American History Hit - America's War Against Pirates

Episode Date: May 21, 2026

Just twenty years after independence, the United States fought a lesser-known war against the Barbary States of North Africa... some use the term 'Corsairs', others referred to them as 'Pirates'. But why was America there? How was diplomacy conducted during this time? And how did these conflicts help transform a fragile republic into an emerging naval power?Our guest today is Dr. Abby Mullen, professor at the United States Naval Academy. Her work includes hosting the ‘Consolation Prize’ podcast, and her book ‘To Fix a National Character: The United States in the First Barbary War, 1800–1805’, which won the ‘John R. Lyman Book Award’ in 2024.All opinions expressed here are Abby's, and not those of the US Naval Academy, US Department of Defense or the US Government.Edited by Tim Arstall. Produced by Tomos Delargy. Senior Producer was Freddy Chick.Sign up to History Hit for hundreds of hours of original documentaries, with a new release every week and ad-free podcasts. Sign up at https://www.historyhit.com/subscribe.  All music from Epidemic Sounds.American History Hit is a History Hit podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Want to explore even more history? Sign up to History Hit, where you will discover history from around the world. From the American Revolution to prehistoric Scotland, there is plenty to discover. With your subscription, you'll unlock hundreds of hours of exclusive documentaries with a brand new release every week, exploring everything from the ancient world to World War II. Just visit historyhit.com slash subscribe to bring the past alive. It is February 1804. In the dark waters of Tripoli Harbor, on the shores of North Africa,

flames climb high into the night sky as the American warship, Philadelphia, burns. Fire consuming its wooden hull, sending sparks swirling high above the harbor. Along the waterfront, a crowd gathers to watch the spectacle. While out of sight, beyond the glow of the fire, a small vessel filled with Americans slips quietly and covertly out to sea. Just 20 years after gaining independence from Great Britain, the United States has found itself enmeshed in a distant conflict on Mediterranean shores, in a dangerous web of privateers, tribute, diplomacy, and war. But why? Why was America fighting on the far side of the Atlantic against pirates and warlords? What could this possibly mean for a fragile republic only now climbing to its feet as a nation?

and how would this obscure struggle helped transform the United States into an emerging force on the world stage? Greetings all. Welcome to American History Hit. I'm your host, Don Wildman. Thanks for listening. Today we speak of piracy on the high seas and the Barbary Wars of the early 1800s with an expert on the subject. Abigail Mullen is an assistant professor of naval history at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis. The Midshipman. She is the author of to fix a national character, the United States, in the first Barbary War, 1800 to 1805. Professor Mullen, Abby, very nice to have you here. Thank you. It's really great to be here.

We're going to talk today about military and diplomatic events that few Americans know anything about, but which are fundamental to the development of this country, especially the Navy. In your view, why are the Barbary War so little understood by Americans? That's a great question. And before I answer it, I need to say a little discontal. claimer, which is that everything you're going to hear from me today is my own opinion. And it is not the opinion of the United States Naval Academy or the Department of Defense or the United States government. So insofar as they have an official position on the first robbery war, I will not be delivering it today. I'm just speaking to you from my own academic perspective.

Fantastic. So yeah, why are the, why is the first robbery war, or even more so the second one? so little understood, I think in part because reasonably speaking, it doesn't seem that important. It is not a big war. It doesn't make the headlines. There's not big moments. There are a few, I'm sure we'll talk about the few that are the big moments in the war. But it's not like the United States goes and crushes their opponent or anything like that. And no major legislation comes out of it or anything like that. So it sort of feels like... It just sort of happened. Yeah. But the fact is, obviously, you've written a whole book on the subject is very much not that way. It's the fact of the fragmented events of this that happen

over time and there's two different ones. The origin story's a little cloudy. We're going to straighten all this out today. So before we dive into this, into the Mediterranean and all of what is so complicated about that part of the world at this time, what is happening back here at home in 1800, just to give us context. So, the question of what's going on in 1800, I think from the perspective of thinking about this conflict in North Africa, you kind of actually have to back up a little bit because the situation changes pretty drastically after the Constitution gets ratified. So the crisis with North Africa starts right after the revolution as soon as the United States no longer has the protection of the Royal Navy for its commerce. But of course, that happens under the Articles of Confederation. And so it's a whole different, literally a whole different country.

It's a whole different governmental system. And so one of the key things that changes between the first encounter with North African Corsairs and the beginning of the war is the Constitution gets ratified, as you mentioned. And of course, George Washington becomes the president. And so all of the sort of spin up things that we think about, the founding of the country, all that stuff. that's all happening. But part of what it takes to build a country is building a bureaucracy, building an apparatus whereby state power can actually be used. And there's two particular places where the United States is building kind of from scratch in a lot of ways. And those are the military and the diplomatic corps. And both of those are going to be critical in understanding what's

going on in North Africa. And in both cases, the United States is kind of figuring this out as they go along. And so of all the things that you just mentioned, the Constitution and the end of the revolution, the thing that has happened the most recently as of 1800 is the founding of the Navy itself. So the Navy doesn't get founded until 1794. And it is in direct response to the North African crisis that it gets founded. But the same thing can be true, can be said. for the State Department, that the real diplomatic apparatus of the United States is just really very, very, very brand new. There's no ambassadors. There's not going to be ambassadors for a long time. There's no sort of head of state to head of state negotiation going on. There's no permanent,

