotiated, with the government's consent in London, trading privileges
with Morocco.14 The semi-independent nature of Moroccan ports, for example, Sale, makes
them different case studies to Ottoman influenced Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis fortified ports.
(See Appendix 9.)
Opportunities and social mobility.
Corsairing for some men, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, became a way
of life. Barbary corsairs included Al-Andalusian Muslim refugees and their descendants,
European Muslim converts,15 sailor renegades, and social outcasts. It included individuals from
different social and religious backgrounds and mentalities. For the captives and slaves who
joined up, it meant an end to their lowly status. As discussed below, an individual might switch
his religion to join a corsair gang, but not in all historical cases.
Furthermore, the day-to-day working life of a Barbary corsair was easier and potentially more
lucrative when compared with a sailor’s life in a European navy. Also, everyday living in North
Africa was generally agreeable, and the climate was warm. Barbary society reflected a
multicultural and intercultural milieu, with people from all races and social backgrounds
sharing the same coastal towns. Social mobility in the corsair city-states attracted the
disaffected and ‘economically disadvantaged’ Europeans. David Coleman explains: ‘… the
world of the corsairs allowed a surprising degree of mobility and participation to converts and
renegades of Muslim, Jewish and Christian origin alike’ (p. 167).16 While the corsairs from
13
Ibid, pp. 328-29.
14
Bloom and Blair, Islam: Empire of Faith, pp. 194-199. The Moroccan ruler Ahmad Al-Mansur (r. 1578-1603)
traded with the European powers, including England and the English Barbary Company who received privileges
within the North African country, p. 197.
15
See Malcolm’s Agents of Empire for a discussion about the elite class of renegade and their rise in society:
‘One of these was Hasan Pasha “Veneziano”, a Venetian sailor who, captured as a young man, had converted
to Islam and enjoyed a rapid rise to power as a protégé of Kılıç Ali Pasha. He served two terms (1577–80, 1582–
7) as governor of Algiers; Miguel de Cervantes, who was a captive there from 1575 to 1580, owed his life to
Hasan’s clemency…’ (p. 370). While, Kilic ‘sword’ Ali, a Christain renegade, exemplifies the social mobility
within the Ottoman corsair world; Jamieson’s Lords of the Sea reports that Ali was born Giovanni Dionigi
Galeni circa 1520 in Italy, and, later, became a galley slave to the Barbary corsairs; his conversion to Islam
changed everything, he rose up the ranks and won victories over the Maltese and Spainish to become
commander in chief of the Ottoman corsairs, pp. 60-62.
16
David Coleman, ‘Of Corsairs, Converts and Renegades: Forms and Functions of Coastal Raiding on Both Sides
of the Far Western Mediterranean, 1490-1540’, Medieval Encounters, Vol. 19, No. 1-2 (2003): 167-192; see
also Richard Platt, ‘The Mediterranean Corsairs’, Vassallomalta.com. Available:
https://vassallohistory.wordpress.com/the-mediterranean-corsairs/ (accessed 14 April 2020).
11
more affluent social backgrounds went to North Africa looking for adventure (see Appendix
4.)
In the next section, I will narrow down the focus to the Barbary corsairs and South-East
England.
Place and geography: England

In terms of place, during the Elizabethan era, Barbara Fuchs says pirates filled the void in
marginal spaces with weak governance:
‘The pervasiveness of piracy fundamentally challenged state sovereignty at the margins, both on
the coasts of England and in those territories, such as Ireland, even more tenuously under its
control’ (p. 48).17
Most English language studies and academic research about the Barbary corsairs analyse how
they voyaged to South-West England, Wales, and Ireland's southern coast. This is
understandable because, in these regions, most of the Barbary seaborne assaults took place and
the capturing of English, Cornish, Welsh and Irish merchant sailors, fishermen, and men,
women, and children. (See Appendix 8.) The Barbary corsairs also raided ships and coastal
villages on the opposite side of the English Channel in France and Holland.18
However, even before the Barbary corsairs appeared on the horizon, a culture of piracy had
developed in the English counties of Devon and Cornwall, and they often feature in Jacobean19
pirate narratives. Clive M. Senior reports: ‘…these two counties bred a high percentage of
pirates and the local inhabitants were probably more willing than those of any other counties
in England to traffic with pirates’.20 It was probably due to their poverty and the economic
reasons they chose the pirate life.
At the other end of the Southern English coast, in South-East England, especially Sussex and
Kent, the secondary sources provide us with little evidence of Barbary corsair raiding
campaigns. (In Part 3, the topic of Kentish and Sussex born corsairs is investigated.) Robert C.
Davies explains that the sources say the Barbary corsairs were known to have sailed up the
English Channel as far as the Thames Estuary (close to London), passing coastal Sussex, Kent,
and Essex on the way. Indeed, in 1617 a corsair ship – also referred to in the English primary
17
Barbara Fuchs, ‘Empires: Pirates, Renegadoes, and the English Nation’, ELH, Vol. 67, No. 1 (2000): 45-69.
18
Alan G. Jamieson highlights the international relations factor between European states and the Ottoman
Barbary city-states: ‘A peace treaty between the Dutch and Algiers was finally agreed in 1622, …The new treaty
was the beginning of a period of more amicable relations between the Dutch and Algiers. A similar treaty was
also agreed with Tunis. In the next few years, the Dutch even allowed Algerine corsairs cruising in the English
Channel to come to their ports for repairs and supplies.’ Source: Alan G. Jamieson, 2012, Lords of the Sea: A
History of the Barbary Corsairs, Alan (London: Reaktion), p. 95.
19
‘Jacobean’ refers to the era of King James I 1603 to 1625.
20
Senior, Clive Malcolm, An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates, 1603-40. 1973,
PhD Thesis, Bristol University, Available: https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/an-
investigation-of-the-activities-and-importance-of-english-pira (accessed 7th October 2020), p. 170.
12
and secondary sources as a Turkish or Ottoman pirate ship – was captured in the Thames
Estuary.21 (See Appendix 7.)
Davies summarises the Barbary corsairs coastal marauding of the early to mid-1600s;
corsairs,
‘… sailed by the dozens up the Channel and even into the Thames estuary, plundering both local
shipping and coastal towns, such that “for villages in England and Wales, as well as the Irish
coast, to be raided and their inhabitants carried away to slavery was no uncommon thing”.’22
Ships, men, and cargo: England, Wales, and Ireland

