The narrative of Barbarossa, a figure synonymous with naval supremacy in the 16th-century Mediterranean, unfolds as one of both ruthless ambition and strategic brilliance. Born Hizar in the Ottoman Empire, he rose to infamy as a feared pirate and privateer, ultimately becoming the Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy. His exploits, characterized by brutal raids and the enslavement of countless individuals, left a profound impact on the socio-economic landscape of coastal Europe. While European chronicles cast him as a villain, the Ottoman perspective revered him as a national hero, a defender of the faith, and an architect of imperial power. As we delve into the complexities of his legacy, we examine how Barbarossa’s actions exemplify the intricate interplay of heroism and villainy within the turbulent tapestry of history.

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Takeaways:

• Barbarossa, originally named Hizar, emerged as a formidable figure in the 16th-century Mediterranean, transforming his humble beginnings into a legendary career.
• His life exemplified a complex duality, perceived as both a ruthless pirate by Christian Europe and a revered hero within the Ottoman Empire.
• The Barbary Corsairs, under Barbarossa's command, conducted extensive raids that resulted in the enslavement of hundreds of thousands, significantly impacting coastal European societies.
• Barbarossa's strategic alliances and naval innovations established Ottoman supremacy in the Mediterranean, reshaping the balance of power during a turbulent historical period.
• The contrast between European and Ottoman narratives of Barbarossa illustrates the polarized perceptions and biases of the era, complicating our understanding of his legacy.
• Ultimately, Barbarossa's story exemplifies the intricate interplay between piracy, state power, and the brutal realities of 16th-century imperial ambitions.

16Th century Mediterranean.

A battleground of empires, a highway for unimaginable wealth and and a hunting ground for the ruthless.

From the sun drenched Greek islands of the Aegean to the fortified posts of North Africa, one name, one red bearded visage struck terror into the hearts of Christian Europe.

And being an excellent seaman, he eventually became Kapudin Pasha, Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy.

But history would remember him most by the name his enemies whis in fear, Barbarossa, which was Italian for Redbeard.

As you've probably already imagined correctly, Barbarossa was a fierce man with very noticeable red hair.

But more importantly, over the course of time, Barbarossa was a pirate, a privateer, a sultan and even a grand admiral at one point.

His life was a saga of brutal raids, cunning strategy and the forging of a naval power that would dominate the seas.

I'm Michael.

And I'm Elena.

And today on History's greatest Crimes, we're discussing the man who European chronicles painted as the scourge of the Mediterranean.

A man whose fleets left trails of devastation.

Historians describe him as possessing a restless and enterprising spirit combined with valor and ambition, but also driven by a hatred of Christianity.

This was Barbarossa.

That's right, Michael.

The term corsair comes from the French word for pirate or privateer and it referred generally to Mediterranean pirates who attacked with or without state sanction.

But more specifically, the Barbary Corsairs referred to North Africa, mostly Muslim pirates and privateers who raided coastal settlements in search of people to enslave and sell.

In total, it is believed that over the course of the 16th and 17th centuries, Barbary Corsairs captured over 850,000 people from Italy, France, Spain, Portugal, the British Isles, even as far as as Iceland.

Those captured were then often sold as slaves in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire, which at that time stretched all the way from the Balkans of Eastern Europe, through Greece and Turkey, down through the Holy Land and into present day Saudi Arabia and Iraq.

Like the golden age of pirates in the Caribbean, the Barbary Corsairs were brutal and unflinching in their ambitions to enrich themselves.

And like those same pirates in the Caribbean, the Barbary Corsairs often crossed over from legal privateering for the state to illegal piracy and back again, depending on what circumstances were happening at the moment.

And yet to the Ottoman Empire.

Barbarossa was a hero.

He was nicknamed lion of the Mediterranean, and hey Reddin, which translated from Arabic at the time meant best of the faith, came to be one of his most famous Nickn.

His victories reshaped the balance of power in Europe and the Middle East.

His strategies redefined naval warfare, and his alliance with sultans like Suleiman the Magnificent projected Ottoman might across the waves.

Barbarossa and the other Barbary corsairs that followed weren't just pirates, though.

They were empire builders of a grand and terrifying scale.

