Invasion of Gozo (1551)

Invasion of Gozo
Part of the Ottoman–Habsburg wars
Contemporary view of the Castello – also known as the Cittadella – as photographed in 2015
Date 18–30 July 1551 (12 days) Location Gozo, Hospitaller Malta (following initial landing on the main island of Malta) Result Ottoman victory
Belligerents
Ottoman Empire	Hospitaller Malta
Commanders and leaders
Sinan Pasha Salah Rais Dragut	On Malta: Juan de Homedes Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon On Gozo: Galatian de Sesse
Strength
c. 10,000–12,000 men 145 ships	Unknown
Casualties and losses
Unknown	Several killed c. 5,000–7,000 enslaved

The Invasion of Gozo, also known as the Siege of Gozo (Maltese: L-Assedju ta' Għawdex), was an Ottoman invasion of the island of Gozo, then part of Hospitaller Malta, in July 1551. The attack, which was led by Sinan Pasha, Salah Rais and Dragut, appears to have been launched in retaliation for the capture of Mahdia by the Spanish and Hospitallers the previous year.

The Ottoman force briefly attacked Augusta in Sicily before landing on the main island of Malta on 18 July, where the city of Mdina was briefly besieged and some villages were plundered. They then abandoned Malta and landed on nearby Gozo, where the Castello was bombarded for two days before its garrison capitulated on 26 July. The fortress was sacked and between 5,000 and 7,000 people – the majority of the island's population – were enslaved and taken to North Africa or Constantinople. The same Ottoman force went on to capture Tripoli from the Hospitallers on 15 August 1551.

Some of the enslaved Gozitans were ransomed or freed, while others are known to have died in slavery or converted to Islam. Most of them never returned to the Maltese Islands, and it took about a century of resettlement for Gozo's population to recover. The Hospitallers made efforts to improve the defences of Malta after the attack; the fortifications they built later played a key role in the Great Siege of Malta of 1565.

Background

In 1530, Gozo's population is estimated to have stood at around 8,000 people. Prior to the 1551 attack, Gozitan society included a few noble families who were of Sicilian origin, while most of the population were peasant farmers known as beduini who owned small parcels of land. Like most of the population of the Maltese Islands, these were mainly descended from Arab Muslims who had converted to Christianity in previous centuries. At the time of the attack, most of Gozo's population lived in one town which consisted of a medieval fortress known as the Castello and a suburb known as the Borgo (now collectively known as Victoria or Rabat). The rest of the island had virtually been abandoned as it was vulnerable to attacks by pirates or corsairs.

The Maltese Islands were subject to occasional razzias and attacks by Arabs from North Africa, and later by Barbary corsairs and the Ottoman Empire throughout the 15th and 16th centuries. The frequency of raids by the latter increased after the Hospitallers established themselves on Malta in 1530. The island of Gozo was particularly vulnerable to such attacks, and raids on the island are known to have occurred in 1533, 1540, 1541, 1544, 1545, 1546, 1547 and 1550. Ottoman corsair Dragut led several of these raids, including the 1540 raid in which 50 Gozitans were enslaved and the 1544 raid during which his brother was killed in the fighting; vengeance for this might have been a motivating factor for the 1551 attack.

In 1550, the town of Mahdia in modern Tunisia – which Dragut had been using as his base – was captured by a Spanish-led expedition with Hospitaller support. This led the Ottoman sultanate to send a punitive expedition against Hospitaller Malta and Tripoli in 1551, with the capture of the latter being the primary objective.

Attack

Initial landing on Malta

Fort St. Angelo in Birgu

The invading forces were led by Ottoman admiral Sinan Pasha, who was accompanied by Salah Rais and by Dragut. Their fleet consisted of 145 ships carrying some 10,000 to 12,000 men. The Ottomans first attacked the harbour of Augusta in Sicily, and in early July 1551 the Viceroy of Sicily informed the Hospitallers of this incursion and that Malta and Tripoli were the Ottomans' next targets.

On 18 July 1551, the Ottoman fleet appeared off the main island of Malta and entered unopposed into Marsamxett Harbour. They briefly occupied the undefended Sciberras Peninsula and reconnoitered the Hospitaller base at nearby Birgu but they determined that the city's defences – consisting of Fort St. Angelo and newly-built fortifications – were too strong for it to be easily conquered.

