Vulgar History - International, part 3： The Muslim Pirate Queen of Morocco

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00:00:38.960 hello and welcome to vulgar history a feminist women's history comedy podcast

00:01:00.220 my name is ann foster and this is season five vulgar history international 0.51

00:01:05.440 scandaliciousness without borders tits out sans frontier so inspired by all of the different

00:01:13.300 places that listeners are listening from and by my interest in wanting to learn more about

00:01:19.340 parts of the world that are not Tudor England we're looking at a variety of different places

00:01:24.540 and this week we are going to um I guess we start on the Iberian Peninsula and then we get into

00:01:33.380 north africa morocco and we're telling the story of a woman who is known as saida al hura and i say

00:01:43.040 she's known as that because that's not her name i'm going to explain that in a moment but first

00:01:47.720 big shout out to tits out brigade member bella who suggested this as a person to profile and

00:01:55.100 then who also has been super helpful um just helping me find some really good resources to

00:02:01.040 learn more about north african and moroccan history thank you so much bella so some of the

00:02:07.340 sources that i looked at and they're all listed in the show notes um there's an article by tom

00:02:12.620 verde on aramco world.com an article by austin bodetti on inside arabia.com britannica.com and

00:02:20.820 then a few books including uh the forgotten queens of islam by fatima marnisi and a history of islam

00:02:28.400 and 21 Women by Hossein Kamali and again all the links will be there in the show notes so you can

00:02:34.400 if you want to fact check me because this is another one where it's like there's not unlike

00:02:42.020 the story of Ditta of Kashmir there's not a whole lot of sources like there's not a whole lot of

00:02:49.040 people at the time writing a whole bunch of different things like there's like a number of

00:02:53.820 historical records and everyone who writes about it are kind of all looking at the same stuff and

00:02:58.240 just sort of so the stuff i was looking at were people who were interpreting that or explaining

00:03:03.080 that again because i only speak and read english so i'm really depending on people who read this

00:03:09.460 stuff and know a lot more about the broader cultural context so the story begins on the

00:03:17.600 iberian peninsula which is a phrase that means basically the big square sticking out of the left

00:03:24.060 side of western europe like right now if you look at a map it's like oh that's where spain and

00:03:28.480 portugal are just like that big land mass so we've talked about people before from parts of this

00:03:35.540 peninsula like inez de castro um or in previous seasons we looked at isabel of portugal

00:03:42.940 isabella of castile juana of castile but before any of those people were there

00:03:49.940 uh the whole peninsula was under muslim rule for 800 years starting in the year 711 711

00:03:58.320 when so i guess before it's like it just keeps changing who's in charge of it so before the

00:04:03.640 muslims were there it was the visigoths were there and they were uh christian people and they called

00:04:09.140 it hispania like the whole peninsula the arabic word for this peninsula was slash is um al andalus

00:04:17.560 so it's going back and forth between who's in charge of it and it's very much a religious

00:04:25.940 cultural based battle so just a little brief history lesson to understand what things were

00:04:34.360 like when in this like 800 year period and kind of like the medieval era where it was under

00:04:39.660 muslim rule so the city of cordoba which was at that time the largest city in europe became one

00:04:45.220 of the leading cultural and economic centers anywhere well in that area like europe um

00:04:52.600 achievements that advanced islamic and western science came from al andalus including major

00:04:57.880 advances in trigonometry astronomy surgery and pharmacology al andalus became a major educational

00:05:04.940 center for europe and the lands around the mediterranean sea as well as a conduit for

00:05:09.000 cultural and scientific exchange between the islamic and christian worlds so although al

00:05:13.980 andalus was a muslim ruled kingdom christian people and jewish people were permitted to live

00:05:19.340 there so long as they paid a special tax which by paying that tax they were then permitted to

00:05:27.140 practice their religion and were offered the same level of protections as muslim people that being

00:05:32.560 said um for much of its history al andalus existed in conflict with christian kingdoms to the north

00:05:38.540 for a time god this is just like a lot of i got a book out from the library there's like the

00:05:44.960 historical atlas of the islamic world so i've just been like studying up like who is in charge

00:05:48.980 of what but ultimately so cordoba fell in 1236 um it was conquered by christians and then most

00:05:59.960 of the south started falling as well um and then granada which is like at the south part

00:06:08.660 of the peninsula was left as the last muslim state on the iberian peninsula you might remember the

00:06:16.120 name granada because that was mentioned in the episode on isabella and ferdinand or isabella

00:06:22.440 of isabella and ferdinand so they were the the catholic monarchs and their whole thing was they

00:06:29.720 finished the reconquista which is the name meaning like reconquest like taking the peninsula

00:06:37.280 quote-unquote back for christian people and they so that was like a battle that had been going on

00:06:43.860 for hundreds of years but it was isabella and ferdinand who finished it when they forced the

00:06:49.060 surrender of granada which was then annexed into castile and then that made the entire peninsula

00:06:55.540 now under catholic control so that was 1492 the same year that christopher columbus headed out to

00:07:02.120 do various genocidal things so our heroine this week was born in granada very shortly before

00:07:11.800 it fell um so she was probably around like five seven years old around the time that

00:07:17.380 um isabel and ferdinand captured granada and so she little girl along with her family and

00:07:25.040 thousands of other refugees fled Granada to go and live in North Africa,

00:07:30.060 where there were Islamic communities already there.

00:07:35.460 As per the decree that expelled them, like Muslim people, from Granada,

00:07:41.620 they were not permitted to take any valuables with them, 0.88

00:07:43.880 meaning they had to leave all of their money, weapons, and horses behind.

