Ottoman Tripolitania

Under the Ottomans, the Maghreb was divided into three provinces, Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli. After 1565, administrative authority in Tripoli was vested in a pasha appointed by the sultan in Constantinople. Tripolitania was a separate Italian colony from 1927 to 1934. From 1934 to 1963, Tripolitania was one of three administrative divisions within Italian Libya and the Kingdom of Libya, alongside Cyrenaica to the east and Fezzan to the south.

Mavi Boncuk | The coastal region of what is today Libya was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911, from 1864 as the Tripolitania Vilayet (Vilayet-i Trablusgarp). It was also known as the Kingdom of Tripoli during the 17th to 19th centuries, although it was ruled by a pasha and not an actual viceroy (by the Karamanli dynasty from 1711 to 1835). Besides the core territory of Tripolitania, Barca was also considered part of the kingdom of Tripoli because it was de-facto ruled by the pasha of Tripoli.

By the beginning of the 15th century the Libyan coast had minimal central authority and its harbours were havens for unchecked bands of pirates. Habsburg Spain occupied Tripoli in 1510, but the Spaniards were more concerned with controlling the port than with the inconveniences of administering a colony. Ferdinand the Catholic of Spain took Tripoli and in 1528 gave it to the Knights of St John of Malta. In 1538 Tripoli was reconquered by an Ottoman admiral called Khair ad-Din (known more evocatively as Barbarossa, or Red Beard). It was then that coast became renowned as the Barbary Coast.

When the Ottomans arrived again at the request of Libyan Muslim population to liberate Islamic Tripoli in 1551 from Christian rule of the Maltese Knights of St. John, they saw little reason to rein in the pirates