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

slaves. 71 However, in the absence of Muslim records pertaining to corsairing,
these estimates are at best unreliable. Table 3 (Activity of Algerian Corsairs)
attempts to summarize prizes and captives taken by Algerian corsairs during
the 17 th and 18 th centuries. The data included is exclusively derived from
western accounts as in general researchers point out that no prize or slave
registers survived from the Ottoman regencies of North Africa; probably none
had ever existed at all. 72 The numbers mentioned are enormous and sometimes
contradictory; therefore, they have to be taken with caution.
The impact of the practice of enslavement of captives was devastating
on both sides of the Mediterranean. Tens of thousands of Muslims and
Christians were captured and forced on galleys and into slave markets thus
generating cheap labor and profits but also humanitarian tragedies, diplomatic
tensions, and continuing hostilities. Captives developed to be a thorny issue in
Muslim-Christian relations; for centuries, they were going to be a source of
diplomatic vicissitudes and incessant warfare. In Algerian-American relations,
the capture of two American ships by the Algerian corsairs and confinement of
their 21-men crews was much decried and that at a time the Americans
practiced slavery on a much larger scale; but that was one of another sort and
under other circumstances.
71 Friedman, “Christian Captives,” p. 617.
72 Taoufik Bachrouch, “Rachat et libération des esclaves chrétiens à Tunis au XVIIe siècle,” Revue
Tunisienne de Sciences Sociales, 11 (1975), p. 128; C. R. Pennell, “Who Needs Pirate Heroes?” The
Northern Mariner/Le Marin du Nord, 8: 2 (April 1998), p. 63.
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