Why did everything go wrong ? : some notes on hispano-Algerian diplomatic misunderstanding from a study of a letter of Beylerbeyi Hasan Pasha (1545-51)‎

Abstract EN

This article focuses on the first half of the sixteenth century and aims to explore the evolution of Spanish diplomatic negotiations with the city of Algiers in order to find out why these inter-policy contacts did not achieve the purposes hoped for by the government of the Spanish Monarchy.

For that reason, after defining the diplomatic model deployed to negotiate with the Algerians and its goals, I shall explore how the Spanish Monarchy regarded the governors of Algiers by studying a letter that beylerbeyi Hasan Pasha sent to the Genoese Admiral Andrea Doria in the summer of 1548.

This letter, which is conserved in the Archivo General de Simancas, present us with a great opportunity to note that the socio-political consideration granted by the Spaniards to their North African interlocutors had considerable influence on the results of several diplomatic missions conducted in Algiers.