Algerian Pirates 1/72 Scale Plastic Model Kit Mars Figures 72072

Barbary pirates are Muslim pirates and privateers operating in the North African region from the time of the Arab conquests until the middle of the 19th century.

Although such raids began shortly after the Arab conquest of the Iberian Peninsula in the 710s, the terms "Barbary pirates" and "Barbary corsairs" are usually applied to raiders active from the 16th century onwards, when the frequency and range of slave raids particularly increased. During this period, Algiers, Tunisia, and Tripoli were under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire, either as directly administered provinces or as semi-independent dominions known as the Barbary States. Similar raids were also undertaken from Sale and other ports of the kingdom of Morocco, which was not part of the Ottoman Empire.

Operating from many ports in the Maghreb (Barbary Coast), including such large ones as Tunisia, Tripoli, Algiers and Sale, they kept the entire western Mediterranean at bay. The activities of the pirates were not limited to attacks on merchant ships in the seas, they very often staged "razzies" - raids on the coastal cities of Europe in order to capture Christian slaves and sell them at the slave market in Algeria or Morocco. Between the 16th and 19th centuries, according to history professor Robert Davis, between 1 and 1.25 million Europeans were captured and sold into slavery by pirates. The main targets for such raids were coastal villages in Italy, Spain and Portugal, although more distant countries such as France, England, the Netherlands, Ireland and even the Scandinavian countries, including Iceland (see the articles Attack of the Barbary pirates on Baltimore and Attack Turkish pirates to Iceland).