William Bainbridge was born in my hometown of Princeton, New Jersey in 1774. His house is still standing and serves as the home for the Princeton Historical Society where one of my brothers used to work. Bainbridge earned fame both in the First Barbary War (when he ran his ship aground and became a hostage) and the War of 1812 (when he defeated the HMS Java). It’s highly ironic that the ship used to carry out the rescue of Sea Captain Phillips was the USS Bainbridge, which was named in William Bainbridge’s honor.
The situation in Somalia today is somewhat similar to situation facing the United States in the late eighteenth-century. Back then, by gaining our independence we had lost the protection of both the British and French fleets. We had no navy to speak of, and found ourselves at the mercy of North African pirates. Our options were limited so we agreed to pay tribute money.
In 1784, the United States Congress allocated money for payment of tribute to the Barbary pirates and instructed her British and French ambassadors (John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, respectively) to look for opportunities to negotiate peace treaties with the Barbary nations. Unfortunately, the price demanded for these treaties far exceeded the amount that Congress had budgeted.
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to negotiate with Tripoli’s envoy to London, Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman or (Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). Upon inquiring “concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury”, the ambassador replied:
It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every muslim who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy’s ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once. [2] [3]
Jefferson reported the conversation to Secretary of State John Jay, who submitted the Ambassador’s comments and offer to Congress. Jefferson argued that paying tribute would encourage more attacks. Although John Adams agreed with Jefferson, he believed that circumstances forced the U.S. to pay tribute until an adequate navy could be built. The U.S. had just fought an exhausting war, which put the nation deep in debt. Federalist and anti-federalist forces argued over the needs of the country and the burden of taxation. Jefferson’s own Democratic-Republicans and anti-navalists believed that the future of the country lay in westward expansion, with Atlantic trade threatening to siphon money and energy away from the new nation on useless wars in the Old World.[4] The U.S. paid Algiers the ransom, and continued to pay up to $1 million per year over the next 15 years for the safe passage of American ships or the return of American hostages. Payments in ransom and tribute to the privateering states amounted to 20 percent of United States government annual revenues in 1800.
When Jefferson became president in 1801, he cut off the tribute payments and put the newly-created Navy to work battling the Barbary pirates. We eventually paid a ransom of $60,000 for the release of 300 prisoners, and piracy against our ships came to an end.