D'Homedes Bastion within the fortifications of Mdina, which has survived largely unaltered since its construction in the 1540s

The Ottomans then attacked the Maltese countryside including the villages of Birkirkara and Qormi before turning their attention to the inland city of Mdina. The city's fortifications had also recently been upgraded with the addition of bastions. Hospitaller Grand Master Juan de Homedes had sent the knight Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon to defend the city, which had only a small garrison and was overcrowded with thousands of Maltese peasants who had sought refuge inside. The Ottomans briefly besieged the city and plundered the nearby unfortified suburb of Rabat, but on 20 July their fleet moved to St. Paul's Bay and by the next day the invaders retreated and embarked onto their ships.

The reason why the Ottomans retreated from Mdina is a matter of debate. While the city was surrounded, its inhabitants had organised a religious procession in which they placed a statue of Saint Agatha on the city walls; it is possible that when the Ottomans saw large numbers of people on the walls they may have thought that the city was manned by a large garrison and that besieging it would have cost them a lot of time. Rumours of a possible Christian relief force arriving from Sicily might have also been a factor.

Attack on Gozo and sack of the Castello

The northern walls of the Castello, which some Gozitans climbed down to escape enslavement

1579 plaque commemorating Bernardo de Opuo, now located at the Gozo Museum of Archaeology

Copy of the above plaque affixed to the façade of de Opuo's residence, which now lies in ruins

Before the attack on Gozo began, some Gozitans reportedly sent some women and children by boat to Malta, but Homedes is said to have refused to allow them to take refuge in Birgu and turned them back, stating that the Gozitan men would be motivated to fight harder if they had their women and children with them.

The Ottomans landed on Gozo on 22 July. The Castello was under the command of the knight Galatian de Sesse, who had been appointed as Governor of Gozo earlier that year. Its defences were obsolete and it only had a small garrison, but as had been the case with Mdina, the fortress was full of people as Gozo's population sought refuge within its walls.

De Sesse sent the jurat Paolo de Nasis to request help from Malta, and Homedes sent a boat loaded with gunpowder and arquebuses but this never arrived as it was captured by the Ottoman fleet while on its way to Gozo. Several soldiers and bombardiers were also captured along with de Nasis, and only a single English bombardier was left on duty inside the Castello.

At around midnight on 23 July, some Gozitans escaped from the Castello by climbing down ropes along its northern walls. Hospitaller historian Giacomo Bosio stated that some 300 managed to escape in this manner, but later historians have estimated that the number might have been around 500 to 700 people, most of whom were likely able-bodied men.

According to Bosio, Sinan Pasha deployed artillery near the Porta Reale and the parish church of St George, and the Castello began to be bombarded on Friday 24 July. The lone English bombardier was one of the early casualties of the attack. De Sesse convened a council meeting with Gozo's elites, and they decided to seek a truce with the invaders on the condition that 200 of the wealthier citizens be spared and allowed to keep their possessions. An Augustinian monk, Bartolomeo Bonavia, was sent as an emissary to negotiate with Sinan Pasha, but the latter only agreed to spare 40 people as he knew that the castle was about to fall.

On Sunday 26 July, after two days of bombardment, de Sesse and the Gozitan elite decided to accept Sinan Pasha's terms and the Castello's gate was opened on that day. The Ottomans rushed in and proceeded to sack the Castello, burning down the Matrice church and the archives and rounding up its inhabitants. Sinan Pasha decided to spare 40 elderly men instead of 40 elites. Bonavia convinced the Ottomans to also spare one woman who was about to give birth, and he himself was also spared as it was customary to not harm any emissaries.

The remaining people inside the Castello – around 700 soldiers and a few thousand inhabitants including women and children – were captured and enslaved. Sources disagree on the exact number: Bosio stated that 5,000 were enslaved while 18th-century Gozitan historian Giovanni Pietro Francesco Agius de Soldanis gave a figure of 6,000 to 7,000. This constituted the majority of the island's population, and Gozo's elites including many members of the Università Gaudisii (the island's governing body) and some Hospitaller knights including de Sesse were among the captives. One Sicilian or Spanish soldier, Bernardo de Opuo, is said to have killed his wife and two daughters in order to spare them from being raped and enslaved. He then killed as many Turks as he could before he himself was killed in the fighting.