The sheer scale of Barbarossa's operations, the thousands captured in slave raids, and the economic devastation inflicted on coastal Europe mark his reign as a period of profound criminality from one perspective and heroic expansion from the other.

Stay with us as we discuss the bloody rise of Barbarossa, the pirate king who held the Mediterranean and his fearsome grip for decades in the 16th century.

Barbarossa's story begins not as a feared corsair, but as a boy named Hizar.

So being on the island of Lesbos pretty much in the center of all of that could be really good for business.

Most Ottomans were Sunni Muslim, although many conquered peoples were allowed to continue their own religious traditions in private.

It was a diverse island at the center of a number of important Christian and Muslim trade routes.

A great place to start a business.

There he settled down, became a potter, and even owned a boat to trade his wares.

He married a woman named Caterina, a local Greek Orthodox Christian, possibly the widow of a priest.

This mixed Muslim, Christian, Ottoman Greek heritage is fascinating, placing him and his siblings at a cultural crossroads in a strategically vital and often contested part of the Aegean Sea in the Mediterranean.

Hiser had three brothers, Ishak, Arush and Elias, and all of the brothers, including Hizar, were drawn to the sea.

Initially involved in maritime trade, as we'll.

See, the four brothers would eventually transition from being Mediterranean traders to pirates, or corsairs, as they were known then at the time.

But theirs wasn't a sudden leap into lawlessness.

It actually began in response to the threat of the Knights Hospitaller of St. John.

Based on the island of Rhodes, who frequently attacked Ottoman shipping, the Knights Hospitaller.

Were connected to the medieval history of the Crusades, during which western Europeans made multiple attempts to retake the Holy Land from Muslim rulers.

The Knights Hospitaller were a military order dedicated to helping the sick and the poor while also defending Christians in the hol.

To put things into better geographical perspective, the island of Rhodes is located in the Aegean Sea, just off the southwestern coast of present day Turkey.

And as mentioned, hisr the future pirate Barbarossa was living a bit further north on a different island in the same coast.

So while his OR is growing up, his family maintained a healthy trading business.

But it was always at risk of attack from the Knights Hospitaller.

Specifically, they often attacked Ottoman merchant ships like that owned by his OR and his family.

As young adults, Hizar's eldest brothers, Arush and Elias, expanded their father's trading business.

They now operated primarily in the Levant between Turkey, Syria and Egypt, and they spent most of their days aboard ships.

The brothers also supposedly learned to speak a series of languages, including Italian, Spanish, French and Greek, along with Arabic, which I'm sure was great for business.

Absolutely, Michael.

So all looked very optimistic.

For his family, their trading business was booming.

Elias was killed and Arush was captured.

Arush then spent the next four years rowing as a galley slave for the Knights Hospitaller, at which point his father was able to pay the ransom to get him release.

Imagine the impact of that, Elena.

If Aarush and the family hated the Knights Hospitaller before, they certainly did now.

Upon his release, Aarouche's career shifted decisively towards organized privateering.

It seems that he now only desired a career that would allow him to get revenge for what happened to him and his brother.

According to the records, Arush received ships from an Ottoman prince specifically to combat the Knights Hospitaller.

And when he was successful at that, the same Ottoman prince ordered Arush to participate in the Ottoman naval expedition to the southern eastern region of of Apulia in Italy.

There, in Italy, Arush bombarded several coastal castles and captured two ships.

And on the way back home to his island, his home island of Lesbos, he captured three more galleons.

Clearly, Arush was pretty good at privateering for the Ottoman Empire.

And Arush's success made him indispensable to other Muslim rulers as well, including the Egyptian Sultan, who gave him another ship and entrusted him with the task of raiding the coasts of Italy and the islands of the Mediterranean that were under Christian rule.

And they were shrewd operators.

The Sultan granted them the right to do so on the condition that the brothers gave him one third of their spoils.

This was a classic Ottoman corsair arrangement.

The privateers would gain a secure base and the local ruler would get a share of their profits.

Their reputations grew with each daring capture.

Within a year, the brothers had captured two large galleys that belonged to the Pope, as well as a Sicilian warship called the Cavalleria, which was transporting hundreds of Spanish soldiers and knights to Naples.

These knights were of course, ransomed for a nice price.

These exploits increased the brothers fame and notoriety, as well as their fortune.