The cargo seized by the corsairs was transported to North Africa and divided as agreed between
the patron and crew, with a tithe paid to the local bey or political leader. The corsairs formed
part of a larger economy, and ‘they often depended on merchants coming from elsewhere to
buy the goods they had seized’. Indeed, the seized cargo kept local North African port
economies going.23
The exact numbers of vessels seized by the Barbary corsairs off coastal England and Ireland
are unclear. Robert Davies has interrogated the primary sources and says:
‘In their lateen-rigged xebecs (a type of ship) and oared galleys, they grabbed ships and sailors,
and sold the sailors into slavery. Admiralty records show that during this time the corsairs
plundered British shipping pretty much at will, taking no fewer than 466 vessels between 1609
and 1616, and 27 more vessels from near Plymouth in 1625.’24
Robert C. Davies says that the capturing of British sailors and merchant seamen was ongoing
during the 1600s:
‘… during the 1670s, when the English share of the Atlantic slave trade still averaged around
only 1,500 Africans annually, the Algerian and Sale rovers were enslaving hundreds of seamen
and merchants a year from British ships alone’.25
So, how many English and Irish people in total were forcibly transported to North Africa?
Marion Ann Keady reviews the approximate number of English and Irish captives between
1600 and the mid-1700s -
21
See Footnote, page 88 in Robert C. Davies, ‘Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast’, he says: ‘In
1617, a Sale raider was captured in the Thames.’
22
William Laird Clowes, 1897-8, The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to the Present, 5 vols.
(London: Sampson Low), pp. ii, 22-3 and 49; Paul Lovejoy, ‘The Volume of the A Slave Trade: A Synthesis’, The
Journal of African History, Vol. 23, No. 4, (1982), pp. xxiii, 478-82; Morgan, Complete History, v, cited in Robert
C. Davies ‘Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast’, Past and Present, No. 172 (Aug 2001): 87-124; 88.
23
24
Robert Davies, ‘British Slaves on the Barbary Coast’, BBC.co.uk, 2014. Available:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml (accessed 27 March 2020).
25
See Philemon de La Motte, 1721, Voyage pour la redemption des captifs aux royaumes d'Alger et de Tunis
(Paris), translated into English (by Joseph Morgan, 1736) Several Voyages to Barbary (London), p. 99; Joseph
Morgan, 1731, A Complete History of Algiers (London; reprinted New York, 1970), p. v. cited in Robert C.
Davies ‘Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast’: 87. R.C. Davies says ‘Morgan claimed that between
July 1677 and October 1680, 160 British ships were taken, with a loss equal to 400 to 600 slaves annually’: 87.
13
‘Linda Colley suggests that there were at least 20,000 English and Irish captives in North Africa
between the seventeenth century and the mid-eighteenth century’ (p. 18).
Furthermore, Keady says:
‘In my opinion the figure is likely to be closer to Linda Colley’s suggestion of around twenty
thousand captives from England and Ireland for the period under study’ (p. 19).26
During the 1600s, the number of captives taken for ransom and hostage purposes grew
substantially. Most Western authors suggest that over 260 years, between 1520 and 1780 CE,
approximately one million European captives were forcibly taken to the Barbary city-states. It
is the figure that many Western historians calculate to be plausible. However, how can we be
sure that this number is correct? North African and some Western historians might dispute this
number of captives, perhaps arguing it was a lower amount?27
Ransoming captives
Regardless of where the captive was seized - at sea or a coastal village - their treatment was
similar. The plight of the captives was shocking news in their home towns and ports. The
payment of the slave ransom was one option if the money was available. However, the
negotiation to free a slave was slow and not always organised effectively. Often, following an
attack at a coastal site, an attempt was immediately made to pay off the corsairs. The captives’
relatives were keen to reclaim their kith and kin quickly as possible before they disappeared
for years, even decades. Indeed, both upper and lower class captives were ransomable, though
raising the money was a problem (see Appendix 5, 6, and 10.)
In Southern Europe, the Catholic Church established a fund to pay for the liberty of captured
Catholic born sailors, men, women and children held in the Barbary city-states. In majority
Protestant England, the government system of freeing the slaves was less organised. However,
efforts were made by the authorities to free English born captives and large sums of money
paid over the years to the corsairs. For instance, parish records list the monies collected across
Britain for the release of captives. Following a church service, it was not uncommon for a
donation collection from the congregation (see Appendix 4.) Davies reports:
‘England set aside its “Algerian Duty” from customs income to finance redemptions, but much
of this was diverted to other uses. Large-scale ransomings - like the one headed by Edmund
Casson that freed 244 men, women, and children in 1646 - were rare, with the result that
26
Linda Colley, 2003, Captives: Britain, Empire and the World 1600-1850 (London: Pimlico), p. 56, cited in
Marion Ann Keady, Body and Soul: Turning Turk in Early Modern Barbary captivity narratives, 20 Dec 2016, PhD
Thesis. Available:
https://aran.library.nuigalway.ie/bitstream/handle/10379/6249/Thesis%20Complete%20%203%20Jan.pdf?seq
uence=1&isAllowed=y (accessed 3rd April 2020).
27
Malcolm’s Agents of Empire discusses the numbers of slaves in captivity: ‘Throughout this period, warfare,
corsairing, piracy and territorial raiding generated huge numbers of captives in both the Ottoman domains and
the territories of Christendom. Many of these were held on a long-term or permanent basis as slaves... In Italy
there were 40,000 to 50,000 Muslim slaves; the total in Spain may have been similar, though they were greatly
outnumbered there by black Africans. The 'Barbary' states of Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis held at least 35,000
Christian captives (one recent estimate is 38,500) ...’, p. 207.
14
Protestant Britons were often more demoralised and likely to die in captivity than European
Catholics.’28
In the following, I describe and discuss the men responsible for the coastal raids, particularly
the characteristics and role of the European-born renegade corsairs in both the Mediterranean
and the English Channel.
28
Robert Davies, ‘British Slaves on the Barbary Coast’, BBC.co.uk, 2014.
Available:http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml (accessed 27 March
2020).
15
PART 2: Renegade European and English corsairs
The renegade was problematic for both the Christian Europeans and the Muslim North
Africans. The notion of the apostate questioned the established order of allegiance and identity.
Renegades included men, women and children. The abandonment of one’s religion implied the
turning of one’s back on cultural heritage and values. If an individual renounced their faith, it
was bad enough, but joining the Other was a betrayal and taboo. It was unwelcomed by
religious institutions and an ideological threat for the political elites.29 We can only imagine
how shocking for uneducated villagers the idea of switching one’s religion and culture would
seem. The Protestant and Catholic Europeans had a name for the renegade, saying they had
‘turned Turk’ or had chosen to ‘Take the turban’. The label ‘Turk’ refers to self-identification
with the Ottomans, which, in the early 1600s, was a polity that could readily match the military,
economic and cultural power of the European dynasties.
How many English, Welsh, Irish, and European captives ‘turned Turk’? It is unclear, and there
are no absolute numbers; however, scholars have estimated the numbers. Ian Hernon’s book
Fortress Britain: All the Invasions and Incursions since 1066 reports that ‘Between 1580 and
1680, there were typically around 15,000 of these “renegades” in Barbary.’30 Alternatively,
Jamieson writes that ‘One estimate says that around 300,000 Christians became renegades
between 1550 and 1700.’31
The expansion of Ottoman territory into South-East Europe and North Africa, among many
other things, generated cultural identity issues among some Europeans. When English,
Spanish, and Italian captives, held by Barbary corsairs, renounced their faith and converted to
Islam, it was significant. The outcome of such personal choices can be seen in cultural
productions about society and the Other. It was an attempt by creatives to understand why and
where a European subject might wish to convert to Islam and forsake their born identity. One
English cultural response was popular theatre production intended to explain the relationship
between the renegades and their new Muslim identity. Three early modern “Turk” plays
included Robert Greene’s Selimus, Emperor of the Turks (1594); Robert Daborne’s A Christian
Turned Turk (1612); and Philip Massinger’s The Renegado (1623).32
Renegade European corsairs

During the 1600s, the renegade European corsair posed a severe risk to the maritime shipping
of mainland Europe. The renegade understood how the European navies and merchant's vessels
operated, and importantly, they knew about European shipping lanes and the mooring sites.
29
See: Daniel Vitkus (ed.), 2000, Three Turk Plays from Early Modern England: Selimus, Emperor of the Turks; A
Christian Turned Turk; and The Renegado (USA: Columbia University Press), p. 4.
30
Ian Hernon, 2013, Fortress Britain: All the Invasions and Incursions since 1066 (London: History Press).
31
Jamieson, Lords of the Sea, p. 61.
32
Vitkus, Three Turk Plays from Early Modern, p. 4.
16
They also knew the regional and local seas, tides, and coastal locations. Many were skilled
mariners with a desire to profit, illegally, from the cargo transported by ships and boats.
The English privateers under Queen Elizabeth I often targeted Spanish cargo ships; indeed, the
English Protestant seafarers and Barbary Muslim corsairs shared a common enemy in the
Spanish Catholic crown. Malcolm explains how the English ruler sought an alliance against
the threat of the Spanish navy: ‘Like France, only more so, England was pro-Ottoman because
it was anti-Habsburg, and Elizabeth made great efforts to direct Ottoman military power
against Spain’.33 It was mooted during the 1580s that the English would assist the Ottomans
and weaken the Spanish by helping to capture Malta for the Turks.34
However, after James I banned privateering in 1603 CE, numerous privateers did not wish a
return to either English navy life and subsistence mariner wages, so they switched to the
Mediterranean. Senior says: ‘… after the end of Elizabeth’s reign English piracy took on a
markedly different character. In the early years of the seventeenth century, English pirates
grew significantly in number and ensconced themselves in several ports in North Africa’.35 The
English and European pirates looked for a site to operate from and to sell their booty. In this
case, the Barbary ports were appealing because English and European navies could not access
them readily.
A significant number of the Barbary captains (titled ‘ra’is’) were British, Dutch, Spanish,
French, Greek and Italian. The Barbary corsairs captured sailors, traders, and fishermen, using
the fit and healthy ones as galley slaves. (At the time, the English fishing boats had crews
ranging from 10 to 50 men.) In time, and after much soul-searching, some of the captives chose
to become corsairs. In pursuing their new lives and material interests, some converted to Islam,
adopting Muslim costume, names and values. Alternatively, some European mariners sailed in
stolen boats from their homelands direct to the Barbary Coast and freely offered their services
to the corsair leaders and captains (see Appendix 3.)
The role of European captains working under the Ottoman flag cannot be underestimated, and
there is no comparative example of Ottoman Muslim sea captains employed in the service of
an English or European monarch. Jamieson’s Lord of the Sea explains how the Ottoman
mentality and social mobility model differed from the general European case:
‘In the rigid hierarchical societies of Christian Europe the chance of a fisherman’s son rising to
become commander of an empire’s navy (as Uluj Ali did) was nil. The Christian naval
commanders who confronted the corsairs were all aristocrats or princes. In the Ottoman empire
there was no hereditary aristocracy and all the population were in theory the slaves of the sultan.
Christians denounced this as oriental despotism, but it also meant that the sultan could choose
the best men for his government, army and fleet without concern for racial or class origins’ (p.
61.)
Robert C. Davies’s paper, ‘Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast’, highlights the
role of the renegade sailors and sea captains –
33
34
Ibid.
35
Senior, p. iii.
17
‘Moreover, throughout the century 1580-1680, the entire business of corsairing in Barbary was
dominated by none other than renegades themselves: lists of the ra’is from around 1600 indicate
that better than half of these corsair captains were of European origin, men who came to hold
considerable economic sway in cities like Algiers and Tripoli, that were dependent on piracy for
their well-being’ (p. 121).36
Peter Lewis’s book review explains that:
‘Many of the most notorious Barbary captains in those days were, in fact, Englishmen. They
changed their names, their dress and in some cases their religion, converting to Islam.’37
Senior highlights the close working relationship between the English sailors and the Ottoman
corsairs and the commitment of the renegades:
‘The renegades of Algiers and Tunis, on the other hand, went to sea in the company of Turks and
Moors, plundered all Christian shipping and even sold English crews who offered resistance into
slavery. Whereas many of the Atlantic pirates lived in hope of an English pardon, the renegades
were permanently outlawed… the renegades imitated the Turks, “for eyther they clip their beards
verye nere or shave them”’ (p. 99).38
Furthermore, the Western literature reports that the European and English renegades during the
1600s shared new maritime technology with the Barbary corsairs. The renegades assisted in
developing boatbuilding in the Barbary shipyards. This knowledge transfer aided the North
Africans in building larger ocean-going ships, enabling the corsair missions to venture further
than the traditional smaller xebecs or galleys. The new, bigger vessels journeyed into the North
Atlantic fishing lanes to attack and seize the undefended fishing boats. This was a problem for
North-West European states to counter, and it was not until the second half of the 1600s that
when the English navy grew in size, the corsairs found raiding the English shores to be
increasingly hazardous.
Given this, it is worth noting that some scholars claim that Muslim shipbuilders would have
learnt to construct larger vessels without the aid of the European renegades—and that Ottoman
sea captains were capable of raiding overseas. Alan G. Jamieson questions the Western idea
that European renegades played a dominant role in Barbary corsairism:
‘In a reworking of the Christian origins explanation for the new Muslim prowess in naval
warfare, Christian commentators (and some later historians) pointed out that because so many
Barbary corsair captains were Christian renegades, they must have brought their superior
maritime skills over from the Christian side. This seems unlikely since most of these renegades
originally fell into Muslim hands when they were children or teenagers (like Uluj Ali) [later Kilic
36
Pierre Dan, 1649, Histoire de la Barbarie et des ses Corsaires (Paris), pp. 308-09, cited in Robert C. Davies
‘Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast’: 87-124; 121.
37
Book review: Peter Lewis, ‘England's Terrors of the High Seas
Pirates of Barbary by Adrian Tinniswood (Jonathan Cape £20)’, Mail Online, 30 April 2020. Available:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1264206/Englands-Terrors-High-Seas-PIRATES-OF-BARBARY-
BY-ADRIAN-TINNISWOOD.html (accessed 24 April 2020). See also Abdal-Hakim Murad, ‘Ward the Pirate’,
Masud.co.uk, January 2003. Available: http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/ward.htm (accessed 27 April
2020).
38
High Court of Admiralty 13/97/123: 1 March 1608, cited in Senior, p. 99.
18
‘sword’ Ali]. The training they received in maritime war was all undertaken after they became
Muslims.’39
I have outlined the impact of the renegade on European and English society; now, I discuss the
events and characteristics of the English pirates and corsairs from the late 1500s to the early
1600s in the Mediterranean and the English Channel.
English corsair bases in the Mediterranean

