The Barbary Pirates: The U.S. Navy Matures in the Face of Terrorism in the Mediterranean

The United States became an independent nation in 1776, and the war to defend that independence against British attacks ended the early 1780s. A young nation, the United States had little money and little military power. Whatever money and power it did have, it had spent defending against the British.

Other nations could easily see the American weakness. Weakness is provocative: soon pirates focused their attention on American seagoing vessels. These particular pirates were from a collection of Muslim nations known as the Barbary States. The governments of those nations didn’t do anything to stop piracy, and sometimes even encouraged it.

The pirates wanted money: the would stop an American ship, steal the cargo, and take the sailors as captives. The pirates would sell the cargo and keep the money. They also sold the sailors into slavery. They would also keep the American ship and use it to attack other cargo boats.

Any sailor who resisted would be killed.

England and France had strong navies, and could defend their commercial shipping vessels better. Occasionally, the pirates attacked English and French ships, but rarely. The Americans were a much easier target, because the United States had a new and very small navy.

The Islamic pirates had been attacking unarmed American ships as early as 1784 or 1785, but frequency of the attacks increased after 1793.

The word ‘corsair’ refers to pirates or their ships.

The French and British had been policing the pirates, but when those two nations got into a war with each other, they stopped watching the pirates, who began to attack the Americans even more frequently. As historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write,

The Barbary States - Algiers, Morocco, Tunis, and Tripoli - traditionally engaged in piracy, but the European powers bottled up their activities inside the Mediterranean Sea. After 1793, with the Europeans preoccupied, corsairs from Algiers, the most powerful of the petty North African nations, entered the Atlantic and preyed upon American shipping.

The Islamic nations would sometimes demand tribute. The word ‘tribute’ refers to a payment from a weaker nation to a more powerful nation. The United States gave thousands of dollars to the Barbary States; in return, the Barbary States promised to stop attacking American ships. But the promise was broken immediately.

This cycle of paying tribute to get promises, and then seeing the promises get broken, happened several times. Sometimes the promises made by the Barbary States were documented in treaties which they signed, but they still broke their promises.

U.S. President Thomas Jefferson decided that it would be dangerous if other nations considered the United States to be weak. Congress voted to start building armed ships to strengthen the U.S. Navy. While those ships were being built, the Barbary States increased their aggressiveness, as historian Russell Weigley writes:

The Barbary States of the North African coast increased their piratical attacks upon American commerce and demands for American tribute, because the European wars made the United States the most conspicuous neutral shipping nation.

Meanwhile, the Muslim pirates also began attacking Swedish ships. Sweden and the United States worked together to begin to defend their merchant boats against attacks.

As the U.S. Navy increased the number of ships it had, the Barbary States began to realize that they could not continue attacking American ships, stealing American cargo, and enslaving American sailors. Although the conflict never turned into a full-scale war, there was fighting between the U.S. Navy and the Islamic pirates.

The Battle of Tripoli, in 1804, became famous in a song, and was a major turning point in history.

By 1805, the Barbary States, realized that they had to stop harassing Americans. They signed another treaty. But by 1807, they started again.

By 1815, the Barbary pirates were enslaving as many sailors as ever. The United States, this time teaming up with the British, had by this time an even stronger navy. The Barbary States, including Algeria, finally surrendered permanently, and after 1815 there was little piracy in the Mediterranean.

Imperialism is the Violation of Free Markets: Colonialism is the Disruption of Individual Political Liberty

Although colonialism and imperialism existed in the ancient world, the modern political paradigm of imperialist colonialism was sired primarily by the British, French, Spanish, and Portuguese.

Correspondingly, the modern paradigm of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism arose in North America in the mid-1700s.

The oppression against which the Americans rebelled manifested the essential imperialist and colonial traits of violating the free market. The colonies were abused inasmuch as they were not allowed to participate in a free market. British regulations dictated which goods they could, and could not, buy. The rebellion consisted in part of smuggling.

