By Maameri Fatiha
Revue Sciences Humaines n°29, Juin 2008, pp.39-50
Université Mentouri, Constantine, Algérie, 2008.
This article accounts for and analyzes relations between Algeria and the United States of America during one of the lesser-known periods in the modern history of Algeria, i.e.: the period 1783-1816. It is an attempt at understanding the nature of those early contacts and their repercussion on present times. For the purpose, the first part of the article gives an historical overview about the general conditions that prevailed at the end of the 18th and early 19th centuries and subdivides the period into two phases. The first phase was dominated by peaceful negotiations that aimed at concluding a treaty of peace and obtaining the release of American prisoners at Algiers. The second, however, features a naval encounter between the flagship of the Algerian navy and the American Mediterranean squadron, which ended by forcing a second treaty more advantageous to the United States on the Dey of Algiers. In its second part, and from a different angle, this article looks at the so-called Barbary pirates’ episode as it was dealt with in American historical writings and attempts to reassess those early relations as objectively as possible.
Relations between Algeria and the United States of America may be subdivided to five major chronological periods: The first period extends from the independence of the United States in 1783 to the establishment of French colonial rule in Algeria in 1830. This period was characterized by intensive diplomatic and naval
activities that resulted in numerous naval attacks, European and American, on the Ottoman Regency of Algiers. Eventually, those led to the conquest of Algeria. The second period covers almost the full colonial era. Whatever small contacts survived, and they were commercial for the most part, the United States dealt with them mainly within the global context of French colonial rule. This may be explained by the geographical remoteness of the United States and its isolationism under the Monroe Doctrine, 1823, which discouraged any American involvement abroad.
A third phase in Algerian-American contacts opened at the midst of the Second World War with the Allied forces’ landings on North African shores in the fall of 1942. It was a relatively short phase but meaningful with its intense events. The region then fell strictly under American military strategic considerations. This period is well distinguished by American misunderstandings—if not total lack of interest—of the growing nationalist sentiment in Algeria. Distorted images about the native population intensified during that period also. So far, when compared to previous phases, WWII allied landings remain the most investigated period by Algerian scholars i. Hence, various new interpretations have contributed further and better understanding towards those wartime relations.
A Cold War approach overshadows the fourth major chronological phase in Algerian-American relations. This period extends from the end of WWII to the early 1990s, time at which the Soviet Union disintegrated. This period brought about numerous vicissitudes in bilateral relations. Thus, in their preoccupations with the Cold War and attempts at containment, the Americans tended often to confuse nationalism in Algeria with communism. That confusion, for the most part, generated tensions between the two antagonists.
In addition, America’s rise to globalism and world leadership was incompatible with the free-minded character of Algerians; therefore, it contributed further uneasiness. The resulting attitudes are reminiscent of those late eighteenth century clashes. Overall, however, relations remained fairly flexible and balanced.
One may also consider the development a fifth phase in these relations starting from the early 1990s up to these days. The rise of an Islamist movement in Algeria caused a two-fold American approach toward the
country: first, and for American security reasons and economic interests, the Americans favored a policy of cooperation to combat ‘Islamist terrorism.’ii
At the same time, and particularly since the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center (2001), Americans revived old-new attitudes that tend to assimilate the so-called ‘Algerine pirates’ to ‘Muslim terrorists’ and vice versa. An unconsidered amalgam between piracy, terrorism, and Islam led to further distortions of Algeria’s image in American writings.
- Algerian-American Relations: A Historical Account
Relations between Algeria and the United States go back as far as the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Algeria then was an Ottoman province that was striving to thwart Christian attacks on its shores. The struggle resulted in naval clashes with European navies and privateers—called also corsairs in the Mediterranean area—which, to some extent, affected American trading interests in the Mediterranean.iii
Consequently, while seeking lucrative markets, the emerging Republic of the United States negotiated a treaty of peace with the Dey of Algiers and appointed consuls.