Senior’s work uses primary sources from the High Admiralty, UK; he writes that, by the late
1500s and early 1600s, the English sea captains turned their eyes from privateering in the
Atlantic towards the Mediterranean.40 Some combined trading with piracy, and by the end of
Elizabeth’s reign, ‘every English trading vessel was suspected of piracy’. The Venetians
‘suffered the great losses’ (although their cargos were insured), with the stolen goods sold at
Ottoman ports in the Greek Archipelago or North Africa.41 Senior says of the Turkish ports:
‘To remain powerful for any length of time, pirates have always had to depend on a reliable base
of operations. It is therefore impossible to undertake a study of English pirates without taking
into consideration their bases abroad and their relationship with foreign rulers. It seems that the
reasons for the growth and decline of English piracy are just as likely to be found in Africa or in
the Mediterranean as in England’ (p. iv).
‘The depredations of the English bertons [200-ton ships with 100 crew] in the Levant were
essentially a by-product of two decades of privateering… They used Turkish ports for refitting,
revictualing and for the disposal of their booty, but they never attempted to create permanent
bases…’ (p. 48).
King James’s peace treaty with Spain (circa 1603) outlawed English privateers from operating
in the Mediterranean, and their booty was not welcome in England.42 The peace with Spain
meant that English privateers were less welcome in Ottoman ports.43 The English pirates in the
Mediterranean had no other option but to operate from North African ports and interact with
the local elites. Tunis became the centre where English privateers sold their loot and resupplied
their boats—and it was the home of the infamous Kentish man, John Ward (see Part 3 below).44
Senior reports that the high point of English renegades in Tunis and Algiers was between 1600
and 1609 (perhaps a few hundred renegades only). The first English renegade corsairs crewed
their ships45; over several years, Turks and Arabs worked alongside them; however, the latter
became the majority over the years. In other words, the English renegades operated, from
Algiers and Tunis, in the early 1600s in an ‘entrepreneurial’ manner, and they received funds
from local elites to equip their boats.46 As the years passed, the renegades lost their
independence and merged into the Ottoman corsair system.47
39
Alan G. Jamieson, 2012, Lords of the Sea: A History of the Barbary Corsairs (London: Reaktion), p. 61.
40
Senior, p. 43.
41
Ibid, p.46.
42
Ibid, p. 50.
43
Ibid, p. 53.
44
Ibid, p. 57.
45
Ibid, p. 68.
46
Ibid, p. 63.
47
Ibid, p. 69.
19
The following example from 1615 shows the role of English renegades in the Ottoman navy –
‘On 28 June 1615, when the Susan Constance of London was captured by six Algerine men-of-
war between Cadiz and San Lucar, five of the pirate ships, crewed mainly by Turks, were
captained by Walsingham, Haggerston, Clark, Kelly and one Browne of Limehouse – all
Englishmen, at least three of whom had been prominent in the Atlantic’ (p. 84).48
Despite the intercultural context, the renegades self-identified with their English heritage and,
after a while, returned to England. Otherwise, they settled and joined the North African
community. Furthermore, daily interactions between the renegades and the locals reveal a
culture clash. The locals viewed the drunken and raucous renegades with disdain.49 Senior
mentions that mixed crews of European renegades and Turks and Arabs occasionally led to
intergroup disputes over captured booty.50 After 1609, several acts of betrayal against the
Ottoman corsairs by European corsairs meant the latter was less welcome in Algiers and Tunis,
and those that remained could not operate independently.51 During the second half of the 1600s,
there were fewer English renegade corsairs in Tunis and Algiers. The North Africans and Turks
controlled the operation.52 Senior claims that ‘the contribution of English pirates to the naval
strength of Barbary in the second decade of the century [the 1600s] was minimal’.53
English Channel after 1620

