49 Curious Barbary Pirates Facts That Reveal Details On Barbary War

The Barbary Wars are defined as a set of wars waged in the early 19th century by the United Republics, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Sicily against the North African Barbary States, which included Tunis, Algiers, and Tripoli.

The First Barbary War started on May 10, 1801, and lasted until June 10, 1805. The Second Barbary War ended on June 19, 1815, and these wars were held in response to piracy by the Barbary states.

The former US President Thomas Jefferson dispatched American warships to the Mediterranean Sea, where they began attacking pirate hideouts. In what became known as the First Barbary War, the pirates surrendered in 1805.

During the war of 1812, Barbary pirates resurrected their attacks on American trade ships with the assistance of the British fleet. Following the war’s end and the negotiation of peace with the United Kingdom, the successor of former US President Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, waged a war on the Barbary states in the Second Barbary War.

Barbary pirate activity had decreased during the 19th century, but pirates continued to demand tribute from American trade ships in the Mediterranean Sea. The second war terminated the need for further tributes and established a naval presence in the Mediterranean, assuring the safe passage of its trade ships and those of other nations.

Who were the Barbary pirates and what were they known for?

Going by history, Barbary pirates were Muslim pirates who carried out their operations in North African ports like Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis (commonly known as the Barbary Coast).

• The ports of North Africa were known as the Barbary Coast because it was home to Barbary pirates, also called Barbarians. The Barbary pirate fleets patrolled the Mediterranean region.
• Barbarians occupied the Atlantic coastal region in Western Africa and Iceland in the North Atlantic region.
• Coastal towns and villages were destroyed by pirates in areas like Italy, Spain, France, the British Isles, Iceland, Portugal, and the Netherlands. The Barbarians mainly attacked commercial ships.
• The Barbary pirates' attacks were intended to drive out their opponents.
• The Barbarians were desperate to encapsulate slaves for the greater Arab slave trade in North Africa. For this, they imprisoned around 850,000 people between 1580 and 1680. The Barbarians also enslaved 1,250,000 people between 1530 and 1780. Around 35,000 Christian slaves were held on the Barbary coast through the late 1500s and early 1600s.
• Some US ships vanished even though they were protected by the Royal Navy.
• Considering the consequences, US Congress decided to pay tribute to the Barbary states in 1786.

Other Names Of Barbary Pirates

Barbary pirates are commonly known as Barbary corsairs or Ottoman corsairs or simply Barbarians.

• The term Barbary Corsairs or Barbarians refers to Algerian pirates.
• They began operating in the 16th century at a time when the intensity and complexity of raids were at their peak.
• Algiers grew in importance to the point where it was not under Ottoman control.
• The Barbarian states were not controlled as a province or dependents, like Salé and other Moroccan ports.

War Details Of The Barbary Pirates

Thomas Jefferson, President George Washington's Secretary of State instructed Congress to declare war on the pirates.

