Oruç Barbarossa

Oruç Reis
Barbarossa, lithograph by Charles-Etienne Motte, after a drawing by Achille Deveria.
Born	c. 1474 Midilli, Ottoman Empire
Died	May 1518 Tlemcen, Ottoman Eyalet of Algeria
Piratical career
Nickname	Barbarossa Red Beard Baba Oruç
Allegiance	Ottoman Empire
Years active	c. 1495–1518
Rank	Captain
Base of operations	Mediterranean
Later work	Bey of Algiers

Oruç Reis (Turkish: Oruç Reis; Arabic: عروج الريس‎‎; Spanish: Arrudye; c. 1474–1518) was an Ottoman bey (governor) of Algiers and beylerbey (chief governor) of the West Mediterranean, and the elder brother of Hayreddin Barbarossa. He was born on the Ottoman island of Midilli (Lesbos in modern Greece) and was killed in battle against the Spanish at Tlemcen in the Ottoman Eyalet of Algeria.

He became known as Baba Oruç or Baba Aruj (Father Oruç) when he transported large numbers of Morisco, Muslim and Jewish refugees from Spain to North Africa; he was known in folk etymology in Europe as Barbarossa (which means Redbeard in Italian).

His father, Yakup Ağa, was a Turk of Albanian descent. Yakup Ağa took part in the Ottoman conquest of Lesbos (Midilli) from the Genoese in 1462, and as a reward, was granted the fief of the Bonova village in the island. He married a local Christian Orthodox Greek woman from Mytilene, the widow of a Greek Orthodox priest, named Katerina, and they had two daughters and four sons: Ishak, Oruç, Hizir and Ilyas. Yakup became an established potter and purchased a boat to trade his products. The four sons helped their father with his business, but not much is known about the daughters. At first Oruç helped with the boat, while Hizir helped with pottery.