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

established perceptions, goes further and considers that European attacks
against Algiers were ‘piracy’:
Our history books say, for example, that France took over Algiers to
defend it against the piracy of petty Muslim kings. But they do not tell
us that these North African kingdoms were, in their turn, victims of
European piracy that prevented them from developing normal trade and
forced them into corsairing. 26
The image of the ‘Algerian pirate’ is deeply ingrained in the western
mind. Most likely, the earliest work which painted such fallacious image was
that of Haedo. Haedo’s Topographie et histoire générale d’Alger, is invariably
cited as a ‘testimony’ and ‘trustworthy’ source of information in western
histories about Algeria. 27 Re-reading Haedo, however, provides no more that a
view impregnated with a blind crusading hatred and aggressiveness against
Islam and Algiers that is straightforwardly expressed and which became a
classic for both modern and contemporary crusaders. The following extract,
although lengthy, is worth reproducing because it summarizes the western view
about Algerian corsairs:
They here snap up a ship laden with gold and silver from India, and
there another richly brought from Flanders; now they make prize of a
vessel from England, then of another from Portugal. … Insomuch that
before these Corsairs have been absent from their abodes much longer
than perhaps twenty or thirty days, they return home rich, with their
vessels crowded with captives, and ready to sink with wealth; in one
instant, and with scarce any trouble, reaping the fruits of all that the
avaricious Mexican and greedy Peruvian have been digging from the
bowels of the earth with such toil and sweat, and the merchant with such
26 As quoted in Paul A. Silverstein, “The New Barbarians: Piracy and Terrorism on the North African
Frontier,” The New Centennial Review, 5: 1 (Spring 2005), p. 185.
27 Haedo published his book Topografia e Historia General de Argel in 1606. The book was translated
by the French Dr. Monnereau and A. Berbrugger as “Topographie et histoire générale d’Alger,” 17
parts, Revue Africaine, xiv (1870), xv (1871), xxiv; (1880), xxv (1881).
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