Barbarossa

Barbarossa (Italian; “red beard”), byname of two corsair brothers, Arūj (c.1474-1518) and Khayr ad-Dīn (c. 1483-1546).

Both were born in Mitilíni on the island of Lésvos, at that time part of the Ottoman Empire. A Muslim hatred of the Spanish, resulting from the expulsion of the Moors from the Iberian peninsula in the late 15th century, encouraged the brothers’ intense piracy against Christian shipping. The Spanish seized Algiers in 1510 as they attempted to blockade and occupy ports that were known to be pirate enclaves. Arūj, who had become commander of the fleet of the Emir of Tunis, with his younger brother serving as his lieutenant, took Algiers from the Spanish in 1516. However, in 1518 Arūj was killed in battle against the Spanish near Oran, allowing the Spanish to reoccupy Algiers.

Khayr, having succeeded his brother, appealed to the Ottoman sultan, Suleiman I, for reinforcements, and offered homage by agreeing to cede the territory, when captured, to the Ottoman Empire. In return, Khayr was made beylerbey, the sultan’s representative in Algeria. With Ottoman support, there then ensued a struggle that lasted until 1529 when Khayr finally ejected the Spanish from Algiers. Khayr re-fortified the battle-torn city and transformed it into a pirate enclave, which served as a centre for the harassment of shipping until the early 19th century. In 1533 Khayr was appointed admiral-in-chief of the Ottoman fleet, and the following year he completed the conquest of Tunisia. Tunis was used as a base to launch raids against the Italian coast, and in 1535 the Holy Roman emperor Charles V led a crusade to capture the port. Although successful, his fleet was defeated three years later by Khayr at the Battle of Preveza, a battle that secured Ottoman domination of the eastern Mediterranean until the Battle of Lepanto in 1571.

From 1538 to his effective retirement in 1544, Khayr led the now highly organized Ottoman fleet on plundering raids throughout the Mediterranean, attacking Minorca, the Ionian Islands, and Dalmatia, and taking thousands of Christians as slaves. He twice defeated Charles V’s fleet led by the imperial admiral Andrea Doria—in 1540 off Crete and in 1541 off Algiers—and was instrumental in helping the French regain Nice in 1543. Khayr retired to the sultan’s court in Constantinople, and was succeeded as admiral by his son, Hasan (?-1572).