• The First Barbary War started when the Barbary pirates captured ships of American merchants and held the crew hostage for ransom, demanding that the US pay tribute to the Barbary monarchs.
• Thomas Jefferson, the former US President declined to pay his respect. Thomas Jefferson believed that paying off the pirates would lead to more demands. Sweden had conflicts with the Tripolitans since 1800 for this reason.
• Thomas Jefferson dispatched a naval fleet to the Mediterranean to confront them. The fleet pounded fortified locations in modern-day Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria, eventually obtaining concessions of safe conduct from the Barbary republics and ending the First Barbary War.
• To deal with the pirates, Commander Dale was posted to the Mediterranean and in 1803, a naval blockade of Tripoli began.
• The US won the Battle of Tripoli by capturing the town of Derna, the first war ever fought on foreign soil by the United States.
• Sweden was ostensibly neutral throughout the French Revolutionary Wars, but when the ships landed in the Mediterranean, it was actively engaged in a conflict with Tripoli pirates.
• The USS Boston arrived off the coast of Tripoli in May 1802 to prevent the Barbary States corsairs from accessing its harbor. Later, the Swedes negotiated a separate pact with Tripoli, guaranteeing their ships' safety against Tripolitan raids, and the Swedish fleet left.
• Boston was returned to the US and stationed at the Washington Navy Yard. In 1812, Boston was destroyed during a British attack on Washington.
• The combat of May 16, 1802, known as the First Battle of Tripoli Harbor, was the first time the US Naval worked with an ally's navy.
• The USS John Adams was a subscription frigate built by the citizens of Charleston, South Carolina, and delivered to the US Navy in 1799. The ship was one of the most successful American frigates ever built, capturing enemy vessels throughout the Quasi-War, the Barbary Wars, and the War of 1812.
• In the late fall of 1802, John Adams arrived in the Mediterranean to join the Tripoli blockade. In May 1803, John Adams joined the squadron blockading Tripoli under the command of Captain John Rodgers.
• The United States and Morocco signed a friendship treaty in 1786 (which is still in existence today), but the realities of the situation in North Africa, where political and frequent family intrigues among the numerous clans took precedence, created an unhappy scenario.
• The ruler of Tripoli, Yusuf Karamanli, also known as the Pasha, ripped down the American flag at its consulate there in May 1801, signaling that the country was at war.
• Instead of voting for a declaration of war, the US Congress granted the president power to employ military force to protect American interests and property. The US was blockading the port of Tripoli, but there were no clear rules of engagement.
• Throughout 1802, the US sent ships to the region to blockade the Barbary ports, including the most formidable ships in the fleet.
• Smaller American sloops and brigs escorted the frigates USS Constitution, USS Chesapeake, USS Essex, USS Philadelphia, and USS Constellation as they patrolled the Mediterranean waterways, defending the American nation's commercial cargo from Tripolitan corsairs.
• American heavy frigates proceeded into Tripoli's harbor to bombard the city's shore batteries and other fortifications, while gunboats sailed in under the frigates' guns to engage the Tripolitans.
• Preble sent a portion of his squadron to Tripoli to bolster the blockade, which included newly arrived warships geared for offensive operations inshore in the harbor's shallow waters. These were backed up by American frigates that were more powerful.
• He then sailed with a squadron to Tangier, Morocco, nearly opposite the Mediterranean from Gibraltar, as a signal to the Sultan that he intended to impose a blockade there if events required it.
• Preble was keen to defeat the Tripolitan fleet now that he had control of the lighter and more maneuverable ships.
• Under the Pasha's system, Tripolitan prisoners had the option to obtain both money and property of their own, further complicating the situation. Because of the government of Tripoli's inherent corruption, smart inmates were able to pit their masters against each other, obtaining both status and profit.
• The USS Philadelphia was the second US Navy ship to surrender to an enemy. The Tripolitans swarmed the Philadelphia, arresting the cops and crew and confiscating all of their personal belongings.
• After being proclaimed by the Pasha as his slaves, the crew and officers were paraded through the streets of Tripoli to dungeon cells.
• Tripolitan sailors refloated the once American frigate and hauled it beneath the harbor fortress's protective cannons.
• Within days, work on refitting the ship began, with much of it being done by the ship's former crew, who had been working as slaves for the Tripolitans. Others labored from tiny boats to rescue the ship's guns from the shallow water where they had been abandoned.
• The former American frigate, Constitution, provided Tripoli with a warship capable of competing with any but the strongest ships.
• A raiding team of American Marines, troops, and allied sailors from King Ferdinand of Sicily's armed forces, led by Stephen Decatur, later destroyed the ship.

How did the Second Barbary War end?

The American sloop-of-war Enterprise was commanded by Lt. Stephen Decatur. In December 1803, he took the Tripolitan ketch Mastico, while Philadelphia remained hidden behind Tripoli's huge cannons, which were being refurbished by its captives.

• Lt. Stephen Decatur developed a plan to use the Tripolitan-built Intrepid to enter the port, allowing American sailors to board the Philadelphia and either retake the frigate or burn her to prevent the Tripolitans from utilizing it.
• The crew of the Philadelphia was being utilized as slave labor at the time, and they were held in a stronghold with a full view of their former ship.
• In 1804, Commodore Edward Preble's Mediterranean squadron launched the first set of missile attacks on Tripoli harbor.
• During the boarding of the enemy gunboats, Lieutenant James Decatur (Captain Decatur's brother) was killed, two other officers were wounded, and 10 sailors and marines were injured.
• On April 27, three American merchant ships, the Argus, Nautilus, and Hornet, sank Yusuf Karamanli's soldiers' defenses, which were then attacked on land by Eaton's expedition. Derna was captured, and the American flag was hoisted above a captured foreign city.
• On December 5, 1815, the United States Senate approved the Algerian Treaty. Algeria's Dey Omar Agha, though, did not accept the US peace treaty.
• He didn't understand the terms of peace signed by the Vienna Congress and threatened the lives of all Christian residents of Algiers.
• He negotiated a new treaty in 1816, but due to an oversight, the Senate did not ratify it until February 11, 1822.
• After the conflict, the US nation and European nations stopped paying tribute to the pirate kingdom, signaling the end of piracy in the region, which had been rampant under the reign of the Ottoman Empire from the 16th to the 18th century.
• Within decades, European powers had developed increasingly sophisticated and expensive American ships, which the Barbary pirates were unable to match in terms of numbers or technology.