00:07:48.820 So, names. 0.99

00:07:50.440 The woman we're talking about is best known as Sayida al-Hura,

00:07:55.040 but it's very similar like that is not the name that she was given by her parents that is not a

00:08:02.600 name she chose for herself that is a title and it is very similar to me to um on Game of Thrones

00:08:10.280 and I hate how much I bring up Game of Thrones on this but I guess that just really shows how

00:08:14.640 much that show draws from actual historical stuff but it's exactly like how on that show

00:08:19.700 was the character whose name was Daenerys Targaryen but she became known as Khaleesi because

00:08:26.260 that was the title when she married Khal Drogo and then to the point that people just called her

00:08:32.120 Khaleesi like that was the name that like when people were talking about the show they just

00:08:35.020 called her Khaleesi for a while like one of the popular baby names of like people like not book

00:08:41.100 people but like people in our world like Khaleesi was the name people were giving their daughter

00:08:45.940 So similar to that, Sayyida al-Hura is a title, not a name.

00:08:52.040 It translates from Arabic to mean something like the free woman or the noble woman.

00:08:57.860 So that was her title.

00:08:59.940 That was how she was known professionally.

00:09:04.260 But the reason why she kind of is known as that is because most of the records we have about her are not from Muslim sources.

00:09:12.220 they're from actually spanish christian and portuguese people um who were her enemies and

00:09:19.340 why would she be like oh hey this is my name like good to me like they just knew that's what she was

00:09:23.480 called so there are some suggestions that her like given name might have been aisha which is an arabic

00:09:31.720 name that means life or alive but i had to make a judgment call here not this is the first time

00:09:39.560 this season but it will happen a couple more times where I just needed to figure what am I

00:09:43.600 going to call this person for the purposes of this podcast in this case I'm going to go with

00:09:48.560 calling her Saida Al Hora or just Saida because that is what most sources call her I don't want

00:09:54.440 to that's that's how she's known we don't know for sure if her name was Aisha so I feel sort of

00:10:00.080 uncomfortable using that name for her but she at least we know this was a title that she went by

00:10:06.060 so we're just gonna saida is what we're gonna call her so saida was born around 1485 in granada

00:10:14.820 um her father was well her family was the powerful wealthy tribe the banu rashid her father was

00:10:23.600 um a tribal chief muley ali ibn rashid her mother was lala zora fernandez who was a christian

00:10:31.340 convert to islam saeeda had one brother we know of named mule ibrahim he comes up again later so

00:10:38.220 the rashids her family were a noble clan that claimed descent from the prophet muhammad

00:10:43.380 through idris the first founder of morocco's first islamic dynasty so just like a very prestigious

00:10:53.680 family lineage in terms of um vulgar history and who else we've talked about at the same time

00:11:00.660 I already mentioned so it was Isabella from Isabella and Ferdinand who was responsible 0.60

00:11:06.280 ultimately for Sayida and her family and like thousands of other Muslims being kicked out of

00:11:12.160 Granada so Sayida was born about 10 years after Isabella became queen in terms of just like the

00:11:20.580 year she was born this was also the same time if you want to picture like who else was like alive

00:11:24.500 breathing the same oxygen as her um Juana of Castile as well as Mary Tudor queen of France

00:11:30.400 were both born around the same time so after fleeing granada um saida's family settled in

00:11:39.960 the southeast of tangier in northern africa where her father founded the city-state of

00:11:45.440 chef chowen near morocco's northern coast so saida's father founded the city to fight the

00:11:54.520 portuguese so at this point yes they're kicked up by the spanish like the catholic monarchs but

00:11:59.900 like portuguese were also doing a lot of colonization attacking muslim people so the city

00:12:07.340 was founded to fight the portuguese invasions of northern morocco so to kind of like have a

00:12:11.980 home base to consolidate the rebellion or the opposition to that so he opened the gates of

00:12:19.020 the city to waves of fellow refugees fleeing the reconquista including not just muslim people but

00:12:24.120 also jewish people as well as moriscos um who were a group who were former muslim people who

00:12:31.200 had converted christianity but isabella and ferdinand still didn't want them there i guess

00:12:35.540 so chef chowen is today um you might have heard of it and i might be pronouncing the name wrong

00:12:42.600 but that's what it looks like um if you look it up on instagram or on pinterest it is a very

00:12:51.180 popular instagram tourist destination it's known as the blue city because all the buildings and

00:12:58.980 outdoor steps etc are all painted blue it's very stunning in photography that's a more recent thing

00:13:04.280 though saida's father wasn't like i'm gonna build this city and i'm gonna paint it all blue because

00:13:08.400 they didn't care about tourism at that point there's several theories as to why the walls

00:13:12.840 were painted all blue in the city one is that the blue keeps mosquitoes away and personally like as

00:13:18.740 a person who mosquitoes prefer over all other humans if that's true i would i would wear all

00:13:26.280 blue the rest of my life every summer the blue also is said to perhaps symbolize the sky and

00:13:31.100 heaven and serve as a reminder to lead a spiritual life um however also there's a rumor that the

00:13:38.180 walls were all mandated to be painted blue just to like make it be a tourist destination in like

00:13:43.100 the 1970s. Anyway, it's a very, very, very photogenic and beautiful city, and it was

00:13:48.820 invented by Said's father. So, Said and her brother grew up in Chefchowin, and they were

00:13:55.880 both provided with a really good education. She apparently, well, clearly based on her

00:14:02.240 future life, she did very well learning various languages, including Castilian, which is Spanish

00:14:08.040 and portuguese she also learned obviously arabic um probably some of the berber languages that were

00:14:15.320 of the indigenous people of that area she also learned theology so one of the reasons why

00:14:22.200 because we look at we come across this in both ways don't we like on this podcast it's like you

00:14:27.400 know girls either get an education or girls don't get an education and it's really dependent on

00:14:31.680 culturally what their fathers kind of want to do and their mothers sometimes but um anyway at this

00:14:39.640 time in this culture and era the quest for knowledge was a marker of social distinction

00:14:44.740 so the fact that they were this very prestigious family like of course their children would be

00:14:48.460 educated as best as possible among her teachers was the famed moroccan scholar abdallah al-gizwani

