Hayreddin Barbarossa

Hayreddin Barbarossa (Arabic: خير الدين بربروس, romanized: Khayr al-Dīn Barbarūs; Turkish: Barbaros Hayrettin Paşa), also known as Hayreddin Pasha, Hızır Hayrettin Pasha, and simply Hızır Reis (c. 1466/1483 – 4 July 1546), was an Ottoman corsair and later admiral of the Ottoman Navy. Barbarossa's naval victories secured Ottoman dominance over the Mediterranean during the mid-16th century.

Born on Lesbos, Khizr began his naval career as a corsair under his elder brother Oruç Reis. In 1516, the brothers captured Algiers from Spain, with Oruç declaring himself Sultan. Following Oruç's death in 1518, Khizr inherited his brother's nickname, "Barbarossa" ("Redbeard" in Italian). He also received the honorary name Hayreddin (from Arabic Khayr ad-Din, "goodness of the faith" or "best of the faith"). In 1529, Barbarossa took the Peñón of Algiers from the Spaniards.

In 1533, Barbarossa was appointed Kapudan Pasha (grand admiral) of the Ottoman Navy by Suleiman the Magnificent. He led an embassy to France in the same year, conquered Tunis in 1534, achieved a decisive victory over the Holy League at Preveza in 1538, and conducted joint campaigns with the French in the 1540s. Barbarossa retired to Constantinople in 1545 and died the following year.

Khizr was born sometime between 1466 and 1483 in Palaiokipos, Midilini, in the Ottoman Empire (now Gera, Lesbos), a son of an Ottoman sipahi father, Yakup Ağa, of Turkish or Albanian origin from Giannitsa (now in Central Macedonia, Greece), and a Greek Orthodox mother of Greek origin, Katerina, also from Lesbos, the widow of a Greek Orthodox priest. The work Gazavat-ı Hayreddin Pasha states that his father's ethnic origin was among the Turks who migrated from Anatolia to Greece. The couple married and had two daughters and four sons: Ishak, Oruç, Khizr and Ilyas. Yakup had taken part in the Ottoman conquest of Lesbos in 1462 from the Republic of Genoa's House of Gattilusio, which held the hereditary title of Lord of Lesbos between 1355 and 1462, and as a reward was granted the fief of the village of Bonova on the island. He became an established potter and purchased a boat to trade his products with.

The four sons helped their father with his business, but not much is known about the daughters. At first Oruç helped with the boat, while Khizr helped with the pottery.^{[citation needed]}

All four brothers became seamen, engaged in marine affairs and international sea trade. The first brother to become involved in seamanship was Oruç, who was joined by his brother Ilyas. Later, obtaining his own ship, Khizr also began his career at sea. The brothers initially worked as sailors, but then turned privateers in the Mediterranean to counteract the privateering of the Knights Hospitaller (Knights of St. John) who were based on the island of Rhodes (until 1522). Oruç and Ilyas operated in the Levant, between Anatolia, Syria, and Egypt. Khizr operated in the Aegean Sea and based his operations mostly in Thessaloniki. Ishak, the eldest, remained on Mytilene and was involved with the financial affairs of the family business.^{[citation needed]}

Oruç was a very successful seaman. He also learned to speak Italian, Spanish, French, Greek, and Arabic early in his career. While returning from a trading expedition in Tripoli, Lebanon, with his younger brother, Ilyas, they were attacked by the Knights Hospitaller. Ilyas was killed in the fight, and Oruç was wounded. Oruç rowed as a galley slave for the Order of Saint John for four years, until his father paid the ransom to release him.

Oruç later went to Antalya, where he was given 18 galleys by Şehzade Korkut, an Ottoman prince and governor of the city, and charged with fighting against the Knights of St John, who were inflicting serious damage on Ottoman shipping and trade. In the following years, when Korkut became governor of Manisa, he gave Oruç a larger fleet of 24 galleys at the port of İzmir and ordered him to participate in the Ottoman naval expedition to Apulia in Italy, where Oruç bombarded several coastal castles and captured two ships.^{[citation needed]}