On Tripoli’s Shores

There has been an explosion in biographies of the Founding Fathers, and not surprisingly, a number of historians have homed in on a particular irritant of the era that seems to have resonances for our times: America’s battles against the Muslim Barbary states. These all-but-forgotten campaigns–mostly remembered today for “the Shores of Tripoli” in the Marine Corps Hymn–were America’s first real foreign adventure.

A number of recent works have looked more closely at the affair and attempted to tie this earlier conflict to our current difficulties with the Muslim world. On paper, the connections look promising. A few small, vicious, despotic Muslim regimes prey on the West. Most of Europe chooses to buy off the problem, and look the other way as their citizens are held hostage, rather than risk their financial benefits by confronting the threat. It is left to America to take a stand, eventually defeating several of the Barbary states in battle and freeing most of the foreign hostages.

Some view all this with hope; after all, America ultimately won. Others with apprehension, as it took some 30-odd years for victory.

While acknowledging these similarities, Frank Lambert, in this concise and insightful book, deftly undercuts the analogy with today’s war. Unlike their contemporary counterparts, the Barbary states were not motivated by an ideological belief in the growth of the Islamic world, or in killing infidels. Rather, their goal was always the same: Simply extort tribute from Western powers, and ransom hostages for money. From the leaders to the lower level pirates, Lambert finds no suicidal fanatics bent on destroying a Western way of life, but sailors simply looking to make a buck.

Rather than shoehorning the Barbary Wars into the framework of America’s fight against terrorism, Lambert argues convincingly that these wars represent a different sort of triumph–a victory for America’s economic prospects. Victory in these wars helped allow American shippers to sail the Atlantic and Mediterranean without fear of piracy and being taken hostage. The Barbary Wars were an extension of the country’s struggle for freedom.

After gaining political independence, America faced a major problem: As a country of traders, Americans had to rely on their erstwhile foe to keep international commerce safe and free. And Britain was both ideologically and philosophically uninterested in helping the nascent country. Britain and the rest of the world operated under the tenets of mercantilism, which held that one country’s economic gain was a loss for everyone else–a zero-sum game of international commerce.

Lambert wisely focuses on this unpleasant after-effect of the Revolutionary War. Americans proved to be naive, and somewhat unsuccessful, participants in this world. Many no doubt agreed with Thomas Jefferson that “free Trade would help everyone . . . expanding the overall volume of commerce so greatly that an individual country would benefit from even a modest share.” But the Europeans, still focused on their centuries-long struggles for power, were not that interested in Jefferson’s revolutionary philosophy. And of course, the extortionist states located on the northern coast of Africa–Algiers, Tripoli, Morocco, and Tunisia–were not about to sign on to America’s revolutionary economic ideals. The result was that these Barbary states were actually helping out the major maritime powers, such as Britain, by attacking possible competitors. And the pirates, even with only a few ships, were a serious problem.

The most interesting point here is the explanation of why the pirates, even though few in number, posed such a problem. Lambert writes–though does not really delve into thoroughly–that the ships required insurance, provided by British underwriters. Once America’s traders proved to be vulnerable to the Barbary states, the insurance spiked to prohibitively high levels, raising the cost of American goods. Therefore, “[t]he capture of just one American vessel had brought U.S. commerce in the Mediterranean to a standstill.” Action had to be taken, but what type of action was the big debate for Americans.

America’s troubles with the Barbary states started early. Though the emperor of Morocco brought up the idea of signing a treaty as early as 1778, due to the slow action of a Continental Congress focused on fighting a war, America did not make a significant countermove. By 1784, the emperor decided to act–by capturing an American ship. Americans eventually bribed the ship to freedom, but that set up a continual path to dealing with the Barbary states: fulminations by successive American governments and bribery. And failure to develop a strong navy–an ideological position that many of the early Anti-Federalists held–proved a major impediment to any action but submission to the tribute system.

Eventually, after Jefferson came to power in 1801, the country was forced to confront the menace. A contingent of ships and soldiers attacked Tripoli. The American consul William Eaton led a small contingent of Marines and Arab troops, under the command of the Pasha of Tripoli’s brother Hamet, to conquer the city of Derna. At the same time Stephen Decatur brought the naval battle to life by firing on Tripoli and burning a captured ship. After running up a string of victories, Eaton wanted to press forward but was met with resistance by both the less-than-heroic Hamet and a skeptical U.S. government, which pushed a treaty on Tripoli.

The United States spent the next decade sparring with and bribing the Barbary states, but international piracy was a back-burner issue compared with troubles with the British and French. Once America finally made peace with England to end the War of 1812, and the country was freed from its concerns about Napoleon, a naval contingent, led by Decatur, took care of the Barbary states as a serious threat.

Lambert gives a credible, and at times riveting, account of the war. But he could have offered a broader explanation of the internal disputes in America. Specifically, The Barbary Wars glosses over this question: If shipping and trading were so critical to the country’s well-being, how could Jefferson ever have contemplated embargoing America’s ports? It would also have benefited from a larger discussion of the effect of the Napoleonic wars on the American economy.

This is a quick, insightful read. Lambert makes a compelling case for focusing on the economic underpinnings of the conflict rather than on the religious and social implications. And even though the story of the Barbary Wars does not serve as a roadmap to the war on terror, it does lay out how America struggled and ultimately succeeded in establishing its economic independence.

Joshua Spivak is an attorney and media consultant.