The Barbary pirates, also sometimes calle Ottoman corsairs, were Muslim pirates and privateers that operated from North Africa, from the time of the Crusades until the early 19th century. Based in Tunis, Tripoli, Algiers, Salé and ports in Morocco, they preyed on Christian and other non-Islamic shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea. Their stronghold was along the stretch of northern Africa known as the Barbary Coast (a medieval term for the Maghreb after its Berber inhabitants), but their predation was said to extend throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard, and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland. They often made raids, called Razzias, on European coastal towns to capture Christian slaves to sell at slave markets in places such as Algeria and Morocco. According to Robert Davis, from the 16th to 19th century, pirates captured 1 million to 1.25 million Europeans as slaves. These slaves were captured mainly from seaside villages in Italy, Spain and Portugal, and from farther places like France or England, the Netherlands, Ireland and even Iceland and North America.