The English rules dictated, e.g., that the colonists could purchase only tea from Britain, not from other countries, and that the colonists must sell certain goods only to England and only at the prices dictated by the English.

This violation of free market principles constituted an abuse of human rights by the British, as Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write:

The Revolution began in 1765, not 1775. The events of 1765–1775 marked the first phase in a colonial war of national liberation. Only a handful of colonists advocated outright independence in 1765, but they vigorously championed their cause and slowly gained adherents over the next decade. During this initial stage colonial leaders organized themselves politically while subverting the established government’s authority through terrorism and propaganda. The Stamp Act Congress, followed by the two Continental Congresses, reflected the emergence of a national political organization.

Imperialist oppression, and colonialist oppression, operate by violating the free market. Colonies are held in poverty, and denied fair prices for their products and raw materials, by keeping them from offering their products in an unregulated market.

The North American colonies were regulated by the British about what they could buy, what they could sell, to whom they could sell, and from whom they could buy.

Key actions in the early phases of the revolution were economic actions: smuggling, boycotting, and the Boston Tea Party. Millett and Maslowski continue:

At the local level the Sons of Liberty evolved into a network of committees of correspondence and of safety. These extralegal bodies coordinated the opposition against Parliament, prevented the Revolutionary movement from degenerating into anarchy, and intimidated individuals who supported England. Radical leaders also organized riots against important symbols of British rule. Mob actions were not spontaneous but instead represented purposeful violence by what were, in essence, urban volunteer militia units. Supplementing the violence was a propaganda campaign portraying every English action in the darkest hues.

The American Revolution featured ideological freedoms like those of press, speech, and religion. It also featured economic freedoms, like deregulation and significant reduction in taxation.

These two sets of freedoms are so closely intertwined that they can’t be thoroughly separated. Various individual specific liberties are organically related.

Imposed taxes are a violation of free speech. Economic regulations are a violation of the free press.

The American Revolution demonstrated the inseparable unity of various specific rights.

The Birth of Anti-Colonialism: America Launches Anti-Imperialism

Although the concepts of ‘anti-colonialism’ and ‘anti-imperialism’ can be traced back to the times when Roman soldiers occupied parts of Europe and parts of the Ancient Near East, the modern forms of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism began around 1750 in North America.

The thirteen colonies that rebelled against British imperialism had been oppressed by a colonial economic system which left them at a distinct disadvantage. The British military was well-funded: much of that funding had left the Parliament in London facing massive debts.

The cruel and inhumane treatment of the colonists was designed, in part, to extract wealth from North America to repay the British government’s debt. Parliament gave the excuse that the funding was used to protect the colonies, and that therefore the colonies should pay the debt.

The colonies, however, argued that they were capable of, and had largely provided, their own defense, e.g., in the French and Indian War (1754 to 1763). The had not requested, did not want, and did not need defense from the British military, and therefore were loath to pay for it.

The formidable British military was large, well-equipped, and skilled. Instead of defending the colonies, it was used to oppress the colonies.

The British navy had both ‘ships of the line,’ which were large and well-armed to directly encounter the enemy, and frigates, which were faster, and more maneuverable. The Americans, by contrast, only began to assemble a small navy after the Revolutionary War started in April 1775.

As one would expect in the case of oppressed colonies fighting for their liberty against imperialist exploitation, the Americans were in every material way outmatched, as historian Russell Weigley writes:

Washington’s was a generalship shaped by military poverty. When the British arrived by sea before New York in the summer preceding the Trenton raid, General William Howe brought against Washington’s defenders of the city 31,625 soldiers of all ranks, 24,464 of them effectives fit for duty when the fighting for the city commenced, well equipped, and well trained and disciplined in the arts of eighteenth-century war. Behind Howe’s soldiers stood a British fleet of ten ships of the line, twenty frigates, hundreds of transports, and 10,000 seamen, commanded by General Howe’s very capable brother, affording the British general the privilege of descending wherever he chose upon the American coast.

