Anglo-Turkish piracy

Anglo-Turkish piracy or the Anglo-Barbary piracy refers to the collaboration between Barbary pirates and English pirates against Catholic shipping during the 17th century.

The Protestants and the Muslim "Turks and Berbers", more precisely the Barbary pirates, collaborated during that period against their common enemy, Catholic Europe. This collaboration has to be seen in the context of the wars of religions and the ongoing mortal battle between Protestantism and Catholicism. At that time, Spain, Portugal, and France, which were implementing anti-Protestant policies, were the target of this Anglo-Muslim collaboration. It also seems that English privateers, who had been active against Spain until 1604 when peace was signed with England, were still inclined to continue the fight and the depredations, although under the protection of a different state, to the embarrassment of the English Crown.

Piracy in the ranks of the Muslim pirates of Barbary was also a way to find employment, after King James I formally proclaimed an end to privateering in June 1603. Further, abandoning England as well as their faith was often a way to financial success, as fortunes could be made by attacking Christian shipping. By 1610, the wealth of English renegade pirates had become so famous as to become the object of plays, and the king offered Royal Pardon to those who wished to return.

Not only the English corsairs participated to this collaboration, but also the Dutch, who shared the same objectives. Catholic ships were attacked and prisoners taken to Algiers or other places of the Barbary Coast to be sold as slaves. The number of these English pirates was significant.Jack Ward,Henry Mainwaring,Robert Walsingham and Peter Easton were among such English pirates in the service of the deys of the Barbary coast. Some of the most famous Dutch pirates were Zymen Danseker, Salomo de Veenboer and Jan Janszoon. Some of them, such as Ward and Danseker, were "renegades" who had adopted Islam. Mainwaring attacked the Spanish preferentially, and claimed that he avoided English shipping, but generally ships of all nationalities seem to have been attacked. Walsingham is known to have freed Turkish captives from Christian galleys, and to have sold Christian captives on the North African slave market. Janszoon led long-ranging raids such as the Turkish Abductions in Iceland to sell his slaves on the Barbary Coast.

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