Senior discusses ‘foreign rovers’ venturing into the waters of Southern England in the 1620s:
‘The scavengers who terrorised the coasts of England in these years were the Dunkirkers,
Biscayners and Turks’…It was only with the threat from these foreign pirates that the evils of
piracy finally came home to roost’.54 He highlights that attitudes towards piracy changed when
it was the English who became the victims of theft and crimes on their home shores:
‘It was not until foreign rovers began to come into British waters that ‘pirate’ became a word
which invoked terror—especially in those who inhabited the coasts or who made a living from
the sea. This new threat was clearly in evidence by 1625’ (p. 206).
With this in mind, in the English collective consciousness, the threat might have been more
imagined than real. The Ottoman westward expansion generated concern across Europe. At the
same time, myths and folk devil status of the ‘Turks’ created an image of them which was
sensationalist and inaccurate: Senior explains that ‘There was a tendency amongst
contemporaries to exaggerate the threat from Turkish pirates. The coastal population became
so neurotic that they imagined every vessel to be Turkish’.55
48
High Court of Admiralty 1/48/64, 67: 14 December 1615, 29 January 1616, cited in Senior, p. 84.
49
Senior, p. 67.
50
Ibid, p. 72.
51
Ibid, p. 77.
52
Ibid, p. 80.
53
Ibid, p. 84.
54
Ibid, p. 204.
55
Ibid, p. 208.
20
‘Stuart naval captains were continually making reports of Turkish pirates, even if only to say that
there were none. Nevertheless, for the first time, Englishmen knew what it was like to be the
sufferers rather than the aggressors in matters of piracy. It was ironic that the west country which
had such a strong history of privateering and piracy should have borne the brunt of the damage.
For many, it must have been the first time that piracy appeared as an unnecessary evil’ (Senior
p. 208).
Senior explains that in the 1630s, the English government saw how damaging piracy could be
and decided to defend English shipping from attacks and seizure: ‘The English were therefore
no longer the chief practitioners of piracy. In the 1630s, the government accepted the
obligation to protect trade against foreign pirates’.56 By the end of the century, the English
navy was more extensive, which dissuaded the Barbary corsairs from raiding Southern England
and Ireland.
One hundred years later, in the wake of the armed struggle against the actions of the Barbary
corsairs, the patriotic song of thanksgiving Rule, Britannia! (1740) was composed by James
Thompson in the Dove Pub in Hammersmith, London. (A sign attached to the wall in the Dove
public house claims this to be the case.)
56
Ibid, p. 210.
21
IMAGE 2: A Spanish xebec (centre) attacked by two small Algerian galleys (propelled
by oars and sails) c 1738 by Ángel Cortellini Sánchez (oil painting 1902)
(Barbary galley: Xebec/chebeck)
Source: Available: Copyright-Free – Image in the Public Domain. Available:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galiot#/media/File:DonAntonioBarcel%C3%B3ConSuJabeque
CorreoRindeADosGaleotasArgelinas.jpg (accessed 14 April 2020).
• The types of Barbary corsair vessels used in the Mediterranean from smallest to
largest were felucca; frigate; brigantine; galleot; and galley.
Final years of Barbary corsairism, 1801-1815.
The Barbary corsairs continued piracy against merchant shipping in the Mediterranean until
forced to cease operations after defeat in the Barbary Wars of 1801 to 1815. The United States
built a navy for this purpose. In a series of military conflicts between the United States,
including Sweden, against the corsairs of Tripoli, Algiers and Tunis, the latter came off worse.
The dispute was not a religious war but a campaign fought by President Thomas Jefferson
(1743 to 1826) to end piracy and tribute by the United States to the Barbary republics. From a
constructivist perspective, it shows the U.S. advancing its Enlightenment liberal values,
particularly liberty and equality. Also, from a Marxist perspective, it enabled the independent
United States and its upper-middle-class to trade uninhibited with the Mediterranean
economies.
The era of European colonialism in North Africa turned the tables on the Barbary corsairs; in
1830, the French captured the port of Algiers. It was the beginning of the colonisation by the
European powers of North Africa that continued for more than 100 years. Before the Algerian
War for Independence between 1954 to 1962 (resulting in almost 500,000 to 1.5 million
Algerian dead), nearly one million French men and women chose to settle in Algeria.
22
PART 3: Sources: Kent and East Sussex
Part 3 highlights my research questions What do the secondary sources tell us about the impact
of the Barbary corsairs on coastal Kent and Sussex (South-East England)? And, what role did
the English renegades from Kent and Sussex play in corsair history? In what follows, I do not
claim to have reviewed all of the English language secondary sources; instead, I have used
texts that include content about the Barbary corsairs and South-East England. For my purposes,
each text and online source is relevant in answering my essay’s research questions. The
evidence and writings of the sources range over 100 years, from 1605 to 1712. The topics cover
(3.1 Kent) renegade John Ward; (3.2 East Sussex) Rye port and speculation about corsair raids;
(3.3 Kent) English renegades in North Africa; (3.4 West Sussex) a church collection in
Cuckfield; (3.5 Kent) pirate characters associated with North Africa and Dover, and (3.6 Kent)
the England’s base at Tangier, Morocco.
Source 3.1: Kent: John Ward/Jack Ward/Captain Yusuf

In Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes (1995) by Peter Lamborn
Wilson, he explains that sources on John Ward are more extensive than other Englishmen who
‘turned Turke’ or ‘took the turban’. It makes his story significant in corsair historiography.
Ward provides the reader with an insight into the actions, motivations and everyday life of the
English renegade.57
Finlay Grieg’s news article ‘”Drunk, prodigal and plucky”: the real pirate who was just like
Jack Sparrow’ reports that John Ward was born in 1553 in coastal Faversham, Kent.
Considering that Ward became an infamous Barbary corsair, it is worth contemplating to what
extent the region’s maritime culture, particularly local smuggling and piracy, influence him as
a boy? As a young man, during the Anglo-Spanish conflict, he was employed as a privateer for
Elizabeth I’s navy. Later he achieved the rank of captain in the English navy.58
However, his life took a drastic turn following the defeat of the Armada attack on England in
1588; the once-powerful Spanish navy threat diminished. As a result, the activities of the
privateers, like Ward, were deemed unnecessary and diplomatically problematic. Indeed, King
James I prohibited privateering in 1603. The change in government policy was unwelcome
among skilled English and European privateers, who, like Ward, did not wish to return to the
disciplined and low pay of the national navies. The former privateers who wanted to continue
with their piracy looked to new patrons abroad who would appreciate their services, for
instance, the Barbary corsairs of North Africa.
57
Peter Lamborn Wilson, 1995, Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes (Autonomedia
Publisher).
58
Finlay Greig, ‘“Drunk, prodigal and plucky”: the real pirate who was just like Jack Sparrow’, inews.co.uk, 6
September 2019. Available: https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/real-pirate-inspired-jack-sparrow/ (accessed 29
March 2020).
23
Grieg writes that Ward, now aged 50 years, chose piracy after he led a mutiny against his ship’s
commanders. Ward’s active corsairing years were between 1605 and 1610. He operated with
considerable success out of Tunis in North Africa and became well-known for his piracy across
the Mediterranean.
Historian Greg Bak says of Ward:
‘He willingly mixed with Muslims and Jews in North Africa, engaged in piracy and privateering
to benefit the Ottomans and, if they resisted, sold into slavery the Christians that he captured,
Englishmen included.’59
The image of Ward is complex, and his lived reality is debated among historians. However, in
everyday life, he appears as a colourful character who adopted the local costume extravagantly.
Furthermore, Ward kept birds as pets and was ‘nicknamed “Sparrow” -- often referred to as
Jack instead of John’—and was known to dress in a flamboyant style.
‘Many commented on his opulent house in Tunis, often contrasting it with his impoverished
origins among the fisherfolk of Faversham.’
It might be the case that Ward’s adventures and his life partly inspired today’s Hollywood
movies on pirates. Talha İnanç’s news story ‘Jack Sparrow might be inspired by a Muslim
captain’ (2017) connects the Hollywood movie pirate Jack Sparrow with the corsair John
Ward.60
Des Ekin’s The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates (2007) reports that John
Ward’s life as a renegade brought him financial wealth, and by 1609 he resided in a large Tunis
home with servants. Ward, like many renegades, adopted the Muslim name Yusuf (Issouf) and
wore Muslim costume to integrate with the corsair society. He was confident and assertive, a
natural leader of privateers.61 Ekin reports:
‘But perhaps the most feared of all the renegado admirals was Issouf Rais, who was born in Kent
as plain John Ward. A Navy deserter, he set up his own corsair fleet in Tunis and considered
himself “the sole and only commander of the seas”. When the possibility of a royal pardon arose,
he replied scornfully that the King of England would soon be begging for his pardon instead.’
(p. 67).
Ekin says, ‘John Ward died peacefully in Tunis in 1623’ (p. 67).
Abdal-Hakim Murad’s ‘Ward the Pirate’ essay discusses the social mobility offered by corsair
society. He says Ward became a central figure among the corsairs of Tunis, and his leadership
skills were tested and rewarded.62
59
Greg Bak cited in Finlay Greig, ‘“Drunk, prodigal and plucky”: the real pirate who was just like Jack Sparrow’,
inews.co.uk, 6 September 2019. Available: https://inews.co.uk/culture/film/real-pirate-inspired-jack-sparrow/
(accessed 29 March 2020).
60
Talha İnanç, ‘Jack Sparrow might be inspired by a Muslim captain’, Daily Sabah, 20 March 2017. Available:
https://www.dailysabah.com/cinema/2017/03/20/jack-sparrow-might-be-inspired-by-a-muslim-captain
(accessed 24 April 2020).
61
Des Ekin, 2007, The Stolen Village: Baltimore and the Barbary Pirates (Dublin: O’Brien Press).
62
Abdal-Hakim Murad, ‘Ward the Pirate’, January 2003. Available:
http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/ward.htm (accessed 27 April 2020).
24
‘His maritime prowess soon put him, according to a French report of 1606, in command of over
five hundred Muslim and Christian volunteers. Among these were Captain Samson, in charge of
prizes, Richard Bishop of Yarmouth (Ward’s first lieutenant), and James Procter of Southampton,
who served as his gunner.’63
The broader problem of Barbary corsairs attacking the coasts of England upset one famous
English courtier, poet, politician, spy, explorer, and privateer: Sir Walter Raleigh. Murad says:
‘Sir Walter Raleigh, commenting on the gravity of the problem, recorded that “Renegadoes, that
turn Turke, are impaled”, and this seems to have been the usual punishment for such men. Three
English martyrs are known in the year 1620, while in 1671, a Welshman was put to death by
impalement after refusing to reconvert to Christianity.’64
Peter Lamborn Wilson reports that the main character in Robert Daborne’s play A Christian
Turned Turk (1612) is Captain Yusuf (John Ward) -
‘Ward enjoyed the distinction of “starring” as the villain of that 1612 West End hit, A Christian
Turn’d Turke; Ward also merited at least two penny-dreadful blackletter pamphlets and two
popular ballads—the supermarket tabloids of the good old days—which may be full of errors and
outright lies, though they paint an interesting picture’ (p. 55).
Lamborn Wilson says Ward adopted the name Yusuf during the later years of his career as a
corsair. Likewise, he lived as a conservative Muslim in his mature years. Before that, while a
Barbary corsair, Ward ‘drank and swore’. The author mentions that Ward died from plague in
Tunis in 1623, aged 71.65
Wilson says that in the late 1600s, the renegade culture of Sale ended. Corsairism ceased here
because local patrons demanded higher profits (see Chapter 5 in Lamborn Wilson for a
discussion about John Ward).
Source 3.2: East Sussex, Rye

