Qualla: Raid on La Goulette (1609)

Raid on La Goulette (1609): Introduction

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Among the ships burning in the harbor of La Goulette in the summer of 1609 were vessels captained by English renegades -- men like Jack Ward and Francis Verney who had abandoned their country, converted to Islam, and made fortunes raiding Mediterranean shipping under the banner of the Barbary corsairs. That their ships went up in flames alongside Ottoman galleys was the work of Luis Fajardo, a Spanish admiral who sailed into Tunis with a fleet of galleons and caravels and, in doing so, may have conducted the first major Mediterranean naval operation fought entirely under sail.

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Raid on La Goulette (1609): A Sea of Enemies

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. The context of Fajardo's raid was the tangled geopolitics of early 17th-century Mediterranean piracy. Spain was in the midst of expelling its Morisco population, and Barbary corsairs based in Tunis, Algiers, and other North African ports were exploiting the upheaval, raiding the ...

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Raid on La Goulette (1609): The Hunt Begins

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Fresh from victories against the Dutch in the Atlantic, Fajardo assembled a fleet composed entirely of sailing ships -- galleons and caravels rather than the oar-driven galleys that had dominated Mediterranean warfare since antiquity. This was a deliberate choice. After the Battl...

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Raid on La Goulette (1609): Fire in the Harbor

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Arriving at La Goulette, Fajardo found a harbor crowded with pirate vessels. Along the way, he had captured two more ships belonging to Danseker and encountered a battered French flotilla commanded by Philippe de Beaulieu-Persac, who warned of at least 23 enemy ships being resupp...

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Raid on La Goulette (1609): Aftermath and Legacy

Fri, 13 Mar 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Public domain. Fajardo returned to Cadiz loaded with booty and was immediately reassigned to assist with transporting expelled Moriscos to Africa from Cartagena. His raid had not extinguished Barbary piracy -- Ward and other renegades simply relocated to La Mamora on the Atlantic coast of Moroc...

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