While materially outmatched, the Americans had more motivation than the British soldiers. The colonists were fighting for the liberty of the friends and families; the British were often merely fighting to obtain a week’s or a month’s pay.

Although the English had had authority over the colonies since the early 1600s, it was only in the mid-1700s that such authority was abusively enforced.

Whatever autonomy the colonies had enjoyed during the 1600s disappeared under the economic hegemony which the English imposed during the 1700s.

The British treated the colonists ruthlessly and brutally. This was a central cause of the bid for independence, as historians Allan Millett and Peter Maslowski write:

The series of events that led the British colonies from resistance to Parliamentary sovereignty in 1765 to outright rebellion in 1775 cannot be recapitulated here. But two points need to be made. First, the crisis represented a clash between a mature colonial society and a mother country anxious to assert parental authority. Britain had previously never exercised much direct control over the colonies. Prospering under the “salutary neglect,” the colonies enjoyed de facto independence and developed a remarkable degree of self-reliance. Colonial aspirations thus collided with England’s desire to enforce subordination and diminish colonial autonomy.

America is paradigmatic for the ideologies of anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism. The “Spirit of ‘76” led to the independence of Cuba and the Philippines from Spain, and led to the Monroe Doctrine’s defense of Central and South America against European colonizers.

Several elements of the American paradigm are worth noting: anti-colonialism and anti-imperialism arose with an eye toward establishing a strong national economy and vigorous individual political liberty. The political freedom of the individual was a treasured goal of the American independence movement.

The French Revolution (1789 to 1799), which was partially inspired by the American Revolution and which followed it only a few years later, took the opposite approach to the American paradigm: the French Revolution ran roughshod over the individual and sought a uniform collectivism.

Individual political freedom spills over into economic freedom. British taxes and regulations gave way to a free market. The French Revolution failed where the American Revolution succeeded because it neglected to honor the political liberty of the individual.

Colonies which look to the French Revolution as a model for independence often find themselves under more, not less, oppression. More than 200 years later, successful independence movements still follow the American paradigm.

Organized Labor’s Communist Phase: Collective Bargaining’s Infatuation with Stalin

At different points in time during its history, the American labor union movement has embraced both pro-communist and anti-communist passions. During the 1930s, the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) had self-proclaimed communists not only in its membership, but also in its leadership.

In 1905, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) was founded as an explicitly communist organization. At least one of its leaders, Bill Haywood, permanently relocated to the Soviet Union, and worked for the rest of his life to promote Stalinist oppression.

In the late 1930s and early 1940s, the pro-Soviet and pro-communist factions within the labor movement faced successive difficult situations. First, Stalin’s atrocities (e.g., the deaths of millions of Ukrainians when Stalin discontinued their food supply) made it awkward for them to exuberantly support Soviet Socialism. Second, Stalin’s alliance with Hitler placed them in the position of opposing America’s support of England. Third, Hitler’s eventual betrayal of Stalin made them appear to be enthusiastic followers of a dupe. Fourth, they anti-industrialist postures made them seem as if they were undermining the U.S. war effort.

By late 1940 and early 1941, a large segment of America’s industrial base was manufacturing products to fuel England’s war efforts. When the CIO struck, and the factories were idled, this was perceived as an attack on England, especially when the strikes were not for higher wages, but rather for procedural reasons related to competitions between unions.

Several manufacturers had been the targets of strikes: Vultee Aircraft, Ford, Allis-Chalmers, International Harvester, and others. Because a number of these strikes were not for higher wages, the workers weren’t benefitting, but the reduced output translated directly into deaths on the battlefield and in the air, as historian Arthur Herman writes:

For those associated with the Communist-dominated CIO, there were also political issues involved. The official party line was that the war raging in Europe was still a bourgeois struggle and the working class had nothing to gain by getting involved. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact hadn’t made the Soviet Union Hitler’s ally exactly, but Stalin and his Communist followers had no desire to help Britain or its Dominion allies win. As labor historian Max Kampelman has shown, the Communists’ goal was to halt or at least hamper the American war effort, and strikes were one way to do it.