Those early contacts, however, were not free from strains and antagonisms.The first treaty was signed in 1795; but for different reasons, it failed to maintain peace between the two countries. In 1815, the United States declared war on Algiers, a war that apparently was a response to an Algerian declaration of war on the United States in 1812. The war, however, was short-lived. Apart from a brief naval encounter between an American squadron composed of 9 warships and the Algerian flagship under the command of Rais Hamidou, no further hostilities occurred. The Dey accepted the terms of a second treaty as soon as the American squadron reached the port of Algiers. The situation as it presented itself in 1815 was the culmination of four decades of diplomatic tensions and maritime troubles.
•The First Phase, 1783-1812
Up to 1776, and as British subjects, American colonials’ ships sailing in the Mediterranean Sea benefited from the Anglo-Algerian Treaty of Peace and Commerce of 1682.iv The colonial vessels then carried passports delivered by British admiralty courts which permitted them free navigation in the Mediterranean. When the Americans declared their independence in 1776, they paradoxically continued to fly the Union Jack and thus continued to benefit from British protection even though they did not carry proper passports. By 1778, American commissioners at Paris attempted to include a clause in the Treaty of Amity and Commerce with France that would give them the same privileges enjoyed under the British treaties with Algiers. However, they could obtain no more than the promises of the king of France to use his ‘good offices’with the Dey of Algiers.v
Other attempts from the Continental Congress for access to Mediterranean markets under the flag of other European powers were also thwarted. Moreover, upon achievement of independence, the Anglo-American treaty of peace of 1783 discontinued all privileges for American shipping, a fact which put American trade in the Mediterranean area in a critical condition.vi
One of the reasons which may explain such a conduct was that the European powers feared American commercial competition; therefore, they declined giving any support to American trading interests in the area. American contacts with the Ottoman regency of Algiers, one of the naval powers on the southern flank of the Mediterranean, started after American independence. In 1785, Algerian corsairs captured two American merchantmen that were sailing in the Western Mediterranean.vii
Both vessels had no passports, a condition for passage in the Mediterranean which was provided by treaties between Algiers and the different European countries, which legitimated their seizure.viii
According to the general maritime practice of the time, their 21-men crews were imprisoned and subsequently enslaved.ix
Thus, started a period in the history of Algerian-American relations that continues to stand up today as a symbol of aggression and terrorism. x
In 1786, negotiations for the conclusion of a peace treaty between Algiers and the United States and redemption of American captives failed partly because of financial problems of the Confederation Congress. In 1793, following a truce with Portugal negotiated by the British consul at Algiers Charles Logie, Algerian corsairs captured further American ships and took 115 prisoners.xi
Starting from 1789, under a new Constitution and a new government, Congress could levy taxes; therefore it could raise the funds necessary for negotiating a peace treaty. Some time, however, elapsed before a treaty was successfully negotiated with Algiers. By the Treaty of Peace and Amity of 1795, the United States agreed to pay an annual tribute in the form of naval stores; in return, it obtained large trading and naval privileges and secured the release of prisoners.xii
Even though tribute and ransom were an integral part of the laws and usage of nations at that period, today they are largely condemned in American writings.xiii However, considering the economic and naval advantages the Americans obtained, one may consider that the terms of the treaty profited more to the United States than to Algiers.xiv
Overall, the treaty managed to keep peace between Algiers and the USA until 1812.During the early decades of the American republic, the differences with Algiers over prisoners and tribute were used as arguments for correcting American constitutional deficiencies.
Thus, the federalists skillfully manipulated the captures of 1786 and 1793 towards the adoption of a new constitution and creation of a navy. Today, American historians argue ironically that, indirectly, the ‘brutal’ policies of the Dey of Algiers culminated in the birth of the American Constitution and accelerated the raise of the U.S. Navy. Thomas A. Bailey, an authority in American diplomatic history, imputed America’s dropping of the “toothless Articles of Confederation” in 1787 to the ill-treatment of Americans by the ‘Barbary pirates’ and considered that “the brutal Dey of Algiers was a founding Father of the Constitution.”xv
Likewise, troubled relations with Algiers, especially after the capture of more vessels in 1793, led to the foundation of the American Navy.xvi
In January 1794, the American Congress adopted a resolution authorizing the construction of “a naval force, adequate to the protection of the commerce of the United States against the Algerine Corsairs.”xvii
Later, Congress provided funds for the building of six frigates; it was the beginning of the U.S. Navy.xviii
Hence, and indirectly too, the Dey of Algiers might as well be considered a founding father of the American Navy. It is true that the act of 1794, providing for the foundation of the Navy, sprung from federalist and merchant class demands to take a naval action against the Barbary Coast states to secure American interests in the Mediterranean but the European wars and subsequent British and French restrictions on American commerce in the Caribbean and elsewhere were of no less importance.
