Algerian-American Relations Reconsidered, 1783-1816
Abstract
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 possibleDownloads
References
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.
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.
Privateers are privately-owned armed vessel whose owners were commissioned by belligerent nations to carry naval warfare. Such naval commissions or authorizations are called letters of marque. “Privateer,” Microsoft Encarta Premium 2005. (accessed 22 February 2008).
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.
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.
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.
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.
See for example article VI of the Anglo-Algerian treaty of 1682. Hertslet, Collection of Treaties and Conventions, p. 59.
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).
Richard Leiby, “Terrorists by another Name: The Barbary Pirates,” Washington Post, 15 October 2001, p. C01.
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.
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: Treaties between the United States of America and Foreign Nations, 1778-1845 (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1867), pp. 133-137.
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.
For further details see John B. Wolfe, Algiers under the Turks, 1500-1830 (New York/London: W. W. Norton, 1979), pp. 309-13.
Thomas A. Bailey, A Diplomatic History of the American People, 10th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1980), p. 65.
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.
Journal of the House of Representatives of the United States, Thursday, January 2, 1794.
Marshall Smelser, “The Passage of the Naval Act of 1794,” Military Affairs, 22: 1 (Spring 1958), pp. 1-12.
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.
Ibid., p. 120.
As cited in Ray W. Irwin, The Diplomatic Relations of the United States with the Barbary Powers, 1776-1816 (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1931), p. 195.
The document can be found in Shaler, Sketches of Algiers, pp. 118-19.
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 George Washington to the Presidency, Exhibiting a Complete View of our Foreign Relations since that 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.
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.
Public Statutes at Large, 8:224-227.
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).
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.
Bailey, Diplomatic History, p. 64.
Barnby, The Prisoners of Algiers.
Ibid., p. 11.
Richard B. Parker, ‘Anti-American Attitudes in the Arab World,’ The Annals, AAPSS, 497, May 1988, pp. 46-7.
Cathcart, The Captives, p. 4.
James A. Field, America and the Mediterranean World, 1772-1882 (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1969), p. 29.
Stephen Clissold, “The Expulsion of the Moriscos, 1609–1614,” History Today, 28: 12 (1978), pp. 817–824.
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.
For a substantial study about piracy on the other side of the Mediterranean see, Mouley Belhamissi, Les captifs algériens et l’Europe chrétienne, 1518-1830 (Alger: Entreprise Nationale du Livre, 1988); see also Marisa Huber, “Holy Wars and Piratical Governments: Barbary Corsairs (With a Comparative Look at Maltese Corsairs)”, 2004. (Accessed 18 May 2008). http://www.daviddfriedman.com/Academic/Course_Pages/legal_systems
As cited in Irwin, Diplomatic Relations, pp. 24-25.
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.
