Mostanqia (St. George's Night)

The Emirate of Mostanqia was a semi-autonomous Ottoman colony established in the New World in the 1520s, primarily as a base for raiding Spanish treasure ships, although it would later expand into a large and powerful semi-independent state under the Barbarossa emirs. Founded by Oruc and Hayreddin, two Algerian corsairs and nominal Ottoman vassals who sought to attack the galleons bringing gold from the south, the area was settled largely by the expelled Muslim population of Granada, the Moriscos, in contrast to other Ottoman colonies largely settled by Turks, contributing to a brutal rivalry with Spanish colonies in the New World that led to numerous wars. The Emirate's existence came to an end when internal religious divisions and the weakening grip of the Ottomans led to civil war and eventual independence in the 1700s.