Barbary pirates board USS Philadelphia
(1770–August 4, 1838)
Barbary Pirate
The Tripolitan Bey Yusuf Karamanli commanded a fleet of pirate vessels that were the scourge of the Mediterranean. His appetite for tribute and hostages was rapacious, leading to the first punitive naval expedition ever mounted by the United States.
Yusuf Karamanli was born in Tripoli in 1770, part of an Arab dynasty that had ruled that coastal enclave since 1711. The family was originally Turkish in origin and part of the Ottoman Empire, but in reality Tripoli, along with neighboring states like Tunis and Algiers, were run like personal fiefdoms. Since the sixteenth century, the primary income of the so-called Barbary states was piracy against Western shipping. Ships, once seized, were then held for ransom along with their crews. To discourage such fate, the local powers advised Christian countries that it was better to pay annual sums of tribute for safe passage. Many countries, powerless in naval terms, readily complied. Great Britain was a notable exception, for the Royal Navy, on more than one occasion, thoroughly chastised the Arabs for their barbaric practices. However, after 1783 a new player on the world scene emerged—the United States, which had successfully rebelled from England. But independence carried a price: American vessels were no longer subject to protection from the Royal Navy. Nobody appreciated this better than the Barbary pirates, and they availed themselves of this weakness.
Meanwhile, Yusuf Karamanli reached manhood fully versed in the intrigue and treachery of Tripolitan palace politics. Being the youngest of three brothers, he would normally be excluded from high government positions; ambitious and ruthless, the prince entertained other ideas. In 1780, he assassinated the current ruler, his eldest brother Hassan, in his mother’s apartment. Hamet, the next brother in line to the throne, then came to power, but in 1796 Yusuf sponsored a coup that drove him into exile. Having firmly claimed Tripoli for himself, Karamanli began plying his piratical trade against vessels belonging to the United States. This aggression moved President John Adams to found the U.S. Navy in 1794, but within three years friction with revolutionary France deflected American attention away from North Africa. It was then deemed more prudent to pay annual tribute to various states than fight them with limited means. This pattern of institutionalized extortion continued unabated until the election of Thomas Jefferson in 1800. The president would have contentedly paid off the pirates, but Karamanli suddenly increased the amount. When Jefferson refused to meet such unreasonable demands, the bey ordered the American flag cut down from the U.S. Consul’s flagpole on May 14, 1801. A state of war now existed between the two nations. An angry Jefferson then asked for—and received—permission from Congress to outfit a naval expedition to humble the Tripolitan pirates and rescue American honor.
Jefferson’s resolve to resist Karamanli’s state-sponsored extortion culminated in a series of episodic naval encounters known as the Barbary War. Commencing in June 1801, a naval squadron of four warships under Commodore Richard Dale departed Norfolk, Virginia, en route for Tripoli. By September he had captured one enemy vessel and established a loose blockade around Tripoli harbor, but Karamanli waxed defiantly. He was safely sequestered behind walls 30 feet high, 20 feet thick, and mounting 115 cannons, and he felt disinclined to negotiate. In April 1802, a relief squadron of six vessels under Commodore Richard V. Morris left Hampton Roads, Virginia, sailed to Morocco to resolve some minor piracy issues, and then proceeded to Tripoli. Morris then relieved Dale, but he proved himself a timid, indecisive commander, and little was accomplished. The impasse remained until September 1803, when a new commander, Commodore Edward Preble, arrived to take the helm.
Unlike Dale and Morris, Preble was an irascible, headstrong personality, ready to fight. Pausing at Morocco to “remind” the rulers of their treaty obligations to America, he pressed on to Tripoli with a vengeance, imposing a tight blockade. However, disaster struck when the frigate USS Philadelphia under Capt. William Bainbridge struck an uncharted reef in the harbor and was captured, crew and all. Preble offered to ransom Bainbridge and his men for $60,000, but Karamanli scoffed—and demanded $3 million! Undeterred by adversity and determined to deny the Arabs use of the ship, on February 16, 1804, Preble authorized a cutting-out expedition led by Lt. Stephen Decatur. In short order, Decatur captured the Philadelphia, burned it under the guns of Karamanli’s castle, and added new luster to America’s growing naval tradition. Adm. Horatio Nelson was singularly impressed when informed of Decatur’s
raid and pronounced it “the most bold and daring act of the age.” Buoyed by success, on August 7, 1804, Preble led his ships into the harbor and commenced a two-hour bombardment of Tripoli. This act affected no change. But when coercion failed to convince Karamanli to sue for peace, the Americans then resorted to outright subterfuge. Taking a captured Tripolitan vessel, renamed Intrepid, Lt. Richard Somers loaded it with explosives and set sail, intending to ignite the charge once under the bey’s castle. However, disaster struck when the ship exploded prematurely, killing Somers and his 12-man crew. Shortly after, Preble was relieved by Capt. Samuel Barron, a less aggressive officer, and the Barbary War slipped into a stalemate.
Jefferson, however, was determined to undermine Karamanli’s regime by any means possible. In November 1804, he conferred with William Eaton, a former diplomat, who proposed raising an army in Egypt, overthrowing Yusuf Karamanli, and reinstalling Karamanli’s brother, the deposed Hamet, to the throne. Thus was born one of the more quixotic episodes of American military history. Eaton arrived in Egypt, linked up with Hamet, and began recruiting an army. He ended up with a motley assortment of 1,000 Arabs and Greek mercenaries, stiffened by an eight-man contingent of U.S. Marines under Lt. Presley O’Bannon. Eaton subsequently led his comic-opera force 600 miles across burning sand to the port of Derna, east of Tripoli. The city fell to a combined assault of Eaton’s adventurers and a small naval squadron under Capt. Isaac Hull, on April 27, 1805. The following month, the conquerors handily repulsed 3,000 of Karamanli’s supporters, and it appeared that Eaton’s outlandish strategy might succeed after all. Nobody was more aware of this than the bey himself, who after the fall of Derna decided it would be wiser to negotiate with the Americans. His compliance was undoubtedly hastened by a prolonged bombardment of Tripoli by the American fleet on June 1–3, 1805. Much to Eaton’s outrage, the American Consul Tobias Lear then signed a peace treaty with the bey that recognized the legitimacy of his rule and ransomed the Philadelphia’s crew for $60,000. In exchange, he promised to forgo tribute payments and stop harassing American shipping. Both sides were apparently pleased by the result. Hamet, meanwhile, accused the Americans of negotiating in bad faith and returned to exile in Egypt. As a final concession to peace, Yusuf allowed Hamet’s wife and children, held in prison, to accompany him.
The Karamanli regime observed the terms of the peace treaty until the War of 1812 erupted between England and the United States. With the navies of both countries tied down in other theaters, the pirates resumed their freebooting activities. Their fun ceased on August 5, 1815, when a powerful American squadron under Stephen Decatur—now a commodore—anchored into Tripoli Harbor. Karamanli, who so vigorously resisted puny American forces 10 years earlier, now blanched before the prospect of a rematch. This time, he paid out $25,000 for seizing American ships and again promised to cease piratical activities. Four years later a combined British-French armada paid him a call for similar reasons and secured the release of several thousand Christian slaves. The bey then continued to rule his subjects with an iron hand until 1835, when, faced by the prospects of civil unrest, he abdicated in favor of his children. However, that year a resurgent Ottoman Empire dispatched a strong squadron to Tripoli, and they disposed of the corrupt and unpopular Karamanli dynasty altogether. The entire family was then deported in chains to Istanbul, with the exception of Yusuf. In light of his advanced age, he was allowed to live as a prisoner in his own castle, dying there on August 4, 1838.
