The Underworld of Maritime Workers in the Venetian Sea Colonies: Galley Men and Uskok Pirates at the End of the Sixteenth Century

Abstract The Uskoks of Senj (Croatia), Christian refugees active in the sixteenth-century Adriatic, are often portrayed as Habsburg-supported privateers displaced from Balkan regions conquered by the Ottomans and driven by anti-Muslim motives. This article argues that by the late sixteenth century, the Uskoks had become pirates acting against all imperial powers – a transformation rooted in frontier migrations and class conflicts aboard Venetian galleys. Drawing on unpublished judicial records from the State Archive in Venice, it shows that both Venetian and Habsburg authorities pursued them, as Senj became a refuge for Dalmatian deserters escaping naval coercion. For these galley workers, joining the Uskoks offered an alternative to conversion to Islam as a means of emancipation. Trial records reveal that galley crews engaged in theft and smuggling, adopting pirate behaviors that prefigured the Uskoks’ broader shift from privateering to piracy.