•The Second Phase, 1812-1816
The second phase opened with the War of 1812 between the United States and Britain. Partly because of instigations from the British consul at Algiers and partly because of American failure to respect the terms of the treaty, particularly the annual payments in naval stores, the Dey ordered the American Consul General to leave Algiers in July 1812. The Dey also threatened to repudiate the treaty and declare war if the United States would not respect its engagements under the treaty of 1795 within the limit time specified by the treaty (2 months). The United States simply ignored the ultimatum; two months later, Algerian corsairs captured another American ship and took 11 prisoners, thus opening hostilities with the United States. The Americans, now increasingly powerful, could not accept that a small country would challenge them in the Mediterranean and considered action of Algiers as deliberate aggression against the United States.xix
The circumstances that prevailed at that time made the declaration of war on the United States necessary: according to diplomatic and naval practices, treaties were negotiated on the basis of tribute and passports secured safe passage in the Mediterranean for all belligerents. By declaring war, the Dey was no more than abiding by the laws and practice of nations that prevailed then; perhaps also he hoped to press the United States for payment of dues in arrears. That declaration of war was vehemently recommended by prominent Jews, particularly the Bacries, who were highly influential in the Deylik spheres.xx
Moreover, Great British played a no less important role in stirring troubles between Algiers and the USA. Already on a war-foot with the United States, the British convinced the Dey to declare war while assuring him of Britain’s support. Three years later, at the end of the War of 1812 which pitted the USA against Britain, the American Congress declared war on Algiers. When the American squadrons showed up at the port of Algiers in June 1815, the Dey summoned the British consul and blamed him for pretending “that the Americans would be swept from the sea in six months by [the British] navy” and allegedly added: “now they make war upon us with some of your own vessels which they have taken.”xxi
Previously, Britain had guaranteed Algiers protection in a letter from the Prince of Wales, countersigned by Lord Liverpool, dated January 1812 and addressed to the Dey shortly before the irruption of the War of 1812.xxii
Finally, Americans’ non-observance of the terms of the treaty of 1795 caused the Dey to declare war. In terms of payments in the form of naval material, the Americans failed to provide them in due time and most often they did not respect the requirements of the treaty relating to quantity and quality.
Accordingly, the direct cause that led to the war declaration was an annual payment, brought by
USS Allegheny in July 1812, from which powder and cables were missing. Considering it a personal humiliation, the Dey ordered the American Consul Tobias Lear to leave the country.xxiii
Although the Dey was too sure about the strength his own navy and too confident in British guaranties, he fell into dangerous miscalculations that were going to cause the Regency a great deal of losses. Nevertheless, and in all cases, he could not have predicted an American-British war that would have caused the withdrawal of the British fleet from the Mediterranean. Nor could he foresee the indecisive end of that war and the return of the American fleet to the Mediterranean with instructions to attack Algiers and conclude a new treaty more favorable to the United States. Thus, in March 1815, The American Congress declared war on Algiers. Two squadrons under the command of Stephen Decatur and William Bainbridge were dispatched to Algiers with instructions for signing a peace treaty unconditionally. Rais Hamidou and the Dey were caught unprepared for that war.
