The Northern Coast of Africa is the area least blessed, geographically, in the Mediterranean. It suffers from disparate levels of rainfall, and in many areas, poor soil. Its coastline disproportionately suffers from a lack of natural ports.

The Barbary States were situated along the Northern Coast of Africa from west of Alexandria, Egypt to the Atlantic Coast south of Spain. There were four distinct political areas. Morocco edged the Atlantic Ocean on Africa's West Coast. Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli (roughly modern day Libya) lay to the east of Morocco respectively.

The coastal towns of the Barbary States were a polyglot of nationalities. The Berbers, the dominant people of the area, had been successively ruled by the Romans, Vandals, Byzantines, and Arabs. Through most of the latter half of the first millennium AD, there had been a struggle between Islam and Christianity in the Mediterranean.² By the sixteenth century, the Mediterranean was the site of a struggle between Spain and the Ottoman Empire for dominance of this sea.

By the seventeenth century, the coast of North Africa rested within the Ottoman Empire. Each of the four nations of the Barbary Coast was ruled by a dey. The deys were nominal rulers chosen by a diwan. The diwan, a governing council of each of these independent states, was at different times controlled and selected by virtue of political support from Turkish janissaries or militia; the raises, the captains of the corsairing fleets; or from other political alliances arranged from the raises, Turkish janissaries, or local inland Arab tribes.³

Anthony Nutting, in his book The Arabs, described the loose Ottoman method of colonization, specifically in Northern Africa:

The more far-flung and inaccessible the territory, the greater the autonomy which its viceroy and his henchmen enjoyed. Algeria, Tunisia and Libya were cases in point. Nominally tributaries of the Sublime Porte, they were in practice largely independent dominions and, provided that they paid regular tribute, were left almost entirely to their own devices. Since the Turks invested little or nothing in these dominions, the North African States resorted to piracy to gain revenue for their exchequers and to pay their annual tribute to the Porte.⁴

By the later part of the eighteenth century, the weaknesses of the Ottoman Empire had begun to show. Their hold over the western portions of their empire had begun to decline. The autonomy with which they operated was demonstrated by a revolution in Tripoli in 1714, during which the entire Turkish garrison was executed.⁵ Appeasement of the Sultan of Turkey was made through tribute, while governmental interference from the Porte was effectively eliminated.

In Tripoli, in the late 1700's the bashaw of Tripoli was Yusef Karamanli. He had gained the throne through fratricide. His younger brother Hamet was forced to flee to Tunis and exile. In Algiers, the dey was Mohammed Pasha. Hasan Pasha succeeded him in 1791. Hamada Pasha ruled absolutely, yet benevolently, from 1782 until 1814 in Tunis. In Morocco, Muley Soliman ruled as emperor from 1795.⁶

The corsairs were an economic group in the Barbary States with close political ties to the deys. As described earlier the political instability of Ottoman colonialism gave the corsair captains considerable political influence based on their economic contributions to the government. In the introduction to the Journals of Thomas Baker, British Consul in Tripoli, C.R. Pennell described the relationship between the deys and the raises. The raises were a significant interest group in the Barbary States. Any attempt by the dey to curb their adventures could have dire consequences for the dey, as in the case of Uthman Pasha who was overthrown in 1672. For his continued support the dey shared in the prizes obtained by the corsairs.⁷

The corsairs limited the political movement of the deys in their dealing with the governments of Europe. If a treaty was established with a foreign government, the result was a de facto declaration of war on another European state's shipping because the corsair trade must continue.

The documented number of corsairs operating from the Barbary States varies from journal to journal. Some estimates from 1786-1788 included Algiers, 19 vessels from 38-8 guns; Morocco, "twenty vessels, the largest of twenty guns"; Tunis, ninety

four vessels; and Tripoli, eleven vessels of one hundred guns.⁸

Relative to American shipping the first reported capture of an American vessel by Algerian corsairs was the schooner Maria out of Boston on the 25th of July 1785. It was followed five days later by capture of the Dauphin out of Philadelphia. In total twenty one Americans had been held for ransom.⁹

For centuries the European powers had suffered commercial losses and subjugation by the Barbary States. In his 1677 journal, Thomas Baker vividly described the activities in the Port of Tripoli on the 22nd of October:

The Vice Admiral of this Squadron coming up w a Ship at midnight 20 dayes since in the mid channell between Porto Farine, and Sardinia laid her aboard, and after a small scuffle carried her, and brought her into this port, Prize this morning; Shee is a French Petach of 14 Guns, named the Saint Lewis, Captain John Colombo Command, bound from Sidon and Cyprus for Marsailles Laden with 136 Bales of fine Silk, 730 sacks of Potashes, 10 sacks of Pistachio, 6 sacks of Galls, 150 bales of Cotton yarn, 25 Bales of Wooll, 10 bales of Dimety, 8 bales of Scamety, 8 Scafassis of Sal Armoniak, 7 Scaffassis of Cassia, 6 Scafassis of Gum Arabick, and 52 Christians, 5 of which are Priests of severall nations, besides a Jesuit, French. the Whole valued when least at One hundred thousand Dollars.¹⁰

Not all of the Barbary corsairs were Moslem. A number were European renegades. In the early 1600s, a number of English privateers joined the Barbary corsairs after the English government of King James forbad English privateers from taking Spanish ships. Other renegades were Rumanian, Greek, and French. Some even served as deys in Tripoli.

In an attempt to place the Barbary States piracy in a less negative perspective Sir Godfrey Fisher describes the piracy of the Barbary States as being on a par with depredations committed by European powers in the same area. Through a number of references, he explained that in some cases the conditions of slaves captured by the Barbary States was more wholesome than those in which Moslem captives would find themselves, particularly at the hands of the Spanish. He claims the use of the Moslem slaves in European galleys was greater than in the Barbary ports. His retort to commonly held beliefs about the corsairs was that the capture and ransom of prisoners was a common practice, a "complex system of traffic, partly through individual exchanges, partly by redemptions, of captives, who in this manner had acquired a permanent value."¹¹

By the latter half of the nineteenth century, the use of galley ships had disappeared, and the need for slaves to man them had also diminished. As a result, henceforward, the value of slaves was based solely on the ransom they could bring.

The twenty-one seaman captured from the Maria and the Dauphin were held for ransom and tribute to the dey of Algiers. Debate began in the United States on the best course of action for the new nation to pursue regarding these attacks on her commercial shipping. In Europe, these questions had been resolved through tribute.