what we sort of think of as like permanent diplomatic presence in most places. And so whatever conflicts the United States has in the world, it's kind of figuring. them out on the fly? And it is complicated and it doesn't always go great. I love the, the Barbary Wars is really the beginning of the challenge of dealing in the world on multiple levels. This is certainly the first military conflict we go into overseas, as we'll discuss, but also it becomes, you know, we think of France and Ben Franklin and all that as the diplomacy and that was, begins at all. And certainly that did. But this is the first time America is really thinking, oh my goodness, we're in this whole world and we're going to have threats all over the world and we have to have policies and

all the rest of it go into it. Barbury Wars stakes that ground, doesn't it? Yeah, it doesn't. So the thing that is the most important I understand about the first Barbary War and the Navy in particular is that when the Navy was founded in 1794, it was founded as an ad hoc temporary organization. So the act that creates the Navy, the Naval Armament Act, I teach my students about this all the time and to make a big deal about this. The act that founds the Navy specifically has a clause in it that says, if peace is signed with Algiers, then this whole Navy thing goes away. Because there's deep suspicion of a Navy that exists all the time during peacetime. Same thing with the Army. And this is in part a legacy of how the former British colonists had perceived what navies do, which is maintain an empire.

And at this exact moment, not many people are thinking about the United States as an empire present or future. So they don't want a standing Navy. Many people don't want a standing Navy. Certainly plenty do. There's a big congressional debate about this. And so the Navy that arises in 1794 is actually a compromise Navy. It's very small. It's a total of six ships, which is not very many ships. And it is specifically meant to be a temporary measure. And so when I teach about this in class, I always ask my students, so did the United States sign peace with Algiers? Because I always say, this is the founding document of the Navy that you are in right now. So the logical conclusion is the United States didn't sign peace with Algiers, but they did. Wow. Interesting. They did sign peace with Algiers in 1795, so literally one year after the Navy is founded by the Naval Armament Act. So what happened is that the United States finds out that diplomacy is,

more complicated than they thought. Because the thing that's going on in the world, that's so important that the United States gets caught up in, is the Napoleonic Wars. And they don't want to take a side. And, you know, George Washington sort of famously doesn't take a side in this. There's a neutrality act in 1792. And then, of course, if you've watched Hamilton, you know all about the neutrality, the discussion about neutrality. And it turns out that the United States can't actually stay out of that conflict because both sides don't. want the United States to remain neutral. And so both sides see the way that the United States acts towards the other side as being hostile or aggressive. And so they get in trouble to everybody.

And so the argument is made by some more Navy focused, let's say Navy focused congressman, that it would be foolish to get rid of this Navy that just started getting built when it's obvious that there are still maritime threats on the horizon. And so even though Algiers, the Barbary States are the impetus for the creation of the Navy. The fact that it sticks around after peace is signed with Alger's is because of the Napoleonic Wars. And then it turns out to be a good thing because France essentially goes to war with the United States in 1798. And the Navy's first deployment then is not to the Barbary States, but to the Caribbean, whereas fighting against France. So it's sort of a dry run for the Barbary War in some ways.

Yeah, it's a very complicated time. We think of so many Americans think of the revolution as we parted ways with all that. trouble in Europe, but in fact, we were very quickly tangled up. And in some ways, the Barbary States are part of that story, not directly, but... Yes. Also, now we're at 1800. Thomas Jefferson is about to be the new president. He elected in 1800. Famously, a man who cares a lot about international loves Paris intellectually, but who politically was very much turned inward. He was one who wanted to stay out of these kinds of things and these entanglements as president, ideally, anyway. So first, the basics of the story that we're talking about. Who were the Barbary states and how did they pose any

kind of threat to the U.S.? Yeah. So this is the number one question that anyone always asks about this, which is totally reasonable. And so this is where I get to say they're not pirates. Oh, there you go. I build it wrong. You're not alone. They're not pirates. And here's why. Because the way the Barbary system works is, first of all, there's four Barbary states going from, if you start from the Atlantic and go into the Mediterranean, you've got Morocco and then Algiers and then Tunis and then Tripoli. Those are the four Barbary states. And they are obviously they're in North Africa. And three of the four of them are nominally dependencies of the Ottoman Empire. So they pay tribute to the Ottoman state. But that's basically the extent of Ottoman control of these three. The one that's independent is Morocco. So the one that is that controls the bottom half of the Strait of Gibraltar. And these four states are not powerful, but they're in a situation where their geography allows them to exert some sort of secondary power in a way that's never going to make them into a big power like Britain, but it's going to make them able to survive in a place that isn't that good of growing things, for instance. It's not that easy to grow things in North. It does happen.

I'm not saying there's no agriculture. There's plenty of agriculture. But like the desert is difficult to work. with. And so they need some kind of way to support themselves. And the state does. The rulers do. And so way back hundreds of years before this, there were actual what we might think more of as piratical people coming out of Morocco in particular from Salé. So the first ones that people usually talk about that go really far are the Salé Rovers. But by the 18th century, that sort of one-off people just go in and attacking people for the fun of it, that doesn't really exist anymore.

