The Barbary Wars were a series of wars between the United States of America

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 and the Barbary States of North Africa

North Africa

North Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...

 in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At issue was the Barbary pirates

Barbary corsairs

The Barbary Corsairs, sometimes called Ottoman Corsairs or Barbary Pirates, were pirates and privateers who operated from North Africa, based primarily in the ports of Tunis, Tripoli and Algiers. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, a term derived from the name of its Berber...

' demand of tribute

Tribute

A tribute is wealth, often in kind, that one party gives to another as a sign of respect or, as was often the case in historical contexts, of submission or allegiance. Various ancient states, which could be called suzerains, exacted tribute from areas they had conquered or threatened to conquer...

 from American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean Sea

Mediterranean Sea

The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...

. If ships failed to pay, pirates would attack the ships and take their goods, and often hold crew for ransom. United States naval power attacked the fortified pirate cities and extracted concessions of fair passage from their rulers. The administrations of Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...

 and James Madison

James Madison

James Madison, Jr. was an American statesman and political theorist. He was the fourth President of the United States and is hailed as the “Father of the Constitution” for being the primary author of the United States Constitution and at first an opponent of, and then a key author of the United...

 undertook the actions against the Barbary States. Jefferson led the first, from 1801 to 1805, against pirates' cities in what are today Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. Madison directed forces for the second war in 1815.

History

The Barbary pirates had long attacked British and other European shipping along the North Coast of Africa. They had been attacking British merchant and passengers ships since the 1600s. The many captives required regular fundraising by families and local church groups, who generally raised the ransoms for individuals. The British became familiar with captivity narratives written by Barbary pirates' prisoners and some who were sold into Arab slavery before the North America

North America

North America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...

n colonies were well established. This was decades before English colonists became subject to captivity by Native Americans

Indigenous peoples of the Americas

The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...

 and began to write their own narratives.

During the American Revolution

American Revolution

The American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...

, the pirates attacked American ships. On December 20, 1777, Morocco

Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...

's Sultan

Sultan

Sultan is a title with several historical meanings. Originally, it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", "rulership", and "dictatorship", derived from the masdar سلطة , meaning "authority" or "power". Later, it came to be used as the title of certain rulers who...

 Mohammed III

Mohammed III of Morocco

Mohammed Ben Abdellah al-Khatib was Sultan of Morocco from 1757 to 1790 under the Alaouite dynasty. He was the governor of Marrakech around 1750 and was the son of Sultan Abdallah IV who reigned 1745-1757...

 declared that the American merchant ships would be under the protection of the sultanate and could thus enjoy safe passage into the Mediterranean and along the coast. The Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship

Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship

In December 1777, Moroccan sultan Muhammad III included America in a list of countries to which Morocco’s ports were open. With that message to foreign consuls for communication to European capitals, Morocco became the first country whose head of state publicly recognized the new United States...

 stands as the U.S.'s oldest non-broken friendship treaty

Treaty

A treaty is an express agreement under international law entered into by actors in international law, namely sovereign states and international organizations. A treaty may also be known as an agreement, protocol, covenant, convention or exchange of letters, among other terms...

 with a foreign power. In 1787 Morocco had been one of the first nations to recognize the United States.

When the United States military efforts of the early 19th century were successful against the pirates, partisans of the Democratic-Republicans contrasted their presidents' refusals to buy off the pirates by paying tribute with the failure of the preceding federalist administration to suppress the piracy. The Federalist Party had adopted the slogan, "Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute," but had failed to end the attacks on merchant ships. The phrase was attributed to Charles C. Pinckney in the course of the XYZ Affair

XYZ Affair

The XYZ Affair was a 1798 diplomatic episode during the administration of John Adams that Americans interpreted as an insult from France. It led to an undeclared naval war called the Quasi-War, which raged at sea from 1798 to 1800...

. Historians have found the sentence originated with Sen. Robert Goodloe Harper

Robert Goodloe Harper

Robert Goodloe Harper , a Federalist, was a member of the United States Senate from Maryland, serving from January 1816 until his resignation in December of the same year. He also served in the South Carolina House of Representatives , the U.S. House of Representatives from South Carolina , and in...

.

In popular culture

• The Marines Hymn contains a reference to the Barbary Wars in its opening line: "From the halls of Montezuma
  Battle of Chapultepec
  The Battle of Chapultepec, in September 1847, was a United States victory over Mexican forces holding Chapultepec Castle west of Mexico City during the Mexican-American War.-Background:On September 13, 1847, in the costly Battle of Molino del Rey, U.S...
  
   to the shores of Tripoli..."

Further reading

• London, Joshua E. Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2005. ISBN 0-471-44415-4
• Oren, Michael. "Early American Encounters in the Middle East", in Power, Faith, and Fantasy. New York: Norton, 2007.
• Boot, Max. The Savage Wars of Peace: Small Wars and the Rise of American Power. New York: Basic Books, 2002. ISBN 0-465-00720-1
• Lambert, Frank. The Barbary Wars, New York: Hill and Wang, 2005
• A. B. C. Whipple, To the Shores of Tripoli: The Birth of the U.S. Navy and Marines, Bluejacket Books, 1991 ISBN 1-55750-966-2

External links

• The Barbary Wars at the Clements Library:An online exhibit on the Barbary Wars with images and transcriptions of primary documents from the period.
• American Barbary Wars
• America's First War On Terror Paul Fallon, October 17, 2002