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

their lives. 35 After 1492, those who found refuge at Algiers either opted for
continuing war or engaged in rescue operations to extract other Moors in
distress from slaughters. 36
1. 3. 1. A Crusading Agenda
The objectives of North African conquest, however, are numerous: more
than just the religious goal, they also included political, military, and strategic
elements which, put together, assured Spain a dominant position not only in
Europe and the Mediterranean Basin but also throughout the whole world. 37
First, the Spanish monarchs aimed at the fulfillment of a crusading ideal, that
of the annihilation of Islam. Armed with the support of zealous conquistadors
and fanatical ecclesiastics such as Cardinal Ximenez de Cisneros, Isabella
expelled the Muslims and started organizing for the conquest of North Africa. 38
Her death in 1504 only halted the preparations for the invasion but did not end
conquest policies. Through an ambitious policy of expansion, she succeeded in
maintaining a state of permanent war with Algiers, but also occupation of
Algerian lands, for centuries to come. In a codicil to her will, added only three
days before her death, she bequeathed to her subjects a heritage of a unique
kind: they “must not interrupt the conquest of Muslim North Africa nor cease
35 Hundreds also fled to the Spanish colonies in the Americas. There, they met the same treatment at
the hands of the Inquisition persecutors, i.e.: burning at the stake—along with Indians and Protestants.
Inquisition began functioning in the New World as early as 1515.
36 Khayreddin Barbarossa alone was responsible for the deliverance of 70,000 Moriscos whom “he
rescued, in a series of voyages, from servitude in Spain.” Lane-Poole, Barbary Corsairs, p. 60.
37 Muir, Expansion of Europe, pp. 7-8; Prescott, Ferdinand and Isabella, p. 271.
38 Emrah Safa Gurkan, “Ottoman Corsairs in the Western Mediterranean and their Place in the
Ottoman-Habsburg Rivalry, (1505-1535).” A Master’s Thesis, Department of History, Bilkent
University, Ankara, June 2006, pp. 36-40.
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