Barbarossa | Meaning, Biography, Pirate, & History
By Justin | Published | No Comments
Hayreddin Barbarossa, also known as Hayreddin Pasha or Hızır Reis, was a sailor and later a leader of the Turkish Navy. He was really good at sea battles and helped the Ottoman Empire control the Mediterranean Sea in the 1500s.
He was born on an island called Lesbos. He started working at sea with his older brother Oruç Reis. In 1516, they took over a city called Algiers from Spain, and Oruç Reis declared himself the leader. When Oruç Reis passed away in 1518, Hayreddin took on his brother’s nickname, “Barbarossa” (which means “Redbeard” in Italian). He also got the special name Hayreddin, meaning “goodness of the faith” or “best of the faith.” In 1529, Barbarossa took Algiers from the Spanish.
In 1533, Suleiman the Magnificent made Barbarossa the grand admiral of the Ottoman Navy. That same year, he went to France as part of a diplomatic mission. In 1534, he captured Tunis, and in 1538, he won a big battle against the Holy League in Preveza. He also worked with the French on military campaigns in the 1540s. Barbarossa retired in 1545 and died the next year in Constantinople.
Background and Career
Background:
Khizr, also known as Hayreddin Barbarossa, was born sometime between 1466 and 1483 in Palaiokipos on the island of Midilli (Lesbos). His father, Yakup Ağa, was an Ottoman sipahi from Giannitsa (now Greece), possibly of Turkish or Albanian origin, and his mother, Katerina, was an Orthodox Christian of Greek origin from Mytilene (Lesbos). Katerina was previously the widow of a Greek Orthodox priest. Yakup, Khizr’s father, participated in the Ottoman takeover of Lesbos in 1462, gaining the village of Bonova as a reward. He became a potter and traded his products using a boat. The couple had six children: Ishak, Oruç, Khizr, Ilyas, and two daughters.
Khizr and his siblings assisted their father in his business. Oruç initially helped with the boat, while Khizr was involved in pottery. As they grew up, all four brothers became sailors, engaging in marine activities and international sea trade. Oruç and Ilyas began as sailors, later becoming privateers in the Mediterranean to counteract the privateering activities of the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St John) based in Rhodes until 1522. Oruç and Ilyas worked in the Levant, between Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt, while Khizr operated in the Aegean Sea, mainly in Thessaloniki. Ishak, the eldest brother, stayed in Mytilene, managing the family business’s financial affairs.
In 1510, the three brothers attacked Capo Passero in Sicily and defended Bougie, Oran, and Algiers against Spanish attacks. In August 1511, they raided areas near Reggio Calabria in southern Italy. In August 1512, the ruler of Bougie asked the brothers for help to drive out the Spaniards, and during the battle, Oruç lost his left arm. This incident led to his nickname Gümüş Kol, meaning “Silver Arm” in Turkish, because he used a silver prosthetic for his missing limb.
Later that year, the brothers raided the coasts of Andalusia, capturing a ship of the Lomellini family from Genoa, owners of Tabarca island. They then landed at Menorca, seized a coastal castle, and headed to Liguria, capturing four Genoese galleys near Genoa. The Genoese sent a fleet to rescue their ships, but the brothers captured their main ship too. After seizing a total of 23 ships in less than a month, the brothers sailed back to La Goulette, where they built three more ships and a facility for making gunpowder.
Barbarossa Death
In 1545, Barbarossa retired in Constantinople, and his son Hasan Pasha took over in Algiers. He then shared his life story with Muradi Sinan Reis, and these memories were written down in five hand-written volumes called Gazavat-ı Hayreddin Paşa (Conquests of Hayreddin Pasha). Today, you can see them at the Topkapı Palace and Istanbul University Library. They’ve been prepared and published by Babıali Kültür Yayıncılığı as Kaptan Paşa’nın Seyir Defteri (The Logbook of the Captain Pasha) by Prof. Dr. Ahmet Şimşirgil, a Turkish academic. They are also turned into fiction in the book Akdeniz Bizimdi (The Mediterranean was Ours) by M. Ertuğrul Düzdağ. Barbarossa is a central character in Mika Waltari’s book The Wanderer (1949).
Barbarossa Hayreddin Pasha passed away in 1546 at his seaside palace in the Büyükdere neighborhood of Istanbul, along the northwestern shores of the Bosphorus. He was laid to rest in a tall mausoleum (türbe) close to the ferry port in the Beşiktaş district on the European side of Istanbul. This mausoleum was constructed in 1541 by the renowned architect Mimar Sinan, at the very place where his fleet used to gather. In 1944, a memorial was also built next to his mausoleum to honor his memory.
Latest posts