After the Castello was taken, the rest of the island was also plundered, other churches were burnt, and the captives were embarked onto the Ottoman fleet which departed Gozo on 30 July. They Ottomans proceeded to North Africa, where they besieged Tripoli and captured the city on 15 August 1551. Unlike the garrison on Gozo, the Hospitaller knights in Tripoli managed to negotiate safe passage to Malta for themselves, but the rest of the city's garrison was also enslaved.

Aftermath

See also: Slavery in the Ottoman Empire and Slavery on the Barbary Coast

Fate of captives

A 19th-century depiction of a slave market in Constantinople, as painted by William Allan

Some of the enslaved Gozitans remained in North Africa, and there are records of some being sold in Tajura, as evidenced by witness testimony in a court case concerning a Gozitan woman who was purchased from there by a Turk before being taken to Tripoli, where she became his concubine and later his wife after converting to Islam. According to tradition, some enslaved Gozitans were taken to Tarhuna in modern Libya, where they and their descendants converted to Islam and assimilated into the local population. Some of them reportedly considered themselves to be Maltese until as late as the 1930s.

After the capture of Tripoli, the majority of the slaves were taken to Constantinople. Many of the adult men – including the former governor de Sesse – are believed to have ended up as galley slaves. A number of surviving court cases and other records from the 1550s and 1560s make reference to Gozitan slaves in the Ottoman capital, including some who were eventually freed or ransomed, some who converted to Islam, and others who died in slavery. It is believed that the majority never returned to the Maltese Islands, while some of those who did manage to obtain their freedom decided not to return to Gozo and instead settled on the main island of Malta (especially within the urban area around the Grand Harbour) or moved to Sicily.

The archives of the Mdina cathedral indicate that in the years after the attack, the Church in Malta collected money in order to ransom some of the slaves, but it did not manage to raise sufficient funds to secure the release of a substantial number of captives. There are records of some richer Gozitans being ransomed shortly after their capture, including priest and notary Lorenzo de Apapis who returned to Malta by October 1553. As the parish priest of Gozo's St George parish, de Apapis became one of the leaders of the surviving community on Gozo in the years after the attack. The parish priest of the Matrice church, Nicola Castelletti, was also ransomed but reportedly died while on his way back to Gozo.

De Sesse was eventually also ransomed and he returned to Malta in 1556, but he was subsequently imprisoned by the Hospitallers as he was accused of betraying the Order by surrendering Gozo. The charges against him were eventually dropped after his conduct was deemed to have been reasonable considering the superiority of the enemy forces, and he was released by Claude de la Sengle on 14 August 1557.

An analysis of Gozitan surnames mentioned in surviving records has revealed that many pre-1551 surnames resurfaced on the island by the late 16th century, but there are some surnames which are only attested to in pre-1551 sources and which never appear in later Gozitan or Maltese sources – namely Agueina, Aluisa, Calimera, Cianba, Gerardu, Giarda, Lazu, Lazarun, Marinara, Xaura, Xluc and Xucula. This suggests that people from these families lived out their lives as slaves and never returned to the Maltese Islands.

Resettlement of Gozo

17th-century map of Gozo and Comino

Shortly after the Ottomans left Gozo, the Hospitallers sent their fleet to Gozo where they salvaged some munitions and ferried the island's few remaining inhabitants to Malta. The knight Pietro Olivares was appointed as Governor of Gozo in 1553, and the Gozitans who had avoided capture and some of those who were ransomed later returned to the island. The existence of notarial records from Gozo dated 1553 and baptismal records and lawsuits dated 1554 indicate that some degree of normality returned to the island a couple of years after the attack. Some of the Gozitans who were in captivity retained title to their lands in Gozo through procurators who administered their estates on their behalf, while some who managed to return found that their lands had been encroached on by Maltese workers. There are records of a number of legal disputes relating to ownership of property left behind by those who had been killed or enslaved during the attack, some of which lasted until the late 16th century.

The 1551 attack resulted in "the dispersal and destruction of most of the community on the island" of Gozo, and there was a notable shortage of women on the island in the first few years after the attack, as many of the Gozitans who had avoided capture had been men, and their numbers were bolstered by soldiers the Hospitallers sent to garrison the Castello after the attack. Prior to 1551 Gozo had produced a surplus of agricultural products which were sold in Malta; since most of those enslaved had been farmers, there were few people to work the land after the attack and Malta had to increase its imports from Sicily as a result.