00:14:55.700 whose father the equally celebrated sheikh ujjal allegedly once put his hand to saeeda's head and

00:15:02.880 declared this girl will rise high in rank and whether that happened or not guess what she did

00:15:08.700 so she was given this like formal education of like lessons etc but then i can't imagine she

00:15:16.540 wouldn't have also grown up hearing her father and other adults around her um talking about how

00:15:22.720 they used to live in granada how they probably wanted to capture it again and or make the spanish

00:15:29.280 christians pay for kicking them out of there like this was uh entirely like refugee founded city so

00:15:36.420 i think there's probably uh she would have grown up hearing learning about what had happened to

00:15:41.840 them and why and yeah so when she was around 15 years old i think she um a marriage was arranged

00:15:49.820 for her and she married a man named abu hassan al mandari this is a point of contention in

00:15:56.260 every source that i looked at where no one is quite sure if she married there's two men with

00:16:01.240 that name and one was a man about 30 years older than her and one was a man who was younger and

00:16:07.780 his relative like that guy's son or that guy's nephew and because they both have the same name

00:16:12.000 like nobody knows which one she married but whichever one it was um he was at that time

00:16:21.560 the governor of another north african moroccan city called tetuan and so she married him whichever

00:16:27.600 one it was and so she became like the first lady of tetuan so a note on tetuan this was

00:16:35.500 port city that had been destroyed about 100 years before this by the Portuguese why did the

00:16:42.940 Portuguese destroy an entire city because so I'm gonna absolutely put maps on Instagram just so you

00:16:49.800 can see kind of how what this area is how close everything is so at the very tippy top of like 1.00

00:16:55.400 North Africa like right where North Africa almost is like touching the bottom of Spain

00:17:01.700 there's like a little sliver of it and the portuguese had a city there that's called suta

00:17:08.360 and that they used because they were portuguese would like go to quote the new world

00:17:15.440 and come back and they really needed to have a port city for themselves right there tetuan was

00:17:22.760 like just below that but it was part of morocco it was not portuguese and the portuguese didn't

00:17:27.800 like how close techuan was to suta so they just kind of smashed it and it was left abandoned for

00:17:34.120 like a hundred years but saeeda's husband was like if i fix this all up it can be a really

00:17:40.740 great city for all these thousands of refugees from al andalus from granada and so like sort of

00:17:47.200 like chef chuan and also they could like revitalize it and maybe make it be like a port and that would

00:17:52.160 like help the like moroccan situation so that's what he did so first he and presumably sayida

00:18:02.720 went with him they had to go to get permission from the sultan of morocco so morocco again

00:18:07.000 there's like morocco is its own i don't know if it's if the word is technically a kingdom or just

00:18:14.920 a country it had its own sultan sultan of morocco was abu abbas amad ibn muhammad and he lived in

00:18:21.300 Fez um which was the capital of Morocco and this is totally separate from the Ottoman Empire which

00:18:28.400 is like further east but also an Islamic um empire so uh so Sayida and her husband who's

00:18:37.320 either a lot older than her or not that much older than her went to Fez to say like can we

00:18:42.280 have permission to like what's that called like extreme makeover home addition to Tatouan and

00:18:49.720 the sultan was like yeah okay and they also got permission to collect taxes to help pay for this

00:18:54.940 city rejuvenation um and so sayuda's husband oversaw tetuan being all repaired so the city

00:19:02.840 walls were repaired like a fort was put up like the whole city was kind of put together over the

00:19:07.640 course of something like five years so it became a bustling metropolis with a great mosque um and

00:19:12.700 narrow maze-like streets to ward off invaders and in fact old town tetuan is nowadays a unesco

00:19:19.640 world heritage site so because of how many people from granada had gone had fled to northern africa

00:19:27.860 and a lot of them went to chef chuan and then a lot of them went to tetuan when that became like

00:19:31.720 livable so tetuan is often linked to granada and is nicknamed granada's daughter because it's kind

00:19:37.820 of like the community they're just kind of like all moved all together so it's sort of like um

00:19:42.660 in you know like how there's like a chinatown or something like in san francisco and other places

00:19:48.440 where it's like a bunch of people all move from one country to another country but they all live

00:19:52.400 together so they can make an area of that other country that's kind of like how the previous

00:19:56.740 country was where they can all speak their language and stuff so at around the same time

00:20:02.200 she married whichever of these two men she married her brother remember she's a brother

00:20:07.300 got a sweet gig being the vizier which is like a chief minister slash advisor to the sultan of

00:20:14.640 morocco which was the guy who gave them permission to rebuild tatouan and her father kept on

00:20:20.280 governing chef chuan so as a family they were doing very well for themselves they were all

00:20:25.280 very powerful influential which was probably gratifying to them because they had gone from 1.00

00:20:32.540 being this very powerful influential family in granada to being like refugees with no possessions 0.99

00:20:36.960 and now they're like on the on the come up again so her husband um clearly respected her um she

00:20:46.960 was allowed to rule alongside him let's see so again just with the alliance of like jeff juan

00:20:54.560 and tatouan like reflected by her marrying this guy she and her family positioned themselves as

00:20:58.780 major players in the effort to unify morocco against the fast growing powers of spain and

00:21:03.140 portugal slash also the ottoman empire which was kind of trying to take over morocco i think as

00:21:08.020 well so now culturally this is interesting because this is a lot of this is like the flip side of

00:21:15.460 isabella from isabella and ferdinand where she had such a sort of complex story of being like

00:21:23.640 the underdog and then she became queen and then she started funding genocide etc but it was unusual

00:21:31.380 for Isabella to have been a woman with that much power and she did she was able to have that power

00:21:36.340 because she was her husband was also the king but she was a powerful woman leader and she'd been

00:21:43.340 queen for 10 years by the time Saida was born so by the time Saida was like 15 20 years old like

00:21:48.620 a married person it was Isabella had been queen for long enough so people were kind of like used

00:21:55.180 to the concept of like a woman could be a queen and that was okay which might have helped pave the 0.99

