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

particularly, by the very term they used to refer to the region. It is also
indicative of a few balanced and unbiased writings, which attempted to combat
prejudices and dissipate the connotations of barbarian and barbarism that are
attached to Barbary in the western mind. Some writers have indeed attempted
to demonstrate that the name “had nothing to do with the behavior and degree
of civilization of the inhabitants.” 34
A Russian naval officer on visit to Algiers
between 1776 and 1777, for example, wrote:
The Romans called these people ‘Barbarian’ as they did with all those
they had conquered, and the Europeans have conserved the habit until
today, although these peoples do not at all deserve such a contemptuous
name. … The name of Barbarian only suits a ferocious, lawless and
cruel people, but the Barbaresques seem to me in general to have milder
and more welcoming to strangers than many Europeans. 35
1. 2. 1. Defining ‘Barbary’
Attempting a definition of the term Barbary is an intricate task.
Historically, the term first came into use in Italy about the early 16 th century
and lasted until the French Conquest in 1830. The different etymologies,
however, explain in part the linguistic and ideological complexity of the term
because the word ‘barbary’ cannot be simply explained by its origins or
history. Etymologically, the term is understood to have both Arabic as well as
Greco-Roman origins. Arabic origins include the words ‘Ber or ‏’بر meaning
un-inhabited because this part of North Africa was scarcely populated when the
‏’بربر Arabs first settled it in the 8 th century AD; the second word is ‘barbara or
34 Thomson, Barbary and Enlightenment, p. 14.
35 As cited in M. Canard, “Une description de la cote barbaresque au dix-huitième siècle par un officier
de la marine russe,” Revue Africaine, 95 (1951), pp. 147-48.
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