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Barbary pirates, or corsairs, were the outlaws of the waves before the golden age of piracy<\/a>. From the 16th century onwards, these Muslim pirates operated out of the main ports along the North African coast \u2013 Algiers, Tunis, Rabat, Tripoli \u2013 raiding towns and seizing merchant ships primarily across the Mediterranean, although they did also venture into northern Europe and along the Atlantic coast of West Africa.<\/p>\n Their raison d\u2019etre was to capture slaves for the Ottoman empire<\/a> slave trade \u2013 although taking ownership of the valuable goods being transported across the Mediterranean was a gratefully welcomed by-product.<\/p>\n The pirates didn\u2019t discriminate about who they captured and placed in servitude. The make-up of those being forced into slavehood was a tangle of races, nationalities and religions. The pirates weren\u2019t fussy, although Italian and Spanish slaves fetched a better price than northern Europeans.<\/p>\n Nor did the pirates discriminate about which ships they attacked. Vessels sailing under all and any flags were considered fair game, making the Mediterranean a particular perilous sea for every nation.<\/p>\n Some estimates put the number of Europeans enslaved by Barbary pirates into seven figures. Most were sailors, but their number also contained fishermen and residents of raided coastal villages. European governments tried to counteract the piracy by offering bribes to the pirates, or commissioning them to work as official privateers.<\/p>\n Ransoms put on the heads of slaves were also paid, too, either by governments or by religious organisations like the Mercedarians, a body set up purely to cover the ransoms demanded. But, of course, every ransom paid only strengthened a pirate\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n Dr Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy and discusses how accurate pop culture portrayals of pirates are on this episode of the HistoryExtra<\/em> podcast<\/a>