First Barbary War

Before the American Revolution, Britain's navy protected its sea-going colonist tradesmen from the Americas. By the 1770s one-fifth of the trade of its Atlantic coast colonies exports went to the Mediterranean, in the holds of around 100 American-owned ships. One seaman from the British Isles complained that there was hardly a "petty harbor" without a Yankee bargaining with the natives.

There were in the Mediterranean at this time, Arab-speaking pirates, taking cargoes and enslaving crews. They sailed from the independent state where Morocco is today, and they sailed from Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers, semi-independent areas attached at least in name to the Ottoman sultan in Turkey. Westerners called the region along this North African coastline, Barbary.

British colonists in North America lost the protection of the Royal Navy when they declared independence. By the end of their war against King George III, according to historian Michael Oren, "... most of America's warships had either been captured, sold off, or sunk." The newly independent country was scarcely capable of defending its own coastline. The French had promised to protect American ships, citizens and goods with their navy, but they had lost interest and were unenthusiastic about competition with American tradesmen on the Mediterranean Sea. Ignored by the French, American tradesmen were easy prey for the Arab-speaking pirates from North Africa.

In 1784 an American-owned 300 ton brig, the Betsy, was boarded by pirates with sabers between their teeth and pistols in their belts. They took the American crew and cargo away in the holds of their ships. Two months later, two more ships were captured. Twenty-one U.S. crewmen were fettered and pushed past jeering crowds of Muslims to the ruler of Algiers, Hassan, who called them Christian dogs, put them in a dungeon and fed them fifteen ounces of bread per day. Hassan asked for $60,000 dollars as ransom – an old form of income for rulers like Hassan and for the communities they ruled.

The U.S. Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, complained that paying ransom to Hassan would only encourage more attacks. The U.S. Congress chose bribery. The U.S. paid Algiers its ransom and as much as $1 million each year for the next fifteen years, to the year 1800 – something like 20 percent of government revenues, Federal revenues in 1800 adding up to a little more than 10 million dollars.

In France, Jefferson asked Tripoli's ambassador what right Tripoli had to extort money and take slaves. According to Jefferson, the ambassador answered that such a right was founded on the Laws of the Prophet: that it was written in the Koran that all nations who did not recognize their authority were sinners; that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found; and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners; and that every Muslim slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.

Following Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, the pasha of Tripoli, Yussif Karamanli, demanded $225,000. Jefferson refused. In May, the pasha declared war on the United States, not through any formal written documents, but by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate in Tripoli. Morocco, Algiers and Tunis joined their ally Tripoli against the United States. Jefferson sent some frigates to the Mediterranean, with the approval of Congress – without having declared war.

Seven U.S. ships were sent to the Mediterranean and through 1803 the U.S. maintained a blockade of the Barbary ports and attacked Barbary pirate ships. In 1804, the USS Philadelphia was captured after it ran aground while patrolling Tripoli harbor. Efforts by the Americans to float the ship, while under fire from shore batteries and Tripoli's navy, were unsuccessful. The ship, its captain, William Bainbridge, other officers and crew were held as hostages. A series of inconclusive naval battles were fought in 1804. A turning point in the war came in 1805, at the Battle of Derna, by a combined force of United States Marines and Arab, Greek and Berber mercenaries. This action by the Marine Corps was commemorated in the words "to the shores of Tripoli" in their hymn. The Marines wore leather around their necks as protection from sabers, leaving them with the name leathernecks.

On June 10, 1805, Tripoli's pasha signed a treaty ending hostilities with the United States. Article 2 of the treaty reads:

The Pasha of Tripoli shall deliver up to the American Squadron now off Tripoli, all the Americans in his possession; and all the subjects of the Pasha of Tripoli now in the power of the United States of America shall be delivered up to him; and as the number of Americans in possession of the Pasha of Tripoli amounts to 300 persons, more or less; and the number of Tripolino subjects in the power of the Americans to about 100 more or less,the Pasha of Tripoli shall receive from the United States of America, the sum of $60,000 as a payment for the difference between the prisoners herein mentioned.

The U.S. paid the ransom, buying its sailors out of slavery in exchange for ending the war.

The First Barbary War