The Full Story
For 300 years, they came from the sea.
Corsairs sail from Algiers and the other Barbary ports of North Africa, and they take people, not from a colony, from Europe's own coasts. Spain. Italy. France. Ireland. Even Iceland feels their reach. One contested estimate puts the number enslaved over the centuries above a million; historians still argue over the true figure.
Europe's governments pay. Ransoms, treaties, begging. For three centuries, nothing stops it.
In 1816, Britain tries diplomacy one last time. The Dey of Algiers agrees to end the enslavement of European Christians. Then, in May, Algerian troops kill around 200 fishermen under British protection at Bona.
Britain has run out of patience. Admiral Lord Exmouth sails for Algiers, his flagship HMS Queen Charlotte at the head of the fleet. A Dutch squadron joins him under Vice-Admiral van Capellen. British and Dutch, sailing as one force.
In August, the combined fleet anchors off Algiers harbour. Exmouth sends his terms in. The Dey refuses. At half past two in the afternoon, the guns open fire.
For 9 hours, British and Dutch guns hammer the harbour defences. The corsair fleet burns at anchor. Allied casualties, British and Dutch together, pass 900 killed and wounded. It is a hard fought battle, not an easy one.
By morning, the harbour lies silent. Exmouth demands surrender. The Dey accepts.
1,083 slaves are freed at Algiers itself, men and women of many nations and faiths. The Dey repays around £80,000 sterling in ransom money. Counting the releases negotiated earlier that year, around 3,000 people walk free across the whole of 1816, not in a single day.
The treaty breaks the back of a 300 year system, but it does not end the raids overnight. Raiding returns, on a smaller scale, in the years after. It is the French conquest of Algiers, from 1830, that finally ends it for good.
Ordinary coastal families across Europe had lived in fear of a single dark sail for 300 years. In August 1816, at last, Britain and the Netherlands answered.
Why This Matters
Britain's fight against slavery is usually told as an Atlantic story. This one runs the other way. For three centuries, corsairs from North Africa enslaved Europeans, Britons among them, off their own coasts, and every government paid ransom rather than fight. In 1816, Britain and a Dutch fleet answered with force, not to build an empire but to break a system that preyed on ordinary people. The result was real and limited: 1,083 freed at Algiers, around 3,000 across the year, not in a single day, and raiding that returned until the French conquest of 1830 finally ended it. Holding both truths, the fight and its limits, is the point. Britain did not solve Barbary slavery alone or overnight. It did something, at real cost, when nobody else would.
Key Facts
- ✓For roughly 300 years, corsairs operating from the Barbary states of North Africa, including Algiers, raided the coasts of Europe, taking captives from Spain, Italy, France, Ireland and even Iceland into slavery (Royal Museums Greenwich; Encyclopaedia Britannica)
- ✓In May 1816, around 200 fishermen under British protection were killed at Bona after the Dey of Algiers had agreed to end the enslavement of European Christians (Wikipedia; Royal Museums Greenwich)
- ✓On 27 August 1816, a British fleet under Admiral Lord Exmouth, joined by a Dutch squadron under Vice-Admiral van Capellen, bombarded the harbour defences of Algiers; allied casualties passed 900 killed and wounded (Royal Museums Greenwich; Wikipedia)
- ✓The Dey of Algiers freed 1,083 Christian slaves at Algiers itself and repaid around £80,000 sterling in ransom money; counting earlier releases negotiated that year, around 3,000 people were freed across the whole of 1816, not in a single day (Royal Museums Greenwich; Wikipedia)
- ✓The bombardment broke the back of Barbary slaving but did not end it immediately; raiding continued on a reduced scale until the French conquest of Algiers, beginning in 1830, finally ended it (Encyclopaedia Britannica; Wikipedia)
- ✓Estimates of the total number of Europeans enslaved by Barbary corsairs over the centuries are contested among historians, ranging from the hundreds of thousands to over a million (Robert Davis, Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters, 2003, and subsequent academic critiques)