In the summer of 1627, two groups of Barbary Corsair raided Iceland, one from Salé, on the Moroccan coast, and one from Algiers. Between them, they killed dozens of people and abducted over four hundred, packing these captives into the cargo holds of their ships and transporting them to North Africa to be sold in the slave market there.

The first place the Algerine corsair attacked was East Iceland.

The corsair from Algiers spent four days pillaging the are around Berufjörður, in the East Fjords. On the first day alone, they seized over hundred people-men, women, and children. They then went on to the island of Heimaey, in the Westman Islands, where they took nearly 250 people. After this, their ships crammed with captives, they sailed back to North Africa.

The full story of the Algerine corsair raid on East Iceland has never been told. Drawing on a wide variety of contemporary sources, this book recounts for the first time not only the details of the raid itself, but also what it was like for the Icelanders to be slaves in Algiers.