The strikes from the communist-oriented unions didn’t obtain bigger paychecks for the workers. Instead, they were part of competition between different unions, and part of a larger scheme to aid Stalin’s war effort.

By the end of World War II, changes were in the making. As the new postwar, Cold War alignments emerged globally, labor unions in the United States moved toward a pro-liberty, anti-communist stance.

A freedom-oriented, anti-Soviet mood governed most of organized labor from the late 1940s through the end of the Cold War in 1990.

After the Cold War, the labor movement, like most things in the West, had to re-contextualize itself. Neither pro-Soviet nor anti-Soviet sentiments had relevance in a post-Soviet world. Since 1990, and especially in the first two decades of the twenty-first century, labor unions are seeking identity. Some have drifted into a Leninist-Stalinist progressivism, endorsing socialist and communist policies. Others have kept themselves away from the globalist power struggle entirely.

Harry Hopkins: Enabling Stalin’s Terror

During the 1930s and 1940s, Harry Hopkins held posts at high levels within the United States government, mainly as an advisor to President Franklin Roosevelt. During these years, he pursued his own troubling agenda: to promote the power-hungry and ruthless expansion of Stalin’s USSR.

During the last months of World War II, it had become clear that the aggression of Soviet Socialism entailed the domination of various nations in eastern Europe. Instead of liberating these countries from Nazi oppression, the communists merely substituted their own dictatorial regimes for Hitler’s.

Harry Hopkins worked to shape U.S. foreign policy in such a way that it benefitted Josef Stalin. His actions ultimately worked against the well-being of England, France, the United States, and the nations of eastern Europe.

Historians can only guess at his motives: Why did Hopkins want to help the USSR? Why was he willing to compromise the freedom and human rights of people in other countries? This was known only to himself.

The influence of Hopkins can be seen in his communication with Stalin in early 1945, around the time of the final collapse of the Nazi government. President Roosevelt had died, and President Truman had sent Hopkins as a special envoy to Stalin.

Stalin and Hopkins discussed various topics related to postwar Europe, as historians Stan Evans and Herbert Romerstein write:

When Stalin in his usual aggressive manner said the British did not want a “Poland friendly to the Soviet Union,” Hopkins responded, also as usual, that the view of the American government was different: “that the United States would desire a Poland friendly to the Soviet Union, and in fact desired to see friendly countries all along the Soviet borders” (a formula that included, for example, Finland, the Baltic states, Rumania, and China). To which Stalin replied, “if this be so we can easily come to terms regarding Poland.” Indeed they could, as the Soviets imposed a brutal Red regime in Poland and the United States stood back and let it happen.

Acting as an official representative of the United States, Hopkins consigned millions of people in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, and other countries to decades of horror. The Soviet Socialists would institute military occupational governments which imprisoned, tortured, beat, and murdered millions of citizens in these countries.

Communism in eastern Europe during the second half of the twentieth century was a human rights nightmare. Although Harry Hopkins did not cause this misery by himself, he was certainly a factor in the suffering and death.

While being partly responsible for terror imposed on eastern Europe, he was also partly responsible for causing the United States to betray its friends and faithful allies. Hopkins redirected military supplies away from England and toward the USSR. When President Roosevelt was forming foreign policy, Hopkins influenced him to distance himself from Winston Churchill’s views. Hopkins urged FDR not to resist Stalin’s aggression.

In a breath-taking act of betrayal, Hopkins shipped quantities of uranium to the Soviet Socialists. In addition, he had access to secret scientific and technological documents related to the development of the atomic bomb. He sent copies of these documents to the Soviet Socialists.

Harry Hopkins contributed materially to the USSR’s ability to develop and manufacture atomic weapons. Emboldened by the possession of these weapons, Stalin instituted the communist dictatorship in North Korea, supported communist guerillas in China, and sent subversive agents into various countries in Africa, Asia, and South America. Hopkins directly and indirectly contributed to terrorism and suffering around the globe.

