Fun Fact #399 Origin of Barbery

 Fun Fact #399

Origin of Barbery

While largely forgotten, The Barbary Pirates were one of the longest continuous threats in Europe with an origin sometime before 1198ad who regularly attacked from Iceland to the West coast of Africa and all through the Mediterranean. Yet how come they were not stopped before 1804? 

In short, they were useful. Countries who lacked naval superiority would assign “Letters of Mark '' or a license to capture vessels from a nation they were at war with. These Marks then allowed their holders to find safe harbors, and amnesty within countries which backed the mark so long as these “Corsairs'' or “Privateers” agreed to give 10% of their looted supplies in exchange and to throw marks overboard if the ship was boarded. This system allowed the smaller powers of Europe to challenge and harass the larger Navies of countries like: The Ottomans, British, French and Spanish. All while sending their criminals, the desperate and the poor, to join the Corsairs. 

Overall it was quite an effective –if brutal– system, yet there was another problem. After the wars would end and their marks invalidated, most corsairs wouldn’t stop raiding, resulting in several countries along the Barbary coast giving out marks to hunt anyone but the backing countries resulting in the name: The Barbary Pirates.

If you think it was horrible of these countries to do, don't worry we’ll discuss their downfalls tomorrow in “The Scourge of Barbarossa ''. 

Image: By Aert Anthoniszoon, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2016018