Desmond Seward’s historical study of the region of Sussex (1995) contemplates the Barbary
corsairs visiting the Hastings and Rye region of Southern England during the 1600s. Seward
writes:
‘During these years Rye was threatened with other dangers from the sea besides storms and
revenue cutters. In the 1630s Algerian corsairs lay in wait outside the harbour; a few unlucky
Sussex folk may even have found themselves up for sale in the slave markets of North Africa. In
the Civil War the fishing fleets were at constant risk from Cavalier privateers…’66 (p. 221).
Apart from this brief mention, Seward does not provide the reader with further evidence about
corsairs and is more interested in the potential threat of French and Dutch pirates.
63
Ibid.
64
Ibid.
65
Peter Lamborn Wilson, 1995, Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes (Autonomedia
Publisher).
66
Desmond Seward, 1995, Sussex (London: Pimlico History Guides).
25
Source 3.3: Kent: Renegades

Adrian Tinniswood’s Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-
Century (2011) describes an Englishman travelling to visit the city-state of Tripoli (a city in
modern-day Libya). In 1651 it was a hub of corsair society and economy (and, at one time,
under the control of Uthman Pasha). Here the Englishman ‘encountered’ English corsair
renegades from Kent and Devon:
‘… an Englishman calling there in the spring of 1651 noted without surprise that one evening a
Moroccan man-of-war from Sale, 1,400 miles westward, sailed in with a prize. (The same
Englishman also encountered renegades from Kent and Devon during his stay, and ransomed a
captive so that he could return to his native Dorset)’67 (p. 233).
Unfortunately, little further comment is made about these men from Kent and Devon. Neither
names/nicknames nor hometowns are given.
Source 3.4: West Sussex, Cuckfield

Source: Robert Willis Blencowe, Esq, Extracts from the Journal and Account-Book of
Timothy Burrell, Esq., Barrister-at-Law, of Ockenden House, Cuckfield, from the year 1683
to 1714. (With Plate and Woodcuts), cited in Sussex Archaeological Collections, Illustrating
the History and Antiquities of the County, Volume 3, p.165. By Sussex Archaeological
Society (1850).
Available:
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=VekGAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA165&dq=barbary+corsair+sussex&
hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwixpKib4sHoAhW2WxUIHYZ8C2oQ6AEIKDAA#v=onepage&q=barb
ary%20corsair%20sussex&f=false (accessed 30 March 2020).
In the Journal of Timothy Burrell (in the Year 1712, footnote 125), he donated money to pay
the Barbary slave owners to release captives. The captured were Christian English men, women
and children. On page 165, it reads:
‘“To the captives at Fez I gave £1.; to the imprisoned captives from Jamaica, Is.” The fate of
Christian slaves taken by the Barbary corsairs, naturally enough excited the intense sympathy of
our forefathers; and whilst many a sincere prayer was offered up to the Lord to “show his pity
upon all prisoners and captives”, large sums were subscribed and liberal bequests made for their
redemption from slavery. Whether they took the wisest course to put an end to the practice of
piracy by so doing is another question. The sums left for this purpose became, in after ages, a
subject of much embarrassment and litigation.’ (Source: see above link.)
67
Adrian Tinniswood, 2011, Pirates of Barbary: Corsairs, Conquests and Captivity in the 17th-Century (London:
Random House).
26
Source 3.5: ‘Lawrence of Dover’, Kent, & Sir Henry Mainwaring Lieutenant of Dover
Castle
Source: High Court of Admiralty 1/48151, 64: 14 July, 14 December 1615, cited in Senior,
Clive Malcolm, An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates, 1603-
40. 1973, PhD Thesis, Bristol University, Available: https://research-
information.bris.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/an-investigation-of-the-activities-and-importance-of-english-
pira (accessed 7th October 2020).
Senior mentions a pirate named Lawrence (flor. 1614-15) from Dover, Kent. Lawrence
‘Went to sea in 1614 as captain of one of two ships sent out by the Alcade of Sally. Took men and
provisions from James of Topsham off Oporto and sailed to Algiers. Took more men and
provisions from the Unicorn off the Spanish coast early in 1615, but his man-of-war was reported
to have been captured in Ireland by Dutch warships’ (p. 411). (Source: see above link.)
The pardoned pirate: Sir Henry Mainwaring:
The county of Kent reappears in the pirate story of Sir Henry Mainwaring (b. 1586/7–d.1651);
he operated as a pirate from 1613 to 1616 in the Atlantic against the Spanish. During his piracy
years, he established, for a while, a base near modern-day Mehidia, Morocco. It does not mean
he was allied with the Barbary corsairs; in fact, he probably used the Mehidia port as a resupply
base, and the anti-Spanish policy of the English Crown gave him protected status. Pardoned by
the English government in 1616, Mainwaring was appointed Lieutenant of Dover Castle in
1620. In 1621, he became the Member of Parliament for Dover.
Source 3.6: Earl of Sandwich, English military base in Tangier, Morocco

