The geography of piracy: Northern Morocco in the mid-nineteenth century

Abstract

Pirates operating in small boats attacked European shipping through the Straits of Gibraltar in the early nineteenth century. Although these waters had always been the scene of privateering and corsairing by big ships authorized by both Muslim and Christian states, these small boat pirates were acting beyond any recognized authority. Environmental degradation and economic isolation and impoverishment combined with a coastline and maritime current system to make piracy a particularly attractive option for some of the people living in the Guelaya Peninsula in north-western Morocco. They were encourage to do so by patterns of Spanish interference in their commerce, and by the remoteness of thei..