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Regency of Algiers
1515–1830
Flag
Map of the Regency of Algiers in 1835.
Status	Regency
Capital	Algiers
Religion	Islam (Maliki and Hanafi), Judaism
Government	Regency
Pasha, Dey
History
• Established	1515
• Disestablished	1830
Population
• 1808	3,000,000
Preceded by Succeeded by ] ] ] ]

The Regency of Algiers was an Ottoman territory centered on Algiers, in modern Algeria. It was established in 1525, when Hayreddin Barbarossa re-captured the city. It roughly covered the area of modern Algeria, between the states of Tunisia and Morocco. It rivaled and displaced the Zianids, the Hafsids and the Spanish possessions in northern Africa, and became a major hub of Mediterranean piracy, until the French invasion of Algiers in 1830.

Establishment

The Regency of Algiers was the principal center of Ottoman Empire power in the Maghreb. It was also a base from which attacks were made on European shipping.

Base in the war against Spain

Aruj, Barbarossa's brother, had accomplished the Capture of Algiers in 1516, appart for the Spanish Peñon. Following the death of Aruj, Barbarossa asked for assistance to the Ottoman Empire, in exchange for acknowledging Ottoman rule in his dominions. The Spanish retook the city of Algiers in 1519, before Ottoman help could arrive, but Barbarossa recaptured the city definitively in 1525, and the Spanish Peñon as well in 1529, in the Capture of Algiers (1529).

Hayreddin Barbarossa established the military basis of the regency. The Ottomans provided a supporting garisson of 2,000 Turkish troops with artilley. He left Hasan Agha in command as his deputy when he had to leave for Istanbul in 1533.

The son of Barbarossa, Hasan Pashan was the first governor of the Regency to be directly appointed by the Ottoman Empire in 1544, when his father retired, and took the title of beylerbey.

Beylerbeys continued to be nominated for unlimited tenures until 1587, when the Ottoman Empire set up a regular Ottoman administration in Algiers and its dependencies, headed by Pashas, with 3 year terms. This was a way o considate Ottoman power in the Maghreb, after Spain had sent an embassy to Istanbul in 1578 to negotiate a truce, leading to a formal peace in August 1580. From that point the Regency of Algiers was a formal Ottoman territory, rather than just a military base in the war against Spain.

Mediterranean piracy

Despite the end of formal hostilities with Spain, attacks on Christian, and especially Catholic shipping, with slavery for the captured, became prevalent in Algiers, and was actually the main activity and source of revenues of the Regency.

In the early 16th century, Algiers also became with other North African harbours such as Tunis, one of the bases for Anglo-Turkish piracy, with as many ass 8,000 renegades operating from the city in 1634:

A contemporary letter states:

"The infinity of goods, merchandise jewels and treasure taken by our English pirates daily from Christians and carried to Allarach, Algire and Tunis to the great enriching of Mores and Turks and impoverishing of Christians"

— Contemporary letter sent from Portugal to England.

Piracy and slavery of Christians originating from Algiers were a major problem throughout the centuries, leading to regular punitive expeditions by European powers. Spain (1567, 1775, 1783), Danemark (1770), France (1661, 1665, 1682, 1683, 1688), England (1622, 1655, 1672), all led naval bombardments against Algiers. Abraham Duquesne fought the Barbary pirates in 1681 and bombarded Algiers between 1682 and 1683, to help Christian captives.

Barbary Wars

During the early 19th century, the Regency of Algiers again resorted to widespread piracy against shipping from Europe and the young United States of America, mainly due to internal fiscal difficulties. This in turn led to the Barbary Wars, which culminated in August 1816 when Lord Exmouth executed a naval Bombardment of Algiers.

French invasion

As of 1808, the population of the Regency of Algiers numbered around 3 million people, of whom 10,000 were Turks, and 5,000 Kulughlis (from kul oġlu, "son of Janissaries", i.e. metis of Turks and local women).

During the Napoleonic Wars, the Regency of Algiers had greatly benefited from trade in the Mediterranean, and of the massive imports of food by France, largely bought on credit by France. In 1827, Hussein Dey, Algeria's Ottoman ruler, demanded that the French pay a 31-year old debt, contracted in 1799 by purchasing supplies to feed the soldiers of the Napoleonic Campaign in Egypt.

The French consul Pierre Deval refused to give answers satisfactory to the dey, and in an outburst of anger, Hussein Dey touched the consul with his fan. Charles X used this as an excuse to break diplomatic relations. The regency of Algiers would end with the French invasion of Algiers in 1830, and French rule last for the next 132 years.

See also

• List of Pasha and Dey of Algiers

Notes

1. ^ A history of the Maghrib in the Islamic period by Jamil M. Abun-Nasr p.151ff
2. ^ North Africa: a history from antiquity to the present by Phillip Chiviges Naylorp.117
3. A history of the Maghrib in the Islamic period by Jamil M. Abun-Nasr p.152ff
4. ^ Historic cities of the Islamic world by Clifford Edmund Bosworth p.24
5. Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580-1615 by Alberto Tenenti p.81
6. Sick economies: drama, mercantilism, and disease in Shakespeare's England Jonathan Gil Harris p.152ff
7. Martin's History of France by Henri Martin, p.522
8. A history of African societies to 1870 by Elizabeth Allo Isichei p.273

• Former countries in Africa
• States and territories established in 1515
• 1830 disestablishments
• Algiers