00:22:02.000 way for saeeda to take on more responsibilities as the wife of the governor so she served as kind 0.94

00:22:08.640 of vice governor to her husband like when he went out of town she was put in control and people were

00:22:14.600 okay with that even though she was like whatever like 19 years old so an author who wrote about

00:22:20.940 all this has no lebedee wrote quote saeeda was trusted by her male relatives and this seemed to

00:22:26.800 be a feature of andalusian moroccan women in general she knew what needed to be done under

00:22:31.520 different circumstances and these are the kinds of qualities that would have made her a leader

00:22:36.780 so all of this leads to her husband died just five years after they got married and she seemingly

00:22:44.280 apparently without much drama um took over and became the governor she just sort of inherited

00:22:52.140 the job from him and the population of tatuan was like love it sure this is great like she's good

00:22:59.100 like let's just keep this sort of like handover of governorship and keep just like rebuilding and 0.93

00:23:05.760 making tatuan as cool as possible so it was at this point when she became the governor that she 0.66

00:23:12.000 took on the formal title of saida al hurrah um akumat titwan which means sovereign lady governor 0.98

00:23:19.400 of tatuan so also so just the amount of power women had in this cultural moment so muslim women 0.99

00:23:29.760 in this era in these countries or these kingdoms had more freedom comparatively than women under 0.64

00:23:38.420 many christian legal systems at the time so for instance women in islamic countries or kingdoms 0.80

00:23:46.040 like places like tatouan or like the ottoman empire they could divorce they could keep their

00:23:51.440 surnames after marriage they could handle their own financial affairs so there was already a bit

00:23:56.320 more independence available for her as a woman and so she became governor and well i guess her 0.95

00:24:05.340 i don't know how long it depends which husband was her husband but like in short order like she

00:24:09.840 became she surpassed him um in prominence and kind of making tatuan more of a force so uh one of the

00:24:18.640 challenges that he and then she had to face was um it was hard to get grain which you needed just

00:24:26.640 for like trade but also just for like to have food to eat because um there was not the like

00:24:34.680 land around tatuan was not conducive to farming grain so they had to figure out people who they

00:24:39.580 could barter and trade with but also the main thing is that tatuan is and was a port city

00:24:45.080 so like every port city like it was driven by a maritime economy like people ships coming um

00:24:52.340 import export but also piracy which we're going to get into so it's not like saida was the first

00:24:59.180 person to figure out this is a way that to make the city work she just kind of figured out how

00:25:03.160 to make it work for them in this time and place so like tetuan had previously been a successful

00:25:10.400 port-based town like so successful that the portuguese had smashed it all up 100 years ago

00:25:16.800 so she would have thought like okay how can we make this like work and thrive but also not get

00:25:21.320 smashed up by the portuguese or by the spanish so the main thing that tetuan had going for it

00:25:28.380 now that it was rebuilt was it was the only major moroccan port at the time that was not under

00:25:34.680 spanish or portuguese control so that meant that they could do a lot of trade with other

00:25:39.960 islamic places like the entire ottoman empire so this all leads to the whole legend of saeed al

00:25:49.740 hurrah as this kind of pirate princess and it's that is definitely part of her legacy but it's

00:25:57.260 more complicated than that. So in the book, The History of Islam and 21 Women, the author Hossein

00:26:04.100 Kamali writes, Portuguese and Spanish sources sought to stigmatize her by labeling her as a 0.99

00:26:09.860 pirate. The line separating renegade pirates and legitimate navigators depends on one's perspective.

00:26:15.200 One side's corsair, maybe another side's admiral. To describe her as a pirate or a pirate queen

00:26:20.420 would be to misrepresent her so let's have a little pirates 101 lesson with special guest star

00:26:27.380 red beard the pirate aka barbarossa so there's a lot of there's just a lot of context that i

00:26:36.740 personally needed to read up on to fully understand the context i'm gonna explain stuff to you because

00:26:41.840 i had to learn it for myself and i'm gonna share that with you so in english language sources

00:26:48.340 the term the Barbary Coast was a name used from the 16th to 19th century in reference to the

00:26:55.300 North African coast Corsairs is a French word that means effectively privateers so I grew up

00:27:03.160 in Nova Scotia so I know a lot about privateers because that's like the entire basis of

00:27:07.760 the tourism industry in Nova Scotia but just as a reminder for all of us the difference between a

00:27:13.580 pirate and a privateer is that a pirate is just generally a freelance person with a ship who just

00:27:21.740 attacks other ships and steals their stuff um a privateer attacks ships and steals their stuff

00:27:28.540 but they aren't just doing that randomly they're sponsored by a government or a corporation um

00:27:36.320 and so in the absence of a formal navy or even for countries that had a formal navy

00:27:42.280 a lot of governments were just hiring privateers to just do this because a lot of the in this era

00:27:48.880 of like beginning of european colonization there was a lot of ship based stuff going on so like

00:27:54.120 for instance queen elizabeth the first hired privateers as well she was not queen at this

00:27:59.440 point but like as an example of like kind of everyone was everyone kind of had to do that

00:28:03.940 queen elizabeth the first privateers were called the sea dogs so put that together and you have

00:28:10.160 the Barbary Corsairs so this was a group of government-funded privateers who patrolled the

00:28:15.060 coast of North Africa so they were not necessarily and often they weren't people like of the Berber

00:28:22.340 cultural ethnicity group they were just people who were Corsairs privateers along the Barbary

00:28:32.180 coast so they would be hired out they were also Islamic I should mention um or at least

00:28:40.160 of them worked for the Ottoman Empire which was the major Islamic power in that area at that time

00:28:44.760 it was all kind of like to the east of Morocco and around that side of the Mediterranean and

00:28:51.900 we're going to talk a lot about the Ottoman Empire in a different episode so I'm not going to get

00:28:55.360 into it too much today but there were also Corsairs who worked specifically for Morocco and

