The Barbary pirates, also known as corsairs, were notorious for their raids along the coasts of Europe, including Britain, during the 17th century. These pirates operated from the Barbary Coast of North Africa, primarily from ports like Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.

Their main objective was to capture people to sell as enslaved people in the Arab markets. They targeted not only ships but also coastal villages, leading to the abduction of thousands of men, women, and children. For instance, in 1625, Barbary pirates raided Mount’s Bay in Cornwall, capturing 60 people. Similarly, in 1631, almost the entire population of the village of Baltimore in Ireland was taken into slavery.

The impact on Britain was significant, with an estimated 3,000 to 5,000 English people held captive in Algiers alone by the early 17th century. Efforts were made to ransom these captives, with Parliament and local communities raising funds to secure their release.

The Barbary Coast, also known as the Barbary States, was a coastal region of North Africa, now including Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Pirates and privateers from these states, known as Barbary pirates or corsairs, operated in the region. They captured many merchant ships and raided coastal towns in Europe and Britain.

The impact of these raids was significant. Residents left their villages along the coast in the UK, Spain, and Italy, and the pirates enslaved between 100,000 and 250,000 people from the Iberian Peninsula. The raids were so disruptive that people rarely settled in coastal areas until the 19th century.

It's estimated that between 1580 and 1680, about 850,000 people were captured as enslaved people, and from 1530 to 1780, as many as 1.25 million people were enslaved. The exact number of men, women, and children enslaved is unknown, but it's believed that about 8,500 new enslaved people were needed annually. This would total about 850,000 captives from 1580 to 1680. Extrapolating from this, the figure could have reached 1,250,000 over the 250 years from 1530 to 1780.

The Reverend Devereux Spratt wrote: "When we had arrived [in Cork], I made a request to Lord Inchaquoin to give me a passport for England. I took boat to Youghal and then embarked on the vessel John Filmer, which set sail with 120 passengers. But before we had lost sight of land, we were captured by Algerine pirates, who put all the men in irons."

In the late 1500s and early 1600s, there were about 35,000 enslaved European Christians on the Barbary Coast, mostly in Algiers, Tripoli, Tunis, and various Moroccan towns. The majority of the enslaved people were sailors captured with their ships, but there were also fishermen and coastal villagers among them.

British captives were mainly sailors, though there were fewer of them compared to people from nearby lands such as Spain and Italy. Southerners from regions like Valencia, Andalusia, Calabria, and Sicily were frequently taken by slavers, leading to a shortage of captives to capture.

Although there are no existing records of the exact number of men, women, and children enslaved, it is estimated that around 8,500 new enslaved people were needed annually to maintain the captive population, resulting in approximately 850,000 captives from 1580 to 1680. Extrapolating for the 250 years between 1530 and 1780, the number of enslaved people could have easily reached 1,250,000. While this number is relatively small compared to the Africans taken as slaves to the Americas during the same time frame, it still represents a significant figure.

The white enslaved people in Barbary were typically from impoverished families and had little hope of regaining their freedom. Most of them died as enslaved people in North Africa from starvation, disease, or maltreatment.

Enslaved people in Barbary fell into two broad categories:

1) The ruler owned the "Public Slaves" and could take one-eighth of all Christians captured by the corsairs and buy other enslaved people at reduced prices. These enslaved people were kept in overcrowded prisons called baños and were mainly tasked with rowing the Corsair galleys to find loot and more enslaved people. The work was arduous, and many died or went mad while chained to the oars.

During the winter, these enslaved people worked on state projects like quarrying stone, building walls, cutting down trees, and making galleys. They were given little food and only got one change of clothes each year. Those who collapsed from exhaustion or malnutrition were usually beaten until they started working again.

The ruler also bought most female captives, some of whom were taken into his harem, while others were purchased for their ransom value and worked as harem attendants while waiting for their release.

2) Private Party Slaves were treated differently depending on their owners. Some were well taken care of and served as companions to their owners, while others worked as hard as public enslaved people in farming, construction, or selling goods for their owners. They were expected to give a part of their earnings to their owners, and those who didn't meet the required amount were usually beaten.

