Barbary Wars Put Early American Ideals of Free Trade to the Test

By DAVID W. MUNNS, Assistant Editor

THE BARBARY WARS: American Independence in the Atlantic World
by Frank Lambert, New York: Hill & Wang, Aug. 2005. 228 pp. $24.00.
ISBN: 0-8090-9533-5

When John Thaxter, private secretary to John Quincy Adams, delivered the 1783 accord at Paris that ended the American Revolutionary War, New Yorkers gathered on the Bowling Green for a magnificent fireworks display celebrating the country’s formal recognition as an independent state and what many Americans saw as a cornerstone of capitalism: the end to British imperial trade regulations.

Seeking freedom of trade, American merchants attempted to develop illicit commerce with non-British ports. In fact, America declared commercial independence in December 1775, six months prior to its political independence, by opening American ports to all ships besides Britain in direct defiance to Parliament’s Restraining Act, which sought closure of American ports to countries other than Great Britain.

Accompanying America’s newfound independence were ideals of equality and reciprocity in the international community, aimed at sustaining the idea of free trade by allowing complete separation from the century-old British Navigation Acts. But as author Frank Lambert writes in The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World, putting these ideals into practice was easier said than done.

One year after America formally secured liberty, a dispatch was sent to Benjamin Franklin in Paris notifying him that a Moroccan corsair had captured the American brig Betsey. This was a direct affront to the year-old independence, and a precursor to the economic constraints America would battle in the form of trade restrictions and piratical oppression for decades to come.

Severing its ties with Britain meant America’s protection in Eastern Atlantic trade zones by the British Navy had also been lost. In 1784 and 1785, two more American vessels, the Dauphin and Maria, were captured, and Barbary pirates operating from Africa enslaved American citizens. Additionally, free trade was quashed by a Spanish blockade of the Mississippi and British prohibition of American trade in the West Indies.

Many, such as Thomas Jefferson, saw conflict with Barbary states as a “petty” distraction. However, America as a naval force was equally petty compared with the pirates who raided U.S. ships and naval powers such as Britain, Spain and France. And in direct consequence of its inferiority to larger maritime powers, the newly formed America was involved with some of the most difficult military and diplomatic struggles of that century, the Quasi-War with the French and the War of 1812 with Great Britain.

The Barbary Wars, highlighted by the Tripolitan War lasting from 1801-1805 and the Algerine War from 1815-1816, were America’s first conflicts with Muslim states. But as Lambert clearly assesses, claims that the Barbary Wars were “a holy war of Muslims against the infidel invaders” miss the point and the context of the conflict.

During this time, discourse about Islamic intolerance, embodied by some in frank, dramatized commentary in U.S. newspapers, sermons and speeches, would less likely be about jihad and more often turn to discussions condemning religious intolerance among some religious sects in America. “And when Americans denounced the Algerine captivity of U.S. citizens, they also decried the barbaric, un-Christian slaveholding in the [American] South,” Lambert writes.

Searching for antecedents to America’s current war on terrorism, some historians have turned to the Barbary Wars for lessons, and perhaps the military and diplomatic patience of the founding fathers in solving that conflict may provide evidence of what it will take to win the war on terrorism. Only anachronistic interpretations of the Barbary Wars, however, will judge it historically as a holy war, Lambert asserts.

Lambert turns out a brilliant history in The Barbary Wars, one with analysis that is not exactly what the pundits might prefer. Instead of tracing patterns of radicalized East versus West mentality, he astutely, though often dryly, pronounces that America’s initial conflict with North Africa was about trade, not religion, land or cultural milieu. In doing so, he writes a history that offers the thorough text and context of a very important period of evolution for America, and, also, a piece of history that shapes current events by subtly pointing to stark differences between America’s past and present treatment of free trade.

THE PIRATE WARS
by Peter Earle, New York: Thomas Dunne Books, April 2005. 320 pp. $24.95.
ISBN: 0-312-33579-2

History and legend may offer somewhat divergent accounts of the pirate Blackbeard’s bloody last stand with Lt. Robert Maynard of the British Royal Navy in 1718, but there is no dispute about the outcome: Blackbeard and nearly all of his men were killed.

This was a triumph at a time when pirates and piracy were not phenomena of interest for popular culture, but a true clash of economic mindsets and quantities of money that could have easily crushed the world economy.

Piracy was an ever-present peril for Western merchants and seamen transiting through the Mediterranean, off American and Caribbean shores and West Africa, and in the Indian Ocean during a more than 300-year period spanning from the 16th century through the first three decades of the 19th century.

In The Pirate Wars, author, academic and maritime historian Peter Earle describes the golden age of piracy, 1715-1725, as the source for much of the legend surrounding popular pirate icons. However, he declares the pirate to be often misunderstood.

Earle examines the pirate through previously unused sources, including records of the British Admiralty, to observe how European and American governments managed to rid the seas of these plunderers. Seen by Western cultures as a barbaric, transient foe, pirates were often state-sponsored, “seeing it as a cheap and effective way of advancing trade and empire, a policy which can be called piratical imperialism,” he writes. Communities throughout the world had a vested interest in sustaining piracy.

Though cutthroat stereotypes of pirates abound from their treatment of hijacked crewmembers or trade of freed slaves as commodities, these figures dominated and terrorized nearly every body of water on the globe and were a formidable threat for even the most powerful navies of the time. Pirates battled with every major fleet of the western world, including Spain, England, France and Holland — though the fleets never worked together to defeat piracy — and are often remembered as folk heroes who defied imperial establishments

Though piracy is no longer considered a major threat to shipping, marauders of the open waters are now reinventing themselves on the present-day ocean, sans eye patches and quirky names, and have become a target of current navies fighting the war on terrorism.

Also Received:

SAILING INTO THE ABYSS: A True Story of Extreme Heroism on the High Seas
by William R. Benedetto, New York: Kensington Publishing Corp., March 2005. 254 pp. $23.95.
ISBN: 0-8065-2634-3

The sinking of the SS Badger State, a Merchant Marine vessel sailing to Vietnam with much-needed munitions in late 1969, is one of the most shocking episodes in recent American history. Bombs shaken loose in the ship’s cargo holds during a savage Pacific storm exploded, sending the Badger State and 26 of its 40-man crew to a watery grave. In Sailing Into the Abyss, William R. Benedetto uses eyewitness accounts, official documents and rare photographs to piece together a minute-by-minute narrative of the Badger State’s catastrophic encounter with the sea, giving much-deserved recognition to the heroic crew.

SEIZE THE TRIDENT: The Race for Superliner Supremacy and How It Altered the Great War
by Douglas R. Burgess, New York: McGraw Hill, May 2005. 296 pp. $24.95.
ISBN: 0-07-143009-1

Seize the Trident examines the nationalistic liner race between England and Germany during a 30-year period from the late 19th century to the early 20th century. The narrative incorporates the history of the massive ocean liners, the military and social history surrounding them, and the biographies of characters such as tycoon J.P. Morgan, German Kaiser Wilhelm II, inventor Sir Charles Parsons and shipping magnate Albert Ballin.

The race was integral to the evolution of naval superiority, heralding inventions such as the Marconi wireless communication system and the double hull. The creation of superliners facilitated a wave of immigration to the United States during the early 20th century that transformed American society. Most importantly, the race influenced the outcome of World War I, allowing the U.S. Navy to seize German superliners and convert them to troop transports, successfully ferrying 2 million soldiers across the Atlantic in a mere two-month period.

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