The Moroccan port of Salé-Rabat in the seventeenth century has historically been known as one of the main lairs for Muslim corsairs in the early modern Atlantic, the famous "Sallee Rovers." Beneath this romanticized facade, this port was a complex amalgam of multiple Iberian, Moroccan and Northern European influences that intersected with one another in a single urban space. This multi-cultural mosaic poses the question: how do we develop an historical understanding of this community that captures the evident diversity and processes of interaction taking place in this port, while at the same time framing it within its Moroccan context?

In order to address this question, my dissertation relies on a variety of Arabic, French, Dutch, Spanish and English primary sources, which include historical chronicles, captivity narratives, legal rulings, naval journals and diplomatic correspondence, in order to understand the connections between the diverse European communities and this Moroccan port. I also discuss more modern interpretations in the relevant historiography, in particular focusing on certain bipolar paradigms that pertain to the realms of power, religion and technological transfer in the early modern world. Examining the competing and hybrid forms of ideology, identity and nautical technology swirling within this port, I argue that Salé-Rabat was a particularly fertile nexus of interaction between various Moroccan, Iberian and Northern European actors that defies traditional area studies-based paradigms and bipolar constructs. These interactive processes of conflict, cooperation and transmission are central to understanding the maritime port as an intersection of local, regional and more global trends in the early modern world.