Omar Agha

Omar Agha ( – 8 September 1817) was the Dey of the Regency of Algiers from April 1815 to September 1817, after the assassination of his predecessor Mohamed Khaznadji on 7 April 1815, who had been in office for only 17 days.

Early life He was born on the island of Lesbos to a family described in modern Turkish sources as "Turks" but without providing any evidence as to whether the family were Turkish settlers on Lesbos or descended from local Greek converts to Islam. However, the French historian of Ottoman Algeria and the Regency of Algiers Henri Delmas De Grammont explicitly describes Omar Ağa Dey's family as being in origin Greek converts to Islam ("renégats grecs"), basing this on French colonial documents and interviews with descendants of the Dey in both Algeria and Turkey.

His name was Omar ben Mohammed. He left for Algiers at an unknown date, and first became a privateer, then a janissary. He soon became Agha of the Odjak of Algiers.

Rule He launched a war against Tunis, and led the attacks of Barbary privateers on American ships. An expedition of the US Navy led by Commodore Stephen Decatur in command of a squadron of nine ships, was conducted in 1815 against the Regency of Algiers. The episode is known as the Second Barbary War. The operation forced Dey Omar to sign a treaty ending attacks of piracy, a treaty that he denounced shortly thereafter.

The Congress of Vienna, which addressed the problem of Christian slaves from Barbary piracy, charged the United Kingdom and the Netherlands to negotiate with the Dey of Algiers and the Beys of Tunis and Tripoli. Although the latter two were agreeable, Omar Agha was not. It would take the 9-hour Bombardment of Algiers (1816) on 27 August 1816, by an Anglo-Dutch naval force commanded by British Admiral Lord Exmouth, to compel the Dey to abolish Christian slavery. However, the bombardment of Algiers did not destroy Barbary power. Despite the signing of the treaty and the release of 3,000 Christian slaves, Dey Omar set to rebuilding the city's defences, putting its Jewish inhabitants to forced labour in the place of Christian slaves. Moreover, the problem remained such that it was one of the main areas of contention at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle (1818).

Death Thanks to a series of defeats at the hands of Europeans, he was strangled on September 8, 1817, and he was buried within an hour. His successor was Ali ben Ahmed.