In 1627 Barbary corsairs from Algiers and Salé descended on Iceland in two separate raids, taking around 400–900 prisoners. This event is popularly known in Iceland as Tyrkjaránið, as it was launched from areas under Ottoman sovereignty, although no North African Turks are known to have been involved. Most pirates were Arabs and Berbers, a large part - the Dutch and other Europeans, who converted to Islam. Four ships attacked the eastern and southern coast as well as the Vestmannaeyjar. Ten years later 27 captives made it back to Iceland; a few had come home earlier.
Grindavík
The leader of one of the raids was Jan Janszoon, also known as Murat Reis the younger, a Dutch pirate who operated from Salé. In 1627 he rented a Danish slave to pilot him and his men to Iceland, where they raided the fishing village of Grindavík. Their takings were meagre, some salted fish and a few hides. They captured between 12 and 15 Icelanders and some Danish and Dutch sailors, whom they could sell as slaves. The Icelanders were seriously wounded. As they were leaving Grindavík, they managed to trick and capture a Danish merchant ship by flying a false flag. The ships sailed to Bessastaðir, to raid but were unable to make a landing. It is said they were thwarted by cannon fire from the local fortifications and a quickly mustered group of lancers from the Southern Peninsula. They sailed home and sold their captives at the slave market of Salé.
Eastfjords
The second group of raiders came to Hvalnes in southeastern Iceland on July 4 and raided the fjords north of there for a week, capturing livestock, silver and other goods, in addition to 110 Icelanders. They captured a Danish merchant ship and sank it. North of Fáskrúðsfjörður, they hit strong winds and decided to turn around and sail along the south coast of Iceland. Around that time, another pirate ship joined them, and they also captured an English fishing vessel.
Vestmannaeyjar
As there were no harbors or landing sites along the south coast, the three ships eventually came on July 16 to Vestmannaeyjar, a group of islands off the coast, where there was a fishing village of the same name. They raided the village and the home island for three days, capturing 234 people and killing 34, including one of the ministers of the island. The other minister, Ólafur Egilsson, was initially enslaved by the pirates and brought to Algiers. He was sent back to Copenhagen to plead for ransom funds from the King of Denmark to redeem his Icelandic subjects still in Algiers. Those offering resistance were killed, as were some of the old and infirm people. On July 19 the ships left Vestmannaeyjar and sailed back to Algiers. Ólafur later wrote a detailed account of his experience, one of a number of captivity narratives published in these years. It was translated and published in English in 2008.
Slaves in Barbary
Those captured were sold into slavery on the Barbary Coast. All Icelandic accounts agree the number of captives was below 400. French nobleman Emanuel d'Aranda says in his book, Relation de la captivité et la liberté du sieur, about his time as a slave of the Barbary pirateAli Bitchin, that an Icelandic fellow captive in Algiers told him 800 people had been enslaved. That number does not agree with any Icelandic sources. A few letters written by captives reached Iceland. Together with other accounts, they indicate that the captives were treated very differently according to their masters. Guttormur Hallsson, a captive from Eastern Region, said in a letter written in Barbary in 1631: "There is a great difference here between masters. Some captive slaves get good, gentle, or in-between masters, but some unfortunates find themselves with savage, cruel, hardhearted tyrants, who never stop treating them badly, and who force them to labour and toil with scanty clothing and little food, bound in iron fetters, from morning till night."
One of the most notable captives was Guðríður Símonardóttir. She was sold as a sex slave in Ottoman Algeria and was among the few Icelanders who were redeemed nearly a decade later by King Christian IV of Denmark. She returned to Iceland and is known for having later married Hallgrímur Pétursson, who became a Lutheran minister and one of Iceland's most famous poets.
