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

defamed, the Muslims corsairs are always referred to as the pirates from the
Barbary Coast who, for centuries, had ravaged shipping, enslaved Christians,
and ransomed European states. 22
Yet, this damning view is loaded not only with mistakes and distortions
but it is also sheer crusading and anti-Algerian propaganda that later served as
an argument to embellish the conquest of Algeria. The American scholar
Andrew C. Hess observes with some impartiality that Playfair “describes the
corsairs in the manner of the mediaeval propagandists against Islam.” 23
Likewise, the American historian Paul J. Zingg explains that the term ‘pirate’ is
“used freely and incorrectly by Western scholars” because what they call
‘Barbary pirates’ were privateers “commissioned by their respective
governments in time of war to contest the enemy and disrupt his commercial
shipping.” Unlike pirates, he argued, they were “the legitimate corsairs of an
acknowledged ruler” and “were subject to regulations affecting their targets,
cruising areas, and booty.” 24 For French historian Fernand Braudel (1902-
1985), however, “western historians have encouraged [westerners] to see only
the pirates of Islam, in particular the Barbary corsairs” while Europe’s schemes
for the conquest of Algiers were happily forgotten. 25 Spanish historian Josep
Fontana, however, is one of the rare western historians who, contrary to
22 In this matter, the sources abound; within this single sentence, for example, one may easily denote
the biased attribution of the term ‘pirate’ and ‘corsair’ to Muslims and Christians who were engaged in
the same activity: “concurrently with the ascendancy of Moslem pirates in the Middle Sea the Maltese
Islands became themselves the thorny nest of many a Maltese corsair who preyed on Turkish and
Moorish commerce.” Cassar, “Maltese Corsairs,” pp. 137-38.
23 Hess, The Forgotten Frontier, p. 89.
24 Paul J. Zingg, “One-Dimensional History: A Review of United States-North African Historiography
since Independence,” ASA Review of Books, vol. 1 (1975), p. 153.
25 Fernand Braudel, The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, vol. 2
(New York: Harper and Row, 1973), pp. 754-55,865-67; see also Fisher, Barbary Legend, pp. 1-5.
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