Ottoman Algeria

Eyalet-i Cezayir-i Garb ایالت جزاير غرب[1][2]
Eyalet[3] of the Ottoman Empire
←   ← c. 1517–1830 →   →
Flag[5]
Algiers Eyalet in 1609
Capital		Algiers
Government		Beylerbeylik (1518-1590) then Eyalet (1590-1830) of the Ottoman Empire
Dey
•	1517-1518	Oruç Reis
•	1818-1830	Hussein Dey
History
•	Established	c. 1517
•	French conquest of Algiers	1830
Population
•	1808	3,000,000
Today part of		Algeria

Ottoman Algeria, formally the Regency of Algiers, was an Ottoman territory centered on Algiers, eventually covering all coastal lands of modern Algeria. It was established in 1525 when Hayreddin Barbarossa captured the city.^[7][8] The Regency of Algiers was the principal center of Ottoman power in the Maghreb.^[7] It was also a base from which attacks were made on European shipping.^[7] It rivaled and displaced the Zianids, the Hafsids and the Spanish possessions in northern Africa, and was a major hub of Mediterranean piracy and slave markets, until the French conquest of Algeria in 1830.

History

Establishment

Hayreddin Barbarossa was the founder of the Regency of Algiers.

From 1496, the Spanish conquered numerous possessions on the North African coast, which had been captured since 1496: Melilla (1496), Mers-el-Kebir (1505), Oran (1509), Bougie (1510), Tripoli (1510), Algiers, Shershell, Dellys, and Tenes.^[9]

Around the same time, the Ottoman privateer brothers Oruç and Hayreddin—both known to Europeans as Barbarossa, or "Red Beard"—were operating successfully off Tunisia under the Hafsids. In 1516, Oruç moved his base of operations to Algiers and asked for the protection of the Ottoman Empire in 1517, but was killed in 1518 during his invasion of the Kingdom of Tlemcen. Hayreddin succeeded him as military commander of Algiers.

Occupation of Algiers

Oruç, Hayreddin Barbarossa's brother, captured Algiers in 1516, apart from the Spanish Peñón of Algiers. Following the death of Oruç in 1518 at the hand of the Spanish in the Fall of Tlemcen, Barbarossa requested the assistance of the Ottoman Empire, in exchange for acknowledging Ottoman authority in his dominions.^[8] Before Ottoman help could arrive, the Spanish retook the city of Algiers in 1519. Barbarossa recaptured the city definitively in 1525, and in 1529 the Spanish Peñon in the capture of Algiers.^[8]

Base in the war against Spain

Hayreddin Barbarossa established the military basis of the regency. The Ottomans provided a supporting garrison of 2,000 Turkish troops with artillery.^[8] He left Hasan Agha in command as his deputy when he had to leave for Constantinople in 1533.^[7]

The son of Barbarossa, Hasan Pashan was in 1544, when his father retired, the first governor of the Regency to be directly appointed by the Ottoman Empire. He took the title of beylerbey.^[7] Algiers became a base in the war against Spain, and also in the Ottoman conflicts with Morocco.

Beylerbeys continued to be nominated for unlimited tenures until 1587. After Spain had sent an embassy to Constantinople in 1578 to negotiate a truce, leading to a formal peace in August 1580, the Regency of Algiers was a formal Ottoman territory, rather than just a military base in the war against Spain.^[7] At this time, the Ottoman Empire set up a regular Ottoman administration in Algiers and its dependencies, headed by Pashas, with 3 year terms to help considate Ottoman power in the Maghreb.

Mediterranean piracy

Purchase of Christian slaves by French friars (Religieux de la Mercy de France) in Algiers in 1662.

Despite the end of formal hostilities with Spain in 1580, attacks on Christian and especially Catholic shipping, with slavery for the captured, became prevalent in Algiers, and were actually the main industry and source of revenues of the Regency.^[10]

In the early 17th century, Algiers also became, along with other North African ports such as Tunis, one of the bases for Anglo-Turkish piracy. There were as many as 8,000 renegades in the city in 1634.^[10][11] (Renegades were former Christians, sometimes fleeing the law, who voluntarily moved to Muslim territory and converted to Islam.) Hayreddin Barbarossa is credited with tearing down the Peñón of Algiers and using the stone to build the inner harbor.^[12]

A contemporary letter states:

"The infinity of goods, merchandise jewels and treasure taken by our English pirates daily from Christians and carried to Allarach [ Larache, in Morocco], Algire and Tunis to the great enriching of Mores and Turks and impoverishing of Christians"

— Contemporary letter sent from Portugal to England.^[13]

Piracy and slavery of Christians originating from Algiers were a major problem throughout the centuries, leading to regular punitive expeditions by European powers. Spain (1567, 1775, 1783), Denmark (1770), France (1661, 1665, 1682, 1683, 1688), England (1622, 1655, 1672), all led naval bombardments against Algiers.^[10] Abraham Duquesne fought the Barbary pirates in 1681 and bombarded Algiers between 1682 and 1683, to help Christian captives.^[14]

Barbary Wars

Bombardment of Algiers in 1816, by Martinus Schouman.

During the early 19th century, the Regency of Algiers again resorted to widespread piracy against shipping from Europe and the young United States of America, mainly due to internal fiscal difficulties.^[10] This in turn led to the First Barbary War and Second Barbary Wars, which culminated in August 1816 when Lord Exmouth executed a naval Bombardment of Algiers.

