Qualla: The Sack of Baltimore https://qualla.com/sack-of-baltimore en-us © 2026 Bendyline Wed, 08 Jul 2026 02:40:11 GMT Qualla serial false Qualla support@bendyline.com yes https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/1/k/sack-of-baltimore-wp/hero-small.webp Qualla: The Sack of Baltimore https://qualla.com/sack-of-baltimore The Sack of Baltimore: Introduction https://qualla.com/sack-of-baltimore/ Photo credit Jan Luyken, Public domain. On the night of 20 June 1631, while the village of Baltimore in West Cork slept, two ships from North Africa came in around the headland and put landing parties ashore in the part of the village known then and still known now as the Cove. By the time the sun rose over Roaringwater Bay, more than a hundred people -- men, women, children, infants in their mothers' arms -- were aboard those ships, bound in chains, on the long voyage to the slave markets of Algiers. The lower number sometimes cited is around 107; some sources put it as high as 237. Most of them were English settlers, with some Irish among them. Only two or three would ever see Ireland again. The rest lived out their lives, and in most cases died, as the property of others in a country whose language they did not speak and whose religion they were not born to. The sack of Baltimore was the largest single Barbary slave raid ever launched against Ireland. The fact that it happened at all is almost the smaller part of the story. The fact that it has been so thoroughly forgotten is the larger.

Read more: The Sack of Baltimore on Qualla

Image: Jan Luyken | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/1/k/sack-of-baltimore-wp/gc1k-the-sack-of-baltimore-intro.mp3 0:06 1 full The Sack of Baltimore: Who They Were https://qualla.com/sack-of-baltimore/ Photo credit Jan Luyken, Public domain. The people taken from Baltimore that night were not a crowd. They were specific. They were English Puritan settlers and their Irish neighbours, plantation farmers and fishermen and their families, who had built a small village and a pilchard fishery on land leased from the O'Dris...

Read more: The Sack of Baltimore on Qualla

Image: Jan Luyken | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/1/k/sack-of-baltimore-wp/gc1k-the-sack-of-baltimore-who-they-were.mp3 0:06 2 full The Sack of Baltimore: Murad Reis the Younger https://qualla.com/sack-of-baltimore/ Photo credit Jan Luyken, Public domain. The raid was led by a Dutch captain from Haarlem named Jan Janszoon, who had himself been enslaved by Barbary pirates years before and had bought his freedom by converting to Islam, taking the name Murad Reis the Younger and joining the corsairs whose captives he had once been. H...

Read more: The Sack of Baltimore on Qualla

Image: Jan Luyken | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/1/k/sack-of-baltimore-wp/gc1k-the-sack-of-baltimore-murad-reis-the-younger.mp3 0:06 3 full The Sack of Baltimore: The Conspiracy https://qualla.com/sack-of-baltimore/ Photo credit Jan Luyken, Public domain. In his 2006 book The Stolen Village, the journalist Des Ekin makes the case that the timing of the raid was no accident. The lease under which the English Puritan settlers held Baltimore had been granted on 20 June 1610, for twenty-one years. It was due to expire on 20 June 1631 ...

Read more: The Sack of Baltimore on Qualla

Image: Jan Luyken | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/1/k/sack-of-baltimore-wp/gc1k-the-sack-of-baltimore-the-conspiracy.mp3 0:06 4 full The Sack of Baltimore: Algiers https://qualla.com/sack-of-baltimore/ Photo credit Jan Luyken, Public domain. In Algiers the captives were taken to the slave market that visitors to Baltimore today can read about in the 1684 engraving still sometimes reproduced beside the story. Families were separated at the auction block. Some of the men were sold to row in the Mediterranean galleys, w...

Read more: The Sack of Baltimore on Qualla

Image: Jan Luyken | Public domain

]]> Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT https://qualla.com/_m/g/c/1/k/sack-of-baltimore-wp/gc1k-the-sack-of-baltimore-algiers.mp3 0:06 5 full