What Were the Barbary Pirate Wars? (Part 1)
A Forgotten Tale of Shanties and Swashbuckling that Established America as a Worldwide Power.
In the 1780s, the nascent United States had a big problem: pirates.
More specifically, pirates from 4 nations on the North African coast known collectively as the Barbary States. These nations were Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli.
Barbary corsairs, or pirate ships, frequently attacked merchant ships in and around the Mediterranean Sea, plundering the ship’s booty and selling their crews into slavery.
Many countries opted to pay hefty tributes, prompting each Barbary State to forbid their corsairs from attacking ships bearing their flag. Even mighty seafaring empires like France and Great Britain chose to pay this tribute rather than confront the pirates head-on.
America, however, had neither option readily available.
Having emptied their coffers prosecuting the Revolutionary War with Britain and with no standing navy, America was helpless to stop the pirates from pillaging their ships.
In the 1780s, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with the Tripolitan Ambassador, Abdrahaman, in London hoping to strike a deal and establish peace between the two nations.
At first, there seemed to be some hope of a paid peace.
Adams found Ambassador Abdrahaman to be an amenable man who could be reasoned with, but by the second day of negotiations, it was clear that the price was too high for the young nation to bear.
If peace was so costly to secure why did Americans continue risking life and limb by trading in the Mediterranean Sea?
Simply because trade in the region was vital. According to Brian Kilmeade’s book on the subject, Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates,
“Trade with Southern Europe… [was] one key piece of the nation’s economic health… a quarter of New England’s most important export, dried salt cod, went to markets there, as did one sixth of the country’s grain exports. Rice and lumber were also important exports.”
America Sets Sail
To secure vital American shipping in the Mediterranean Sea, many Americans thought that a navy must be constructed to meet the pirate threat.
President Washington, being opposed to involvement in foreign affairs, initially did not support raising a navy to quash the Barbary threat. However, upon realizing the futility of the negotiation situation, he signed off on the building of 6 frigates, launched between 1797 and 1800. (Among these 6 frigates is the venerable U.S.S. Constitution which still serves her country today as a part of the United States Navy).
During the tenure of Federalist presidents Washington and Adams, the federal government was reluctant to use force to establish a Mediterranean peace. Their Anti-Federalist counterpart, Thomas Jefferson, had no such compunctions.
In June of 1800, President Jefferson sent a small flotilla to the Mediterranean Sea. Jefferson knew that in the Middle East power is the only real currency in foreign affairs. Projection of strength was the only way to secure a lasting peace. However, the first attempt to project strength ended in an embarrassing blunder for the young nation.
Bainbridge’s Blunder
Captain William Bainbridge was given command of the USS George Washington in Philadelphia in 1800. Captain Bainbridge set sail to the port of Algiers to meet with the Dey, or leader, of the city.
His ship struck an imposing figure on the hazy horizon of the North African coast. Captain Bainbridge’s presence, it was thought, would strike enough fear into the Dey to force him into terms amenable to the Americans.
This was not to be.
Captain Bainbridge laid anchor too close to the Dey’s cannons on shore, which could easily fire on and destroy the George Washington. The captain knew he’d been beaten.
Bainbridge was forced into a humiliating errand. He was to ferry men, animals, and materials from Algiers to Constantinople. As the Dey made expressly clear, the young Americans were essentially “owned” by the Algerians.
Although war had not officially broken out, it was clearly on the horizon. The Americans could no longer accept the international situation in the Mediterranean Sea.
Flags Fall; Sails Raise
By 1801 tensions between America and the Barbary states reached a fever pitch. In particular, tensions with Tripoli became untenable.
On May 14th, 1801, the Pasha of Tripoli Yusef Qaramanli declared war on the United States of America. The Pasha ordered diplomats expelled, ties cut, and the wooden flagpole outside of the American Embassy in Tripoli cut down.
The American flag fell to the ground along with any hope of a peaceful resolution to the Barbary crisis.
In response to the declaration of hostilities, President Jefferson dispatched several ships to blockade Tripoli harbor. Among these ships was the USS Philadelphia, captained by William Bainbridge, the same captain who suffered the embarrassment of the USS George Washington disaster in Algiers.
Captain Bainbridge successfully blockaded Tripoli Harbor until October 31st when he was met with an unwelcome Halloween trick, an uncharted reef.
While giving chase to a smaller Tripolitan ship, Captain Bainbridge ran the Philadelphia aground on an underwater reef. Preparing for a battle, the Captain ordered all cannons to fire on approaching Tripolitan ships who, smelling blood in the water, wanted to capture the American frigate.
Resting on the reef, the cannons onboard the Philadelphia were rendered useless. Listing slightly, the ship’s cannons were either positioned too high to aim at the Tripolitans or too low to hit anything. Having tried to fight, Bainbridge knew that the only option left to him was flight.
Captain Bainbridge ordered all cannons and anything of significant weight to be thrown into the sea. He was trying to lift the ship up and off of the reef below. Alas, he was unsuccessful. In an attempt to sabotage the ship and thus prevent her use in the Tripolitan Navy, Captain Bainbridge ordered her scuttled by drilling holes in her hull.
The ship fell into Tripolitan hands without incident. Rampaging pirates took anything not nailed down: officer’s swords, personal effects, and weapons. All 307 officers and crew of the Philadelphia became the Pasha’s prisoners.
Swashbuckling and Sabotage
Astonishingly, despite Captain Bainbridge’s attempt to sink the Philadelphia, the Tripolitans managed to save her.
The capture of an American frigate by Tripolitan pirates was a national embarrassment. Though it was unlikely to offer any real military advantage to the Tripolitans who could not successfully pilot her, it was a real propaganda victory for the Pasha.
Something had to be done. But who was daring enough to capture or destroy a massive frigate from the heart of Tripoli Harbor?
Enter a young charismatic man; Lieutenant Stephen Decatur.
Decatur, whose father previously captained the Philadelphia, had ambitions of captaining a ship of his own. He knew he’d need to do something drastic to propel his career forward.
The Americans captured a Tripolitan vessel earlier in the war, The Mastico, later named the USS Intrepid. The plan was to sail the Intrepid into Tripoli Harbor flying British colors and manned by Italian sailors who could speak Arabic proficiently.
With the protection of the larger American ship Syren, the Intrepid sailed into Tripoli Harbor on February 16th, 1804 at 7 pm.
Separating from the protection of Syren, Intrepid made its way next to the Philadelphia docked under the protection of cannons on the Tripolitan ramparts.
Once the guard of the Tripolitans was down, a boarding party kept belowdecks on the Intrepid (masquerading as the Mastico) boarded the Philadelphia, secured the ship silently with swords and bayonets, and then sabotaged her before sailing away on the Intrepid.
Decatur, the son of the former captain of the Philadelphia, lamented his fate as he looked back on the burning hull of his father’s ship, but he was also proud. He and his men prevented the Philadelphia from becoming a Tripolitan trophy; they won a great victory for their country at great personal peril.
Now that the Philadelphia crisis was averted, it was time to go on the offensive.
Commodore Preble set his course with the aim of ending the war once and for all; he set sail for Tripoli.
