Albanian piracy

[14] The Dalmatian writer Coriolano Cippico published in 1442 a short story in Venice of the campaign of the Doge Pietro Moceniga describing the Dulcignotes:[15] Indeed, even to our day the citizens of this town have retrained something of the savageness of their founder, and show themselves harsh and hostile towards strangers.In 1479, Vlorë had become a pirate nest who raided both Venetian and when a peace agreement was signed between Venice and the Porte, Mehmed II ordered Gedik Ahmed Pasha to pay damages done by the pirates of Vlorë.

[21] In October 1503, six ships sailing from Vlorë reached Santa Maria di Leucca cape, and captured 60 people and offered their liberation for a price of 30 dukats.

[27] In 1573, after the peace between Venice and the Ottomans, Dubrovnik served as an intermediary for Albanian pirates and those wishing to liberate their captives who would be kept at the Ragusans houses until the money arrived.

[30] In 1586, Murad III ordered the sanjakbeg and the qadi of Vlorë to prevent the Albanian pirate Mehmed reis from shipping with his galliot to pillage Venetian lands.

[35] In 1612, Albanian pirates, hired by Ottomans, attacked Venetian ships as a retaliation for the Uskoks raid, according to the Sultan who wrote a letter to the beylerbey of Bosnia: "Uskoks raided the zone of Makarska (Macarsca) but some Albanian boats attacked them and freed the Turks they had made prisoners; thus, the inhabitants of Gabela and Makarska equipped some kayıks to protect themselves from the pirates".

[37] In 1615, Prince Ferdinand II, Holy Roman Emperor of Styria hired Albanian Uskok pirates to harass Venetian ships which led to war with Venice.

[59] In 1714, a Christian merchant from the court of the Pasha of Scutari confided to the Neapolitan consul in Ragusa, Giovanbattista Vlaichi, that the Dulcignotti had obtained permission to plunder the ships of the Papacy, Maltese and Puglia.

On August 18, several armed pirates boarded the port of Rovigno two miles outside of the city where they defeated the land forces and enslaved the locals, as well as stealing three trabaccolo ships.

On June 13, 1718, the pirates took a trabaccolo loaded with oil and almonds in the vicinity of Rovinj, and attacked a party of marciglianas with salt and wood as they were sailing through Venice.

[67][68] In 1715, captain Julije Balović met two Ulcinj pirate convicts at Safeno, Levant, and helped them escape and in a kidnapping which occurred in Novo Porto in Albania.

It turned out that the Spanish had confused the Shkodër ship with another as the former traveled with no Venetian sign of certificate for Pubblica Veneta Rappresentanza qualifying the Albanian merchants as subjects to Venice.

The English consul in the city immediately reported what he heard to the British ambassador in Istanbul who then ordered Ottoman captain Capighi Bassa (Pasha) to find and punish the pirates.

[82] On Januar 7, 1721, the Spanish agent Dom Felix Corvèse arrived in Rome who together with the Cardinal of Altam was ordered to ask the Sacred College for money as the threat of the Ottomans was closing in.

[85] In 1826, the Austrian paper Geschichte der Republik Venedig published a volume mentioning an event which had occurred in 1722 during the war of Peter the Great against the Ottomans.

[86] In 1722, Italian writer Francesco Paci mentions in the "Regole ed istituti dell'antichissima real Casa santa dell Redenzione de' Cattivi di questa citta e regno di Napoli" that the Eminent Cardinal Signor Prencipe Borghese received royal slaves, transported by "Turchi Dulcignotti", stating that they would be treated with every solicitude.

From the 1750s, French and Neapolitan ships engaged in the Spanish war of succession and due to continuous raids from Ulcinj pirates, the locals of Ancona and Bar fled the cities.

The Porte sent the local reis from Shkodër who explained that it was impossible to gain compensation and that suspending Ulcinj from trade would result in innocent traders being punished for the crimes of a wicked few.

[100] On December 17, 1757, the ambassador, again, wrote from Constantinople, Pera, mentioning a trabaccalo captain named Tiozzo who had been killed by Dulcignotti pirates in the waters of Puglia several months earlier.

The ambassador also proposed to send an auctioneer to the Venetian Dalmatian general who would contact vice consul Anton Doda in Shkodër in order to settle complaints related to raids committed by Dulcignotte pirates.

[116] In April 1775, Captain Ermanno Cinif Inglis set sail alongside Giovanni Patriarch, both under the Naples navy, from Trieste with knowledge of the armada of Tartane Dulcignotte numbering twice as big.

[121] In 1783, Anne-Charles-Sigismond de Montmorency-Luxembourg (1737–1803), grand seigneur and franc-macon, proposed to recruit at his own expense a French legion of Dulcignotes and of Albanians of which one would form a large and respectable unit.

[122] In 1870, author Francesco Protonotari mentions in the "Nuova antologia di scienze, lettere ed arti" a letter from July 27, 1785, written by an Albanian to a friend in Pera, sent by the bailiff of Venice, where it is mentioned that sailors from Dulcigno, having visited Montenegro, witnessed how the Aga of Trebigne had kissed the feet of Mahmud Pasha of Scutari, with the intent of joining the Pashas journey to Castelnuovo and Ragusa.

[125] It is believed that the Ulcinj pirate lord Lika Ceni defeated and executed Lambros Katsonis in a duel, who himself had become a pirate before he joined Katsonis had joined the Orlov Revolt in 1770[126] In 1789, Gazetta universale published an article from June of a skirmish between Captain Constantine Livaditi, commander of a Russian fleet, against Dulcignotte trabaccolos[check spelling], flying the Papacy flag, outside the port of Marina di Ragusa in modern day Italy.

[127] In 1798, the French traveler François Pouqueville boarded the Italian merchant ship La Madonna di Montenegro in Alexandria heading to Calabria when they were attacked by Uluc Alia and his pirates from Ulcinj.

In 1687, when the Ottomans lost the city of Herceg-Novi, Venice attempted to fill the vacuum but was prevented from doing so by a population of 500 pirates from Malta, Tunis, and Algeria, many of whom were veterans of the Kandyan Wars of 1669.

[141] During this time period, the Ulcinj ship builders were the richest inhabitants of Northern Albania and they had a representative in Istanbul who would keep the pirates under control by bribing the Sultan.

[144][145][146][147][148][149] They, and two less well-known brothers all became Barbary corsairs in the service of the Ottoman Empire; they were called the Barbarossas (Italian for Redbeards) after the red beard of Oruç, the eldest.

Arnaut Mami was an Ottoman (of Albanian origin) renegade, the squadron admiral and the supreme commander of all Islamic vessels in North Africa and Pasha Algiers.

Leading a team of Ottoman vessels, on the morning of September 26, 1575, he attacked the Spanish galley "El Sol" in the Gulf of Lion, where Miguel de Cervantes was embarked from Naples.

Hadji Alia earned the admiration of local peasants by generously sharing his loot, and became something of a legend after putting up fierce resistance to a powerful combined Venetian and British fleet, despite being significantly outmanned and outgunned.