And not wanting to miss out on the fame and fortune, it was also at this time that the third surviving brother, Ishak, also joined the family privateering business off the coast of Tunis.

But what's really interesting is that the brothers did something that elevated them beyond mere Raiders.

Just to provide some context here, this was when Queen Isabella and King Ferdinand of Spain carried out large scale expulsions of Jews and Muslims who refused to convert to Roman Catholicism.

That decree demanded the immediate conversion of all Jews and Muslims who wished to remain in the kingdom.

And as a result, over the next couple of decades, multiple waves of expulsions forced thousands from their homes and across the Mediterranean Sea to other more welcoming kingdoms, one of which was the Ottoman Empire.

The expulsions were an extremely risky time for Muslims and Jews leaving Spain.

Those who chose to leave rather than convert were not permitted to take their wealth with them.

It had to stay in Spain, of course, and therefore belong to the Spanish king and queen.

Being penniless made it difficult to hire safe passage, as one could imagine.

And making matters worse, a rumor began circulating that those leaving had swallowed their jewels and other wealth, order to take it out of the kingdom with them.

As a result, there were quite a few incidents of Jewish and Muslim passengers being gutted and thrown overboard by greedy sailors in search of treasure.

Into this chaos sailed the three brothers, Arush, Hizur and Ishak.

They used their ships to help transport people from Spain to the Ottoman Empire.

This particular act cast them as protectors and warriors for the faith, generating immense goodwill for them in North Africa and throughout the Ottoman Empire.

It was actually during this act of rescue that the brothers earned the honorific name Baba, or father.

This nickname of Baba was combined with the Italian for red beard, a reference to the brothers striking red beards.

And ultimately, it produced the famous name of Barbarossa that remained attached to them wherever they went.

Over the next few years, the three Barbarossa brothers seemed impossible to defeat.

In the resulting battle, Arush lost his left arm.

He apparently replaced it with a silver prosthetic, earning him the nickname Silver arm.

And despite losing appendages, the brothers refused to slow down.

There, they built themselves a gunpowder production facility to create ammunition for their new large fleet of stolen ships.

The records show that Barbarossa brothers sent some of that treasure back to the Ottoman sultan, who in return, sent them two more galley ships and two swords encrusted with diamonds.

Its location on the Mediterranean meant that it could act as a springboard for raids against Christian shipping lanes, especially those connecting Spain to its Italian territories.

At that point, the eldest brother Arush declared himself Sultan of Algiers.

And this is an important event because it marked a shift in the approach of the Barbarossa brothers from sea based raiding to territorial rule.

But Aruges reign in Algiers was short lived.

The Spanish understandably didn't take kindly to this new Corsair Sultan on their doorstep.

Geographically, Algiers is just a skip and a hop across the Mediterranean from Spain.

So Spanish forces consistently attacked the coast of Algiers.

That only left one Barbarossa brother, Hizar.

Hizar recognized that the best protection for Algiers against the Spanish was to join Algiers to the Ottoman Empire.

He reached out to the Ottoman Sultan Selim I and offered his allegiance.

In return, the Sultan bestowed on the remaining Barbarossa the honorary name of Hayreddin, meaning the best of the faith.

This signaled Hayreddin Barbarossa's formal entry into Ottoman service and marked him as a champion of Islam in the Mediterranean.

In return, Algiers became an Ottoman sanjak or province.

Under Suleiman the Magnificent, the Ottoman Empire reached its zenith of economic, military and political strength.

Suleiman himself was a skilled warrior and personally led Ottoman armies into their conquest of a number of European Christian strongholds.

Through his alliance with the Sultan, Barbarossa gained access to royal resources and opportunities for himself and Algiers that helped him transform the North African region into a more powerful and organized entity.

With the Sultan's support, he began developing a significant land based army showing a vision that went beyond simple piracy towards state building.

And while he turned his attention to land, Barbarossa didn't completely lose touch with the sea.

He then placed his formidable Corsair fleet at Suleiman's disposal.

For the Ottomans, their alliance with Barbarossa was a strategic masterstroke.

It allowed them to project naval power into the western Mediterranean.

His raids stretched across the Mediterranean, hitting Spain, Italy and their islands.

And these weren't just smash and grab operations.

