Jan Janszoon
Jan Janszoon van Haarlem, commonly known as Reis Mourad the Younger (c. 1570 – c. 1641), was a Dutch pirate who later became a Barbary corsair in Ottoman Algeria and the Republic of Salé.
Together with other corsairs, he helped establish the independent Republic of Salé at the city of that name, serving as the first President and Commander.
Jan Janszoon van Haerlem was born in Haarlem in 1570, in Holland, then a province ruled by the Habsburg monarchy.
[citation needed] In 1600, Jan Janszoon began as a Dutch privateer sailing from his home port of Haarlem, working for the state with letters of marque to harass Spanish shipping during the Eighty Years' War.
[citation needed] But, because Algiers had concluded peace with several European nations, it was no longer a suitable port from which to sell captured ships or their cargo.
So, after Sulayman Rais was killed by a cannonball in 1619, Janszoon moved to the ancient port of Salé and began operating from it as a Barbary corsair.
He was forced to find an assistant to keep up, and hired a fellow countryman from The Netherlands, Mathys van Bostel Oosterlinck, who served as his Vice-Admiral.
[9] Janszoon became very wealthy from his income as pirate admiral, payments for anchorage and other harbour dues, and the brokerage of stolen goods.
The political climate in Salé worsened toward the end of 1627, so Janszoon moved his family and his entire operation back to semi-independent Algiers.
When they ran low on supplies, they docked at the port of Veere, Zeeland, 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).
[10] While in Morocco, Janszoon worked to secure the release of Dutch captives from other pirates and prevent them from being sold into slavery.
[11] Knowledgeable of several languages, while in Algiers he contributed to the establishment of the Franco-Moroccan Treaty of 1631 between French King Louis XIII and Sultan Abu Marwan Abd al-Malik II.
[11] In 1627, Janszoon captured the island of Lundy in the Bristol Channel and held it for five years, using it as a base for raiding expeditions.
When they were leaving Grindavík, by means of flying a false flag they managed to trick and capture a Danish merchant ship that was passing.
[citation needed] The ships sailed to Bessastaðir, seat of the Danish governor of Iceland, to raid, but were unable to make a landing – it is said they were thwarted by cannon fire from the local fortifications (Bessastaðaskans) and a quickly mustered group of lancers from the Southern Peninsula.
Those events are collectively known in Iceland as Tyrkjaránið (the Turkish abductions), as the Barbary states were nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire.
A woman who gave birth on board a ship was treated with dignity and afforded privacy and clothing by the pirates.
Janszoon sacked Baltimore on 20 June 1631, seizing little property but taking 108 captives, whom he sold as slaves in North Africa.
"Here was not a single Christian who was not weeping and who was not full of sadness at the sight of so many honest maidens and so many good women abandoned to the brutality of these barbarians".
He fought the Venetians near the coasts of Crete and Cyprus with a corsair crew consisting of Dutch, Moriscos, Arab, Turkish, and Janissaries.
