Editing History of Algeria (section)

=== Mediterranean privateers ===
[[File:Purchase_of_Christian_captives_from_the_Barbary_States.jpg|thumb|Purchase of Christian slaves by French friars ([[Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary of Mercy|Religieux de la Mercy de France]]) in Algiers in 1662]]
Despite the end of formal hostilities with Spain in 1580, attacks on Christian and especially Catholic shipping, with [[Barbary Slave Trade|slavery for the captured]], became prevalent in Algiers and were actually the main industry and source of revenues of the Regency.<ref name="Bosworth 24">{{cite book |last=Bosworth |first=Clifford Edmund |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UB4uSVt3ulUC&pg=PA24 |title=Historic cities of the Islamic world |date=30 January 2008 |publisher=Brill Academic Publishers |isbn=978-90-04-15388-2 |page=24 |access-date=24 October 2010}}</ref>

In the early 17th century, Algiers also became, along with other North African ports such as [[Tunis]], one of the bases for [[Anglo-Turkish piracy]]. There were as many as 8,000 [[wiktionary:renegade|renegades]] in the city in 1634.<ref name="Bosworth 24" /><ref>{{cite book |last=Tenenti |first=Alberto Tenenti |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=hAtpBrOdQlIC&pg=PA81 |title=Piracy and the Decline of Venice, 1580-1615 |publisher=University of California Press |year=1967 |page=81 |access-date=24 October 2010}}</ref> (Renegades were former Christians, sometimes fleeing the law, who voluntarily moved to Muslim territory and converted to [[Islam]].) [[Hayreddin Barbarossa]] is credited with tearing down the Peñón of Algiers and using the stone to build the inner harbor.<ref name="WDL">{{cite web |year=1899 |title=Moonlight View, with Lighthouse, Algiers, Algeria |url=http://www.wdl.org/en/item/8759/ |access-date=2013-09-24 |website=[[World Digital Library]]}}</ref>

A contemporary letter states:

{{blockquote|"The infinity of goods, merchandise jewels and treasure taken by our English pirates daily from Christians and carried to [[Algiers|Algire]] and [[Tunis]] to the great enriching of Mores and Turks and impoverishing of Christians"|Contemporary letter sent from Portugal to England.<ref name="Harris">{{cite book |title=Sick Economies: Drama, mercantilism, and disease in Shakespeare's England |last=Harris |first=Jonathan Gil |page=152''ff''|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6oiCewSlFlQC&pg=PA225 |publisher=University of Pennsylvania Press |year=2003 |isbn=978-0-8122-3773-3|access-date=24 October 2010}}</ref>}}

Privateers 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), Denmark (1770), France (1661, 1665, 1682, 1683, 1688), England (1622, 1655, 1672), all led naval bombardments against Algiers.<ref name="Bosworth 24" /> [[Abraham Duquesne]] fought the [[Barbary pirates]] in 1681 and bombarded Algiers between 1682 and 1683, to help Christian captives.<ref>{{cite book |last=Martin |first=Henri |url=https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_nW0PAAAAYAAJ |title=Martin's History of France |publisher=Walker, Wise & Co. |year=1864 |page=[https://archive.org/details/bub_gb_nW0PAAAAYAAJ/page/n545 522] |access-date=24 October 2010}}</ref>