00:29:02.220 then like Tetouan would have its own specific Corsairs would work for them so one very famous

00:29:09.260 barbary corsair was orich orich rius who is a turkish man technically he was born in lesbos

00:29:17.660 which was at that point part of the ottoman empire um but he was a turkish man who became

00:29:24.220 known as barbarossa which is italian for red beard and he did have a red beard but that's

00:29:30.060 not why he was called that and also just side note you might be like i've heard of barbarossa

00:29:33.680 you might be thinking of barbosa who is the character played by jeffrey rush in the pirates

00:29:39.120 the caribbean movies who was named after barbarossa anyway barbarossa means red beard

00:29:47.140 um and that's kind of a coincidence because the reason why he was called that is um he got the

00:29:54.280 nickname barbarossa because um along with being a corsair he also was just like a really good guy

00:30:01.300 with a ship and as part and he was also just um helpful and so he helped resettle a lot of refugees

00:30:09.040 fleeing granada with his fleet of ships um so people called him baba orich so his name was

00:30:15.240 orich baba was i think was a word that means kind of father so it's kind of like so he's called baba

00:30:22.260 orich because he's like father orich like the guy who's nice and then just some european people

00:30:27.200 misheard that as what's that barbarossa because i guess he had a red beard anyway that's the name

00:30:32.260 he got and he leaned into it because it became a very famous name it's a very catchy name it's

00:30:37.480 sort of thing where like it's like oh no barbarossa it's like i just re-watched the princess bride

00:30:42.480 which is like honestly a perfect movie but it's like the whole thing with the dread pirate roberts

00:30:48.060 where it's just like i am barbarossa like people would just run away if they knew you're barbarossa

00:30:51.940 so he leaned into the branding although um he didn't choose that name himself um quick side

00:30:59.000 note on barbarossa in general so orich was one of four brothers and their father did pottery and

00:31:07.000 they had like a family based pottery business and the four brothers started out um doing ship

00:31:14.200 based things because they were helping to like import export pottery for the family pottery

00:31:18.400 business and i have to say this is the most wholesome beginning of like a famous corsair

00:31:25.020 that i've ever heard of um eventually orich and his brothers um got the opportunity to switch to

00:31:32.460 being a privateer and i guess they just took that job opportunity um he was also um i feel like i

00:31:41.100 read about so many people who are like and this person like he spoke okay he learned italian

00:31:44.460 spanish french greek and arabic as well as he was turkish so he obviously spoke that language too

00:31:48.840 but like did everybody just speak all the languages then or am i just reading only about

00:31:54.360 the people who did like i'm impressed by that as a person who speaks one language and also i can say

00:32:00.000 like 12 words in French with an accent so the the brothers they just kind of became more and more

00:32:06.920 successful like they were just good at being guys on ships and then they became good at being 0.56

00:32:11.220 corsairs um you know they were hired by the Ottoman Empire so they were attacking Spanish 0.84

00:32:17.000 and Portuguese ships stealing back all the gold well not back but stealing the gold of the Spanish 0.96

00:32:22.600 and Portuguese were stealing from the Aztecs and the Mayan people and other people in and around

00:32:28.600 Central America so why am I talking about all this I don't know how or why because again like

00:32:37.020 the sources are like there's not lots but somehow Saida and Barbarossa connected not romantically

00:32:46.740 can you imagine but I think they're just like two cool successful people at this time and they're

00:32:51.560 like let's find a way to work together so they seem to have figured out a deal where they could

00:32:57.620 just kind of divide up the corsair industry so he focused on the eastern mediterranean so that

00:33:05.140 saida's corsairs could target or saida and her corsairs would be able to target european ships

00:33:10.520 around the north africa southern iberian peninsula area so they weren't like duplicating work they

00:33:17.380 could just like corsair most effectively um just to wrap up because i just got really sidetracked

00:33:23.020 personally in reading about this so after orich died um he obviously died in battle because that

00:33:29.020 was the sort of life he lived his brother hayridden inherited his role um like he inherited the fleet

00:33:37.120 and he also took on the name barbarossa and it was hayridden so barbarossa number two but also

00:33:43.840 i think like if barbarossa dies and someone else becomes barbarossa then it feels like barbarossa

00:33:47.240 never dies and again that's like dread pirate roberts and the prince's bride anyway so hayridden

00:33:51.880 became the most powerful and famous ottoman admiral um he secured ottoman dominance over

00:33:57.080 the mediterranean sea so when you hear about barbarossa it's probably hayreddin who was the

00:34:03.920 one who kind of like took what oritch had done and like really took it to the next level and if

00:34:08.740 you're in turkey or if you have access to turkish um online television streaming services there is

00:34:15.160 a turkish tv show called barbaros sword of the mediterranean that's about the barbarossa brothers

00:34:19.780 and i was like that sounds so good but it's like a turkish tv show i don't think i can watch it

00:34:24.680 here in canada anyway back to saida so now that we all kind of know about corsairs um and what

00:34:33.260 they're up to saida so did she literally get on these ships and literally attack other ships

00:34:40.460 um sometimes probably is my answer so it's this sort of one of the reasons why what's known about

00:34:50.720 her tends to end up being like an assumption of her as being a pirate and that's like the main

00:34:56.400 thing about her and that's because most of the records that exist still are the Spanish and

00:35:03.420 Portuguese records of her fleets attacking them so um so there were like ledgers and stuff who

00:35:11.480 were like yep so you know Saida El Hora her forces attacked us like she was the one who like

00:35:15.920 negotiate things um and kind of like how Barbarossa became just sort of like a name where

00:35:21.540 you're like oh fuck it's Barbarossa and people just like give up right away it's like oh my god

00:35:25.320 it's Saida El Hora and people just give up like she became really famous by that name 0.98

00:35:28.800 so she would lead negotiations in one instance her forces attacked gibraltar with five boats 0.94

00:35:35.100 they netted booty and many hostages on 1520 her forces captured a portuguese governor's wife so