The primary goals of Barbarossa's fleet were capturing non Muslims for the slave markets or for ransoming and seizing valuable cargo.

And frankly, the numbers are rather horrifying.

Raids in the Gulf of naples reportedly yielded 7,800 captives.

10,000 from Sperlonga, 4,000 from Ischia, and between 2 and 7,000 from Lipari, all southern Italian towns.

This human trafficking generated immense wealth for Algiers and was a significant drain on Christian Europe.

The economic impact was severe.

Coastal regions in Italy and Spain suffered depopulation as people fled inland.

European powers were often forced to pay tribute to Algiers for safe passage of their merchant ships, further enriching Barbarossa and the other corsairs.

It was a form of asymmetrical warfare, tying down Christian resources.

Barbarossa's relentless success in Algiers and his constant challenge to the European kingdoms didn't go unnoticed by Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent.

And that was the imperial capital of the Ottoman Empire.

And this was no mere courtesy call.

Suleiman appointed him Kapudin Pasha, grand Admiral of the entire Ottoman navy.

Think about that.

A man who started as a common tradesman and corsair was now at the helm of an imperial fleet.

Simultaneously, he was named Balerbe, governor of governors of North Africa, cementing his authority there.

This was a strategic masterstroke by Suleiman.

The Ottoman Empire, traditionally a land power, was recognizing the critical importance now of sea power, entrusting its development to inexperienced, if unconventional, a leader like Barbarossa.

And it showed a serious commitment to challenging Christian naval dominance.

It was a meritocratic choice, overlooking established military figures.

For Barbarossa's proven genius as Capudampasha, Barbarossa wasn't just a combat commander.

He was tasked with building a large and formidable war fleet and organizing the Ottoman navy.

This included practical things like repairing and enhancing the imperial shipyard in Constantinople.

He's even credited with establishing naval schools.

And his teachings on naval strategy reportedly influenced Ottoman sailors for centuries.

This shows he was a strategic builder, not just a brilliant raider.

We have to remember that the Mediterranean in the first half of the 16th century was dominated by this colossal struggle between Sultan Suleiman's Ottoman Empire in the south and the vast Habsburg domains of Emperor Charles V in Spain, Italy and a little bit beyond.

The naval aspect of this conflict was personified by the intense rivalry between their chief admirals, Barbarossa for the Ottomans and the Genoese condottiero Andrea Doria serving Charles.

V. Just as an aside, Andrea Doria had a personal portrait of himself made by the Italian artist Angelo Bronzino around this time.

In the portrait, Doria chose to have himself depicted nude as the God of the sea.

He's portrayed as bearded, with a large trident, while looking stern and resolute over all that he surveys.

So that should give you a good sense of Doria's own confidence in himself.

Absolutely.

No doubt.

Perhaps he was confident for a reason.

Prior to becoming Grand Admiral of the Ottoman Navy, Barbarossa had already clashed multiple times with Andrea Doria.

Emperor Charles V knew exactly how formidable Barbarossa was.

Charles V reportedly offered Barbarossa lordship of North Africa and the position of admiral in chief of his own fleet if he'd switched sides.

Barbarosa refused, staying loyal to Suleiman.

That an emperor would try to poach his most notorious Muslim naval enemy speaks volumes about the respect and probably fear that Barbarossa commanded.

Despite this huge invasion force, the campaign was a disaster for Emperor Charles and the Habsburgs.

A combination of Barbarossa's defenses and severe storms wrecked much of the Christian fleet, forcing Charles V to retreat.

This only burnished Barbarossa's reputation further.

The fight for key North African ports was relentless.

He ousted the local sultan, who was a Spanish client, and established Tunis as another powerful Ottoman aligned naval base.

This was a direct threat to Habsburg interests.

Emperor Charles V didn't take this defeat lying down.

The coalition was reported to have included over 300 galleys and 24,000 soldiers.

And this time the Christian forces were successful.

The fall of Tunis to the Christian Coalition was followed by a brutal massacre of an estimated 30,000 Muslim civilians.

It's a grim reminder of the savagery of warfare in this era, especially when religious animosity was involved.

But Barbarossa was nothing if he wasn't resilient.

