Barbary pirates
Barbary pirates were privateers operating primarily along the North African coast, specifically from the Barbary States—comprising modern-day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya—between the 16th and 19th centuries. These pirates played a significant role in the Mediterranean by attacking shipping vessels, plundering goods, and capturing individuals for enslavement. They were often sanctioned by the local governments, functioning under privateering licenses that allowed them to target enemy ships during wartime. This practice was prevalent due to ongoing religious conflicts and the pirates' ability to disrupt maritime trade effectively. Countries seeking to avoid conflict sometimes opted to pay tribute to the pirates rather than confront them militarily. The rise of the Barbary pirates began to decline after the United States engaged them in a series of conflicts in the early 19th century, motivated by a desire to end the tribute payments that had been established. The U.S. Navy's success against the pirates, culminating in peace treaties, marked a significant turning point, although piracy in the region wasn't completely eradicated until the French conquest of Algiers in 1830. Overall, the Barbary pirates represent a complex blend of maritime conflict, economic interests, and the interplay of power in the Mediterranean's historical narrative.
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Barbary pirates
The Barbary pirates were a group of violent privateers who operated out of the Barbary States along the North African coast between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. During that time, the Barbary pirates patrolled the Mediterranean Sea and terrorized local mariners, often on behalf of the Barbary States. These independent city-states, which included the coastal cities of Tangiers, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, essentially employed the Barbary pirates as a way of forcing other countries to pay for safe trade in the Mediterranean. In addition to attacking and plundering ships, the Barbary pirates played an active role in forcing captured Europeans into slavery. All of this largely came to an end in the early nineteenth century after the United States defeated the Barbary pirates in a pair of wars that helped establish the young nation as a naval power and laid the foundation for its approach to foreign policy in the Middle East.
Background
The Barbary pirates first rose to prominence in the sixteenth century. At the time, they were led by the actual rulers of North Africa's Barbary States, which were then largely autonomous city-states. While the Ottoman Empire exerted a certain degree of control over the city-states in modern Algeria and Tunisia, the rest were entirely independent. As a result, the Barbary States were free to pursue wealth and power as they saw fit and readily embraced piracy as a means to those ends. Ultimately, this approach allowed the Barbary States to thrive for decades and allowed them to extend their hold on power not only through the Mediterranean but also into the African interior to the edges of the Sahara Desert.
Though commonly referred to as "pirates," the swashbucklers who prowled the Barbary Coast for hundreds of years would more accurately be defined as privateers or corsairs. Unlike many of the true pirates that operated independently in the Caribbean Sea during the golden age of piracy in the eighteenth century, the Barbary pirates were hired hands who were specifically licensed by various states to disrupt other states' shipping efforts. This meant that if a pirate captain captured an enemy ship in a lawful manner, he would be allowed to keep the ship, its cargo, and its crew in exchange for sharing a portion of the profits with the state that sponsored his activities. Normally, privateering licenses were issued only at wartime and allowed privateers to attack only those ships belonging to their sponsor state's enemies. Due to the fact that the Barbary Coast was in the middle of a long-time religious conflict between Christians and Muslims, privateering and piracy were effectively a permanent practice in the region. It is important to note, however, that while many of the Barbary pirates were Muslim, their ranks also included a large number of Europeans seeking personal profit.
Although the Barbary pirates operated primarily in the Mediterranean and mainly attacked the countries situated along its coastlines, their reign of terror extended northward all the way to the English Channel. In addition to attack at sea, the pirates also sometimes carried out raids on land. Many ports on the coasts of England, Scotland, Ireland, and Iceland endured the Barbary pirates' wrath at various times.
Overview
The Barbary pirates generally relied on a simple but effective method of attack. Rather than attacking enemy ships in groups, each pirate ship sought out targets individually. During their approach, most of the pirates would hide so that it appeared as though their ship had only a small crew aboard. Once they reached their target, the pirates would spring out, board the enemy ship, steal everything they could get their hands on, and kill anyone who resisted. Those who survived the attack often were taken captive and sold into slavery.
In addition to the profit they made from directly attacking and plundering enemy ships, the Barbary pirates made money for themselves and their state sponsors in other ways. Most notably, they happily accepted bribes from countries looking to avoid violence. Rather than confronting the pirates with force, many seafaring countries wishing to conduct trade in the Mediterranean simply chose to bribe the Barbary pirates to leave their ships alone. In effect, countries opted to pay tribute to the pirates instead of challenging their control of the Mediterranean Sea. While this was clearly a beneficial arrangement for the pirates and the Barbary States for which they worked, it ultimately led to their downfall.
When the United States became an independent nation, it was subjected to the same treatment from the Barbary pirates as other countries that did business in the Mediterranean. In 1785, pirates seized an American ship and imprisoned its crew. After diplomatic envoys failed to successfully secure the sailors' release after more than ten years, George Washington finally accepted an agreement with Algiers and Tripoli in which a cash payment and an annual tribute in naval supplies would be delivered in exchange for the release of some of the prisoners. When Thomas Jefferson subsequently became America's third president in 1801, he learned that the United States was paying about one-fifth of its annual income to the Barbary pirates. Dissatisfied with this arrangement, Jefferson decided to use the newly constructed American Navy to make a stand against the pirates.
Hostilities between American forces and the Barbary pirates began after Jefferson refused to negotiate a new agreement with Tripoli in 1801. Jefferson sent four ships into the Mediterranean, but they managed to take only a single pirate vessel. Two years later, the American ship Philadelphia was captured by pirates and held at Tripoli. American forces responded by entering Tripoli, attacking the pirates, and setting the Philadelphia ablaze. This marked the beginning of a war with the Barbary pirates that continued until the US Navy and Marines succeeded in taking the Tripolitan port of Derna in 1805. Despite the loss, piracy in the Mediterranean resumed within two years. The United States ultimately went to war against the Barbary pirates in 1815 and forced Algiers to sign a peace treaty the following year. While pirate activity in the Mediterranean greatly diminished after that, it did not cease entirely until France conquered Algiers in 1830.
Bibliography
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