| Barbary War |
Burning of the frigate Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli, February
16, 1804, by Edward Moran, painted 1897, depicts a naval action of the First Barbary War. |
|
|
| Combatants |
 United States |
 Barbary States (Ottoman Empire
regencies) |
| Commanders |
 Richard Dale
William Eaton
Edward Preble |
Hassan Bey
Murad Reis |
| Strength |
7 Ships
10 US Marines and Soldiers
Christian Mercenaries
Arab Mercenaries |
4000 |
| Casualties |
2 Ships destroyed
2 Marines killed, 3 wounded
Christian/Arab Mercenaries killed and wounded uncertain |
Unknown |
The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Barbary Coast War or the Tripolitan War, was the
first of two wars fought between the United States of
America and the North African states known collectively as the Barbary States. These were the independent Sultanate of Morocco, and the
three Regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, which were quasi-independent entities nominally belonging to the Ottoman Empire.
Background and overview
Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, although nominally governed by the Islamic Ottoman
Empire, had been largely independent Muslim states since the 17th century. The
monarchy of Morocco, which had been under its current government since 1666, was well known by the time of the Barbary Wars for
supporting piracy.
Britain and France had come to uneasy
ententes with the pirates; a combination of
military might, diplomacy, and extorted payments had kept ships flying the Union Flag or
French flag more or less safe from attack. As British colonists before 1776, American merchant vessels had enjoyed the protection
of the Royal Navy. During the American
Revolution, American ships came under the aegis of France due to a 1778 Treaty
of Alliance between the two countries.
However, by 1783 America became solely responsible for the safety of its own commerce and citizens with the end of the
Revolution. Without the means or the authority to field a naval force necessary to protect their ships in the Mediterranean, the
nascent U.S. government took a pragmatic, but ultimately self-destructive route. In 1784, the United States Congress allocated money for payment of tribute to the pirates.
Use for the money came in 1785, when the Dey of Algiers
took two American ships hostage and demanded US$60,000 in ransom for their crews. Then-ambassador to France Thomas Jefferson argued that conceding the ransom would only encourage more attacks ("Millions For
Defense, Not One Cent For Tribute"). His objections fell on the deaf ears of an inexperienced American government too riven with
domestic discord to make a strong show of force overseas. The U.S. paid Algiers the ransom, and continued to pay up to $1 million
per year over the next 15 years for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. Payments in ransom and
tribute to the privateering states amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
Jefferson continued to argue for cessation of the tribute, with rising support from George
Washington and others. With the recommissioning of the American navy in 1794 and the resulting increased firepower on the
seas, it became more and more possible for America to say "no", although by now the long-standing habit of tribute was hard to
overturn.
In 1786 Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi
Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). They asked him by what right he extorted money and took slaves. Jefferson reported to Secretary of State
John Jay, and to the Congress:
The ambassador answered us that [the right] was founded on the Laws of the Prophet (Mohammed), that it was written in their
Koran, that all nations who should not have answered 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 Mussulman (or
Muslim) who should be slain in battle was sure to go to heaven.[1]
Background: Power vacuum in the Mediterranean
The Knights Hospitaller, also known as the Knights of St. John, had begun their
occupation of Rhodes in 1309. They created a new identity as the "Knights of Rhodes" and began to engage the Barbary Pirates in
naval warfare, as part of their greater war on the Ottoman Empire.
To protect Rome from Islamic invasion, in 1530 Charles V deeded the
island of Malta to the knights. The newly christened "Knights of Malta" widened their war against
the pirates and their Ottoman masters to include the entire Mediterranean. From the
16th century until 1798, Malta served as a bastion defending Europe against the corsairs and pirates of Algeria and Barbary, and
Christian nations respected her and kept friendly relations with the Order. Thus, Malta flourished in this golden age of the
Order's history, and the pirate's booty was brought to the island, sold, and the money filled the Treasury of the Order. [1]
In 1798, Napoleon seized Malta en route to his campaign in Egypt.
Requesting safe harbor to resupply his ships, he waited until his ships were safely in port, and then turned his guns on his
hosts. The Knights of Malta were unable to defend themselves from this internal attack. After holding the Barbary Pirates in
check for centuries, they were forced to leave their island stronghold. Napoleon's actions created a power vacuum in the
Mediterranean which the pirates exploited.
Declaration of war and naval blockade
On Jefferson's inauguration as president in 1801, Yussif Karamanli, the
Pasha (or Bashaw) of Tripoli demanded $225,000 from the new
administration. (In 1800, Federal revenues totaled a little over $10 million.) Putting his long-held beliefs into practice,
Jefferson refused the demand. Consequently, in May of 1801, 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. Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis soon followed
their ally in Tripoli.
In response, Jefferson sent a group of frigates to defend American interests in the Mediterranean, and informed
Congress. Although Congress never voted on a formal declaration of war, they did
authorize the President to instruct the commanders of armed vessels of the United States to seize all vessels and goods of the
Pasha of Tripoli "and also to cause to be done all such other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war will
justify."
Enterprise capturing
Tripoli
The USS Enterprise defeated the 14-gun Tripolitan corsair Tripoli, after a fierce but one-sided battle on
August 1, 1801. With none of her crew being injured, Enterprise
released the battered pirate in shame into Tripoli under a single old sail.
The American navy went unchallenged in the sea, and as yet the question remained undecided. Jefferson pressed the issue the
following year, with an increase in military force and deployment of many of the navy's best ships to the region throughout 1802.