The first was killed while valiantly fighting against a full squadron—his single vessel the flagship Mashouda resisted during 4 hours a combined attack of 9 American vessels before a canon-ball hit him—and the second signed a peace treaty at the mouth of canons.xxiv
The treaty of 1815 guaranteed the Americans an advantageous commerce with Algiers without the payment of tribute.xxv
2. Algerian-American Relations Reconsidered
Standard American writings dealing with this early episode in Algerian-American relations reflect, in most cases, a one-sided and biased perspective. Interpretations usually approached relations with Algiers from an American angle and did not bother investigating the rationale of the other side; when not so, it was un-emphatically done. What is common in American writings is the heavy reliance of historians on American sources only. Those fall under three major categories: Journals and letters from the Continental Confederation congresses in addition to the journals of Congress (House and Senate after 1789); American state papers relating to foreign relations of the USA; and finally, letters, journals, and memoirs of those who were event-actors such as statesmen (presidential papers for example), consuls and special agents, ex-prisoners, and naval officers. The approach American historians have adopted tends to deal with the different aspects of relations with Algiers from purely American ideological, political, commercial, and naval angles. Though these are essential to the understanding of the general circumstances and conditions that shaped early Algerian-American relations, they are in
sufficient. In search of the absolute truth, if such a truth could be revealed , one should consider investigating all parties involved in the historical event including Turkish rulers of Algiers, their system of government, beliefs, motivations, and goals. Only then may one be able to pretend to an objective study of those relations. Standard American literature utterly failed to attribute anything decent to the Regency of Algiers and its navy.xxvi
While privateering was an acceptable practice for Americans and Europeans, it was tagged ‘piracy’ when practiced by Algiers. In sum, and for the sake of illustration, these are few of the terms often used for describing Algerian corsairs: the ‘Algerines’ were ‘ruffians,’ ‘thieves,’ ‘predators,’ ‘blood-thirsty cutthroats,’ ‘swarm of marauders,’ ‘barbarians,’ ‘cowards,’ ‘plunderers,’ and ‘promoters of white slavery.’ Just about the last view one may say that slavery was practiced on even larger scale in the United States. At a time Decatur bragged that he had released 10 Americans that were enslaved at Algiers—that’s all he could find—the Americans were holding more than 1,000,000 black Africans in perpetual slavery!xxvii
Algiers, however, far from being just a ‘piratical state’ that made out of piracy “a profitable national industry,”xxviii was a country that was evolving in a different culture. Its policies and institutions were shaped by a different religion, different customs, and different circumstances that happened not to be to the taste of the Americans. Like the Americans, however, they were protective of their own interests. Probably if Algerian sources going back to Ottoman rule, 1519-1830 could be unveiled and investigated thoroughly, and to my modest knowledge no research was done in this direction—at least in Anglo-American scholarly works, a different approach might emerge. Can we then speak about a revisionist ‘trans-Mediterranean’ perspective in as much the same way as when we speak about the ‘trans-Atlantic’ approach in American history? The British historian H. G. Barnby wrote about a “forgotten war” that took place between Algeria and the United States.xxix
Assuming that such a war occurred, regardless of its true dimensions, a search in its origins, course, and consequences may be achieved objectively through the adoption of a two-fold perspective: American and Algerian, the latter being of major concern to this paper.
Historians have often interpreted the seizure of American vessels as deliberate Algerian aggression against the United States. Barnby, for example, argued that the Americans “had absolutely no hostile thoughts or intentions against Algiers,” and therefore, the captures could be considered “an aggressive act against the United States of America.”xxx
Algerian corsairing practice during the period 1783-1816 may not be blatantly brandished as anti-American acts. Algerians and Americans were not operating in a vacuum: British naval restrictions on the rebellious thirteen colonies and ensuing antagonism toward the emerging Republic of the United States, religious antagonism that shaped Muslim-Christian Mediterranean relations, power rivalries, and finally America’s own political, financial, and naval weaknesses are major reasons that lay at the origin of those early strained relations. Richard B. Parker,
president of the American Association for Diplomatic Studies and former Ambassador to Algeria, 1974-78, saw in Algerian practice of corsairing an anti-American attitude that, he nonetheless argued, could be reasonably defended. He discarded any Algerian animosity against Americans. Rather, he attributed it to naval hostilities in the Mediterranean that resulted from Spanish incursions in North Africa.xxxi
Therefore, it may be more acceptable to argue in favor of an Algerian reaction and accommodation with the then prevailing international circumstances than anything else. Hence, one may reasonably discard Anti-Americanism as a motive shaping those early contacts.
