Any other info about the Barbary Corsairs and on their main ways of making money is wanted, please.
I usually answer questions which concern Italy and its history and art, but seeing as I have some in loco insight into Barber Piracy when it comes to the bit of the Venetian republic which is part of today’s Montenegro, I am quite willing to share it.
I will concentrate on two events here, one successful, and the other not entirely.
How it was carried out:
Men of Perast were quite famous seafarers, in fact on almost every Venetian ship there used to be an officer from this town. Their comparatively large wealth and their autonomy came from this very skill. Because of this most men were engaged at the high seas for better part of the year, and this was no secret (Perast was an open town and is still today, quite possibly, the only old town not to be fortified in this part of the Mediterranean).
-Ok, enough background story, what happened?
To put it simply, the Algerians came sporting the flag which belonged to the town (some believe it was acquired from a town’s ship they had attacked shortly before). Believing the ship was one carrying their relatives back home the townsfolk came out to greet them, and when they realized what a great mistake they had made it was already too late, the battle ensued, and a lot of elderly men were killed, children and women taken away, houses and palaces pillaged, as you can imagine. Truth be told, even if more men were there to defend the town, the town would have suffered significant losses, since they were not really prepared for battle anyway (they always relied on the neighbouring town of Kotor and Venetians for protection). Some of the people that were seized were sold into slavery, possibly on the near slave market in Ulcinj, others’ fate remains unknown.
TL;DR Trickery: Fun with flags
Kotor was (and still is) one of the best fortified towns in the Adriatic (its walls are a whopping length of 5500 m, tall between 6 and 20 m with 9 citadels along them, took almost 10 centuries to finish) It was also beyond doubt the richest and it had a considerable autonomy from Venetians. As such it represented a nice prey for the pirates. So in 1539, Barbarossa decided to try his luck and pillage the town. He came with 70 galleys and 30 000 men, but never made it past the south gate -The Gate of the River. Now, I would approach this information with caution, because if you ever do come to Kotor, you will notice that the bay of Kotor is rather narrow and such large number of ships would have trouble maneuvering in such tight space*, not to mention that the three towns themselves combined had less inhabitants than 30 000. However, it is most certainly true that Barbarossa seized Risan and Herceg Novi (Bay of Risan) which were much more open and less fortified than Kotor. Again, people sold into slavery, palaces sacked, and so on.
TL;DR Strength is in numbers, or at least until you hit a wall.
As far as how far did the Corsairs go outside the Mediterranean, I wouldn't know.
*Please, somebody correct me if this assumption is wrong, but to my knowledge most common ships in this part of Mediterranean were the Carrack galleys, and the whole Bay of Boka Kotorska is very narrow and not very deep, so in my laic opinion, 70 ships may be... ahem, a bit too rich.
Sources: Martime Museum of Kotor and Martime Museum of Perast archives (while I was still studying). Some bits (albeit small), available here and here.
There were Barbary raids on Iceland in 1627. The villages looted on Iceland did ofc. not expect attacks like that. The Barbary pirates were led by a Dutch convert and an guided by an enslaved Dane. There was not much of value there as you might expect, but plenty of slaves were taken.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkish_Abductions. Maybe someone else got some more info on this.
Most of the Corsairs targets were ships or lightly defended towns. The Corsairs would use hit and run style tactics on the towns, never staying long enough to risk counterattack, and with their swift vessels were often able to outrun any pursuing forces. Otherwise it was common for large raids to take place by Corsair leaders. The most famous Corsair leader, and later Ottoman admiral, was Hayreddin Barbarossa. here is a good book on him.
Also people forget that these corsairs were, for lack of a better word, pretty professional. By that I mean that they knew how to fight, so it would be easy for them to target a merchant convoy and capture the ship with ease.
As for how far they could travel, they did run limited raids on Iceland, and a number of raid on England.
here is a good book on barbary raids on England
also you might want to check out Robert Davis's Christian slaves, Muslim Masters.
I have some issues with that book but it is a pretty good read, and should give you some basic information about the Barbary pirates and the slave trade.