USS Argus, USS Chesapeake,
USS Constellation, USS
Constitution, USS Enterprise, USS Intrepid, USS Philadelphia and
USS Syren all saw service during the war under the overall command of Commodore
Edward Preble. Throughout 1803, Preble set up and maintained a blockade of the Barbary
ports and executed a campaign of raids and attacks against the cities' fleets.
Battles
-
In October 1803 Tripoli's fleet was able to capture the USS Philadelphia intact after the frigate ran aground while
patrolling Tripoli harbor. Efforts by the Americans to float the ship while under fire from shore batteries and Tripolitanian
naval units were unsuccessful. The ship, its captain, William Bainbridge, and all
officers and crew were taken ashore and held as hostages. On February 16, 1804, a small contingent of U.S. sailors in a disguised USS Intrepid (which looked like a local vessel
because she had been captured by the Navy when she left Tripoli three months earlier) and led by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur, Jr., were able to invade the harbour of Tripoli and burn the Philadelphia,
denying her use to the enemy. Decatur's bravery in action made him one of the first American military heroes since the
Revolution.
Preble attacked Tripoli outright on July 14, 1804 in a series
of inconclusive battles, including a courageous but unsuccessful attack by the fire ship USS
Intrepid under Captain Richard Somers. Intrepid, packed with explosives,
was to enter Tripoli harbour and destroy itself and the enemy fleet; it was destroyed, perhaps by enemy guns, before achieving
that goal, killing Somers and his crew.
The turning point in the war came with the Battle of Derna (April-May 1805), after a
remarkably daring overland attack on the Tripolitan city of Derna by a combined force of United
States Marines and Arab, Greek and Berber mercenaries under the command of ex-consul
William Eaton, who went by the rank of general, and US Marine First Lieutenant
Presley O'Bannon. This action, memorialized in the Marine Hymn — "to the shores of Tripoli" — gave the American forces a significant advantage.
Peace treaty and legacy
Wearied of the blockade and raids, and now under threat of a continued advance on Tripoli proper and a scheme to restore his
deposed older brother Hamet Karamanli as ruler, Yussif Karamanli signed a treaty ending
hostilities on June 10, 1805. Although the Senate did not approve the treaty until the following year, this effectively ended the First
Barbary War.
Article 2 of the Treaty reads:
The Bashaw of Tripoli shall deliver up to the American Squadron now off Tripoli, all the Americans in his possession; and all
the Subjects of the Bashaw 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 Bashaw of Tripoli amounts to Three Hundred Persons, more or less; and the number of
Tripolino Subjects in the power of the Americans to about, One Hundred more or less; The Bashaw of Tripoli shall receive from the
United States of America, the sum of Sixty Thousand Dollars, as a payment for the difference between the Prisoners herein
mentioned.
In agreeing to pay a ransom of sixty thousand dollars for the American prisoners, the Jefferson administration drew a
distinction between paying tribute and paying ransom. At the time, some argued that buying sailors out of slavery
was a fair exchange to end the war. William Eaton, however, remained bitter for the rest of his life about the treaty, feeling
that his efforts had been squandered by the State Department diplomat Tobias Lear. Eaton
and others felt that the capture of Derna should have been used as a bargaining chip to obtain the release of all American
prisoners without having to pay ransom. Furthermore, Eaton believed the honour of the United States had been compromised when it
abandoned Hamet Karamanli after promising to restore him as leader of Tripoli. Eaton's complaints generally fell on deaf ears,
especially as attention turned to the strained international relations which would ultimately lead to the War of 1812.
The First Barbary War was beneficial to the military reputation of the United States. America's military command and war
mechanism had been up to that time relatively untested. The First Barbary War showed that America could execute a war far from
home, and that American forces had the cohesion to fight together as Americans rather than Georgians or New Yorkers. The
United States Navy and Marines
became a permanent part of the American government and the American mythos, and Decatur returned to the U.S. as its first
post-Revolutionary war hero.
However, the more immediate problem of Barbary piracy was not fully settled. By 1807, Algiers had gone back to taking American
ships and seamen hostage. Distracted by the preludes to the War of 1812, the U.S. was unable to respond to the provocation until
1815, with the Second Barbary War.
Monument
The Tripoli
Monument, the oldest military monument in the U.S., honors the heroes of the First Barbary War: Captain Richard Somers,
Lieutenant James Caldwell, James Decatur, Henry Wadsworth, Joseph Israel, and John Dorsey. Originally known as the Naval
Monument, it was carved of Carrara marble in Italy in 1806 and brought to the United States as ballast on board the USS
Constitution (Old Ironsides). From its original location in the Washington Navy Yard it was moved to the west terrace of the
national Capitol and finally, in 1860, to the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland.
See also
References
Further reading
- Toll, Ian W. (2006), Six Frigates: The Epic History of the Founding of the U.S. Navy, W. W.
Norton, ISBN 978-0393058475
- London, Joshua E. (2005), written at New Jersey, Victory in Tripoli: How America's War with
the Barbary Pirates Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation, John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN
0-471-44415-4
- Lambert, Frank The Barbary
Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World New York: Hill and Wang, 2005. ISBN
- Adams, Henry. History of the United States of America During the Administrations of
Thomas Jefferson. Originally published 1891; Library of America edition 1986.
ISBN.
- De Kay, James Tertius. A Rage for Glory: The Life of Commodore Stephen Decatur, USN. Free Press, 2004. ISBN.
- Wheelan, Joseph. Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror, 1801–1805. New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003.
ISBN.
- Zacks, Richard. The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805. New York:
Hyperion, 2005. ISBN.
- Smethurst, David. Tripoli: The United States' First War on Terror. New York: Presidio Press, 2006.
External links
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