7 Incredible Facts You’ll Learn from Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates

The Barbary Coast countries were nations of pirates.
Until the 19th century, the term “Barbary Coast” was used to describe the nations along Africa’s northern coast, where the Berber tribes lived. In the late 18th and early 19th century, four countries—Morocco, Algeria, Tunis, and Tripoli—were Muslim nations ostensibly under the authority of the Ottoman Empire. In reality, they often profited as slave traders and pirates who attacked shipping vessels sailing under any flag. When the United States pursued the release of American hostages and sought safe passage for its merchant ships, these pirate nations demanded onerous “tributes” the young country could not afford.
The United States had no navy.
It’s easy to assume that after winning the Revolutionary War, the United States was war-hardened and in possession of an experienced fighting force. But Kilmeade explains that the nascent nation was flat broke—and had dismantled its small navy. When the Barbary countries began attacking American ships, the country had no choice but to agree to humiliating treaties in order to keep its economic lifeline on the high seas open.
The first Commodore was incompetent.
After years of helplessness against the pirates, President Thomas Jefferson finally won approval from Congress to assemble a meaningful naval force in the Mediterranean, and appointed Captain Richard Valentine Morris, a veteran of several sea battles, as Commodore. You might imagine American naval captains to be heroic and decisive, but Morris turned out to be a dud: it took him months to even arrive in the region, and he spent mere days on active duty against the enemy. He was eventually court-martialed and relieved of his post, and America’s first attempt to establish herself militarily on a global scale ended in unmitigated failure.
The U.S. lost a ship before a shot was fired.
Early on, the Barbary Wars were an unbroken string of disasters for the United States. In 1803, the U.S.S. Philadelphia, under the command of Captain William Bainbridge, was engaged in blockading Tripoli’s harbors when Bainbridge gave chase to a pirate ship and accidentally ran aground on some rocks. After many unsuccessful attempts to free the ship, he was forced to surrender, pushing the cannons over the side and burning all his papers before he and his men were taken prisoner. The ship was hauled back to Tripoli to be refitted—and sent out against the United States.

The first victory for the U.S. was burning our own vessel.
In order to prevent the Philadelphia from being redeployed against her own country, a young Lieutenant named Stephen Decatur Jr. led a small band of Americans into the harbor, where they boarded the Philadelphia (using only swords and knives, so as to remain relatively quiet) and set the ship on fire, denying the Tripoli pirates what would have been by far their largest and most powerful ship. They escaped with only a single minor injury, and word of the heroic mission—America’s first good news in the war—galvanized support back home.
The first U.S. victory on foreign soil occurred in 1805.
The first victory for American soldiers on foreign land occurred in 1805, when a mixed force of mercenaries and Marines marched more than 500 miles to the city of Derne in an effort to replace the ruling Pasha with his brother, who was sympathetic to America’s cause. Despite being up against a much larger force, the Americans took the city and held it for several weeks, preparing to use it as a base from which to launch an all-out invasion of Tripoli. A peace treaty was signed before that could be effected, but the victory was so stunning, it was immortalized in the Marine’s Hymn.
For Jefferson, it was personal.
Thomas Jefferson, our third president, was a brilliant thinker, philosopher, and politician, but he was also a melancholy man, and part of his inspiration for taking a forceful stance against the Barbary pirates stemmed from his earlier appointment as minister to France. At the time, he was still mourning the passing of his wife, and left his young daughter behind, fearing her ship might be attacked. As Jefferson suffered increasing personal losses as he rose to the height of power, his determination to make the world safe for American ships grew.