II.

Origins

Piracy on a large scale began as a response to the fall of the Moorish kingdom of Granada to Spain in 1492, and the expulsion of all Muslims from the Iberian peninsula. This was followed by the Spanish capture of the North African ports of Melilla (1497), Mers el Kebir (1505), Oran (1509), Bejaïa (1510), and Tripoli (1510), together with the tiny islands off the Moroccan coast that they fortified as the Peñón de Vélez and the Peñón de Alhucemas (1508), and the Peñon of Algiers on an islet opposite the city (1509). These presidios (fortified settlements), however, failed to prevent the escalation of the Muslim response, which began with piracy but ended with the overthrow of the Ziyanid and Hafsid dynasties at Tlemcen and Tunis, and the annexation of North Africa as far as Morocco by the Turkish Ottoman Empire.