To the Shores of Tripoli U.S. Deals with Pirates

“Millions for defense, but not a cent for tribute!” The U.S. refuses to pay ransoms and tributes to pirates.

For centuries the four Barbary States of North Africa-- Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli—had plundered commercial shipping. The European powers with great fleets and powerful navies paid tributes to the Barbary powers for safe passage of their ships. For years the Barbary pirates demanded tribute money, seized ships and held crews for ransom or sold them into slavery.
After the revolution, the young American nation had lost British protection while trading in the Mediterranean. At that time most of the young nation’s warships had been captured, sold off, or sunk, and now the country could scarcely defend its own coastline. The French had promised to protect American ships, citizens and goods with its navy on the Mediterranean seas, but they had lost interest realizing they were helping the competition of American tradesmen. Thereafter ignored by the French, the American ships were easy prey for the pirates from North Africa.

In 1784, the BETSY, an American-owned 300 ton brig, was boarded by pirates with sabers between their teeth and pistols in their belts. Two months later two more ships were captured. Twenty-one U.S. crewmen were taken and put into a dungeon and fed a mere fifteen ounces of bread per day. The ransom was $60,000 dollars, and while the U.S. Ambassador to France, Thomas Jefferson, said that paying the ransom would only encourage more attacks, the U.S. Congress chose bribery. The U.S. paid Algiers its ransom and as much as $1 million each year for the next fifteen years until 1800. The amount was nearly 20 percent of U.S. government revenues, considering federal revenues were only $10 million in 1800.

In 1801, after Jefferson’s inauguration as president, the pasha of Tripoli demanded $225,000 and the new president refused. War with the U.S. was declared by the Pasha simply cutting down the flagstaff in front of the U.S. Consulate in Tripoli. Soon, Morocco, Algiers and Tunis joined Tripoli as allies against America. Also without declaring war on the Barbary States, Jefferson sent a group of frigates into the Mediterranean, and on August 1, the USS ENTERPRISE defeated the flag ship TRIPOLI, sending it home battered and with a single old sail.

From 1801 through 1803, the U.S. had seven warships maintaining a blockade on the Barbary ports and attacked their pirate ships with a vengeance. In 1804 the USS PHILADELPHIA was captured after it ran aground while patrolling Tripoli harbor. Efforts by the Americans to float the ship, while under fire from shore batteries and Tripoli's navy, were unsuccessful. The ship, its captain, William Bainbridge, other officers and crew were held as hostages. A series of inconclusive naval battles were fought in 1804. A turning point in the war came in 1805, at the Battle of Derna, by a combined force of United States Marines and Arab, Greek and Berber mercenaries. This action by the Marine Corps was commemorated in their hymn -- "to the shores of Tripoli." The Marines wore leather around their necks as protection from sabers, leaving them with the name “leathernecks.”

On June 10, 1805, Tripoli's pasha signed a treaty ending hostilities with the United States. Article 2 of the treaty reads:

The Pasha of Tripoli shall deliver up to the American Squadron now off Tripoli, all the Americans in his possession; and all the subjects of the Pasha 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 Pasha of Tripoli amounts to 300 persons, more or less; and the number of Tripolino subjects in the power of the Americans to about 100 more or less,the Pasha of Tripoli shall receive from the United States of America, the sum of $60,000 as a payment for the difference between the prisoners herein mentioned.

The U.S. paid the ransom, buying its sailors out of slavery in exchange for ending the war.