Resumen de After Lepanto: Turkish and Barbary corsairs on the coasts of Galicia in the seventeenth century
After the victory over the Ottomans and the success at the battle of Lepanto, Christians and Muslims continued fighting each other at sea. In the seventeenth century, Turkish-Berber pirates, including Moors expelled from Spain and a large number of Christian renegades, succeeded in extending their corsair activities to the Atlantic Ocean by adapting the European way of building and arming ships. In 1617 the Turkish-Berber pirates started their attacks on Galicia with the assault on the Vigo estuary and the looting and burning of Cangas, and throughout the century they threatened maritime trade and coastal villages, capturing their inhabitants and damaging fishing operations. About 1621 a Galician privateering arose especially directed against them and against the Dutch, with the construction of a “Squad of Galicia,” which could not fulfil its objectives. In the eighteenth century, Turkish-Berber corsairs began their decline, as their predatory bases and activities were annulled in the nineteenth century with the establishment of European protectorates in North Africa and the withdrawal of the Turkish Empire from the western Mediterranean.
