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

however, the pace of capture and enslavement accelerated and touched both
sides of the Mediterranean as a result of the growing confrontation between
Crescent and Cross. The 16 th century was a period when large scale naval
battles raged between Muslims and Christians; it was also the period when
galley warfare reached a zenith. As galleys were propelled by oar, there was a
great need for rowers; those were obtained mainly from captives and prisoners
of war. On Mediterranean galleys, slaves were chained to the oars: Christian
galleys were propelled by Muslim slaves and Muslim galleys were rowed by
Christian slaves. In general, battles were fought with the purpose of supplying
navies with slaves. It is said that at Lepanto, the largest of those naval battles,
Christian spoils were in the first place human. 62 In addition to the large naval
battles, European corsairs and slave traders submitted the coastal populations
of North Africa to constant raids. 63 The purpose was to supply slave markets in
Cordoba, Seville, Marseille, Valletta, Leghorn, and many others with Muslim
captives. 64 Malta particularly was an active “marauder in the waters of Islam”
with some 20-30 vessels mobilized for the capture of Muslims. 65 Often the
slave trade was the paramount reason which motivated Christian raids on
Algerian coastal towns and captures of civilians. For this reason, the Muslim
coastal populations as well as corsairs dreaded capture and enslavement by
62 After the battle, 3651 Muslim prisoners of war were distributed among the Christians as follows: 558
for the Papacy, 1223 for Venice, and 1870 for the king of Spain. Maurice Aymard, “Chiourme et galère
dans la seconde moitié du XVIe siècle,” in Ernest Labrousse et al., eds. Mélanges en l’honneur de
Fernand Braudel. Vol 1: Histoire économique du monde méditerranéen, 1450-1650 (Paris : Privat éd.,
1973), p. 57.
63 Belhamissi, “Course et contre-course,” par. 17.
64 Stella, Histoires d’esclaves, p. 17, 26-27, 31.
65 Michel Fontenay, “Pour une géographie de l’esclavage méditerranéen aux temps modernes,” Cahiers
de la Méditerranée, vol. 65, L’esclavage en Méditerranée à l’époque moderne, 2002, par. 50.
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