Recognizing he couldn't win a direct fight against such overwhelming forces, he had strategically withdrawn from Tunis before its fall and escaping with several thousand of his core troops.

And almost immediately he was back at his old tricks, leading a devastating raid on Spanish island of Menorca, where He reportedly took 600 captives.

Even a major victory like the recapture of Tunis couldn't permanently neutralize a corsair leader like Barbarossa.

He could always regroup and strike elsewhere.

Absolutely.

Although Barbarossa had lost Tunis, he remained a massive threat to Christian Europe's trade, security and strategic interests.

The fact that these often rival Christian powers were united shows just how seriously they took the threat of Barbarossa.

And who was put in command of this mighty Christian armada?

Well, none other than Andrea Doria, Charles V's veteran Genoese admiral and Barbarossa's long standing nemesis.

The Holy League's fleet was numerically superior.

Estimates vary, but they had around 112 to 157 galleys, plus about 50 galleots and 140 large sailing warships.

Often called barcas or karaks.

They carried an estimated 60,000 soldiers and a massive number of cannons, probably around 2,500.

Against this imposing force, Hayred and Barbarossa commanded a much smaller Ottoman fleet of about 122 galleys and galleots with around 366 cannons and approximately 11,000 soldiers.

Barbarossa showed his tactical brilliance from the start.

He deployed his fleet in a distinctive Y shaped formation with himself commanding the center and experienced captains leading the wings and rear.

The Ottoman galleys, primarily or propelled, were more maneuverable than the larger sail dependent Christian ships and this proved crucial.

By the end of the day, the Holy League was crushed.

They lost 10 ships that were sunk or destroyed and another 36 were captured by the Ottomans.

Around 3,000 Christian sailors were taken prisoner and and Barbarossa's losses?

Well, reportedly not a single ship was lost, with only about 400 killed and.

800 wounded in the Aftermath.

Barbarossa consolidated Ottoman control, clearing the Aegean and Ionian seas of remaining Christian outposts.

The Holy League was shattered and it discouraged similar large scale Christian coalitions against the Ottomans for decades.

Those numbers really highlight the disparity.

The Holy League had more ships, more men, more cannons.

So Barbarossa's victory wasn't just a win, it was a masterclass in naval tactics against a numerically superior but clearly less cohesive enemy.

And while that was mostly true, sometimes rulers of Europe and the rest of the world decided that winning was more important than any religious differences.

Both France and the Ottoman Empire had a common enemy, the sprawling Habsburg Empire under Emperor Charles V. This pact, where.

Strategic interests trumped religious ideology, was scandalous across Christian Europe at the time, French diplomacy had to work overtime, justifying it, often using the pretext of protecting Christians in Ottoman lands.

But in the end, the risk of such an alliance paid off for the French and the Ottomans.

Their main joint objective was to take control of the city of Nice, a strategic port located farther east on the Mediterranean, which was controlled by an ally of the Emperor Charles V. The combined.

But the campaign wasn't entirely smooth sailing.

Pardon the pun.

Barbarossa was reportedly furious with the French for failing to provide adequate provisions.

He allegedly complained, what soldiers are these that fill their vessels with wine casks and forget to bring their gunpowder?

It highlights the challenges of coordinating such different military cultures.

After Nice fell to the French and the Ottomans, King Francis made an unprecedented decision.

He invited Barbarossa's entire fleet to winter in the French naval port of Toulon to accommodate over 30,000 Ottoman combatants and prevent conflict.

Francis ordered most of Toulon's inhabitants to evacuate, compensating them with a 10 year tax exemption.

For six to eight months, Toulon effectively became an Ottoman naval base on French soil.

Contemporary accounts are striking.

The Toulon cathedral was Temporarily converted into a mosque.

The Muslim call to prayer was heard five times a day.

The Ottoman coinage was even used.

One observer famously remarked, quote, seeing talon, one might imagine oneself in Constantinople, not Istanbul.

This caused an immense scandal across Christian Europe.

In a final show of power, he even pillaged five French ships in Toulon's harbor to provision his fleet for the journey back to Constantinople, A truly remarkable and controversial episode.

He was likely in his late 60s or early 70s by that point.

He appointed his son Hassan Pasha as his successor in Algiers, ensuring his family's continued influence.

Barbarossa spent his final year in Constantinople dictating his memoirs.

