Jan Janszoon
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Jan Janszoon van Haarlem (circa 1570 - post 1641) was a Dutch pirate also known as Murat Reis the Younger. His Dutch names are also given as Jan Jansen and Jan Jansz; his adopted name as Morat Rais, Murat Rais, Morat; Little John Ward, John Barber, Captain John, Caid Morato were some of his pirate names.
[edit] Biography
Jan Janszoon began as a Dutch privateer from his home in Haarlem, the Netherlands, harassing Spanish shipping in the Eighty Years' War. Working from the Netherlands wasn't sufficiently profitable, so he found his way to the truly lawless Barbary Coast on the north coast of Africa where he could attack ships of all countries from the semi-independent port states there. When he attacked a Spanish ship he flew the Dutch flag; when he attacked all others he flew the red half-moon of the Turks or various other principalities from the Mediterranean area.
He was finally captured at Lanzarote, one of the Canary Islands, in 1618 by Barbary Corsairs and taken to Algiers as a captive. There he turned Turk or Muslim. The Ottoman Empire had some limited influence over the region and people of the region were mistakenly referred to as Turks by Europeans. The Ottoman Turks maintained a precarious measure of influence on behalf of the Ottoman Sultan by openly encouraging the local Berber communities to advance themselves by piracy against the European powers. The Europeans were sworn enemies of the Ottoman Turks. After Janszoon's conversion to Islam and the ways of his capturers, he sailed with the famous Corsair pirate Sulayman Rais, also known as Slemen Reis (originally a Dutchman named De Veenboer who had also chosen to convert to Islam) and also Simon de Danser. Algiers was no longer a suitable harbor at that time to sell the cargo or the captured ships, because Algeria had made peace with several European nations. When Sulayman Rais died the following year in 1619 Janszoon moved to Salé (Rabat) and set up operations there as a full Barbary Coast pirate. The Salé fleet totaled about eighteen small ships because of the very shallow harbor entrance.
The port was nominally subject to the Sultanate of Morocco. Shortly after Janszoon’s arrival the pirates decided to declare Salé an independent republic governed by fourteen pirate warlords and an elected president who was also the Admiral of the pirate navy. Salé became very prosperous and consequently declared itself independent from Morocco. After an unsuccessful siege by the Moroccan Sultan, the latter eventually acknowledged Sale's semi-autonomy from Morocco. The main sources of income of Salé were piracy, shipping and dealing in stolen property. Janszoon was elected by the other pirates in Salé as the first president and shortly after married a Moorish woman of African Berber origin. Janszoon fathered several children by her. Most famous were his notorious pirate sons Abraham Jansz and Anthony Jansen van Salee. Both followed their father’s double life as a pirate and adventurer. His sons later opted to join the very early settlers of New Amsterdam (later New York City) in the New World. Anthony Jansen van Salee's more famous descendants are Cornelius Vanderbilt, Jackie Kennedy and Humphrey Bogart.
In 1624 Janszoon was appointed governor of Salé when Sultan Moulay Zaydan was further exerting sovereignty over the area of Morocco and Algiers. Janszoon had become a very, very rich man between his pirate Admiral perks, payments for anchorage and other harbor dues and the brokerage on stolen goods. He would become bored with his official duties from time to time and sail off on yet another pirate adventure.
In 1622 he and his crew sailed into the English Channel with no particular plan but to try his luck there. When they ran low on supplies they docked at the port of Veere, Zealand, under the Moroccan flag claiming diplomatic privileges from his official role as Admiral of Morocco (a very loose term in the environment of North African politics). The authorities could not deny the two ships access to Veere because at the time several peace treaties and trade agreements existed between the Sultan of Morocco and the Dutch Republic. During his anchorage there the Dutch authorities trotted out his Dutch first wife and his Dutch children to persuade him to give up pirating ways. The same happened to many more on board his ship. The Dutch authorities were completely unsuccessful in their persuasion; as a matter of fact, Janszoon and his crew left port with the whole crew intact plus many new willing Dutch recruits despite their being prohibited to do so by the Dutch authorities.
In 1627 Janszoon hired a Danish “slave” (most likely a white crew member captured from a Danish ship taken as a past pirate prize) to pilot them to Iceland where they raided the Danish city of Reykjavík, Iceland. Initially they only managed to steal some salted fish and a few hides, so they decided to make the raid profitable by forcibly capturing over 400 Danish Iceland citizens to be sold as slaves in Algiers or ransomed back to Danish Court for hard cash. This raid became known in Iceland as "The Turkish abductions" White European slaves very were popular purchases in North Africa by the Mamluks and by the Ottomans Sultans. In the harbor of the capital he attacked a ship and imprisoned several of its crew. On the way back he also took a Dutch vessel and imprisoned more people. The people were also sold as slaves in Salé. In 1631 we hear from him again. In this year he sailed for England and Ireland. He landed there with his men and managed to imprison about two hundred men who were sold as slaves in Algiers.
The political climate changed in Salé for the worse toward the end of 1627 so Janszoon quietly moved his family and his entire pirate operations back to semi-independent Algiers. In 1631 he executed the ‘Sack of Baltimore’ in West Cork in Ireland on June 20th 1631, which apparently netted them 108 slaves, and not too much more in terms of valuable treasure. The raiders were led to the village by a fisherman they had captured earlier, who traded his help for his freedom - which didn't last long as he was later arrested and hanged for his crime. The captured villagers were taken away to a life of slavery in North Africa. Some prisoners were destined to live out their days as galley slaves, while others would spend long years in the seclusion of the harem or within the walls of the Sultan's palace. Only two of them ever saw Ireland again.
Sometime between 1631 and 1640 Janszoon was captured off guard by the Knights of Malta and held captive until his escape in 1640. He returned to Morocco and was appointed governor of the great fortress of Oualidia near Safi, Morocco. In December 1640 a ship arrived with a new Dutch consul who brought Lysbeth Janszoon van Haarlem, Janszoon’s daughter by his first wife back in Holland, to visit her father. Lysbeth stayed with her father until August 1641 when she returned to Holland. After 1641 not much is known about Janszoon: it is believed that he finally retired from public and pirate life. The date of his death remains unknown.