Eisenhower Resists FDR’s Segregation: Ike Opposes ‘New Deal’ Racism

Although Franklin Roosevelt was happy to receive the votes cast for him by Black citizens, his presidency was singularly inactive in terms of advancing civil rights. His time in office, from March 1933 to April 1945, yielded little fruit for African-Americans.

FDR’s Department of War, and the individuals he appointed to lead it, were committed to segregation. He relegated Black soldiers to inferior roles. FDR denied them opportunities for advancement and for combat duty.

General Dwight David “Ike” Eisenhower thought differently.

In December 1943, Eisenhower became the Supreme Allied Commander, overseeing the European and African theaters of combat during World War II. In this position, he had an opportunity to oppose FDR’s segregationist policies.

Ike not only believed that African-American fighting men should receive the same treatment and options as every other soldier, but he also acted on this belief, as historian David Nichols writes:

In 1944, leaders at the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) obtained a confidential directive issued by Eisenhower on March 1 that made officers responsible for “scrupulous enforcement” of the principle, “Equal opportunities of service and of recreation are the right of every American soldier regardless of branch, race, color, or creed.” Eisenhower particularly pushed for authority to allow Negro soldiers, normally restricted to logical support, to volunteer for combat.

Taking these steps, Ike knew that he was contradicting FDR’s official War Department policy.

To explain his actions, Eisenhower used the phrase, “a matter of justice.” He was willing to enter into direct policy conflict with the president, as David Nichols reports:

In December 1944, at the time of the Battle of the Bulge in Europe, Ike needed all the troops he could get. General John C.H. Lee issued a directive, approved by Eisenhower, proclaiming: “The opportunity to volunteer will be extended to all soldiers without regard to color or race but preference will normally be given to individuals who have had some basic training in infantry.” The War Department declared the order contrary to policy and forced Eisenhower to withdraw it, destroy the original message, and substitute a more innocuous message.

Yet Ike persisted, and won: by January 1945, he finally overrode the War Department’s regulations, and more than 4,000 Black soldiers had volunteered for combat duty, served with distinction, and earned recognition.

Eisenhower’s perseverance opened the door for African-Americans to advance within the United State military.

Woodrow Wilson’s Racism: Progressive Hate Unleashed

The presidency of Woodrow Wilson dealt a severe blow to African-Americans and to the struggle for civil rights. Wilson was an unrepentant racist.

As president of Princeton University, he worked to keep Black students out, denying them admission. He also wrote a history textbook which defended the KKK and argued that African-Americans should not be allowed to vote.

Leaving the university and entering the field of electoral politics, Wilson mocked President Theodore Roosevelt, who had invited Booker T. Washington to dinner in the White House. Roosevelt’s meal was the first official invitation to a Black American to dine with a president.

After the meal, Woodrow Wilson used a hateful and inappropriate epithet to describe Roosevelt’s honored guest, even though Booker T. Washington was a leading Republican at the time.

Once elected president, Wilson set to work segregating federal workers. After the Civil War, federal employees had been desegregated and integrated: African-Americans and Whites working side-by-side as equals.

While Wilson was in the White House, a film titled The Birth of a Nation was released. Audiences in theaters saw, at the very beginning of the film, a quote in which Woodrow Wilson praised the KKK. The damage done by Wilson is described by historian Dinesh D’Souza:

Wilson also helped revive the Ku Klux Klan. Oddly enough this was the result of a single screening of a movie, David W. Griffith’s The Birth of a Nation, which portrays the Ku Klux Klan as the savior of the South. Despite the crude technology of the time, the film is now recognized as a cinematic masterpiece. I regard it as one of the most powerful propaganda films ever made.

Wilson’s endorsement of the KKK, and of the movie, brought about a wave of intensified racist violence. Wilson’s Democrat Party, and his ‘progressive’ movement, did great damage to race relations in the United States.