During the seventeenth century, the relationship between England and Morocco consisted of
the former having a foothold on the Barbary coast (lasting for 22 years). Eight miles from
Spain, Tangier is positioned at a strategic point at the entry into and exit from the
Mediterranean. In 1661, the Portuguese handed it to King Charles II of England. In 1662, the
Earl of Sandwich, Kent, was instructed to take possession of Tangiers and strengthen its
military fortifications. By 1683, the base was deemed unnecessary, and it passed back into the
hands of the Moroccans.
27
Conclusion
My research notes examine the historiography of the Barbary corsairs and English renegade
privateers and their connection with South-East England. The research questions asked: What
do the secondary sources tell us about the impact of the Barbary corsairs on coastal Kent and
Sussex? How do coastal Sussex and Kent fit into the broader picture of Barbary corsairs? What
role did the English renegades from Kent and Sussex play in corsair history?
In Parts 1 and 2 of my paper, it is observable that modern historians of the Barbary corsairs
come from different cultures, societies, schools of thought and worldviews. Consequently, they
will interpret and explain the corsairs, privateers, and pirates in diverse ways and emphasise
different themes, events, and arguments. A Western historian and an Arab historian might, or
might not, see things very differently and interpret information and statistics accordingly. Also,
current international politics might cloud the reasoning of the author and book editing team.
Publishers of popular histories might seek to sensationalise or Orientalise corsair stories to
increase book sales. Some right-wing and populist actors cite the Barbary corsairs with an
Islamophobic agenda in mind. Indeed, some primary sources and secondary sources are
interpreted through the lens of Othering. Social outlooks change, and perceptions held 50 years
ago might be challenged today. All of these points need consideration when analysing the
corsair literature.
In the 1500s, Barbary and Spanish corsairs emerged from the religiopolitical wars in Iberia and
the local economies of North Africa. On both sides of the Mediterranean, local patrons
encouraged pirates to operate in weakly governed spaces. Iberian Muslims had started to
relocate to North Africa after losing their lands to the advancing Catholic Spanish armies. After
the surrender of Granada in 1492, the 750-year Al-Andalusian civilisation was near collapse.
One hundred years later, between 1609 and 1614, the expulsion (ethnic cleansing) of the Al-
Andalusian Muslims from Iberia saw them flee to North Africa. Here they re-organised and
rebuilt their communities and families—with some of the unemployed men turning to
corsairing to avenge their expulsion.
During the 1500s, the English pirates - known as seafaring bandits - operated between the
Atlantic and Mediterranean. (It was a period before the highpoint of the Barbary corsairs, circa
the 1600s.) However, after English King James I ended privateering in 1603 and signed a peace
treaty with Spain in 1604, the English pirates looked to establish new bases away from home
shores. Simultaneously, the Ottoman, Spanish, and Maltese powers began supporting the
corsair raids for ransomable captives and slaves, ships, and cargo. Some of the European and
English corsairs, motivated by social, criminal, economic, and psychological factors, chose to
base themselves in the spaces away from the reach of their home authorities. They turned to
the nearest alternative provider of safe harbours: the Ottomans. Some English sailors stole
vessels and sailed from England to join the corsair gangs to reach Ottoman North Africa. Their
length of service with the Barbary corsairs varied from a single raiding party to many years of
employment. Some of the English captives held in North African jails joined them; the latter
28
saw the corsair life as preferable to slavery; the switch of allegiance made them renegade
corsairs.
One group of Western historians argue that what is less commonly understood about Barbary
corsair history is that European renegade captains assisted in expanding their raids. Robert C.
Davies writes that the European renegade captains between 1580 and 1680 formed a vanguard
and constituted a large number:
‘… the entire business of corsairing in Barbary was dominated by none other than renegades
themselves: lists of the ra’is from around 1600 indicate that better than half of these corsair
captains were of European origin, men who came to hold considerable economic sway in cities
like Algiers and Tripoli, that were dependent on piracy for their well-being’ (Davies 2001:
121).
The European Christian corsairs (Group A ‘seafarers’) discovered in North Africa a
multicultural society that tolerated their outsider status and rewarded their seamanship and risk-
taking. However, their drunkenness and lewd behaviour upset the locals. In the semi-
autonomous and politically anarchistic ports of North Africa, many European renegades found
a place where they could belong, at least until events and circumstances changed and they
moved on.
A second group, the European and English renegades (Group B ‘land dwellers’), coexisted
alongside the European corsairs. Group B also included Black Africans, Middle Eastern Jews,
and South and East Asians. As the European-born captives and slaves waited in vain for
ransom, some of the young women and men were ‘adopted’ by local ‘middle class’ families,
married local spouses and integrated into Muslim society. Their acculturation included learning
basic spoken Arabic, wearing the local costume, and cooking and eating regional dishes. Living
in a warm climate and with paid work, they made the best of the situation. Some renegades
‘converted’ to Islam, in which case they would never return to England. From 1580 to 1680
CE, the yearly figure of European renegades in North Africa remained approximately 15,000
men, women, and children (Hernon 2013).
A third group (Group C) included most European captives who had retained their Christianity
and longed to return home. If not ransomed, their lives would have been miserable. Some lived
by their wits and survived; some died of illnesses or hard labour, while others escaped by boat
to freedom, many disappear from their families and history altogether. They were galley slaves
or producers and sellers of wine, tavern landlords, and skilled craftspeople who could ply their
trade. On the north side of the Mediterranean, Muslim slaves had similar pitiful captivity
experiences in Spain, Italy, and Malta.
Furthermore, Western historians see the European and English corsairs as essential agents of
change in North Africa. They say that renegade corsairs assisted in the construction of ocean-
going ships in the North African docks. This knowledge transfer, if true, impacted raids in the
English Channel; it enabled newly built, larger vessels to venture beyond Gibraltar into the
Atlantic Ocean. Generally speaking, in the 1500s, Barbary corsairs operated in the
Mediterranean Sea, while in the 1600s, they were able to journey into the Atlantic and beyond.
29
However, an alternative narrative says the Muslim shipbuilders could build new larger ships
without the input of the Europeans.
However, the institutionalisation of corsairing among the Mediterranean powers meant
renegade European corsairs increasingly lost their ability to act independently. Senior explains
that in 1604 the English or European-majority renegade crews operated, but circa the 1620s,
the renegade corsairs merged into the Ottoman corsair system. Partly as a response, and
because some corsairs missed home and their families, the number of English corsairs declined
significantly during the second half of the 1600s.
Despite the Barbary raids and ransom farming, the English government continued to trade with
Morocco and the Ottoman Sultan; English requests and demands for corsairs and their elite
patrons to end their activities were quietly ignored. As a fighting force and threat to English
trade, the Barbary corsairs became part of the English national debate about home defence.
Only when piracy targeted English subjects and ships did the English attitude to it change. The
threat of ‘Turkish raiders’, real or perceived, had entered the mass consciousness and
mythology.
In part 3, ‘Sources’, the English counties of Kent, East Sussex and West Sussex constituted the
regional focus. A review of select secondary sources reveals little evidence of Barbary corsairs
attacking coastal sites or vessels here from 1500 to 1700. However, it is possible to make some
observations. Though the Barbary corsair raids less impacted coastal Kent and Sussex residents
than Cornish and Devon ones, the former have a strong attachment to the sea and seafaring. A
small number of the local English privateers turned Barbary corsairs in the early 1600s. They
originated from the poorer classes of society and, after hostilities with Spain diminished in
1603, did not wish to return to conventional navy duties. The most notable example being the
Kentish man John Ward/Captain Yusuf. The evidence shows that a small number of
Englishmen from Sussex and Kent became renegade corsairs and based themselves in the
societies of coastal North Africa; for instance, Ward settled, married, and died in Tunis.
European renegade corsairs could rise through the ranks to the very top of the Ottoman corsair
system. It was something unimaginable for a Muslim galley slave or child slave held by the
Christians.
The literature refers to Ward and Mainwaring, not as captives or slaves, but as free men (sailors
by trade) who willingly journeyed to North Africa. Some English corsairs were killed in raids,
while others only returned to England as captured prisoners of the English authorities—or to
raid English ships and shores. Others, like Mainwaring, were pardoned by the English
government. Ward had become Muslim, so there was no pardon for him. Importantly, English
and European renegades had the geographic and tidal knowledge required to navigate the
Southern English coastline. They knew the shipping lanes, the types of goods transported, and
the sites of the ports, beaches, and inlets. In one case, in the Thames Estuary, a North African
corsair/Turkish pirate vessel was captured in 1617.
With this in mind, the Western and North African sources about the Barbary corsairs are not
extensive. Much went unrecorded during the 1600s, and documents lost. Despite the limited
source material, the region of South-East England and the impact of the Barbary corsairs
30
remains a primarily unexplored topic. It might be the case that the perception and
sensationalism surrounding the Turkish pirates among English naval officers and coastal
dwellers was always greater than any actual threat. Nonetheless, slavery was a real problem for
Cornish peoples and European coastal communities; evidence shows that Sussex churches
collected donations to payoff corsair ransom demands. The primary sources require visiting in
Kew in London to assess the primary sources about the Barbary corsairs and Kent and Sussex.
My paper has not set out to examine the full horror of the slave experience, sexual abuse, galley
slavery, or ransomed slaves. The reader can find these comprehensively analysed in the
Barbary corsair popular histories and academic literature. The history of the Barbary, Spanish
and Maltese corsairs is controversial and involves unethical practices and crimes against
humanity. It is a story of power, greed, and the misinterpretation of the Abrahamic religious
texts. The author agrees we should learn from past and present injustices and abuses and
actively challenge the dehumanisation of individuals and entire communities.
Lastly, one element of Iberian history has come full circle: today, the situation is very different
for some of the ancestors of the Al-Andalusians, Moriscos, and Mudjars. In 2020, nearly two
million people of North African Muslim heritage resided in a liberal-democratic and outward-
looking Spain; approximately 800,000 of them are Spanish citizens. It is a civilised decision
by modern European society.
Future researchers might wish to look at the following archives and resources:
• The National Archives, (Public Records Office), Kew, London
• Public Record Office High Court of Admiralty (HCA), National Archives, Kew
• NRS Navy Records Society (NRS), London
• Kent County Archives
• West Sussex County Archives
• East Sussex County Archives
• Essex County Archives
• Local and national newspaper archives
• The British Library
• The Project Gutenberg Online
• Local library online resources, & JSTOR
• Library of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
• An online search of the resources about the Barbary corsairs written by academic and
general historians
• The sources available in the Arab and North African literature, libraries and archives.
• Moore, R.O., Some Aspects of the Origin and Nature of English Piracy, 1603-25,
Virginia University, PhD Thesis, 1960.
31
Appendices
1. British Myth: The Blue Men of Minch
‘Blue-skinned mermen who lured sailors from their ships into the Minch, the sound between the
Hebrides and the Scottish mainland. Thought to be a folk memory of Moorish galley-slaves
abandoned by Viking pirates. Fascinated with rhyming games they challenged their victims to
verbal duels’ (p. 230).
Source: Steve Lowe and Alan Mcarthur, 2008, Blighty: The Quest for Britishness, Britain,
Britons, Britishness and The British (London: Sphere).
Moor travellers to Southern England
2. An Arab visitor to Southampton, Hampshire, South-East England, 1100s
Desmond Seward, in his book Sussex (1995), only briefly mentions one visitor from Morocco.
In one sentence, he says: ‘Visiting Southampton, the Arab geographer Idrisi heard of “the
important town of Shoreham”, the second port on the South Coast’ (p. 85).
Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi (b. 1100, d. 1165 or 1166 in Sicily).