Instead, what's going on is these states either fund ships or they essentially have a little Navy that goes out and does what I like to call an extortion wreck, which is that because of the way that the intersection of European-style law and Islamic-style law works, these Barbary states consider themselves to be at war with all European nations. unless they're specifically at peace, which means if you don't have a treaty, you're at war. It's kind of the opposite of the way that European-style law thinks of the steady state of the world, which is that you're at peace unless you're at war. But in this case, for a non-Islamic country, you're at war unless you're at peace.

Which means that any traffic in the Mediterranean is absolutely fair game by the standard, even European rules of war, which is that you can raid commerce. So these are just commerce raiders. And the way that they make money is not actually by signing or not by capturing ships, even though they do. It's by signing those peace treaties because the peace treaties don't come with our price. The peace treaties are let's be at peace. And in order to maintain the peace, you, random European nation, including big ones like Great Britain, are going to pay. Tribute.

Yeah. And it's actually usually not most. money. It's usually mostly naval stores, which allows these European countries essentially to subsidize attacks on other European countries. They're paying for the Navy that takes out other people. This is a good deal, actually, for even big states like Great Britain, because Britain has got bigger fish to fry. They got to worry about France. They got to worry about Spain. Then the Dutch and there's all, you know, they got, they got other people to worry about. But if they pay the tribute, if they pay the subsistence of these forces, then that means the Barbary states can be a real thorn in the

side of nations that Britain doesn't really have time to deal with, but Alger is just going to take care of them, essentially. That's the logic. And it works, actually, it totally works for Great Britain and for France. Anybody who can pay their tribute basically just does it. And because it's not worth it for them to go and try to fight these Barbary states. They try every once in a while. I think Britain tries like three or four times to get rid of Algiers. Algiers is the most powerful of them. It has the most money. It has the most ships.

And Great Britain tries a few times to get rid of them. And then decides it's not worth it because Algeria is really heavily fortified. And they always like grow back like a mushroom. So they just give up and they're like, whatever, we're just going to pay the tribute and let them mess around with the Italians or whatever. It's fine. So when we talk about pirates, these guys aren't pirates. They're actually state actors. Interesting.

And they're acting within a legitimate and ratified legal framework. Everybody agrees to what they're doing. So they're not pirates. Now, of course, piracy is in the eye of the beholder. If your ship gets taken and you don't like it, then you're going to call somebody a pirate. Like, that's just kind of why. There's no jolly Roger. Yeah, there's no jolly Roger.

There's no like chopping people's heads off or whatever. But the thing that happens to the captives are what happens when you get captured. So if a ship, if you are in a ship that doesn't have a treaty, then when you get captured, customarily for Europeans, you would take that ship to a prize court. And the prize court would rule on whether it was a good prize. So whether you had done everything lawfully. And then you would sell the ship. And you might make the prisoners of war, but just as likely you're probably going to give them their parole. or you're going to just release them because it's too much work. But what the Barbary states do is they actually hold those people captive. And this is often called Barbary Slavery. And there are certainly times in the history of the Barbary States where it is more like slavery, but it's not really, really slavery. And certainly not slavery like when we save slavery in an American context.

It's not chattel slavery. It's not race-based. It's really more like holding somebody for ransom. And that's what they're hoping. They actually, people die. Certainly, it's a very, they're held in bad conditions, but there are ways to get yourself out of the bad conditions. And more importantly, what they want is for your rich family to come and pay money to get you.

Sure. Still happens today. And that happens. That actually happens a lot. Yep. So, but that fear of captivity is what makes the Barbary States so dreaded is, first of all, it's about them not being European. So that's, that's one thing.

It's just some good old racism. in there, but it's also about this fear of being held captive in an unfamiliar and terrifying place. Exactly. If anyone has the obsessive mind, I'm cursed with. I looked up why it's called Barbary States because of the Berbers, the Barbers, they were called. And that's like the Berber Rugs that you hear about.

That area was generally called for those indigenous people that were there. And so it sort of morphs into the Barbary states we talk about today. America had those treaties for a long time from 1787 to 94. There were several of those situations where they paid tribute to these merchants. What happens in September 1800 starts to change things. The USS George Washington arrives in Mediterranean to deliver tribute to Alger, and they are pressured into allowing the ship to be used as a transport for the Algerians' own tribute to the Ottomans. This is how the world used to work. People, this is the paid tribute to everybody.

So the Algerians have to go pay tribute to the Ottomans. I guess that's in Constantinople. and they want to use the USS George Washington for this reason. The captain relented and the Algerian flag is hoisted over the USS George Washington. Can you imagine that happening today? This incident really humiliated the U.S. didn't it? But why was that different than any other time? So this is actually something where my particular interpretation of this event is different from how it was perceived by the actors at the time for sure,

but also most historians have sort of accepted. accepted the wisdom of the people who were in the moment. And I think they're wrong. So I'm going to tell you my Abby Mullen hot take about the U.S. Estorch, Washington. So yes, it is certainly humiliating from a certain point of view because the very first naval interaction, this is the Navy ship. This is a naval frigate. The very first interaction the United States Navy has with the Barbary States with Algiers is in being its slow cargo ship, which is, yeah, of course, that's humiliating. But the thing that the Americans are not tracking on at that moment is that this is actually a customary practice. That other nations, Navy ships have done this sort of thing before. It is customary if you're carrying tribute of another nation to fly their flag. It is not actually that big a deal. Nobody's going to be like, oh, no, the Americans, they're so weak because they carried this tribute to Constantinople. Nobody's actually thinking about the Americans at all, to be honest. So they can't be humiliated because no one even knows they exist.