Gozo remained depopulated until it was resettled by Maltese and some Sicilians in a gradual process which took decades. Resettlement seems to have peaked in around 1580, but it took around a century for the island's population to reach pre-1551 levels. Many of the Maltese settlers on Gozo originated from rural areas on the main island, including Naxxar, Mosta and Għargħur in the north, Żebbuġ and Siġġiewi in the centre, and Żurrieq, Safi and Qrendi in the south. Apart from Maltese and Sicilians, there are also records of some settlers from mainland Italy, including Naples and Verona.

Some of the commonest surnames on Gozo as of the early 21st century – including Attard, Camilleri, Portelli, Azzopardi and Spiteri – are not mentioned in any pre-1551 Gozitan records, and they are believed to have been introduced to the island by Maltese settlers following the 1551 attack. Another common Gozitan surname, Sultana, is first attested to in relation to a Sicilian who settled on the island in 1569.

Efforts to improve defences

Plans of proposals to modernize Mdina (left) and the Gozo Castello (right); although neither of these exact proposals were implemented, both fortresses were later upgraded between the 16th and 18th centuries.

With the sacking of Gozo and the loss of Tripoli in quick succession, the Hospitallers anticipated that another Ottoman attack would take place in the sailing season of 1552. Grand Master de Homedes evacuated non-combatants to Syracuse and Licata in Sicily, and the Order's Council decided to focus its efforts on improving the fortifications of Malta in case of another attack.

Viceroy of Sicily Juan de Vega sent the military engineer Pietro Prado to Malta, and in January 1552 the latter and a commission of Hospitaller knights reviewed the island's defences. It was decided to hastily build two new fortresses at strategic points around the Grand Harbour on the main island: Fort Saint Elmo at the tip of the Sciberras peninsula and Fort Saint Michael at the landward side of the Isola peninsula. Existing fortifications including Fort Saint Angelo were also strengthened. Although the anticipated 1552 attack did not materialise, these forts later played a key role in the Great Siege of Malta in 1565, during which Dragut himself was killed in action during an attack on Fort Saint Elmo. Although the damage that the Castello of Gozo had sustained in 1551 was repaired by the 1560s, and all debris from the attack were cleared by 1568, no efforts were made to modernise it in the years after the attack.

There are records of other raids on Gozo occurring in 1560, 1563, 1572, 1574, 1583, 1598 and 1599; during the 18 October 1583 raid, Rabat was sacked and 70 people were taken as slaves by corsairs from Bizerte. Works to upgrade the Castello only began in 1599, and by 1622 its southern walls had been completely rebuilt as a bastioned enceinte. Gozitan women and children were required by law to sleep within the Castello until 1637. Further efforts to improve Gozo's defences were made throughout the 17th century with the construction of a network of coastal watchtowers. The first to be built were large towers at Mġarr, Marsalforn and on the small island of Comino in the 1600s and 1610s, followed by a series of smaller towers at Xlendi, Dwejra, Mġarr ix-Xini and Daħlet Qorrot in the 1650s and 1660s. A series of coastal batteries, redoubts and entrenchments along with Fort Chambray were added in the 18th century.

Legacy

Loss of historical records

Most paper records which existed on Gozo prior to 1551 were lost or destroyed during the attack. De Soldanis wrote in the 18th century that the Ottomans "[burnt] all archives and documents they could find. They saved some documents and carried them to Constantinople where they remain to the present day."

Although there are claims that some saw these looted documents in Constantinople during the 19th century, the relocation of Gozitan records to the Ottoman capital has not been verified, and several attempts by the British colonial government of Malta to retrieve them were unsuccessful. Following an 1848 petition by Baron Giuseppe Maria Depiro, Governor Richard More O'Ferrall requested the colonial secretary Earl Grey to assist him in locating any surviving Gozitan records in Constantinople. In 1849 the Earl wrote to O'Ferrall that following enquiries made by the British ambassador, "it appears that no such documents as those supposed to have been taken from the island of Gozo in the year 1551 are in existence in that capital."

