Throughout history and despite our academics there have been female pirates skilled in marine maneuver, in tempering brutal crews and in stalking and plundering everything. I would like to highlight the figure of those pirates that were not White, and that their presence in their territories used to scare even the royal families of Spain, the most powerful family in medieval Europe, and other closer kingdoms. One of my favorites, the daughter of a Muslim and a Christian: Malika Fadel ben Salvador.

Fadel never had or needed a license to steal. At her young age of eighteen years old, she alone demonstrated reckless bravery an utterly and absolute lack of scruples when boarding, capturing and plundering ships from anyone else who was not a resident in the Peninsula.

Born into a wealthy family in Almería due to commerce, the young Fadel had a promising future alongside her two older brothers. When her parents die after the invasion of James II of Aragon in 1309, she and her two older brothers are left orphaned and alone, having lost everything after the Reconquista. This is a time when the Castilian king was known for his hatred of all Muslims and Jews in the region and longed to become the owner of all the possessions of each and every one of them.

Fadel's grandfather tried to save as many refugees as possible with the help of his ships, avoiding the Christian galleys in the port and sending the victims to the coast of Morocco, but many did not survive. He sought the greatest tenderness for his granddaughter Malika.

Ibn-Fadel, the grandfather, was known in all the Peninsula for trafficking hashish not only from the Rif, he also arrived as far as Syria in search of the precious Lebanese gold, commanding his three ships. The trips were used, if possible, to practice the old sport of harassing and demolishing Christian ships, on which they fell suddenly, carrying loot and prisoners with which to supply the lucrative slave market that was held at that time in Almería.

Her granddaughter Malika barely left the ship and her grandfather prevented all of her acolytes from her, selected from among the bravest and vile survivors of a thousand quarrels from approaching her. He in fact took her as his own wife, delegating over time to her accounts and distributions, discharging himself from the government and defeat of the fleet.

The Corsair died of the Black Death and ordered his great daughter and wife to be the new leader of the criminal empire that he and later on she had created since she was an infant. Many wanted to obtain the attention of the young heiress, a small and free-spirited woman although athletic and with beautiful turquoise eyes that were told to see the darkness in every man she met. Nonetheless, she seemed to never be interested and her personal Black eunuch would never leave her side, making sure she was safe at all times.

Do not think they were lovers, because once in Egypt, he fell in love with a slave they were selling and he asked Fadel to purchase her and allow him to marry her. She did, and in fact, they became best friends and she built for her a palace so they could hide there the benefits of their quite lucrative businesses. Her story ends after Malika Ben Salvador's fleet was lost to the French-Catalan admiral Perellós in a battle that led to the new war between Castile and Aragon, starting in 1356. In short, she died old, happy, single and surrounded by gold. Never captured, never judged, they could not even reach her.