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I recently found a book [hours of searching the ‘net] titled Pirate Utopias: Moorish Corsairs & European Renegadoes, by Peter Lamborn Wilson, published by Autonomedia, anticopyright 1995; available from amazon.com for $8.95 plus shipping. The book contains an entire chapter on Jan Jansen with numerous mentions of him throughout. It describes various facets of life, government, religion, and pirating from Algiers to Sale during the time of Jan Jansen (a.k.a. Jan Jansz, Little John Ward, Morat Rais, Morat, John Barber, Captain John, Caid Morato). Following is a short summary of the important bits. Enjoy!
Jan Jansz began as a Dutch privateer harassing Spanish shipping. He found there wasn’t enough profit so he sailed south to the Barbary Coast where he attacked ships of all countries. When he attacked a Spanish ship he flew the Dutch flag, when he attacked all others he flew the red half-moon of the Turks.
He was captured at Lanzarotte in 1618 by Barbary Corsairs and taken to Algiers. There he ‘turned Turk’ and sailed with Sulayman Rais. Sulayman Rais died the following year in 1619 and Jansz moved to Sale and set up operations there. The Sale fleet totaled about eighteen small ships because of the shallow harbor.
The port was nominally subject to the Sultan of Morocco. Shortly after Jansz’ arrival the pirates declared Sale an independent republic governed by fourteen pirates and a president who was also the Admiral of the Navy. Jansz was elected the first president and shortly after married a Moorish woman. In 1624 Jansz was appointed Governor of Sale by Sultan Moulay Zaydan who wanted a show of sovereignty over the area.
Jansz became a rich man between his Admiral perks, payments for anchorage, pilotage, other harbor dues and the brokerage on stolen goods. He would become bored from time to time and sail off on an adventure.
In 1622 he and his crew sailed into the English Channel to try his luck there. When they ran low on supplies they docked at the port of Veere, Holland under the Moroccan flag claiming diplomatic privileges. While there the Dutch authorities trotted out his Dutch wife and children to persuade him to give up pirating. The same happened to many more on board. They left port with the crew intact plus many new recruits.
In 1627 Jansz hired a Danish slave to pilot them to Iceland where they raided Reykjavik. They only managed to steal some salted fish and a few hides so they captured 400 Icelanders to be sold as slaves.
The political climate changed in Sale toward the end of 1627 so Jansz moved his family and operations back to Algiers. In 1631 he organized the ‘Sack of Baltimore’ in Ireland which apparently netted them 108 slaves and not too much more.
Sometime between 1631 and 1640 Jansz was captured by the ‘Knights of Malta’ and held captive until his escape in 1640. He returned to Morocco and was appointed governor of the fortress of Oualidia near Safi. In December 1640 a ship arrived with a new Dutch consul who brought Lysbeth Jansen Van Haarlem to visit her father. Lysbeth stayed until August 1641 when she returned to Holland. Nothing is known about him after 1641.
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