The True Story of Hayreddin Barbarossa, the Admiral of Ottomans
Hayreddin Barbarossa was the most feared Ottoman Chief Admiral of the 16th Century who gave the Italians and Spaniards a tough time throughout his life.
Have you watched The Pirates of the Caribbean? According to Chris Almighty, Hayreddin Barbarossa was the inspirational source for the antagonist of The Pirates of the Caribbean, Hector Barbossa.
Barbossa was depicted as a wicked man, full of greed and killing people for his gains. However, the true Barbarossa was a different man.
Hayreddin Barbarossa operated in the Mediterranean seas in the 16th century as a corsair from his base in Algiers. The Europeans feared his seamanship, his tactics of naval battles, and his skills as a warrior. He bravely sacked ports, captured ships from Spain and Italy who were out on the mission to capture Algiers and other parts of North Africa.
He was not only a pirate, or privateer (government-sponsored pirate), but had political sagacity that made him the king of the prosperous kingdom of Algiers, the chief admiral of the Ottoman Empire and defied the attacks of the powerful Christian Spanish King and Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.
His early life
Hayreddin was born to a converted Muslim Yakup Aga of Turkish origin and his Christian Greek mother Katerina in the late 1470s or the early 1480s.
He was born in the Palaiokipos village of Lesbos, which was then ruled by the Ottomans. He was the third son of his parents among Ishak, Oruç were his elders and Ilyas was his younger brother. All of the brothers took to seas and worked as corsairs.
Their father was a potter who transported his goods through ships and boats. They all learned sailing from their father and worked in their father’s business at first before becoming the pirates of the Mediterranean.
Working as a Corsair
While they were doing business, the Knights Hospitaliers based in Rhodes greatly annoyed them as they disrupted their business. After doing business for years, they decided to become corsairs to counter the privateering of the Knights Hospitaliers.
Working as a corsair, Oruç, the elder brother of Hayreddin, helped the Muslims and Jews flee the Christian wrath when Spain took over Granda in 1492. The Spaniards butchered the Muslims after defeating the last Muslim ruler in the Iberian Peninsula.
Oruc helped these Muslims flee to North Africa in his fleet and thus the name of ‘Baba Oruc’. The Christians heard his name ‘Baba Oruc’ as Barbarossa — the Italian name for ‘Red-Beard. Thus, the four brothers came to be known as the Barbarossa brothers.
However, after the ‘Reconquista’ the Spaniards and the Portuguese attacked the coastal cities of North Africa to gain territory. The African Emirs and the Ottoman Sultan detested the attacks. Oruç and Khizr worked as corsairs and counterattacked the Spaniards and the Portuguese under the direction of Korkut — the son of the Ottoman sultan Bayezid II.
However, the death of Sultan Bayezid II led to a war of succession between his son Selim I and Shehzad Korkut. Meanwhile, Selim executed Korkut after some time and was killing all his friends.
Since the Barbarossa brothers were close to Korkut, they fled to their North African base to avoid the killing at the hands of Selim. They kept their mission of fighting the European forces by cooperating with the local emirs.
Kings of Algiers
During their activities against the European forces, they were quite successful in defeating them and their local friends. The Barbarossa brothers captured Jijel from the Spaniards in 1516 by overthrowing Algiers’s ruler of the Bani Ziyad dynasty, Abu Hamo Musa III who was supported by the Spaniards.
With the fall of the Algiers, the Spaniards lost their North African base and fled to Peñón island. The Spaniards sought help from Charles V, the king of Spain to come to their aid and to expel the Barbarossa brothers from Algiers.
To expand their influence in North Africa, the Ottoman Sultan offered Oruc and Hayreddin financial and military support to recognize the Ottoman claim on Algiers. The Ottoman gave titles of the governor of Algiers to Oruc and Hayreddin was made the governor of the seas.
