The United States at War
with the Barbary States
Chapter 2 - The Threat to U.S. Sovereignty and Freedom
By the eighteenth century, the European ability to carry on commerce in the Mediterranean was based on appeasement of the Barbary States of North Africa. The French, Venetian, Spanish, The Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and other Mediterranean States conducted trade with the Barbary States and in the Mediterranean Sea only by arranged tribute and treaty. This tribute was to placate the local corsairs, operating out of the Barbary States.
Without tribute, they suffered attacks on their shipping, confiscation of their ships and cargo, and enslavement of the crew and passengers. This internecine warfare had been carried on for centuries between and among the Christian and Islamic States of the Mediterranean.
By the late 1700s, Britain, Spain, and France each used their relationships with the Barbary States and their corsairs as leverage against the others. For centuries they had been actively involved in privateering on the national level against each other and found the Barbary States a valuable, although informal, insurance against the competing commerce of smaller states.
With the United States' independence from England in 1783, U.S. merchantmen no longer enjoyed the protection of Britannia's Navy. In 1770, the trade from the British colony to the Mediterranean had been estimated at 707,000 pounds.1
After the outbreak of the revolution, U.S. merchantmen had to fend for themselves in the Mediterranean and were, thus, seen as easy prey by the corsairs.
The leaders of the new nation desired commercial and neutral relations with the rest of the world, free from the political entanglements of the type that had embroiled Europe in power struggles for centuries. It became a point of principle for the new nation's foreign policy and a focal point for testing its resolve in entering the world arena as a sovereign nation.
The development of this principle slowly evolved and the war in the Mediterranean was hesitantly entered. But once begun, it was aggressively pursued to a successful conclusion. By successful use of force and diplomacy, the folly of paying tribute or succumbing to threats was learned early by the new nation.
