Second Barbary War and Lasting Legacy

In the early years of the United States, American ships faced a threat far from home along the North Coast of Africa. Sailors were captured, tribute was demanded, and the Young Republic had to decide whether it would pay for peace or fight for its place in the high seas. The result was America's first overseas military conflict and the birth of a new navy. Yet, despite its historical significance, it's been almost completely forgotten today. Learn more about the Barbari Wars on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily This episode is sponsored by Quince. Summer's here and if you happen to live in a place with actual seasons as I do, that means wearing entirely different clothes. Wool sweaters are great when the temperatures drop, but they're not the best option when you're outside in the sun. Quince has European linen pants and shirts that are the perfect warm weather upgrade to add to your rotation, starting at dollar thirty four dollars . 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See Mint Mobile for details During the seventeenth and eighteenth century, four states along the North African coast, Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, known collectively as the Barb ary States , operated a system of organized maritime piracy that functioned as both a business and a form of state craft . Pirates from the Barbary States would seize unprotected merchant ships off the northast Co of Africa and demand ransoms from the crews families and governments. The general practice at the time was to simply pay tributes to the pirates for safe passage in the Mediterranean rather than confront them militarily. Morocco was an independent kingdom, while Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli owed a loose alliance to the Ottoman Empire, but effectively operated autonomously. These were not simple criminal enterprises, but quasi sovereign entities whose rulers understood that the threat of violence was a renewable economic resource. European powers had found it cheaper to pay than to fight. The two major European powers, Great Britain and France, found it expedient to encourage the barbary state policies and to pay tribute to them as this allowed their merchant shipping to secure a larger share of Mediterranean trade. Captured ships were often seized, their cargo sold, and their crews enslaved or held for ransom . This system had existed for centuries . Before independence, American merchant ships had been protected by the British Royal Navy and treaties Britain had signed with the Barbary Powers. However , once the United States became independent, that protection disappeared. American ships now sailed under a weak new flag backed by no serious navy and no established diplomatic leverage. To the barbary rulers, the United States was just another maritime state that could be forced to pay for safe pass age . The problem appeared almost immediately after the Treaty of Paris was signed in seventeen eighty three, ending the Revolutionary War. In seventeen eighty four, Moroccan Corsairs captiuersred the American Brig Betsy . Morocco, however, proved to be the easiest of the barbarity powers to deal with. In seventeen eighty six, the United States signed a treaty with Morocco, one of the earliest treaties in American diplomatic hist . That treaty recognized American shipping rights and established peaceful relations. Morocco would remain the least troublesome of the barbary states to the United States . Algiers , however, was a much bigger problem. In seventeen eighty five, Algerian corsairs captured the American ships Maria and Dophan, taking their crews prisoner. The United States, under the Articles of Confederation, had almost no ability to respond . It had no navy, little money, and a very weak central government. American diplomats such as Thomas Jefferson and John Adams debated how to respond. Adams believed paying tribute might be unavoidable, at least temporarily because the United States lacked any force. Jefferson favored building a Navy and resisting tribute, arguing that paying only encouraged more demands. It was kind of the eighteenth century version of We Don't Negotiate with Terrorists . The debate exposed a basic weakness in the early United States. American merchants wanted access to Mediterranean trade, but the government lacked the tools to defend them. In seventeen ninety four, the continuing threat from Malgiers helped lead the Congress to authorize the creation of the United States Navy. The Naval Act of seventeen ninety four provided for six frigates, including famous ships such as the USS Constitution, the USS United States, and the USS Constellation . These ships were originally intended in large part, to deal with the barbary pirate threat, although they would first see major action during the quasi war with France. Despite the naval buildup, the United States initially chose tribute. In seventeen ninety five, it signed a treaty with Algiers agreeing to pay large sums and provide equipment to build and maintain ships in exchange for the release of American captives and protection for American shipping. Similar arrangements followed with Tripoli and Tunis . This was humiliating for the country, but practical. The United States was still young, financially strained, and militarily limited. So paying tribute bought them time . However, the arrangement didn't last . The most serious challenge came from Tripoli, ruled by Yusef Karamani, the Pasha of Tripoli. He believed that the United States was not paying him enough compared to what it paid Algiers . In eighteen oh one, shortly after Thomas Jefferson became president, Tripoli demanded a larger payment, and Jefferson refused. In response, Tripoli declared war by cutting down the flagpole at the US Consulate, the traditional local sign that relations had been broken. This was the beginning of what became known as the First Barbary War fought from eighteen oh one to eighteen oh five. It was not a conventional war with mass armies on land. It was a naval and diplomatic conflict centered on blockades, raids, coastal bombardments, prisoner exchanges, and pressure on Tri'psoli government . It was also not a war declared by Congress as specified under the Constitution. Jefferson sent a naval squadron to the Mediterranean. At first, the American efforts were very cautious . The Navy was new, commanders had limited experience operating so far from home, and logistics so far from home were very difficult. The United States had to maintain ships across the Atlantic, negotiate with European ports, and operate near hostile shores. Still, the deployment itself was significant. It showed that the United States was willing to send armed forces overseas to defend its commerce . The early war featured blockades of Tripoli and engagements with Tropolitan vessels. One of the first dramatic American successes came in eighteen oh one when the schooner USS Enterprise, commanded by Lieutenant Andrew Starrit, defeated the Tropolitan Corsair named Tripoli . Because Congress had not issued a formal declaration of war, the captured enemy ship was disarmed and released rather than taken as a prize. And that reflected the ambiguous