00:35:42.460 they were just like no fucks given she was just like let's go so like these are the barbary

00:35:48.480 corsairs who were like mostly islamic people working for islamic kingdoms but there's also 0.96

00:35:54.100 lots of christian pirates too and all of them profited not just from like stealing stuff i'm

00:36:00.580 trying to avoid saying booty as many times as i can but um all sides everybody was also capturing

00:36:07.240 and ransoming their enemies and or selling them as slaves that's just like what this business was

00:36:11.840 like so due to the treasure that her corsairs were getting tatuan became more and more prosperous

00:36:18.760 because the money went back to like funding that city city's development so she earned money from

00:36:23.800 like literally you know getting booty from other people ships but she also earned money by

00:36:29.840 negotiating ransoms for christian prisoners captured and her reputation spread like into

00:36:34.740 europe leaders were calling for her head like she was like well known sebastian de vargas a

00:36:42.440 portuguese diplomat based in fez in morocco at the time said that she was a very aggressive and

00:36:47.880 bad-tempered woman about everything which is like maybe she was um frankly i feel like i'm gonna put

00:36:56.280 that on a t-shirt a very aggressive and bad-tempered woman about everything this was he was

00:37:00.740 portuguese and like she was like doing really well bringing down the portuguese they had suffered 0.88

00:37:06.940 substantial financial losses at her hands so as per ever they're just like oh she's a woman and

00:37:12.060 she's not nice like yeah and so what another angle to bear in mind about like was she a pirate 1.00

00:37:19.960 is that was what she like what she was doing was also in a sense freedom fighting like working to 0.89

00:37:26.360 protect morocco from being colonized by the spanish or the portuguese in her book the forgotten

00:37:31.620 queens of islam fatima marnese suggests that piracy became a favorite sport of people like

00:37:37.760 saida who had been um displaced from el andalus um this allowed the expelled people to obtain 0.61

00:37:44.360 quick revenues booty and ransom for captives and at the same time to continue to fight the christian

00:37:48.960 enemy um and then another quote so this is hazna lebari so many of saida's privateers were andalusis 0.69

00:37:55.540 who settled in places like tetuan under her command they helped her to fend off the aggressive

00:37:59.880 iberians who were colonized in morocco and at times enslaving most of the populations

00:38:03.980 so saida el horo is doing the same thing to the iberians as they were doing to the moroccans

00:38:09.020 i wouldn't call her a pirate to refer to her as a pirate is to put the blame on those who are

00:38:13.540 defending their land from aggressive colonial powers then again like on it's a complex situation 0.64

00:38:19.860 so yes she was mostly like almost entirely attacking spanish and portuguese people

00:38:27.520 she's sort of campaigning against these european christian forces and that lends itself to an

00:38:31.680 anti-colonial narrative and at the same time saeda worked with some european people when it suited

00:38:40.260 her so she was she had i can't imagine she wouldn't have had a personal stake in this if

00:38:46.780 like wanting to get revenge against like especially the spanish for what they'd done to her and like 0.98

00:38:52.320 thousands of people but also she was like clever and canny and knew like when to sort of back down

00:38:58.920 to like side with her enemy against another enemy but then also well an instance of her like

00:39:04.720 quote-unquote siding with the enemy is that tatuan kept trading with a do you remember there was on

00:39:10.720 the tippy top of north africa there's suta the portuguese portuguese colony so tatuan would

00:39:16.420 trade with them even though they were portuguese because they were a valuable trade partner but

00:39:22.480 don't discount also that while they were doing corsair stuff um say it was also doing really

00:39:28.620 well politically as the governor of tetuan which would have taken a lot of skill and intelligence

00:39:34.720 and canniness and like this is such a volatile situation she was in and she seemed to have

00:39:40.940 served very well um so she developed and maintained strong domestic connections

00:39:45.220 even after so remember her brother became the vizier to the sultan of morocco so her brother

00:39:51.000 died um presumably at some point her father died also her husband had died like she did not have a

00:39:56.480 man in her corner so like with ditta you know where it's like you know i need to have like

00:40:02.160 in the absence of a husband it's like she must have had really good male advisors around her 1.00

00:40:07.340 because this was a culture where although she was respected and allowed to be a leader like she 0.91

00:40:12.700 needed to have um allies who would help keep her in power so this just and the fact that they

00:40:19.280 weren't like backstabbing her or like trying to usurp her means that she was like choosing good

00:40:22.820 people around her and even just like tatuan was getting more and more powerful better funded

00:40:29.300 through all these things she was doing um she was able to keep it going there the whole thing

00:40:34.020 was like there was not grain but like clearly that she found ways to rely on trade to get grain

00:40:38.060 and to keep the people there fed and prospering and that same thing you remember the part of

00:40:44.160 ditta of cashmere where it's like and then she was the queen for 20 years so the same sort of

00:40:48.400 like literally the same thing happened where for 20 years saida was the governor of tatouan tatouan

00:40:54.020 it kept doing better and better and we don't really know about what happened but the fact

00:40:59.340 that she was not deposed speaks to her political skill her survival skills and just the faith and

00:41:05.500 trust the people she governed had in her being a church so when she was around 50 years old or so

00:41:13.100 so the sultan of morocco remember the one who when she was like a teenager they'd gone to him to ask

00:41:19.360 permission to rebuild tatouan and then also her brother worked for him so they kind of knew each

00:41:23.100 other stopped by town as part of he was kind of like touring around trying to get support for his

00:41:29.380 dynasty which was like under threat so he's just trying to like drum up some allies and stuff

00:41:34.220 so this is interesting because apparently she'd been doing clearly she'd been doing fine for 20

00:41:39.120 years but when he proposed marriage she accepted why i don't i'm not gonna say why did he propose

00:41:46.940 marriage she's great um but why would she have agreed to this after having been a successful

00:41:53.500 like widowed not remarried woman for so long so potentially she's worried that maybe some 0.99