On the Algerian side, a significant role was played by the British consul in stirring up troubles for the Americans. Commercial competition and subsequent military conflicts that pitted Great Britain against its former colonies found an extension into the Mediterranean. After American independence in 1783, the British Consul at Algiers made it known to the Dey and his fleet commanders that they were at liberty to seize all ships sailing out of the North American ports unless those had the latest British passports.xxxii
The Algerians, Dey and Rais alike, believed that as soon as the Americans made peace with their “Father the King of England,” the North American prisoners would be released. The role of the British consul in stimulating actions of Algerian corsairs against the United States was part of a wider British strategy that aimed at weakening the emerging American Republic. A similar policy existed in Canada where the British Governor General attempted to agitate the North American native tribes against the Confederation government too.
Lacking the support of a strong naval power, American trade in the Mediterranean was, moreover, affected by a deeply-rooted religious antagonism between Muslims and Christians that can be traced back to the Crusades. With the relative decline in Middle Ages crusading ardor, that religious hostility evolved to a complicated pattern of corsairing, ransom, and tribute that shaped diplomatic relations between countries on both sides of the Mediterranean.xxxiii
After the fall of Grenada in 1492 and the massive expulsion of Muslims from Spain in the early
sixteenth century, religious warfare escalated and Muslim-Christian hostilities were carried to the sea.xxxiv
The Spanish also took warfare to the shores of North Africa and conquered many Algerian cities including Oran, Algiers, and Bedjaia. The building of a strong navy was the answer of the Muslim Turks who rushed to the rescue of their brethren Muslims of Algiers who asked for their assistance. Thus, for the next three centuries to come, naval clashes between Algiers and the Christian states went unabated, and corsairing in a sense was institutionalized and internationalized.xxxv
For that matter, if piracy it was, Christian ‘pirates’ were, by no means, less important than the so-called ‘Algerine pirates’-the pirate entity of Malta, for example, was eloquently outstanding.xxxvi
By the end of the eighteenth century, that naval practice was common on both flanks of the Mediterranean. Furthermore, the major European powers manipulated it to their own advantages. Great Britain, for example, did not hesitate to entertain itself with the idea that the power of Algiers might be beneficial if used to check and weaken American economic expansion in the Mediterranean. Lord Sheffield plainly expressed that British view: “It is not probable the American States will have a very free trade in the Mediterranean; it will not be in the interest of the great maritime powers to protect them there from the Barbary States.”xxxvii
That exactly what Great Britain did: by the Peace Treaty of 1783, the Americans were deprived of their British shield in the Mediterranean and the different treaties with the Christian powers did not guarantee protection for American trading interests in the Mediterranean.
Accordingly, it happened that the commercial activities of the newly independent Americans were caught in the midst of a deeply rooted religious hatred that found expression in various naval clashes between Algiers and the Christian states and which was manipulated by the great powers to their own ends. In sum, the prevailing religious animosity and power rivalry in the Mediterranean did not serve American interests either.
It would be perhaps more accurate also to attribute those late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries events to the American government itself. Its naval and financial weaknesses, added to its geographical remoteness, did not permit it a quick and effective adaptation to Mediterranean prevailing conditions. Financially, it was not until 1794 that the American Congress could provide the necessary funds for negotiating a peace treaty. Hence, the capture of American ships might more be imputed to the reluctance of the American government to adhere to international law and custom as they existed then and negotiation of peace treaties on the basis of tribute than to any particular aggressiveness towards the United States on the side of Algiers. Nonetheless,capture aroused a cry of indignation among Americans who, proud as they were about their independence, considered it national humiliation. In sum, one may conclude that Algiers’ practice of corsairing during the period 1783-1816 may not be considered as hostile action against the United States. Corsairing was a Mediterranean practice and by no means could
it be seen as an Algerian particularity. It resulted from complicated international political, commercial, naval, as well as religious considerations and impregnated the whole Mediterranean Basin for a period of over than 300 years. Yet, the Americans mistakenly attribute it to Algerian corsairs solely and tag it ‘piracy.’ Moreover, the 9/11 events led to further distortions whereby corsairs became synonymous of terrorists.xxxviii
When corsairing is taken out of its historical context and looked at through the lenses of a 21st century terminology, no doubt distortions and biases would ensue.
