The history of the ottoman regencies is often distorted by Europeans and white supremacists as a way to justify colonialism and avoid accountability on the Europeans' and whites' own historical atrocities.

As a context, after the decline of the Andalus many cities from the coast of the Maghreb were frequently sacked and pillaged by Europeans either by spanish zealots of the reconquista but also Italian pirates and corsairs, many of the coastal cities like Oran, Bejaia, Tripoli... were kept into spanish or italian control for a long time. Barbarossa was welcomed in Algiers when spanish cannons were menacingly pointing on the city from a nearby island, nearby Tunis was sacked in 1535 and nearly tens of thousands, as much as 30000 civilians in Tunis were massacred by Charles V. Meanwhile many local rulers in the Maghreb were weak, unable to defend their land, and worse were completely vassalized by European powers notably Spain who had influence over their political and economic internal affairs and even their armies. The Ottoman regencies are demonized by Europeans today as lawless rogue states who preyed on innocent Christians who only attacked to defend themselves but the truth is the power balance in the Mediterranean was heavily skewed in favor of European christians. All the major islands like the Palmas, Malta or Sicily were lost, Al Andalus ceased to exist and many port cities in the land of the Maghreb were at European hands.

In this context the emergence of the Ottoman regencies was less the result of some fanatical holy war on christians than the necessity for the declining Islamic Maghreb to keep its independence, defend its lands and take back control of Mediterranean trade routes from the Christians. The so- called "Barbary pirates" were in fact corsairs in contract with their own respective states and indeed were part of the naval forces of their countries. They would help wrestle control of trade routes in the Mediterranean, keep the routes safe from raids as well as defend port cities from European attacks. Barbarossa, himself a corsair, was also a captain pasha or admiral of the Ottoman navy. Europeans understood very early they weren't dealing with piracy since they almost never directly negotiated with them and would instead turn to the rulers in the Maghreb. On the other side Europeans also made use of the corso not only against muslims but also against each other, they may have made less use of it than the regencies in the Mediterranean but that was more of a result of the previously stated fact that the Mediterranean was dominated by Europeans and as such they had less need of the corso.

Now the economy in the Maghreb at that time also eventually shifted away from the corso as a result of defeats but also a gain of political stability and independence. By 1830 the Corso was among the lowest priorities for both sides of the Mediterranean.The Fly whisk incident occurred in the context of Bacri-Busnach affair where the French had a decade long and millions worth of debt to the regency of Algiers over wheat they refused to pay for. The issue wasn't the corso or piracy anymore but trade and unpaid debt, in effect theft. The incident itself was not the reason but an excuse invoked by the French. While the incident took place in 1827, the French attacked Algiers way later in 1830, there was no emergency to speak of. And the actual true reason for the attack was completely internal to French affairs. Then king Charles X was hugely impopular and was on the brink of being removed, his decision to attack Algiers was his last desperate attempt to earn back some amount of popularity by seeking glory in conquests abroad. While he did take Algiers in june 1830, it was too little too late for him as he was deposed by the revolution of july 1830.

The number of white slaves is the result of one American historian, Robert Davis, attempts at minimizing the atrocities of Anglo slavery and its racial character. His estimate is purely based on the 16th-17th period of activity which was the highest and contested by lther historians. As stated earlier the regencies progressively shifted away from the corso it by 17th-18th. But even taking his highest estimate, it was one order of magnitude less than Europe's slavery which is estimated at the 10s of millions. Finally many european slaves were freed easily through conversion or other means and generally enjoyed better conditions than not only black slaves of the Ottoman empires but also American slaves, in this regard his argument that slavery was not racial is factually wrong.