00:42:00.860 threats are gaining power against her and she wanted to have a powerful husband um maybe she

00:42:05.920 saw that this was a good way to strengthen tetuan's position because even though his dynasty wasn't

00:42:10.560 doing great he was literally the sultan and like in charge of all of morocco i don't know so she

00:42:16.740 agreed to marry him but so he's like do you want to marry me bye like he proposed marriage maybe

00:42:23.000 through a letter i don't know he was back in fez by that point like they he visited and then he

00:42:26.540 left and then he's like do you want to marry me and she's like okay but like i'm not going to go

00:42:30.040 to fez and will you come here to tetuan and marry me here um and this was unprecedented

00:42:37.380 because there was no other occasion in moroccan history where the sultan left where he was to go

00:42:44.160 marry the woman where she was and i don't think we've seen that in any other culture we've looked

00:42:50.560 at in this podcast yet either it's always like if you think about like henry the eighth not that we

00:42:57.060 did this on the podcast but like anne of cleves like went to england to marry him like everyone

00:43:00.800 always goes either they have their like proxy wedding and then they like mary tudor queen of

00:43:05.760 france went to france like the woman always goes to the man in like every story but in this one she

00:43:11.560 was like the man's gonna come to me and he did which kind of also speaks to the fact that he was

00:43:17.980 maybe really desperate to make this alliance anyway but also perhaps saeeda didn't want to 0.60

00:43:26.880 leave tetuan because she thought if she like left the city someone else might like try and usurp it 1.00

00:43:30.880 in her absence or potentially just in sort of like a politically pr way she wanted to show the

00:43:35.980 people of tetuan even though she was going to be the wife of the sultan and therefore kind of well

00:43:41.100 not kind of like the queen of morocco teton was still her first priority so the marriage shook

00:43:48.700 her enemies when they found out about it like all the way up in madrid the spanish king who at this

00:43:54.020 point was philip ii who you might know as the one who married mary the first of england and then who

00:43:59.880 elizabeth had all the naval slash privateer battles against he was really freaked out when

00:44:05.980 he heard that these two had married um saeed al-hura marrying the sultan of morocco is like

00:44:10.680 a mega power couple move sort of on par it was kind of like they would be like the islamic

00:44:17.380 isabella and ferdinand level of like power marriage alliance like she was so famous and 0.95

00:44:22.020 he was a sultan it's just like oh shit like this is like um you know the enemies of spain just 0.84

00:44:28.580 getting this really powerful new connection so not only was the wedding like the sultan came to 0.98

00:44:35.160 tatuan to marry her but it remained a long distance marriage saeda just did not leave tatuan and he

00:44:41.260 was in fez which is interesting and expected and i would suspect also maybe she didn't trust it in

00:44:47.840 her absence someone wouldn't try to take over and i think that partially because a year after the

00:44:52.680 wedding someone in fact did take over so a young male relative and again all the sources are like

00:44:58.260 maybe her son-in-law no one's quite sure what the relationship was and it's like where did she get

00:45:03.300 is son-in-law from is a great question maybe she had a daughter with her first husband or maybe

00:45:08.520 it's she had stepchildren from her marriage anyway a young male relative deposed her he took over as

00:45:17.380 governor of tatuan so whoever this guy was he seemed it does not seem like he had too much

00:45:23.420 trouble getting rid of her so at this point her power must like clearly she was not as powerful

00:45:30.040 as she had been being her people were she'd been there for so long people were like tired of her

00:45:34.300 or something why would someone depose her when she was doing great and she's only like 51 years

00:45:39.220 old who knows but one of the reasons could have been like at this point um in retaliation for all

00:45:45.900 of the like attacking of portuguese ships the portuguese government had forbid any commerce

00:45:50.200 between tatuan and seuta which kind of fucked over tatuan because that was like their main trade

00:45:55.280 partner but it's like would you depose her just for that anyway given that almost everything we

00:46:01.640 know about saida comes from the records of the spanish and portuguese who recorded her corsair

00:46:06.680 type activity we don't know what happened to her after this mysterious younger male relative took

00:46:12.460 over as governor of tetuan even if she wasn't governor of tetuan she's still technically the

00:46:16.620 wife of the sultan of morocco so some one source suggested maybe she went there to just like be his 0.78

00:46:23.180 wife some suggest that she just went back to chef chuan and just like lived out like uh her

00:46:29.680 retirement years like i don't know doing what like i don't know gardening or something or what

00:46:37.060 seems most likely to me and at least one source suggested this is that she might have just been

00:46:42.540 executed like i don't think she's the sort of person where they'd be like we're just gonna

00:46:45.680 take over as governor and she'd be like great i'm gonna go off and just like do needlepoint for 25

00:46:50.500 years in retirement like i feel like they knew how powerful she was and if you're going to use

00:46:55.180 her i think they might have killed her but we do not know we do not know when she died or how or

00:47:01.220 why and then after the end of her reign um the well you know the barbarossa name continued on

00:47:09.980 and the barbary corsairs like continued on for like another hundred years of just like being

00:47:15.380 very successful during her approximately 30 years as governor tatouan became super prosperous which

00:47:23.240 is part of her legacy now it's a unesco world heritage site so significantly also sayida is

00:47:30.200 also the last muslim ruler to bear the title al-hura a term used to designate female leaders 0.99

00:47:35.200 in the arab world who held power in their own right that being said because of a lack of like

00:47:41.820 historical documents but also a lack of people I don't I think it's largely a lack of historical

00:47:46.840 documents and lack of people writing about her at the time a lack of people researching her now

00:47:51.540 not just her but also women female corsairs and we don't know like we don't actually know how 0.97

00:47:58.120 unusual it was for a woman to be a corsair a governor and a diplomat like was she like an

00:48:03.660 iconoclast or were other women doing this in other places like literally we don't know but 0.90

00:48:08.340 one of the sources i read um suggested that in the face of kind of the ongoing crises like