i-See for example the works of Dr. Brahim Harouni, ‘The American Duplicity vis-à-vis the Colonial Problem of the Maghreb during the Second World War,’ in Revue Sciences Humaines , n° 20, December 2003, pp. 49-57 and ‘The Use of Ultra for the Safe Passage of the Anglo-American Expeditionary Forces to North Africa in 1942,’ in Revue Sciences Humaines, n° 26, December 2006, pp.121-127.
ii-Shultz, Richard H. And Andreas Vogt. “It’s War! Fighting Post-11 September Global Terrorism through a Doctrine of Preemption,” Terrorism and Political Violence, 15: 1 (Spring 2003), pp. 12-4; Randal K. James, “The Islamist Challenge in the Middle East and North Africa,” Research Report, Maxwell Air Force Base, Alabama, USA, April 1996, pp. 22-9.
iii-Privateers are privately-owned armed vessel whose owners were commissioned by belligerent nations to carry naval warfare. Such naval commissions or authorizations are calledletters of marquee . “Privateer,” Microsoft Encarta Premium 2005. (accessed 22 February 2008).
iv-Lewis Hertslet, A Complete Collection of the Treaties and Conventions, and Reciprocal Regulations, at Present Subsisting Between Great Britain and Foreign Powers. Vol. I. (London: Henry Butter Worth, 1827), pp. 65-66; for all treaties between Algiers and Great Britain see pp. 58-88. The British benefited from numerous commercial advantages including the monopoly of wheat purchase from certain tribes and arms’ sales. The latter was strictly denied to their rivals the French. For details see Mahfoud Kaddache, L'Algérie durant la période Ottomane (Alger: Office des Publications Universitaires, 1992), pp. 223.
v-Article VIII of the treaty of 1778 stipulates: “The most Christian King will employ his good Offices and Interposition with the Regency of Algiers in order to provide as fully and efficaciously as possible for the Benefit, Conveniency and Safety of the said United States....” Thomas B. Wait, ed., Secret Journals of the Acts and Proceedings of Congress, vol. 2 (Boston, MA: Thomas B. Wait, 1820-21), pp. 63-4.
vi-The commented provisions of the treaty appear in Thomas G. Paterson, Major Problems in American Foreign Policy: Documents and Essays, vol. 1: To 1914 (Lexington, Massachusetts: D.C. Heath and Company, 1978), pp. 48-51.
vii-James L. Cathcart, The Captives: Eleven Years a Prisoner in Algiers, compiled by his Daughter, J. B. Newkirk (La Porte, Indiana: Herald, 1899), p. 5.
viii-See for example article VI of the Anglo-Algerian treaty of 1682. Hertslet, Collection of Treaties and Conventions, p. 59.
ix-The full account of the story from capture to release can be found in H. G. Barnby, The Prisoners of Algiers: An Account of the Forgotten American-Algerian War, 1785-1797 (London: Oxford University Press, 1966).
x-Richard Leiby, “Terrorists by another Name: The Barbary Pirates,” Washington Post,15 October 2001, p. C01.
xi-Walter Lowrie and Mathew C. Clarke, eds., American State Papers, Class I: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the United States: Foreign Relations, 1789-1828 (Washington, D. C.: Gales and Seaton, 1832-1861), 1:418, Captain O’Brien to the President of United States, November 5, 1793.
xii-Richard Peters, ed., Public Statutes at Large of the United States of America,from the Organization of Government in 1789 to March 3, 1845, vol. VIII: Treatiesbetween the United States of America and Foreign Nations, 1778-1845(Boston: Little,Brown and Company, 1867), pp. 133-137.
xiii-American writings refer to ‘protection racket’ and ‘blackmail money’ rather than ‘tribute’ and ‘ransom.’ For this approach see for example Rand H. Fishbein, “Echoes from the Barbary Coast: History of U.S. Military Actions against Pirates,” The National Interest, 65-66: 66 (Winter 2001/2002), pp. 47-51.
xiv-For further details see John B. Wolfe, Algiers under the Turks, 1500-1830 (New York/London: W. W. Norton, 1979), pp. 309-13.
xv-Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, 10th ed.
(Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980), p. 65.
xvi-The treaty with Portugal permitted Algerian corsairs to sail through Gibraltar to the Atlantic and to seize another 11 American ships in the single Fall of 1793.
xvii-Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Thursday, January 2, 1794.
xviii-Marshall Smelser, “The Passage of the Naval Act of 1794,” Military Affairs
, 22: 1 (Spring 1958), pp. 1-12.
xix-William Shaler, Sketches of Algiers: Political, Historical, and Civil: Containing an Account of the Geography, Population, Government, Revenues, Commerce, Agriculture, Arts, Civil Institutions, Tribes, Manners, Languages, and Recent Political History of that Country(Boston: Cummings, Hiliard and Company, 1826), pp. 121-22.
xx-Ibid., p. 120.
xxi-As cited in Ray W. Irwin, The Diplomatic Relations of the United Stateswith the Barbary Powers, 1776-1816 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1931), p. 195.
xxii-The document can be found in Shaler, Sketches of Algiers, pp. 118-19.
xxiii-For the circumstances surrounding Lear’s departure see, Thomas B. Wait, ed.,State Papers and Publick Documents of the United States, From the Accession of GeorgeWashington to the Presidency, Exhibiting a Complete View of our Foreign Relations sincethat Time, 3rd edition (Boston, MA: T. B. Wait, 1819), 9:126-136, Letter from Mr. Lear,Consul General at Algiers, to the Secretary of State, July 29, 1812.
xxiv-American State Papers, Naval Affairs, 1:396, Naval Operation against the Barbary Powers in 1815: Stephen Decatur to Secretary of the Navy, July 5, 1815.
xxv-Public Statutes at Large, 8:224-227.
xxvi-Examples include: Ray W. Irwin, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with the Barbary Powers, 1776-1816 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1931); Frederick Leiner, The End of Barbary Terror: America’s 1815 War against the Pirates of North Africa(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006); and Glenn Tucker, Dawn Like Thunder:The Barbary Wars and the Birth of the U.S. Navy (Indianapolis/New York: The Bobbs-Merrill Company, Inc., 1963).
xxvii-For a sample see Ralph P. Locke, “Cutthroats and Casbah Dancers, Muezzins and Timeless Sands: Musical Images of the Middle East,” 19th-Century Music, 22: 1 (Summer 1998), pp. 20-53.
xxviii-Bailey, Diplomatic History, p. 64.
xxix-Barnby, The Prisoners of Algiers.
xxx-Ibid., p. 11.
xxxi-Richard B. Parker, ‘Anti-American Attitudes in the Arab World,’ The Annals, AAPSS
, 497, May 1988, pp. 46-7.
xxxii-Cathcart, The Captives, p. 4.
xxxiii-James A. Field, America and the Mediterranean World, 1772-1882 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 29.
xxxiv-Stephen Clissold, “The Expulsion of the Moriscos, 1609–1614,” History Today, 28: 12 (1978), pp. 817–824.
xxxv-The American approach to piracy in the Mediterranean is a one-sided approach. It tends to make of piracy an exclusively Algerian matter. Thus, Algiers was blamed for the ill-fated American adventures in the Mediterranean.
xxxvi-For a substantial study about piracy on the other side of the Mediterraneansee, Mouley Belhamissi, Les captifs algériens et l’Europe chrétienne, 1518-1830 (Alger: Entreprise Nationale du Livre, 1988); see also Marisa Huber, “Holy Wars andPiratical Governments: Barbary Corsairs (With a Comparative Look at MalteseCorsairs)”, 2004. (Accessed 18 May 2008). http://www.daviddfriedman.comAcademicCourse_Pages/legal_systems
xxxvii-As cited in Irwin, Diplomatic Relations, pp. 24-25.
xxxviii-Paul A. Silverstein, “The New Barbarians: Piracy and Terrorism on the North African Frontier,” The New Centennial Review , 5: 1 (Spring 2005), pp. 179-212.