Lewis Mizzi, a Maltese lawyer who lived in Constantinople in the late 19th century, was later tasked with finding these documents by secretary Henry Houlton, but his two-decade-long search proved to be unsuccessful. Governor Francis Grenfell raised the matter again in 1900 with the assistance of historian Alfredo Mifsud; the latter claimed that it was possible that some of the archives may have ended up in Palermo rather than Constantinople as some Ottoman ships were reportedly captured by French ships and were taken to Sicily shortly after the 1551 attack. Mifsud also wrote that "having regard to the way in which books and documents were and are preserved in the Turkish capital, even if these archives were really taken to Constantinople they must, by this time, have become quite unreadable and therefore of little value."

Some of the few surviving pre-1551 notarial records from Gozo are now preserved at the Notarial Archives in Valletta; it is possible that at least some of these had indeed been taken to Constantinople but were returned to Malta via France. The Palermo archives reportedly also still contain some Gozitan records.

Folklore and legends

View of Mġarr ix-Xini with Newwiela Point visible in the background at left; according to tradition the Gozitan captives were loaded onto Ottoman ships from this location

The events of July 1551 are referenced in Maltese folklore. The fact that poorly-defended Mdina managed to hold out was attributed by some to divine intervention; similar legends had previously arisen from an earlier siege of the city in 1429.

According to tradition, the 1551 attack was Dragut's revenge against the Gozitans after his brother had been killed during a previous raid on the island in 1544, in which the Gozitans are said to have burnt his body instead of allowing him a proper burial. An islet off Gozo which is known as Ħalfa Rock is said to have been the place where Dragut swore an oath (Maltese: ħalfa) of revenge against the people of Gozo.

Several other places are associated with the 1551 attack, including an area known as Misraħ it-Torok or il-Misraħ tat-Torok located between Gelmus and Għasri which is said to have been the site of an Ottoman camp, and Newwiela Point near Mġarr ix-Xini from where the Gozitans are said to have embarked onto the Ottoman ships. The latter is said to have got its name from the invaders' cries of "Newwel, newwel, erġa newwel" (a phrase meaning "Hand [them] over" in Maltese or Arabic) as they were loading the captives. Newwiela Point is a promontory with high inaccessible cliffs so it is unlikely that this tradition is true, and the place name probably predates 1551.

Bernardo de Opuo also came to be seen as a legendary and heroic figure (although whether his killing of his own family should really be described as heroic has been questioned by Giovanni Bonello). There are also legends related to buried treasure including precious objects from the Matrice church and a bell from Żebbuġ which were supposedly hidden by Gozitans prior to the attack but which were never recovered.

Monuments and memorials

Memorial at Villa Rundle Gardens installed in 2013

1551 Memorial outside the Cittadella installed in 2016

A plaque with an Italian inscription and a fleur-de-lis commemorating Bernardo de Opuo was installed on the façade of his former residence within the Castello by Gozo's Università in July 1579. This has since been replaced by a copy, with the original plaque now being preserved at the Gozo Museum of Archaeology.

A mosaic monument referencing the attack was made by children under the direction of artist Mary Portelli and it was installed at Villa Rundle Gardens in 2013. Another monument commemorating the victims of the attack designed by artist John Grima was installed outside the walls of the Cittadella in 2016 as part of a major restoration project.

A parking area in Victoria is named Pjazza l-Assedju after the attack.

Annual memorials are held on the anniversary of the attack.

Literature and the arts

The 1551 attack is featured in a number of historical fiction books, including The Disorderly Knights (1966) by Dorothy Dunnett, and Eight Pointed Cross (2011), Falcon's Shadow (2020) and Ash Fall (2022) by Marthese Fenech.

The attack and its aftermath was featured in several paintings by Gozitan artist Paolo Camilleri Cauchi. It has also been the subject of various re-enactments, poems, musical dramas, concerts, and plays.

See also

• Siege of Malta (1429)
• Great Siege of Malta (1565)

Further reading

• Bezzina, Joseph (2021). 1551 – The Siege That Stifled Gozo. Victoria, Gozo.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
• Cachia, Carm C. (2021). L-Assedju t'Għawdex tal-1551 u l-Ġrajja ta' Bernardo De Opuo (in Maltese). Gozo: Cultural Heritage Directorate – Ministry for Gozo. ISBN 978-9918-0-0034-0.