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Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

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CHAPTER I<br />

Foundations of Corsair<strong>in</strong>g:<br />

A Religious and Historical Background<br />

The soldiery abandoned themselves to all the brutal license and ferocity,<br />

which seem to sta<strong>in</strong> religious wars above every other… The sun, which<br />

on the preced<strong>in</strong>g morn<strong>in</strong>g had shed its rays on Oran, flourish<strong>in</strong>g <strong>in</strong> all<br />

the pride of commercial opulence, and teem<strong>in</strong>g <strong>with</strong> a free and<br />

<strong>in</strong>dustrious population, next rose on it a captive city, <strong>with</strong> its ferocious<br />

conquerors stretched <strong>in</strong> slumber on the heaps of their slaughtered<br />

victims. 1 William H. Prescott (1856)<br />

Introduction<br />

Corsair<strong>in</strong>g was the foremost element which shaped relations between<br />

<strong>Ottoman</strong> <strong>Algeria</strong> and the United States of America. As such, it necessitates<br />

consideration so that the different elements which served as a basis for those<br />

relations may be determ<strong>in</strong>ed. The aim here is not to account for the historical<br />

development of corsair<strong>in</strong>g but to set the general framework <strong>in</strong> which <strong>Algeria</strong>n-<br />

American relations were formulated start<strong>in</strong>g from the emergence of the United<br />

1 William H. Prescott, <strong>History</strong> of the Reign of Ferd<strong>in</strong>and and Isabella, the Catholic, volume 3, 12 th<br />

edition (Philadelphia: David Mckay, Publisher, 1856), p. 278.<br />

16

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