So they get very up in arms about this, particularly the Captain William Bainbridge. We're going to talk about him again later, I assume. But they take the wrong message. You're explaining a system that is really kind of a replacement for diplomacy in a way. It's just an understanding that this is all going to exist the way it is, the way it's been for a long time. And the Americans have have a agreed to enter into this system, but at some point, and this is the point of this show, is that they will reject this, and that's going to cause a war to happen. They could continue paying tribute to this point. The path they would go down was made clear in 1800 when Thomas Jefferson beats John Adams and ascends to the presidency and argues that America was being subjected to the

spoilations of foreign cruisers and humiliated by paying an enormous tribute to the petty tyrant of Algiers. My goodness. After this short break, we'll be back to talk about the opening of hostilities between the Americans and I was going to call them pirates, but they're not. Welcome back. I'm speaking with Professor Abigail Mullen of the U.S. Naval Academy about the Barbary Wars. To recap, Abby, Thomas Jefferson is now president. The U.S. is set to confront the Barbary pirates. It's almost like it was part of his campaign or to be president.

Was it that big a policy of his? Historians disagree about how much this thing matters. mattered, how much the Algerian crisis mattered. And it's important to emphasize that it's an Algerian crisis up to this point. So the other three Barbary states, they're in the mix, but the United States is laser focused on Algiers because they see it as the number one most powerful of these four Barbary states. So yeah, it certainly does come up. And different historians have different feelings about how much it mattered in terms of Jefferson's approach versus Adams' approach, that kind of thing.

But certainly it's part of people are aware that it's that there is a crisis of some kind, even if they aren't necessarily totally aware of what it is that's going on. Yeah, it has to have stung, especially for the people at home, that the boat was named after our president, George Washington, our first president, amazingly, you know, daring of them to take that on. Yeah. How do the Americans plan to fight, to take the fight to the Barbary states? We don't have much of an ability to sail over there and do anything, right? Yeah, so this is actually a situation where there's that we have to talk about the diplomats who are in the area.

Because, again, the United States rhetoric is very heavily focused on Algiers. But Algiers is not actually the problem here. Algiers is the one getting the most payment and it's a lot. So the initial treaty is really big, about a million. and that's a lot of money. And so that's, you know, people are rightly focused on that. And so each of these states has a treaty. For Algiers, the treaty involves annual payments. And same thing with Tunis, only it's much, much less. But Tripoli's agreement actually does not even include annual payments. It was just a one-time sort of lump sum tribute payment. And the problem is that

Tripoli looks at what the United States is doing for Algiers and says, how come we're not getting that? And in particular, the thing that they get really worked up about, which, you know, maybe a little bit understandably, is it's not just the money, but the United States is actually building ships for Algiers. So across the time from 1795 onwards, the United States actually builds five ships for Algiers. And one of them is like as big as a U.S. Navy ship and it has guns. So they say, how come Algiers gets all the country? cool stuff. What are we? Second-class citizens around here? And so the bashaw of Tripoli, the ruler of Tripoli, a guy named Yusuf Karamontli, starts talking to the American who has been placed in Tripoli

as the diplomatic representative. Now, he's not a diplomat. This is really important. He's not a diplomat. He's a consul. And everywhere else in the world, a consul is just a commercial agent. So someone who is designed whose job is designed to help merchants get through all the paperwork, essentially. And if they're stranded mariners or whatever, they take care of them. But they do not have an official diplomatic role everywhere else in the world. So when these guys get put in the Barbary states, they are kind of given a job extra from what they really are signed up to do. And some of them really love that and other ones of them don't. So the guy who's in Tripoli really, really hates them. James Leander Cathcart, who is the consul in Tripoli, his main job, as he sees it, is to

revenge the humiliations that he and by extension the United States have suffered at the hands of the Barbary States. So the United States lost its first ship to Algiers in 1785. And those captives that were taken in 1785 actually stayed in captivity for 10 years before the United States could actually get them out. So he basically grew up. In an Algerian prison because he was young. He was 17 when he first got captured. So when he gets out of captivity, his one main mission in life is to stick it to the barber states. So when the bashwob Tripoli comes to him and says, hey, you need to cut us a better deal. We want a ship. Cathcart says no. Right. And stop asking. And this results in Tripoli declaring war, right? 1801. So in 1801, the