However, Algiers fell to Spain in 1518 and Oruc died in the Spanish attack. The Algiers never remained under one rule for decades and changed kings. Still, Hayreddin Barbarossa kept his corsair state intact which became the permanent base for his activities in the Mediterranean against Spain.
Chief Admiral of Ottomans
Hayreddin remained loyal to the Ottomans and his association grew more with time. He was, even more, closer to Suleiman the Magnificent who became sultan after the death of Selim I.
Suleiman made him governor of Rhodes when captured it in 1522 and Chief Admiral when he conquered Tunis in 1531. His popularity grew more and he rose to more prominent positions. He and his forces kept their advance by defeating the Spaniards and his activities brought him to a great battle against leading European countries such as Malta, Portugal, Papal States, Genoa, Venice, and Spain.
Hayreddin led a decisive victory against the fleet of these countries in 1538 at the Battle of Preveza in Greece. He was a master of seas and knew what works better in naval battles. Instead of using sailing ships, he used 122 galleys against 300 sailing ships of the European fleet which was led by Pope Paul III. The galleys were driven by oars and were not dependent on winds and were more maneuverable than the sailing ships which were dependent on winds.
So, he quickly defeated the “Holly League” of European countries and secured the whole of the Mediterranean for the Ottoman Empire. During the battle, Barbarossa’s fleet sunk 10 European ships, captured 30 ships along with 3000 Christian sailors, and burned 3 ships. However, 400 of Barbarossa’s men were killed in the battle and 800 were wounded.
Barbarossa went on to capture the islands of Serifos, Andros, Skyros, and Skiathos. He also defeated the Spaniards and got Castelnuovo from them. He also captured the Castle of Risan and other outposts of the Christians in the Aegean Seas thus forcing Venice to recognize territorial gains of Ottomans and signed a peace treaty with Sultan Suleiman by paying 300,000 gold ducats in 1540.
Offer of Charles V
Seeing his extraordinary skills in capturing and conquering regions after regions, Emperor Charles V offered fascinating positions to Barbarossa including the ruler of Spanish territories in North Africa and Chief admiral of the Spanish fleet. Barbarossa declined the offer.
This enraged the emperor and he laid siege to the corsair state of Algiers to end the constant threat to Spanish territories and Christian ships in the Mediterranean. However, because of terrible weather and incompatible season for the naval battles, the fleets led by Andrea Doria and Hernán Cortés failed to influence the emperor to change his decision of battle.
Thus Andrea Doria and his forces couldn’t bear the violent storms of the Mediterranean and took his fleet to open water to avoid any unfortunate events. However, much of the Charles forces fought on the ground with Barbarossa’s forces but failed to conquer them. Thus, Charles’s forces were evacuated, and the decision of ending Barbarossa’s rule backfired with a shame of withdrawing and supposedly defeat.
Retirement of Barbarossa
After sailing on the seas throughout his life and capturing and enlarging the Ottoman Empire beyond islands and seas, he finally retired to his palace in 1545 in Istanbul, leaving his son, Hassan Pasha, in charge of his positions of Algiers and seas.
Hayreddin Barbarossa, the great Muslim hero, died on 4th July 1546 in his seaside palace peacefully. He was put to rest in the Barbaros Türbesi (the mausoleum of Barbarossa) in Istanbul (Constantinople) on the European side of Bosphorus.
For many years, it became a custom for Turkish ships to pay salute to the most feared and brave sailor’s grave. Barbarossa’s epitaph reads:
“This is the tomb of the conqueror of Algiers and of Tunis, the fervent Islamic soldier of God, the Capudan Khair-ed-Deen Barbarossa, upon whom may the protection of God repose.”
References
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hayreddin_Barbarossa
https://www.britannica.com/story/from-pirate-to-admiral-the-tale-of-barbarossa
https://www.dailysabah.com/portrait/2019/10/17/hayreddin-barbarossa-lion-of-the-mediterranean
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/history-magazine/article/barbarossa-pirate
