During
1512, Aruj had his left arm shot away by a Spanish canon while
leading the charge against the Spanish fort outside Bougie. He
was rushed to Tunis for surgical treatment with his left arm in
tourniquet. Khayrad'din brought his eleven ships back and en route
by a stroke of luck captured a large Genoese ship deep laden with
jewelry and other treasures.
The
incident moved greatly Louis XII of France under whose domination
was Genoa at that time. But it was the Genoese Senate, which immediately
dispatched a squadron of twelve large galleys to take care of
Aruj.
After
many violent clashes with crusader knights and Spanish soldiers,
Aruj Barbarossa was killed in 1518. Khayrad'din vowed to avenge
his older brother's death and went on to become the ruler of Algiers.
In
1518 Khayrad'din Barbarossa became the sultan's official representative
in Algeria and Algerian corsairs dominated the Mediterranean with
Ottoman protection for centuries. He seized Algiers in 1529, expelled
the Spaniards, and placed Algiers under the authority of the Ottoman
sultan. Barbarossa's efforts turned Algiers into the major base
of the Barbary pirates for the next 300 years.
The
European powers made repeated vain attempts to quell the pirates,
including naval expeditions by the Holy Roman emperor Charles
V in 1541 and by the British, Dutch, and Americans in the early
19th century. Piracy based in Algiers continued, though much-weakened,
until the French captured the city in 1830.
With
this information at hand, it is highly unlikely that any Caldwell
sailed with the Barbarossa brothers unless they were captured
as slaves and not as ship captains. In the context of what we
know about Caldwells is that if they were captured as slaves,
they most likely would have been ransomed back.
What
makes much more sense is that these Caldwells would have sailed
against the brothers Barbarossa as Christian crusader
Knights or Mercenaries.
The
pirate story could be just a concoction of Gustave Anjou that
has never been filtered out, or there may be some truth to it.
If there were Caldwells sailing the Mediterranean at the time
of the Barbarossa brothers, any "escape" would have
been from the clutches of the Muslim corsairs of Barbarossa, and
any "return to France" to "protect fleets"
would have been reward for their service to France against the
Barbary corsairs.
<<<<
Back | Cromwell >>>>