Bashaw tells him, you have six months to figure this out. And if you can't figure it out, then I'm going to declare war. And Cathcart's like, okay, I'm just going to tell everybody to go away. And that's what he does. So the American, he tells the Americans to get out and they all do. And in May of 1801, the Bashaw cuts down the flagpole at the U.S. consulate, which is the signal that he has declared war. Right. So the core idea here is the Americans have refused to pay this tribute. Based on a lot of bad feelings and a long prison sentence, it sounds like in one case. It results in February 1802, Congress authorizing President Jefferson to send the Navy across the ocean and blockade the harbor of Tripoli. My goodness, what a moment. Off we go into a foreign incursion. So let's walk through the most

famous events of this conflict, because there's a lot of smaller ones. It's tied to several ships. The first naval squadron's assent had proven pretty ineffective at halting these activities that were going on. In September, 1803, this is Commodore Edward Preble on board the USS Constitution. Oh my goodness. If you want relevancy, you know, modern relevancy, this is the boat that's

still harbored in Boston. You know, you can go see this historic ship most famous for its War of 1812, but it begins its work in September 1803. As I understand that the Americans institute a blockade but to limited effect. Their ships are too big to

properly enforce it. Eventually they'll get smaller ones, but they'll still struggle to stop the Tripolitan blockade runners. There are two main incidents we should look at. The first being what happens to the USS Philadelphia. Philadelphia is captained by a guy that we've already met, Captain William Bainbridge, who was the captain of the George Washington in 1800. So he's got something to prove here.

And he had actually already been in the Mediterranean once. He was in the initial squadron. He was the captain of the Essex in the squadron in 1801. And he's actually the one who made the recommendation for smaller ships. So he, out of anyone, has a better sense of what Tripoli Harbor, the perils of Tripoli Harbor are. Despite that, he goes to Tripoli and he's enforcing the blockade, and he's chasing a blockade runner into Tripoli Harbor. And because their charts were not done by them and had not been validated by them, they were using mostly French charts. I think his chart was French.

On the chart that he had, the entire area around Tripoli Harbor had not been fully charted. And so Tripoli, there's a reef out there. It's called Kaliusa Reef. And the Philadelphia runs a ground on Kaliusa Reef on October 31st, 1803. He must have been screaming bloody murder, that guy. So lots of contention about like what went down after that and whether he did the right thing and should they have fought to the death and all of that stuff. But he judges that there's no chance that they're going to get off this reef. And so it's stupid to have a big firefight where everybody dies.

because that's certainly what's going to happen. And so they surrender the Philadelphia to the tripolitan's basically without a shot. And, you know, like I said, lots of people have different feelings about whether or not that was the right call, including his Commodore, Edward Preble, who reassures him, you know, publicly, says, yeah, you did the right thing, you did the right thing. And then in letters back to the Secretary of the Navy is like, what is that guy's deal? Why did he not fight to the death? So, you know, different strokes for different folks, I guess. But the problem is that now Tripoli has two big bargaining chips. Number one is they have the captives of the Philadelphia. They've got almost 400 guys and some of them are high, fairly high profile, like the captain of the ship and stuff like that.

But they've also got lots of sailors. And then they also have the ship because the tide shifts the next day and the Tripolitans are able to refloat the Philadelphia. So it's not just out there foundering on the reef, but they actually bring it into the harbor. So now they've got two pretty big bargaining chips. So whatever. sort of momentum the United States had been able to develop, which was not much, they're really in a bad situation now. So when Prevla arrives, finally, he gets there in like no, or he learns about this in November. And he then, of course, has to go laser focus on Tripoli because this can't continue. Something's got to change here. But they, they spend a long time talking about what they're going to do. Because what they're afraid of is that if the United States does anything extremely aggressive,

then the bash is just going to kill all the captives. which would not be totally unheard of. So they have to tread carefully here. Yeah. So about six months after this all happens or during this time, in February 1804, this is when a really covert activity happens where an American naval crew sneaks in to Tripoli's Harbor, disguised as a merchant ship led by a man named Lieutenant Stephen Decatur. Take us through this moment. It's very exciting. Yeah, it is very exciting.

So the thing that they decide to do, and I don't tell anybody, even the crew, is they, they're. They decide they can't get it, they can't get the Philadelphia out of Tripoli Harbor because it's anchored under the guns of the fortifications and like people would die and they wouldn't probably actually get it out. So they decide they can't get it back. But if they can't get it back, they can at least keep the Tripolitans from using it. And so they decide to go and burn it. So Stephen Decatur, who's a lieutenant, he's 25 years old and he is just in the squadron. he gets picked to lead this mission of 70-ish volunteers, and they do all volunteer from all the ships in the squadron,

and they are going to sail this little catch that they had captured a few in December of 1803, this Ottoman catch. It looks like a tripolitan ship. They can rig it to look like a tripolitan ship. They can get all the, you know, so they can sort of, yeah, go incognito, hopefully. And so they're going to put everybody on board, and then hopefully they're going to swarm up on the Philadelphia, and then they're going to set a bunch of charges,

and they're going to explode it. And hopefully everybody gets up. And the key actor in this story is the pilot. So there's a pilot who is Maltese, and his name is Savatari Catalano. And he has a real talent. Number one, he knows the area, so he's not going to run them aground again,

because that would be embarrassing. But also he speaks all the local languages, including Arabic, which, of course, none of the Americans speak Arabic at all. So when they sail into Tripoli Harbor, they actually get a boon. They get a coincidence that works well for them, which is that there's a big storm that comes up. They want to do this at the beginning of February, and Catalano keeps selling them, don't go now, don't go now, you're going to get crushed to death by this storm. And everybody's like, he's just a coward. He doesn't want us to do it. But he was totally right about that. They would

definitely have gotten crushed. But then they have the opportunity when they sail into Tripoli, finally on February 16th of making the claim that the storm made them lose their anchors. And so they need something to tie up next to you. So Catalano calls out to the guards on the Philadelphia, the tripalitan guards, and says, hey, as you can see, we really got beat up by this storm. Can we just tie up on the Philadelphia, you know, and we'll, once the waters find, you know, go get the anchors. They didn't know they were Americans.