As they got older or if their owners' situations changed, enslaved people could be sold again. The unluckiest ones were forgotten in desolate places or spent decades rowing on the Turkish sultan's galleys without ever setting foot on land again.

Before 1640, Europeans tried to buy their people out of slavery, but a natural system didn't develop until later. Around that time, they started making more organised attempts, sometimes with support from their governments, like in Spain and France. The clergy, mainly from the Trinitarian or Mercedarian orders, were primarily responsible for collecting funds, travelling to Barbary, and negotiating with enslavers.

Parish churches in Spain and Italy had collection boxes labelled "for the poor slaves," and the clergy regularly encouraged wealthy parishioners to include organisations for freeing enslaved people in their wills. Groups dedicated to freeing enslaved people also started appearing in many cities and towns.

Freeing enslaved people was seen as one of the best charitable acts a Catholic could do because enslaved people were considered ideal candidates for redemption due to their Christian faith. By the 1700s, these efforts had significantly decreased the number of enslaved people in Barbary, leading to higher prices for enslaved people as more money chased fewer captives.

In comparison, Protestant states were sometimes disorganised and less proactive in freeing their people. Many Dutch, German and British citizens suffered in Barbary without organised religious or government assistance for their release.

England allocated funds from customs income to free captives, but a significant portion was used for other purposes. Large-scale efforts to free enslaved people, such as the one led by Edmund Casson, who freed 244 people in 1646, were rare. As a result, Protestant Britons were often more demoralised and more likely to die in captivity than European Catholics. As one formerly enslaved person noted, "All of the nations made some shift to live, save only the English, who it seems are not so resourceful as others, and have no great kindness for one another."

During Roman times, towns along the North African coast had markets where people were bought and sold. This continued into medieval times. In the 15th century, the Barbary Coast became more influential when the Ottoman Empire took control of the area. This also led to an influx of Sephardi Jews and Moorish refugees who had been expelled from Spain after the Reconquista.

The coastline became known for piracy with the protection of the Ottomans and an increase in impoverished immigrants. Crews from captured ships were either enslaved or had to pay a ransom. Between 1580 and 1680, approximately 15,000 Christian Europeans converted to Islam in Barbary. Also, about half of the captains of the pirate ships, known as re'is, were renegades. Some of them were formerly enslaved people who became Muslim. In contrast, many others had come to North Africa looking for opportunities and had converted to Islam while leaving their previous lives and Christianity behind.

Enslaved people in Barbary came from all sorts of backgrounds - they could be black, brown, or white and belong to different religious groups such as Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox, Jewish, or Muslim. People at the time knew that those enslaved in North Africa came from varied backgrounds, and they did not think that slavery, whether in Barbary or the Americas, was a matter of race. In the 1600s, a person's background or religion did not decide whether they became enslaved. Preachers from places like Sicily and Boston talked about the similar experiences of enslaved Black people on American plantations and white enslaved people in corsair galleys. Early abolitionists used the existence of Barbary slavery to show how slavery was universally evil in all its forms.

We need to rethink our belief that race was the main factor in how people viewed slavery before modern times when we look at the Barbary Slave Trade. We also need to pay more attention to the impact of slave raids on Spain, Italy, and Britain during that time. We currently know less about these impacts compared to what we know about slave activities in Africa.

We are just starting to understand how the extensive emptying of coastal areas from Malaga to Venice, the economic difficulties caused by the kidnapping of many workers, and the large amounts of money paid by struggling residents of villages and towns to free their people affected the people of that time.

For over 400 years, several European nations, including Portugal, Britain, Spain, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark, were heavily involved in the Atlantic slave trade. They built trading posts along the African coast to buy enslaved people from local leaders.

These enslaved individuals were kept in holding areas near the coast, called factories, before being shipped to the Americas. It is estimated that 12 to 12.8 million Africans were transported across the Atlantic, but many did not survive the journey or the harsh conditions in the Americas.

In addition to those who were enslaved, millions of Africans died due to slave raids, wars, and the brutal journey to the coast to be sold to European traders.

Although efforts were made to end the trade in the early 19th century, illegal smuggling of enslaved individuals continued to occur.

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