00:48:15.520 the fall of quenada all the people coming to north africa sort of the instability of like

00:48:20.320 who is in charge of what city and stuff just that sort of chaos might have left an opening 0.99

00:48:25.900 that the previous gender norms were could be more easily breached um because everything that was 0.98

00:48:32.240 going on at this at this time and that's similar to like how fredigan and brenn hild were able to

00:48:36.760 gained power in their era or how did a of cashmere gain control like when things were kind of chaotic

00:48:42.340 it's like gender norms can maybe kind of fall away a bit because you're just like we need someone to

00:48:49.040 be governor and how about her she seems nice so again tatuan um named unesco world heritage site

00:48:55.960 so like in terms of significance that was largely like her husband started that but it was her

00:49:03.620 success um getting money that made the city kind of as prosperous as it was to make it last as long

00:49:10.380 as it did and now it's recognized internationally so time to do some scoring i do not see any

00:49:16.780 candidate like we know so little about who was around her but i don't see any candidates here

00:49:20.180 for the lady jane seymour memorial award for outstanding supporting performance wits that

00:49:25.280 there were so the fredigan memorial scandalousness scale so scandalousness for saida i feel like

00:49:31.760 you know inherently piracy like a late being a lady pirate is scandalicious in that like

00:49:38.680 delicious sort of way but it's like but was she a pirate like was she a freedom fighter like is 0.68

00:49:44.080 this like in terms of scandaliciousness it's like did she murder anyone i mean in her corsair

00:49:51.780 business like maybe but that's not like that's more just like being a soldier that's not like

00:49:56.500 you know murder heist did she poison anybody was there any sex scandals like there's there's very 0.96

00:50:02.680 little scandalousness but I am going to give her a five just because of like the legend of her and

00:50:08.380 just being allegedly a lady pirate is no less than five um the word scheminess I feel I want to be 1.00

00:50:16.800 really clear especially when we're looking at women from other cultures well cultures that are

00:50:21.420 not western european like i'm using the word to mean kind of intelligence cleverness resiliency

00:50:28.060 scheminess is a word that i like in some senses to reclaim like to celebrate women who like come

00:50:35.200 up with cool plans but there's a cultural context to this or when you're looking at like muslim 0.99

00:50:40.900 women that i want to be really really clear what i mean and what i mean about sayida she was like 1.00

00:50:45.540 so smart she was so capable she came up with great plans um she was able to rule for 30 years which 0.98

00:50:51.280 means she was a good leader and in the sense of the scale the word we use for that is scheminess

00:50:57.980 and i think she did a great job so i'm gonna give her an eight in terms of significance i think

00:51:05.940 you know it's hampered by the fact that there's so little information known about her but like

00:51:10.060 literally she built a city and the city is still there and it's celebrated um the significance of

00:51:16.820 being the last alhura and then also like being governor for so long and the effect that that had

00:51:25.820 kind of on the mediterranean and on colonialism and stuff feels quite significant to me i'm gonna

00:51:32.280 give her i'm gonna give her an eight for significance and then the sexism bonus for her

00:51:38.660 is like yes she achieved a lot um the fact that when her husband died and she was like i'll be

00:51:44.680 governor now and everyone's like great that shows like a distinct lack of sexism frankly that people

00:51:50.240 were okay with her staying on and she stayed on for 30 years i mean she obviously faced sexism

00:51:54.580 in the sense that the portuguese people would be like she's not nice but like that didn't really

00:51:58.580 stop her i'm gonna give her a six for sexism so hang on if we add that all up what do we get

00:52:08.120 we get a 27 so 27 is one point higher than inez de castro 27 other people with 27 isabel of

00:52:18.880 portugal anna de mendoza people from the same region where she was from um in the sense of

00:52:24.560 iberian peninsula margaret pole has a 27 ooh isabella of castile the woman who was responsible

00:52:31.520 for her being for like the muslims being kicked out of granada also 27 john de la motte 27 the

00:52:38.100 is a popular score katherine parr francis gray 27 i'm wow if i could cite it and isabella both

00:52:44.680 of 27 it feels interesting to me um yeah so that's this episode um you can check the little

00:52:55.340 website that i did at vulgarhistory.com um there's i've got more notes there about references and

00:53:00.780 sources you can find our merch at vulgarhistory.store vulgarhistory.store god what was the 1.00

00:53:11.340 thing that the portuguese person said yeah a very aggressive and bad-tempered woman about everything 1.00

00:53:17.680 like 100 there's gonna be merch there that says that on it at vulgarhistory.store um you can 1.00

00:53:23.200 support this show at patreon.com slash ann foster writer that's where you can get the bonus episodes 0.62

00:53:27.400 like we have so this asshole where i talk about horrible men in history we've got vulgar peace

00:53:31.300 theater where i'm joined by lana would johnson and alison epstein we talk about costume dramas 0.99

00:53:36.240 and that's all there if you just can't get enough of me talking um we're on instagram at vulgar

00:53:42.900 history pod twitter at vulgar history and yeah also on my website so you go to vulgarhistory.com

00:53:47.920 there's the form there where you can suggest people who you think might be good to um

00:53:52.140 profile on future episodes you can also email me at vulgarhistorypod at gmail.com

00:53:57.980 yeah that's this episode i hope you guys are all doing like as well as one can in the face of

00:54:05.200 the chaos of the year 2022 um slash this whole frankly century and i hope that this podcast 0.97

00:54:15.180 brings you some destruction and delight so keep your mask on keep your tits out i'll talk to you 0.98

00:54:21.720 all next time 0.99

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00:55:13.100 a millennial on their skinny jeans in 2026 denting too bold the war is over and both sides lost

00:55:27.420 kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered like bones in the dust now the

00:55:33.520 survivors claw to what's left of a broken world praying the darkness chooses someone else tonight

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Vulgar History - March 16, 2022

International, part 3： The Muslim Pirate Queen of Morocco

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