Most of the Americans were below. And Catalano is the only one talking. So, of course, they're all dressed in, you know, Tripolitin garb or whatever. So but they're most of the crews below. So they can't even see them. And so the Trafalton guards, they buy it. And they say, oh, yeah, sure. And in fact, they even row a little boat over to the Intrepid, which is the catch.

They rename it the Intrepid to help them haul the Intrepid closer to Philadelphia. Wow. And it's not until they're really close, like yards away, that the Tripolitans start picking up on something not quite being exactly. as described. And so they raised the alarm. They shout Americanos, Americanos, but by then it's too late. And so the 75 guys swarm over the side and they set all the charges

and they kill some of the guards and they go back onto the Intrepid and Decatur lights the charges and then they all get back on the Intrepid and they sail away. And then the ship blows up. And it works. Absolutely, every single piece of this plan works absolutely perfectly. And so

it's, you know, people talk about being able to see the flames of the Philadelphia from miles away, and it's a huge deal, and people get really excited about it. And Decatur gets some good stuff out of this because he gets a promotion to captain out of this. He's a lieutenant. So he actually skips a rank, and he goes straight to captain, which makes him the youngest captain ever commissioned as a captain in the U.S. Navy, that is still true today. Actually, he's still the youngest captain ever. So he gets something out of it. He will go on to distinguish himself in the war of 1812, Decatur. He would indeed. Yeah. And yeah, and again, in the second Barbary War, actually.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, but the thing is that this action, though it's heroic and it's awesome and, like, you know, kudos to Steve and Decatur, it doesn't really get the Americans anything because the tripolitans were never going to use the ship anyway. They were planning on maybe selling it to Tunis. But the captives don't get any better treatment. They don't get killed.

So I guess that's something. But it's not like they make any headway diplomatically by getting rid of the ship. But it's enough to galvanize the American. to say, okay, like, we can do this. Let's keep going. The other part of the story is the Battle of Durna. So the U.S. had been debating whether they could end the war with Tripoli just by using naval force. But eventually they decide to go for a land invasion and they'll topple Tripoli's leader, Yusef Karmannli.

Eventually, a plan put forward by U.S. diplomat William Eaton got approved. And they joined forces with Yusef Karmalli's rival and brother, And they gather together a multinational army of mercenaries, Bedouin fighters, and Hamnet's followers, and prepare to march on Tripoli. But they leave from Egypt, right? They're in Alexandria, Egypt. Now, Tripoli, the city of Tripoli is a thousand miles away. So they decide they can't get straight to Tripoli. So they're going to go first to Dernah, which is about five or six hundred miles away from Alexandria.

And they're going to start there. And if they can take Durna, then from Durna, they can stage the next attack on the city of Tripoli, which is again, about another 500 miles down the road. And of course, this is like really challenging because it's desert. This is the desert. You know, it's like walking across the desert for six weeks. And they run into all kinds of terrible stuff. They run out of water all the time. And then on a different day, they actually, their camp gets washed away by a flood and they don't have food.

And Eaton doesn't have any money to pay these guys. and he makes them all kinds of promises. And one thing you can say about William Eaton is, even though he had a lot of really outlandish ideas, and he had some very strange personality quirks, but that guy knew how to get people moving. Because somehow magically, they start this journey in about March of 1805, and by April of 1805, six weeks later, they're outside of Durnah. And not only do they still have all 400 of the initial guys, but they've actually brought on another about between 6 and 800.

So they got about 1,200 guys, roughly. Right. What was this battle like? So the thing that they needed desperately before they could stage the attack was they needed artillery. And that's where the Navy comes back in. So the two ships that the Navy had promised arrive and they are able to give them a few cannons, which they haul up this big hill and it's like a whole thing. And so once the Navy arrives with the supplies and with the cannons, then the attack can really get started. And the shocking thing is that even though the town is very heavily fortified, it's a, you know, it's a walled city and there's military people in there. once the attack starts, this force,

Homet's force, takes the city in about two hours. It's a route. And if you ask the Marines, the Marines lead the charge into this, those eight guys charging into there, and everybody else just comes in and picks up the pieces after the Marines have already taken the whole city. Yeah.

I think that's unlikely. Okay. I think that's unlikely. Eight, I mean, the Marines are awesome. Don't get me wrong. But these guys are not trained as expeditionary war fighters or anything like They're just ship policemen. So they have no special talents.

And they certainly don't have the sort of ethos of the Marine Corps that might make this possible today. I don't know. Probably would not. But still. But the Marines like to tell the story that the eight Marines go in and they impressly O'Bannon is the hero of the day. And which is fine. Like, knock yourself out. But the moral of the story is Hamid's forces are successful in Dernah.

They take the city and then they wait. because the next step is supposed to be that they go to Tripoli. But the problem is that Yusuf Karamani has been watching all of this. And he is actually sending forces from Tripoli to Durnah. And chances are if Yusuf's forces actually get there, they're going to cream the Americans. They're going to cream this force by Hamid. But he doesn't really want that because what he really wants is to get rid of Hamlet once and for all. And he wants the Americans to help him do it, essentially.