Al-Idrisi was an advisor to the Norman King of Sicily, Roger II. Idrisi wrote the book The
Pleasure Excursion of One Who is Eager to Traverse the Regions of the World. He was born
in Sabtah, Ceuta, Morocco, and was known to have travelled extensively in North Africa, Asia
Minor, Spain, and even the French Atlantic coast and Southern England. In 1145 he moved to
Palermo, Sicily, where he worked until the end of his life. Wadie Jwaideh says: ‘Some Western
scholars have suggested that al-Idrisi may have been regarded as a renegade by other Muslims
for entering the service of a Christian King and praising him lavishly in his writings’.
Source: Wadie Jwaideh, Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi, Encyclopedia Britannica. Available:

https://www.britannica.com/biography/al-Sharif-al-Idrisi (accessed 26 March 2020).
3. English and Ottoman rapprochement, 1580
Due to the shared enemy in the form of the Hispanic Monarchy, England and the Ottomans
found they had interests in common. Consequently, a commercial capitulation was given, in
1580, by the Ottomans to England: in 1583, the Turkey Company was formed. The latter
merged with the Venice Company, and it became the Levant Company in 1592 under Royal
Charter.
32
4. Queen Elizabeth I and Moors and Black Africans in England, 1601
Ron Ramdin’s Reimagining Britain (1999) writes about the expulsion of black people and
Muslims from Britain during the reign of Elizabeth I. The word ‘blackamoore’ refers to a black
African person or a dark-skinned Moor. Moors were not an ethnic or racial group as they could
be either white or black. What generally united Moors was their religion of Islam. Ramdin
says:
‘By the end of the sixteenth century, the “blackamoores” presence had come to the attention of
Elizabeth I. The growth in the numbers of black people in London was now targeted by Elizabeth,
who informed the mayors of the principal cities that there were too many black people in her
realm. In her view, the black presence in England had become a “problem” and in January 1601,
she issued a proclamation to deport “Negroes and blackamoores”. In spite of this, the slave trade
grew…’ (p. 14).
Source: Acts of the Privy Council, Vol. XXVI, 1596-7: 16-21, Hughes and Larkin 1969: Vol
3, 221, cited in Ron Ramdin, 1999, Reimaging Britain: 500 Years of Black and Asian History
(London: Pluto Press).
Barbary corsairs
5. Al-Hassan al-Wazzan (known as Leo Africanus), 1518
Al-Wazzan (1494-1554 CE): Al-Andalusian born and resident of Fez, was a diplomat, traveller,
and geographer. He was captured at sea by Spanish corsairs and handed over to Pope Leo X.
He was baptised and spent nine years in Italy as a free man. In 1527 he returned to Tunis, North
Africa. His book A Description of Africa (1550) became a popular text in Christian Europe.
6. Cervantes, 1575-60
The Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes was captured by Algerian Barbary corsairs in 1575
and enslaved for five years. Trinitarian friars paid a ransom to have him freed and returned
home.
Historian María Antonia Garcés says:
‘From the first works written after his liberation, such as the play Life in Algiers (c. 1581-1583)
and his novel La Galatea (1585), to his posthumous book The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda
(1617), the story of this traumatic experience continuously speaks through his work.’
Source: Fiona MacDonald, ‘When Cervantes was captured by pirates’, BBC Global News
Ltd, 21 April 2016, http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160421-when-cervantes-was-captured-
by-pirates (accessed 4 May 2020).
33
7. London: public execution of corsairs, 1612
In 1612, twelve pirates (corsairs?) were executed by hanging in public in Wapping, London.
Source: Daniel Vitkus (ed.), 2000, Three Turk Plays from Early Modern England:
Selimus, Emperor of the Turks; A Christian Turned Turk; and The Renegado (USA:
Columbia University Press) p. 4.
8. Lundy Island and Barbary corsairs, 1625
The Barbary corsairs used Lunday Island as a temporary base to raid the Bristol Channel. It
might be the case that the Dutch renegade Jan Janszoon had sailed to Lundy from Sale to seize
booty from the English.
‘… in 1625 it was reported that three Turkish pirates had occupied Lundy, capturing its
inhabitants, and were threatening to burn Ilfracombe. This attack aroused widespread alarm,
and a government inquiry was ordered.’
Source: ‘Lunday Part 2’, Devon Perspectives. Available:
https://www.devonperspectives.co.uk/lundy2.html (accessed 5 May 2020).
Harfield writes that Lundy Island was a temporary base for a variety of historical pirates.
‘Lundy was thus part of a large network of isolated land-falls available to pirates… Lundy did
not, and could not provide a market or a proper base for pirates. Its utility was as a temporary
refuge.’ (1993: 61-62)
Source: Harfield, C (1993) ‘In the shadow of the black ensign: Lundy’s part in piracy, Report
of Lundy Field Society n47, archived online at:
www.lundy.org.uk/download/ar47/LFS_Annual_Report_Vol_47_Part_16.pdf accessed
January 21st 2015, cited in Susie Khamis, ‘Fleeting and Partial Autonomy: A historical
account of quasi micronational initiatives on Lundy Island and their contemporary
reconfiguration on MicroWiki’, Shima: The International Journal of Research into Island
Cultures, Vol. 9, No 1, 2015: 71.
9. Moroccan Ambassador visits Charles II, 1682
Kaid Muhammad ben Haddu Ottur, a Moroccan Ambassador, was invited by King Charles II
to London; he arrived in December 1681 and stayed for nearly six months. His first meeting
with Charles II was in January 1682 at Whitehall Palace. After that, they met in Hyde Park,
London. Ottur’s party visited Windsor, Newmarket, Oxford and Cambridge.
The English renegade Hamet Lucas accompanied Ottur; he had been a British soldier based in
Tangier but deserted its English garrison. English Colonel Percy Kirke was critical of Lucas;
Giles Milton reports that Kirke:
34
‘… stressed the importance of secrecy whenever Hamet was within earshot. “Our affairs in
England… ought as carefully to be concealed from these people as they endeavour to keep us
ignorant in theirs”’. p. 43.
Source: Giles Milton, 2004, White Gold (London: Hodder and Stoughton).
10. Robinson Crusoe, 1719
In Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe (1719), the Barbary corsairs (Sale Rovers) from Sale
capture Robinson Crusoe. He was held against his will by them for two years.
‘… yet I fell into terrible Misfortunes in this Voyage; and the first was this, viz. Our Ship making
her Course towards the Canary Islands, or rather between those Islands and the African Shore,
was surprised in the Grey of the Morning, by a Turkish Rover of Sallee, who gave Chase to us
with all the Sail she could make. We crowded also as much Canvass as our Yards would spread,
or our Masts carry, to have got clear; but finding the Pirate gain’d upon us, and would certainly
come up with us in a few Hours, we prepar’d to fight; our Ship having 12 Guns, and the Rogue
18. About three in the Afternoon he came up with us, and bringing to by Mistake, just athwart
our Quarter, instead of athwart our Stern, as he intended, we brought 8 of our Guns to bear on
the Side, and pour’d in a Broadside upon him, which made him sheer off again, after returning
our Fre, and pouring in also his small shot from near 200 Men which he had on Board. However,
we had not a Man touch'd, all our Men keeping close. He prepar'd to attack us again, and we to
defend our selves; but laying us on Board the next time upon our other Quarter, he enter'd 60
Men upon our Decks, who immediately fell to cutting and hacking the Decks and Rigging. We
ply'd them with Small-shot, Half Pikes, Powder-Chests, and such like, and clear'd our Deck of
them twice. However, to cut short this melancholy Part of our Story, our Ship being disabled,
and three of our Men kill’d, and eight wounded, we were obliged to yield, and were carry’d all
Prisoners into Sallee, a Port belonging to the Moors.
The Usage I had there was not so dreadful as at first I apprehended, nor was I carried up
the Country to the Emperor's Court, as the rest of our Men were, but was kept by the Captain of
the Rover, as his proper Prize, and made his Slave, being young and nimble, and fit for his
Business. At this surprising Change of my Circumstances from a Merchant to a miserable Slave,
I was perfectly overwhelmed; and now I loo’d back upon my Father’s prophetick Discourse to
me, that I should be miserable, and have none to relieve me, which I thought was now so
effectually brought to pass, that it could not be worse; that now the Hand of Heaven had
overtaken me, and I was undone without Redemption. But alas! this was but a Taste of the Misery
I was to go thro', as will appear in the Sequel of this Story.
As my new Patron or Master had taken me Home to his House, so I was in hopes that he
would take me with him when he went to Sea again, believing that it would some time or other
be his Fate to be taken by a Spanish or Portugal Man of War; and that then I should be set at
Liberty. But this Hope of mine was soon taken away; for when he went to Sea, he left me on Shore
to look after his little Garden, and do the common Drudgery of Slaves about his House; and when
he came home again from his Cruise, he order’d me to lye in the Cabbin to look after the Ship.
Here I meditated nothing but my Escape; and what Method I might take to effect it, but found
no Way that had the least Probability in it: Nothing presented to make the Supposition of it
rational; for I had no Body to communicate it to, that would embark with me; no Fellow-Slave,
no Englishman, Irishman, or Scotsman there but my self; so that for two Years, tho’ I often
pleased myself with the Imagination, yet I never had the least encouraging prospect of putting it
in practice.
35
After about two Years an odd Circumstance presented itself, which put the old Thought of
making some Attempt for my Liberty, again in my Head:..’ (pp. 17-18).
Source: Daniel Defoe, 1868, Robinson Crusoe (London: Macmillan and Company).
Select Bibliography
Secondary Sources
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Bloom, Jonathan, and Sheila Blair, 2001, Islam: Empire of Faith (London: BBC).
Hernon, Ian, 2013, Fortress Britain: All the Invasions and Incursions since 1066 (London:
History Press).
Jamieson, Alan G., 2012, Lords of the Sea: A History of the Barbary Corsairs
(London: Reaktion).
Malcolm, Noel, 2016, Agents of Empire: Knights, Corsairs, Jesuits and Spies in the
Sixteenth-Century Mediterranean World (London: Penguin).
Vitkus, Daniel, (ed.), 2000, Three Turk Plays from Early Modern England: Selimus, Emperor
of the Turks; A Christian Turned Turk; and The Renegado (USA: Columbia University
Press).
Journals
Coleman, David, ‘Of Corsairs, Converts and Renegades: Forms and Functions of Coastal
Raiding on Both Sides of the Far Western Mediterranean, 1490-1540’, Medieval Encounters,
Vol. 19, No. 1-2 (2003): 167-192.
Davies, Robert C., ‘Counting European Slaves on the Barbary Coast’, Past and Present, No.
172 (Aug 2001): 87-124.
Dawdy, Shannon Lee and Joe Bonni, ‘Towards a General Theory of Piracy’, Anthropological
Quarterly, Vol. 85, No. 3 (Summer 2012): 673-699.
Fuchs, Barbara, ‘Empires: Pirates, Renegadoes, and the English Nation’, ELH, Vol. 67, No. 1
(2000): 45-69.
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Davies, Robert, ‘British Slaves on the Barbary Coast’, BBC.co.uk, 2014. Available:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/white_slaves_01.shtml (accessed 27 March
2020).
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İnanç, Talha, ‘Jack Sparrow might be inspired by a Muslim captain’, Daily Sabah, 20 March
2017. Available: https://www.dailysabah.com/cinema/2017/03/20/jack-sparrow-might-be-inspired-
by-a-muslim-captain (accessed 24 April 2020).
Lewis, Peter, ‘England's Terrors of the High Seas Pirates of Barbary by Adrian Tinniswood
(Jonathan Cape £20)’, Mail Online, 30 April 2020. Available:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-1264206/Englands-Terrors-High-Seas-PIRATES-
OF-BARBARY-BY-ADRIAN-TINNISWOOD.html (accessed 24 April 2020).
Murad, Abdal-Hakim, ‘Ward the Pirate’, Masud.co.uk, January 2003. Available:

