Zaide: A Tale of Piracy, Adventure and Romance

Adventure and romance by sea and land. Jan Janszoon van Haarlem was a notorious seventeenth century pirate who preyed on merchant ships and plied the vast slave trade to the Barbary coast. He was Dutch by birth but became naturalised to the Barbaries. Not confining his depredations to the Mediterranean, he visited and slaved from England, Iceland and notoriously, Ireland. His most daring raid was to Baltimore on Ireland’s south coast on June 20th 1631, where he took most of the village’s inhabitants to slavery. This raid is remembered in song and story to the present day.