So he's kind of tired of this war. And this thing that has happened, it does not affect him. Not really. It's just annoying. It's like a fly. And there's actually an expression that the Tunisian ruler uses, which I love, which is that a fly in a man's throat, though it won't kill him, it might make him vomit. And that's kind of what this is. It's just an irritation.

But he's tired of fighting the war by this point. And he's tired of the Americans always being around and being annoying. So he's ready to talk to the Navy. to Samuel Barron and the official negotiator that's come from the United States. So he can see this thing happening. And even though he doesn't see it as an actual existential threat to him, it's a convenient excuse to start talking to the American negotiators. So while Eaton is doing this crazy march across the desert with Hamid, Yusuf is talking to the Americans. And they are very near to actually coming to a peace agreement.

And that's actually what happens. they sign a deal and it's all signed sealed and delivered on June 10th. And it's not because of Eaton, having done all that stuff, but it's not not because he did it. But the thing that happens as a result of this is the United States agrees to pay triply $60,000, which is a ransom for the Philadelphia prisoners. I see. And then that's it. There will be no tribute payments going forward. word from the United States. But what Yusuf gets out of this is now Hamat is never going to be on the

throne of Tripoli. And he's never going to be even in a position where he can make this kind of claim again, because now that the United States has officially recognized Yusuf again, they can't very well sign up with Hamit. So they can't keep on with Hamit because now they have this good treaty with Yusuf. it is a good treaty. It's not what they want. It's not what the Americans want, but in terms of what it could have been, it's really good. But the upshot of it and victory for the Americans is we're no longer going to pay these tributes. We accomplished the objective, right? But is it attributes to all of them or just to one of them? So the Tripoli, the Tripoli treaty is fine. Again, the $60,000 payment, but then no treaty or no tribute going forward. But the other treaties are unaffected. So the United

States is still going to pay tribute to Algiers, is still going to pay tribute to Tunis. So the system is not broken. And a lot of times when people talk about this war, they talk about it as being that, as the United States breaking this system of Barbary extortion. But that's absolutely false. Interesting. Okay. Well, we will take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the second Barbary War. It's a brief one. And then the resolution and legacy of all of this. Welcome back. As we explained before the break, America has been. beaten these Barbary states in this war, but it's a subtle and complex victory. And by no means, the last one that's going to happen. When did war break out again, Abby, on what is called the

Second Barbary War? It's a brief episode, right? It is. It's very brief. And again, here the context matters, because the second Barbary War is the culmination of a lot of frustration about the War of 1812 in a lot of ways, I think. So two big things are going on in the world. between the end of the first Barbary War and the beginning of what we call the second one. Which is when exactly just to place the date? 1815. Okay. So we are after the war of 1812 now.

Exactly. So the two big things that are going on in the world for the United States are continuing and, in fact, ramped up aggression with both Britain and France. And the reason for that is the second thing, which is the Napoleonic Wars, are raging at this point. and they're only getting more sort of world domination-esque. So these two world events are what is occupying the Americans' headspace, trying to figure out how to navigate. Because at the end of the day, the Barbary states are not nearly as scary as the British. And so when the British and the Americans go to war in 1812, the Algerians, so the guys that the Americans were afraid of at the beginning, they see an opportunity to, to start blurring the lines of what is appropriate treaty-bound behavior and not.

So they start taking American ships again, even though the United States still does have a treaty with them, and there's some, you know, hijinks here and there. But the United States just doesn't have the bandwidth because they're fighting against Britain, so they can't do anything about it at the time. And of course, the United States does not fare extremely well in the War of 1812 from a naval perspective. So even though there's the big frigate battle, at the beginning, which we love, Constitution Garrier, we love. But that's in 1812. And then the Royal Navy comes down with the force of the British Navy hammer and blockades the U.S. Navy in port,

basically for the rest of the war. And so all of these people who got their start, actually, in the first Barbary War, many people who were junior officers in the first Barbary War are now, the captains of the Frigate Navy in 1812. And they're all sitting in port, twiddling their thumbs, and being annoyed. And the main person who's sitting in port being annoyed is Stephen Decatur. He's an active young man. He wants to get out there and do stuff. And when he tries to run the blockade in 1814 in USS President, he gets captured. And that makes him very angry. So when the war ends, Napoleon is defeated in Europe and the Americans sign the Treaty of Ghent and it's all hunky-dory and everything's fine. Then they can be like,

okay, who can we go get now? We need to go get this aggression out that we've been hanging on to for these past three years. That's probably an uncharitable way to think about it. But that's how at least for Decatur, that's how I always think about it. So they're ready to go back and tell Algiers, we just took out the biggest Navy on the planet. So sit down and shut up. Yeah. And Algiers is ready to have that message brought to them.

So actually, the Navy authorizes a guy. that we've already talked about twice now, William Bainbridge to take a squadron to Algiers and have a conversation. So do a little more naval diplomacy. Stephen Decatur is like, no way, is William Bainbridge going to do that? And I don't get to do it.

So he takes his own squadron and sails to Algears in advance of Bainbridge. And he gets there first, which of course, you know, that means him. Bainbridge have some other things to talk about later. But this is in May 1815. Yes. That Decatur sets sail.