French invasion

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Regency of Algiers had greatly benefited from trade in the Mediterranean, and of the massive imports of food by France, largely bought on credit by France. In 1827, Hussein Dey, Algeria's Ottoman ruler, demanded that the French pay a 31-year-old debt, contracted in 1799 by purchasing supplies to feed the soldiers of the Napoleonic Campaign in Egypt.

The French consul Pierre Deval refused to give answers satisfactory to the dey, and in an outburst of anger, Hussein Dey touched the consul with his fan. Charles X used this as an excuse to break diplomatic relations. The Regency of Algiers would end with the French invasion of Algiers in 1830, followed by subsequent French rule for the next 132 years.^[10]

Political status

After its conquest by Turks, Algeria became a province of the Ottoman Empire. The Regency was successively governed by Beylerbeys (1518–70), Pachas (1570–1659), Aghas (1659–71), then Deys (1671–1830), on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan.

Until 1671, Beylerbeys, Pachas and Aghas were appointed by the Ottoman sultan and were subjucted to him. After a coup in 1671, the Regency acquired a large degree of autonomy and became a military republic, ruled in the name of the Ottoman sultan by Deys, officers chosen either by the Ottoman militia or the Captains.^[15][16] From 1718 onwards, Deys were elected by the Divan, an assembly aimed to represent the interests of both Captains and Janissaries.

Demography

As of 1808, the population of the Regency of Algiers numbered around 3 million people, of whom 10,000 were 'Turks' (including people from Kurdish, Muslim Greek and Albanian ancestry^[17]) and 5,000 Kouloughlis (from the Turkish kul oğlu, "son of slaves (Janissaries)", i.e. creole of Turks and local women).^[18] By 1830, more than 17,000 Jews were living in the Regency.^[19]

See also

• List of Ottoman governors of Algeria

References

1. Salih Özbaran (1994). The Ottoman response to European expansion: studies on Ottoman-Portuguese relations in the Indian Ocean and Ottoman administration in the Arab lands during the sixteenth century. Isis Press. p. 35. ISBN 978-975-428-066-1. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
2. Andrew C. Hess (2010-12-01). The Forgotten Frontier: A History of Sixteenth-Century Ibero-African Frontier. University of Chicago Press. p. 253. ISBN 978-0-226-33031-0. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
3. William Spencer (1995). Islamic Fundamentalism in the Modern World. Twenty-First Century Books. p. 73. ISBN 978-1-56294-435-3. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
4. Gabor Agoston; Bruce Alan Masters (2009-01-01). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
5. crwflags.com "In any case, except for the very elaborate personal standards, the flag in use in the country was the Ottoman flag"
6. Gabor Agoston; Bruce Alan Masters (2009-01-01). Encyclopedia of the Ottoman Empire. Infobase Publishing. p. 33. ISBN 978-1-4381-1025-7. Retrieved 2013-02-25.
7. Abun-Nasr, Jamil (20 August 1987). A history of the Maghrib in the Islamic period. Cambridge University Press. p. 151ff. ISBN 978-0-521-33767-0. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
8. Naylorp, by Phillip Chiviges (2009). North Africa: a history from antiquity to the present. University of Texas Press. p. 117. ISBN 978-0-292-71922-4. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
9. An Historical Geography of the Ottoman Empire p.107ff
10. Bosworth, Clifford Edmund (30 January 2008). Historic cities of the Islamic world. Brill Academic Publishers. p. 24. ISBN 978-90-04-15388-2. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
11. Tenenti, Alberto Tenenti (1967). Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580-1615. University of California Press. p. 81. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
12. "Moonlight View, with Lighthouse, Algiers, Algeria". World Digital Library. 1899. Retrieved 2013-09-24.
13. Harris, Jonathan Gil (2003). Sick Economies: Drama, mercantilism, and disease in Shakespeare's England. University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 152ff. ISBN 978-0-8122-3773-3. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
14. Martin, Henri (1864). Martin's History of France. Walker, Wise & Co. p. 522. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
15. Saliha Belmessous, Assimilation and Empire: Uniformity in French and British Colonies, 1541-1954, Oxford University Press, 2013 (ISBN 9780199579167), p.119 :

    When the French turned their eyes to the kingdom of Algiers in 1830, the region had been under Ottoman rule since 1516. The Regency of Algiers was a province of the Ottoman empire under the authority of the dey of Algiers, who had acquired a large degree of autonomy from the sultan and who was chosen by Janissaries, the Ottoman militia of Algiers.

16. Jamil M. Abun-Nasr, A History of the Maghrib in the Islamic Period, Cambridge University Press, 1987 (ISBN 9780521337670), p.160 :

    [In 1671] Ottoman Algeria became a military republic, ruled in the name of the Ottoman sultan by officers chosen by and in the interest of the Ujaq.

17. Isichei, Elizabeth Isichei (1997). A history of African societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press. p. 263. ISBN 0-521-45444-1. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
18. Isichei, Elizabeth Isichei (1997). A history of African societies to 1870. Cambridge University Press. p. 273. ISBN 0-521-45444-1. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
19. Yardeni, Myriam (1983). Les juifs dans l'histoire de France: premier colloque internationale de Haïfa. BRILL. p. 167. ISBN 9789004060272. Retrieved 28 January 2014.