17. Sayyida al Hurra’s Vengeance Run Was Stopped Not by Her Declared Enemies, But By Her Own Kin
Sayyida al Hurra led her own fleet, with which she prowled Spanish and Portuguese shipping lanes. Her aggressiveness and skill in exacting vengeance made her the undisputed pirate leader of the region. She amassed vast riches from booty, and raised fabulous sums from ransoms to free her captives. Indeed, during her piratical career, she was viewed by Europeans as the go-to contact in negotiations to release Christian captives. It is to those negotiations, and the records thereof, that history is most indebted for our knowledge of Sayyida al Hurra.
The pirate queen’s reign eventually ended as she neared her 60s. Fate proved unkind to her at the end of her adventurous life, as the end of her run came not at the hands of her enemies, but at those of her kith and kin. After three decades of striking terror into the hearts of captains and crews in the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean, Sayyida’s downfall came at the hands of her son-in-law. That unworthy ousted her in a palace coup, and she was stripped of power. Her fate afterwards is lost to history.
