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We’re sailing the high seas of the Ottoman Empire with Dr. Joshua White!
About this event
The Golden Age of Piracy has long been romanticized with stories about the lost treasures of Captain Kidd and Blackbeard, but who were their Ottoman contemporaries? Ottoman corsairs, also known as the Barbary corsairs, plundered waters ranging from North Africa to Iceland. Where did they come from? What were their motivations? Join us for a conversation with naval historian Dr. White from UVA to learn more! Ottoman scholar Dr. Cengiz Sisman will moderate and ask questions for the audience.
Ottoman corsairs, known as Barbary corsairs or pirates in Western Europe, were a group of marauders that raided ships in the Mediterranean and Atlantic from their home ports in what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. Under Ottoman sovereignty, the Barbary pirates were the most feared group in the Mediterranean for merchant ships and coastal villages alike. Their era ended in the early 19th century after the U.S. severely damaged their operations in the Barbary Wars (1801-1815) and France colonized Algeria in 1830.
Guest speaker Dr. Joshua White is a professor and naval historian at the University of Virginia. His research focus is the history of the Early Modern Mediterranean and the Middle East, particularly naval warfare and piracy. He has published many manuscripts on the topic including “Shifting Winds: Piracy, Diplomacy, and Trade in the Ottoman Mediterranean, 1624-1626.” in Well-Connected Domains: Towards an Entangled Ottoman History and “‘It is Not Halal to Raid Them’: Piracy and Law in the Seventeenth-Century Ottoman Mediterranean.” in Corsairs and Pirates in the Eastern Mediterranean, 15th-19th c.
This event will be moderated by Ottoman scholar Dr. Cengiz Sisman.
Admission is free, but you must register on Eventbrite to join!