nature of the conflict. Tripoli considered itself at war, but the United States treated the matter as a limited naval campaign authorized by presidential and congressional action, which was short of a formal war. The war's most famous disaster came in October of eighteen oh three when the frigate USS Philadelphia, commanded by Captain William Bainbridge, ran aground on an unchartered reef while blockade Tripoli . The ship couldn't be freed and Tropolitan forces captured it along with its crew of more than three hundred men . This was a major blow to the Americans. The Philadelphia was one of the most powerful ships in the U. S. Navy, and if Tripoli managed to refloat it and use it, the balance of power in the region could shift. The American response became one of the legendary episodes in early U. S. Naval history . In february eighteen oh four, Lieutenant Stephen Decatur led a small raiding party into Tripoli Harbor aboard the intrepid, disguised as a local vessel. Decatur and his men boarded the Philadelphia, overcame its guard s, set the ship on fire, and escaped . The raid denied Tripoli the use of the frigate and became a minor military victory and a major morale victory. British Admiral Horatio Nelson is often said to have called it one of the most daring acts of the age. The United States also bombarded Tripoli from the sea in eighteen oh four. Commodore Edward Prebble led aggressive attacks against the harbor using frigates, gunboats, and mortar vessels . These actions did not capture the city, but they increased pressure on the Pasha and demonstrated that American forces could operate effectively in the Mediterranean. At the same time, the United States pursued a landward political strategy. Former U. S. Consul William Eaton promoted a plan to replace Eustf Karamanley with his brother Hammett Caramanley who had been pushed out of power. Eaten believed that banking Hammett could force Tripoli to make peace or even create a friendly government. With a small force of U. S. Marines, Greek and Arab mercenaries, and supporters of Hammett, Eden marched across the desert from Egypt towards Tropolitan territory. This campaign produced the Battle of Durna in April of eighteen oh five. Eaton's force supported by U. S. naval vessels offshore captured the city of Durna. It was the first time the American flag was raised in victory on a foreign battlefield, and it was later immortalized in the Marine Corps hymn with the phrase to the shores of Tripoli . Militarily, Durna was not the conquest of Tripoli itself, but psychologically and diplomatically, it mattered a great deal. It showed that the United States could threaten the Pasha from both land sea. The war ended in eighteen oh five with a treaty between the United States and Tripoli. The agreement required the United States to pay sixty thousand dollars for the release of American prisoners from the Philadelphia, but it did not agree to the kind of continuing annual tribute that Tripoli had demanded. And this left the outcome unresolved. The United States did pay a ransom, so it was not a total refusal to pay anything , but it also proved willing to fight rather than submit to escalating demands, and it secured peace on better terms than Tripoli had originally sought. The First Barbari War became a source of national pride. It strengthened the reputation of the U. S. Navy and Marine Cor ps, gave early American officers valuable experience and helped create a tradition of defending American commerce abroad. It also reinforced Jefferson's belief that a republic could use a limited naval force without maintaining a large standing army. However, the Barbary problem wasn't fully solved. After the First Barbary War, the United States still had to manage relations with Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. During the war of eighteen twelve, American attention turned back to Britain. With the U. S. Navy occupied, Algiers resumed attacks on American shipping. In eighteen twelve, the leader of Algiers rejected the existing agreement with the United States and declared war . American ships were captured and Americans were again held prisoner. But once the war of eighteen twelve ended, the United States moved quickly. In eighteen fifteen, President James Monroe sent a squadron to the Mediterranean under Commodore Stephen Decatur, who became one of the country's most celebrated naval officers. This began the Second Barbary War . Decatur's campaign was swift and aggressive. In June of eighteen fifteen, his squadron captured the Algerian flagship Mesuta off the coast of Spain. Soon after he captured another Algerian vessel, the Estidio. These victories gave Dateorc immediate leverage. He then sailed to Algiers and demanded a treaty. Faced with an American naval force and no time to prepare, Algiers capitulated. The resulting treaty ended tribute payments by the United States to Algi ers, freed American prisoners without ransom, and requested compensation for seized American property. Decatur then sailed to Tunis in Tripoli and pressured those governments into similar settlements, including compens ation for violating American ships during the recent conflicts. The second Barbary War was much shorter than the first, but in some ways it was more decisive. The United States no longer approached the Barbary States as a weak country seeking just tolerable terms. To be fair, barbary piracy did not end solely because of the United States. European powers, especially Britain and later France, also acted against the Barbary States . In eighteen sixteen, a joint British Dutch fleet bombarded Algiers and forced the release of many European captives. France's conquest of Algiers in eighteen thirty effectively ended Algiers as a Barbary power , but the American wars were part of the much broader decline of the Mediterranean tribute system. The Barbary Wars had several lasting consequences for the United States . First, they helped justify the creation and maintenance of a permanent navy. Many Americans in the seventeen nineties had been suspicious of standing military forces seeing them as a tool of monarchy and tyranny, but the Barbary Crisis showed that a commercial republic needed to be a naval power. Second, the wars established an early precedent for American military action overseas. The United States did not fight the Barbary Wars to annex territory or build an empire. It fought it just to prot ect trade, free captives, and end tribute. Third, the wars shifted the identity of the United States Marine Corps and Navy. Decatur's raid on the Philadelphia, the bombardments of Tripoli, and the capture of Durna all became foundational stories in these branches of service. In the end, the Barbary Wars were not merely episodes of piracy suppression. They were the young American Republic's first real lesson in the cost of independence . Without British protection, the United States had to decide whether it would pay for safety or build the power to defend itself. At first it did both and eventually it chose force over tribute . The result was a stronger Navy, a more confident foreign policy, and the first steps of the United States as a global power. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Keefer