His mausoleum was built in the city, near to where his fleets often assembled to retire in peace.

Honor and wealth in the imperial capital after such a career speaks volumes about his standing with Sultan Suleiman.

So Michael, who was Hayred, and Barbarossa.

European accounts, especially from nations like Spain and the Italian states that suffered his raids, consistently painted him as the scourge of the Mediterranean, a ruthless, brutal pirate.

And as we've noted before, his red beard was infamous, giving rise to the Italian nickname Barbarossa.

But Ottoman and Turkish sources offer a starkly different picture.

They describe him as dark skinned, of average height, powerfully built, with luxuriant hair and beard.

He was lauded for his intelligence, bravery tempered with prudence and an indomitable will.

He was even described as cheerful, elegant and a teller of jokes in private.

And his multilingualism Greek, Arabic, Spanish, Italian and French was a huge asset.

The contrast in descriptions of Barbarossa between Europe and the Ottoman Empire really shows how deeply polarized perceptions were at the time.

Absolutely.

And Barbarossa clearly had his own opinions of current events and biases of different groups of people.

For instance, at one point, Barbarossa was said to have mocked Andrea Doria's failed attempt to take Algiers from him.

Barbarossa supposedly quipped that Doria mistakenly thought Algiers was like the New World and that he could exterminate Algerians as Europeans had done with Native Americans.

His memoirs also reveal his opinion of Arab warriors as a very cheeky people who did not know the art of war and could be unreliable, contrasting them with the discipline of Turkish soldiers.

Barbarossa's leadership was a potent mix.

Ruthless effectiveness, strategic foresight, and an uncanny ability to inspire loyalty.

His strategic approach often involved concentrating overwhelming force at a vulnerable point.

And he wasn't afraid to use terror as a weapon.

And with that in mind, we can't talk about Barbarossa and the Barbary Corsairs without addressing the brutal reality of their enterprise, the capture and enslavement of non Muslims.

This wasn't just a byproduct of their raids.

It was a primary economic driver and a key part of their war against Christian Europe.

Thousands upon thousands of Christians were captured, including sailors, passengers and coastal villagers.

And in Constantinople, not Istanbul, which was the capital of the Ottoman Empire, it is estimated that about a fifth of the population consisted of slaves.

The conditions were generally horrific.

Captives were sold in the slave markets of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli.

Men were often forced into hard labor, quarrying, stone, construction, or most infamously, as galley slaves.

Life as a galley slave was particularly brutal.

Shackled to oars, often for years, rarely leaving the ship, living in filth under the constant threat of the whip.

Women frequently faced sexual servitude in harems or domestic work.

Ransom was a possibility for the wealthy or well connected.

But for the poor, captured by the Barbary Corsairs was often a life sentence.

Conversion to Islam could sometimes lead to freedom, but doing so usually meant they could never return home.

This was a highly organized economic enterprise and the constant threat of attack often forced European powers to pay tribute for safe passage, further enriching Corsairs like Barbarossa.

It was economic warfare, plain and simple.

Barbarossa's impact on Ottoman and European history was immense, particularly when we consider his humble beginnings.

His victories at sea secured Ottoman naval dominance in the Mediterranean for much of the 16th century.

His leadership was key in expanding Ottoman influence in North Africa, turning Algiers into a vital Ottoman outpost.

And more broadly, Barbarossa and his brothers established the Barbary coast as a corsair stronghold that would affect Mediterranean life for 300 years.

Barbarossa.

A name that conjures images of fierce battles, plundered coasts and a red bearded admiral who commanded the respect of sultans and the fear of emperors.

His life was a testament to ambition, strategic genius and ruthless pragmatism.

From the perspective of Christian Europe, his actions, the relentless raids, the enslavement of thousands, the disruption of trade, were undeniably criminal On a vast scale.

Yet within the Ottoman Empire, he was the architect of naval supremacy, a defender of the faith and a builder of imperial power.

His story forces us to confront the complexities of history, where one empire's hero is another's villain.

The crimes of Barbarossa were committed in an age of brutal conflict where the lines between piracy, privateering and state sponsored warfare were often blurred by the tides of imperial ambition.

Join us next time on History's Greatest Crimes.

Until then, stay curious.