The Barbary pirates were mostly Moslem pirates and raiders who operated out of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. They reached the peak of their power in the early to mid-1600s, aided by Dutch renegades, some of whom converted to Islam. The pirates enslaved tens and probably hundreds of thousands of Europeans, raiding ships and coastal villages. The Dutch renegades helped extend their reach, adding new ship technology with raids reaching into the Atlantic as far as England, Ireland and even Iceland.
European powers rarely united against the Barbary Pirates until after the Napoleonic wars, finding them too useful against European rivals.
The early 1600s, and especially the period of the Thirty Years War, saw Europe at its most divided, with a huge, chaotic war over the Holy Roman empire that left much of Germany devastated and often depopulated.
The Barbary pirates took advantage of that chaos, of course, but how could we make them even more of a factor? They had to be aware that treasure fleets from the New World funded much of the Spanish war effort. Maybe one of their Dutch renegade captains comes up with the idea of a joint Dutch/Barbary Pirate effort to capture one of the Spanish treasure fleets. That wasn’t a trivial undertaking. The Dutch historically tried it and actually succeeded once, in 1628.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody else succeeded in capturing more than a few ships, though there were a number of attempts.
Let’s say that the 1628 example inspires a Dutch/Barbary pirate imitator in the early 1630s and it is at least partially successful. The pirates come home wealthy with Spanish silver and knowledge of the Americas. They inspire a host of imitators raiding up and down the thinly settled and often thinly defended New World coasts and carrying off Indians and Europeans alike as slaves. They are aided in some cases by Moslem slaves brought over from West Africa and set some of those freed slaves up as local rulers along remote stretches of coast, giving them logistics bases for future raids.
They destroy the struggling Spanish colony at St. Augustine and seize Spanish settlers there, along with missionized Indians, as slaves.
With England in turmoil under personal rule and then the English Civil War, English colonies and England itself are attractive, easy targets, with Virginia and the Puritan colonies of New England getting hit in the late 1630s and England itself getting persistently raided during personal rule and the Crown unable to raise money for defenses without calling Parliament.
What do you think? Feasible? Where would this go from here? Kind of dark places if you ask me, but I try to look at possibilities without indulging over much in "if only."
European powers rarely united against the Barbary Pirates until after the Napoleonic wars, finding them too useful against European rivals.
The early 1600s, and especially the period of the Thirty Years War, saw Europe at its most divided, with a huge, chaotic war over the Holy Roman empire that left much of Germany devastated and often depopulated.
The Barbary pirates took advantage of that chaos, of course, but how could we make them even more of a factor? They had to be aware that treasure fleets from the New World funded much of the Spanish war effort. Maybe one of their Dutch renegade captains comes up with the idea of a joint Dutch/Barbary Pirate effort to capture one of the Spanish treasure fleets. That wasn’t a trivial undertaking. The Dutch historically tried it and actually succeeded once, in 1628.
To the best of my knowledge, nobody else succeeded in capturing more than a few ships, though there were a number of attempts.
Let’s say that the 1628 example inspires a Dutch/Barbary pirate imitator in the early 1630s and it is at least partially successful. The pirates come home wealthy with Spanish silver and knowledge of the Americas. They inspire a host of imitators raiding up and down the thinly settled and often thinly defended New World coasts and carrying off Indians and Europeans alike as slaves. They are aided in some cases by Moslem slaves brought over from West Africa and set some of those freed slaves up as local rulers along remote stretches of coast, giving them logistics bases for future raids.
They destroy the struggling Spanish colony at St. Augustine and seize Spanish settlers there, along with missionized Indians, as slaves.
With England in turmoil under personal rule and then the English Civil War, English colonies and England itself are attractive, easy targets, with Virginia and the Puritan colonies of New England getting hit in the late 1630s and England itself getting persistently raided during personal rule and the Crown unable to raise money for defenses without calling Parliament.
What do you think? Feasible? Where would this go from here? Kind of dark places if you ask me, but I try to look at possibilities without indulging over much in "if only."