The
Barbary pirates, sometimes called
Barbary corsairs or
Ottoman corsairs, were
pirates and
privateers who operated from
North Africa, based primarily in the ports of
Salé,
Rabat,
Algiers,
Tunis, and
Tripoli. This area was known in
Europe as the
Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its
Berber inhabitants. Their predation extended throughout the
Mediterranean, south along
West Africa's
Atlantic seaboard and even
South America, and into the
North Atlantic as far north as
Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing ships, they engaged in
Razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands and as far away as Iceland. The main purpose of their attacks was to capture
Christian slaves for the
Ottoman slave trade as well as the general
Arabic market in North Africa and the Middle East.