http://www.masud.co.uk/ISLAM/ahm/ward.htm (accessed 27 April 2020).
Platt, Richard, ‘The Mediterranean Corsairs’, Vassallomalta.com. Available:

https://vassallohistory.wordpress.com/the-mediterranean-corsairs/ (accessed 14 April 2020).
Thesis
Keady, Marion Ann, Body and Soul: Turning Turk in Early Modern Barbary captivity
narratives, 20 Dec 2016, PhD Thesis. Available:
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pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y (accessed 3rd April 2020).
Senior, Clive Malcolm, An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates,
1603-40. 1973, PhD Thesis, Bristol University, Available: https://research-
information.bris.ac.uk/en/studentTheses/an-investigation-of-the-activities-and-importance-of-english-
pira (accessed 7th October 2020).
By the same author
1) Hastings Mosque and Muslims in “1066 Country”:

Seaside Resort Town Muslims of Hastings & St. Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, United
Kingdom (circa 1985 to 2015).
https://www.academia.edu/20257970/Hastings_Mosque_and_Muslims_in_1066_Country_East_Susse
x_Seaside_Resort_Muslims
Or
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316862077_Hastings_Mosque_and_Muslims_in_1066_Cou
ntry_Seaside_Resort_Town_Muslims_of_Hastings_St_Leonards-on-
Sea_East_Sussex_United_Kingdom_circa_1985_to_2015
2) Brighton: Muslim and Western Cultural Fusion in ‘london-on-sea’ (East Sussex).

https://www.academia.edu/32914527/Brighton_Muslim_and_Western_Cultural_Fusion_in_london-
on-sea_East_Sussex_
Or
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316776768_Brighton_Muslim_and_Western_cultural_fusio
n_in_'london-on-sea'_East_Sussex
3) The History of Eastbourne Mosque Community: East Sussex Muslim, 1995-2013

https://www.academia.edu/6797333/The_History_of_Eastbourne_Mosque_Community_-
_East_Sussex_Muslims
37
4) The Rediscovery of a Freshwater Spring beside the Sea: a Local Holy Well?
https://www.academia.edu/1030111/The_Rediscovery_of_a_Freshwater_Spring_beside_the_Sea_a_L
ocal_Holy_Well
5) Wannock Glen, Eastbourne: Nature, Chalk Stream, Wild Garlic, & Tea Dance Pavilion.
https://www.academia.edu/31105665/Wannock_Glen_Eastbourne_Nature_Chalk_Stream_Wild_Garli
c_and_Tea_Dance_Pavilion
Or
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/316862253_Wannock_Glen_Eastbourne_Nature_Chalk_Str
eam_Wild_Garlic_and_Tea_Dance_Pavilion
6) Bexhill Mosque and Muslims.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322992900_Bexhill_Mosque_Muslims
Or
https://www.academia.edu/38221520/Bexhill_Mosque_and_Muslims
7) Bexhill, Sussex, England -- Seafront Architecture & Interculturality: Mixing British Secular
& Mughal Indian & Muslim North African Styles.
https://www.academia.edu/37269235/Bexhill_Sussex_England_--
_Seafront_Architecture_and_Interculturality_Mixing_British_Secular_and_Mughal_Indian_and_Mus
lim_North_African_Styles
Or
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/327137575_Bexhill_Sussex_England_Seafront_Architectur
e_Interculturality_Mixing_British_Secular_Mughal_Indian_Muslim_North_African_Styles
8) Saracen Sussex: Sarsen Stones, Morris Dance and Tipteer Plays: Three English Folk
Customs with links to the Saracens, Moors, and Seljuk Turks.
https://www.academia.edu/43267092/Saracen_Sussex_Sarsen_Stones_Morris_Dance_and_Tipteer_Pl
ays_Three_English_folk_customs_with_links_to_the_Saracens_Moors_and_Seljuk_Turks
Or
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341945669_Saracen_Sussex_Sarsen_Stones_Morris_Dance
_Tipteer_Plays_Three_English_folk_customs_with_links_to_the_Saracens_Moors_Seljuk_Turks
38

Ottoman Corsairs and English Renegades 1600 To 1700 - Coastal Kent and Sussex Pirates (By Sevket Akyildiz, 2020)

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Ottoman Corsairs and English Renegades 1600 To 1700 - Coastal Kent and Sussex Pirates (By Sevket Akyildiz, 2020)

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COPYRIGHT: BY-NC-ND. OPEN ACCESS RESEARCH NOTES.

SEVKET AKYILDIZ, MAY 2020

ottoman Corsairs and English renegades

Author: Sevket Akyildiz1

COVER PAGE IMAGE 1: A Barbary Corsair in Costume

PART 1: Motivation, geography, raids, and renegades

Defining the Corsair

Motivating factors: Barbary corsairs

Place and geography: England

Ships, men, and cargo: England, Wales, and Ireland

PART 2: Renegade European and English corsairs

Renegade European corsairs

English corsair bases in the Mediterranean

English Channel after 1620

Source: Available: Copyright-Free – Image in the Public Domain. Available:

PART 3: Sources: Kent and East Sussex

Source 3.1: Kent: John Ward/Jack Ward/Captain Yusuf

Source 3.2: East Sussex, Rye

Source 3.3: Kent: Renegades

Source 3.4: West Sussex, Cuckfield

Source 3.6: Earl of Sandwich, English military base in Tangier, Morocco

1. British Myth: The Blue Men of Minch

Moor travellers to Southern England

2. An Arab visitor to Southampton, Hampshire, South-East England, 1100s

Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi (b. 1100, d. 1165 or 1166 in Sicily).

Source: Wadie Jwaideh, Ash-Sharif al-Idrisi, Encyclopedia Britannica. Available:

3. English and Ottoman rapprochement, 1580

4. Queen Elizabeth I and Moors and Black Africans in England, 1601

5. Al-Hassan al-Wazzan (known as Leo Africanus), 1518

7. London: public execution of corsairs, 1612

8. Lundy Island and Barbary corsairs, 1625

9. Moroccan Ambassador visits Charles II, 1682

10. Robinson Crusoe, 1719

Murad, Abdal-Hakim, ‘Ward the Pirate’, Masud.co.uk, January 2003. Available:

Platt, Richard, ‘The Mediterranean Corsairs’, Vassallomalta.com. Available:

By the same author

1) Hastings Mosque and Muslims in “1066 Country”:

2) Brighton: Muslim and Western Cultural Fusion in ‘london-on-sea’ (East Sussex).

3) The History of Eastbourne Mosque Community: East Sussex Muslim, 1995-2013

6) Bexhill Mosque and Muslims.

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