Yakup Ağa

Yakup Ağa (Ottoman Turkish: یعقوب آغا) or Ebu Yusuf Nurullah Yakub (Ottoman Turkish: ابو یوسف نورالله یعقوب), was the father of the Barbarossa Brothers, Oruç and Hızır. He was a Sipahi of Turkish^{[1][2][3][4][5]} or Albanian^[6][7][8] descent from Yenice (modern Greek city of Yanitsa).^[9] Yakup was among those who took part in the capture of the Aegean island of Lesbos from the Genoese on behalf of the Ottomans in 1462. For his participation he was granted the fief of Bonova village of the island as a reward and the title of the village's Agha (master).

In Lesbos Yakup married a local Christian Greek woman from Mytilene, the widow of an Eastern Orthodox priest^[10] named Katerina. From that union two daughters and four sons were born: Ishak, Oruç, Hızır and Ilyas. Yakup became an established potter and purchased a boat to trade his products. The four sons helped their father with his business, but not much is known about his daughters.

At first, Ishak, the eldest son, was involved with the financial affairs of the family business and remained on Mytilene. Hızır operated in the Aegean Sea and based his operations mostly in Thessaloniki. The other two brothers Oruç and Ilyas soon became seamen engaging in sea trade, later turning privateers in the Mediterranean. When their vessel was captured by a Knights of St. John galley, Ilyas was killed during the battle and Oruç became a slave aboard the galley for two to three years. When he regained his freedom, he and his brother Hızir started engaging in piracy as corsairs entering history as the Barbarossa Brothers. They took part in many Ottoman campaigns around the Mediterranean and gained fame for their skill as commanders. Oruç and Ishak were killed in Oran (Algeria) during the battle for Tlemcen (Algeria) fighting the Spaniards. The last surviving son Hızır became one of the most famous Barbary pirates of his era and a legendary figure as Admiral of the Ottoman navy.

References and sources

1. ......Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa (son of a Turkish sipahi [fief-holder in the cavalry service]) from Yenice-i Vardar in Macedonia and a Greek woman from Lesvos/Mytilini..., Machiel Kiel, "The Smaller Aegean Island in the 16th-18th Centuries According to Ottoman Administrative Documents" in Siriol Davies, Jack L. Davis, Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial Landscapes in Early Modern Greece, ASCSA, 2007, ISBN 978-0-87661-540-9, p. 36.
2. İsmail Hâmi Danişmend, Osmanlı Devlet Erkânı, pp. 172 ff. Türkiye Yayınevi (Istanbul), 1971.
3. Khiḍr was one of four sons of a Turk from the island of Lesbos., "Barbarossa", Encyclopædia Britannica, 1963, p. 147.
4. Angus Konstam, Piracy: The Complete History, Osprey Publishing, 2008, ISBN 978-1-84603-240-0, p. 80.
5. Jamieson, Alan G. (2013). Lords of the Sea: A History of the Barbary Corsairs. Canada: Reaktion Books. p. 59. ISBN 978-1861899460. Desperate to find some explanation for the sudden resurgence of Muslim sea power in the Mediterranean after centuries of Christian dominance, Christian commentators in the sixth century (and later) pointed to the supposed Christian roots of the greatest Barbary corsair commanders. It was a strange kind of comfort. The Barbarossas certainly had a Greek Christian mother, but it now seems certain their father was a Muslim Turk.
6. Bozbora, Nuray (1997), Osmanlı yönetiminde Arnavutluk ve Arnavut ulusçuluğu'nun gelişimi, p. 16
7. Holm, Bent; Rasmussen, Mikael Bøgh (2021). Imagined, Embodied and Actual Turks in Early Modern Europe. Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag. p. 16. ISBN 978-3-99012-125-2. Hisir was the later Ottoman Chief Admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa. His profile almost exactly matches that of the numerous anonymous Christian and convert sailors just mentioned. His mother was Greek, and his father was a convert from the Albanian lands who had fought in the Sultan's armies.
8. Encyclopædia Britannica, Vol 1, Encyclopædia Britannica, 1972, p. 147.
9. Between Venice and Istanbul: Colonial landscapes in early modern Greece, p. 36, Siriol Davies,Jack L. Davis, American School of Classical Studies, 2007
10. Die Seeaktivitäten der muslimischen Beutefahrer als Bestandteil der staatlichen Flotte während der osmanischen Expansion im Mittelmeer im 15. und 16. Jahrhundert, p.548, Andreas Rieger, Klaus Schwarz Verlag, 1994