So they're sort of racing across the ocean. He gets there first. Yes. The war is basically several minor skirmishes, right? Yeah. I don't even know that. Yeah, I don't even know that there's anything that you could call a battle. Exactly.

Because Decatur and Bainbridge pull up to Algiers, they park their ships off of Algiers. And they say, okay, last time we were here, we had one ship, but now we've got 50. So, like, what are you going to do? And Algiers is weakened. Not by the United States, but just because of the way that the Napoleonic Wars had gone and a variety of other things, they're not in an extremely strong state. And so they're willing to listen and to talk. And so ultimately there's not much of a war here. It's mostly just diplomacy at gunpoint. Right. I mean, the story really is the idea of carrying a big stick is born. Yeah. It's finally born here for the Americans. But of course, even here, even here, though, we can't give the United States all the crime. Because yes, the United States does accomplish something here in 1815, but it's not until Lord X-Smith from the Royal Navy shows up in 1816 that Algiers really does stop charging tribute to everybody.

So even though the United States likes to take credit for breaking the system, they didn't. There are interesting events. I mean, we take ships and there's a skirmish off of the Spanish coast. It's all very, it reads is very romantic. I'm sure it was a big, big, messy thing to do. But not much real danger. Exactly. Not much real.

But the message here is the growth of the military, I guess, is really important, especially the Navy, obviously. And then that's very interesting because in this podcast series, we've talked many times about the fear of Americans about the standing army and how that really is always the case right into World War I, you know, as far as us not maintaining this standing army because it represents tyranny. And that's a big theme in American society, certainly through the 19th century. on the other hand, you can't not have a Navy because it takes a long time to build boats, for one thing. So you've got to keep that on call. So this is really the message here that they've kind of created this Navy that's going to only get bigger and bigger over time. And now we're really big. One of the lasting legacies.

I mean, I'm already on it right there. But Navy credibility, right? That's basically the legacy there. Yeah. I think the way that I like to talk about this is that one of the things that the United States is, that the United States is trying to accomplish in the first war in particular. The second war is kind of a different beast, but in the first war in particular, the United States is trying to establish credibility as a sovereign nation. So the ability to make treaties is really important, but also the ability to enforce them and the ability to not take affronts is the thing that the United States is really interested in.

And in terms of whether they succeeded in that in the first robbery war, it's really a mixed bag. But the thing that they get out of this is even in 1805 when the war ends, people are not ready yet to say, let's keep the Navy forever. In fact, Jefferson himself is not ready to say, let's keep a Blue Water Navy forever. But what they have learned is that diplomacy doesn't work

without some force behind it. And so one of the things you see as a result of the ways in which the United States does diplomacy during this war is, consuls go a lot more places. And they don't have diplomatic powers. Even only the Barberie States guys have sort of diplomatic, quasi-diplematic powers. But the United States starts to expand its commercial reach and allow the state, the power of the state, to go further. Because Americans, normal, like standard of Americans, regular commercial Americans are already

going all over the world. And that's only going to increase. But it becomes obvious that the United States needs some kind of official representation in a lot of places in the world so that that commerce can continue unabated. And after the second war, after the War of 1812, that is where the Navy really steps in. Because that by the end of the War of 1812, as you said, the question of whether there should be a Navy is kind of settled at that point. Now, what it's going to look like is certainly not settled, but the fact that it exists is settled. And the reason it settled is that diplomacy alone turns out to not be able to accomplish those commercial goals for the United States. So even though we think about the years after 1812 or the War of 1812 as being about territorial expansion and people going west and all of that stuff,

there's also a significant expansion, for instance, into the Pacific in the commerce sphere. And the Navy's job is going to be to make sure that that commerce can work, can be successful. And so all of these guys who got their start in the First Barbarry War are then the senior captains of that commercial Navy. And they take some, some of them take some lessons from that experience. Some of them don't. But I think really what the First Barbarry War does for the United States is it shows them what is going to be necessary for the United States to be taken seriously as a sovereign nation. And it is a combo of naval power or the ability to project power out into the world. and making sure that your diplomats are where they need to be.

Yeah, it's the expanding markets. It's the expansion of sale, a much more active shipping happening. And for that, you need to have diplomacy, but you also need force. You need the ability to get there and take care of problems. Battle of Durnah, first land battle, the U.S. ever fought on foreign soil. However, the Marines played that role, they were there. It was the first time the stars and stripes had been raised on foreign soil. It really is the first time you break the image that the U.S. is isolationist.

You know, we so often hear that about the United States that's inwardly turned, but really right from the beginning. Oh, yeah. We're taking action overseas. No, the United States has never been isolationist. Yeah, not in that way. No. Yeah, you can call that a myth and apocryphal because we have chosen that far-flung fight

many times all the way back. Anyway, Professor Abigail Mullen is headquartered at Annapolis, Maryland, the U.S. Navy Naval Academy. She authored the book we've been discussing to fix a national character, the first Barbary War 1800 to 1805 order today. It's important history. Thank you so much, Abby.

Really nice to meet you. Thanks for having me. It's been great. Thanks for listening to American History Hit. You know, every week we release new episodes, two new episodes dropping Mondays and Thursdays, from mysterious missing colonies to powerful political movements to some of the biggest battles across the centuries. don't miss an episode.

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