Barbary Pirates (Crisis Committee)

From the 16th century to the early 19th century, pirates from the Barbary coast attacked merchant ships and coastal towns in the Atlantic and the Mediterranean, pillaging and taking sailors as slaves. Christian countries, from Spain and Italy to Iceland and Newfoundland to the newly-formed United States, trying to establish itself as a nation with its own navy after no longer being under British protection, struggled with the threat. The pirates were predominantly from various Ottoman Barbary states, also known as the Barbary Coast. Many justified their piracy with history, specifically the persecutions and expulsions of Muslims and Jews from Spain perpetrated by the Spanish Inquisition. Of course, piracy was also very profitable, telling of an era before European navies dominated the seas. In this committee, delegates will be negotiating ransoms and exchanging prisoners, and engaging in sea battles with ships of other countries, and maybe even whales.