 Treaty of safety and peace between Hassan Pasha Dey of Algeria and George Washington, regarding the freedom of ships and not allowing the sale of Algerian ships to countries that are at war with America, September 05, 1795 | |
| Signed | September 5, 1795 |
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A Treaty of Peace and Friendship was signed between the United States and the Regency of Algiers on 5 September 1795.
Following the independence of the United States (1776), American merchant ships no longer benefit from the protection of Royal Navy ships, which is a problem for them in the Mediterranean. American ships were then found in 1785 attacked by the privateers of what the West then called Barbarism, corresponding to the Ottoman provinces of the Maghreb (modern Tunisia, Libya and Algeria). The United States Senate decided to propose a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship With the States of Barbaria", an amendment to which was initialled on 5 September 1795 in Algiers and again on 3 January 1797.
The treaty was unanimously ratified by the United States Senate in early June and signed by John Adams, the second American president, and appeared in what was the then US Official Gazette, the Philadelphia Gazette, on June 17, 1797.
The United States federal government was to be annually charged the equivalent of 12,000 Algerian sequins [2] (i.e US dollars 21,600, 64,800 gold francs ) to protect its trade from piracy. This toll was served uninterrupted until 1810, and payment was suspended in 1811, [3] and it was also to provide a 32-gun frigate and three other [4] ships:
The treaty was purchased by the United States at an estimated cost of USD 992,463.25 by the United States Department of the Treasury. [2]
In 1801, Yusuf Karamanli, the pasha of Tripoli, demanded that the United States pay an increase in the United States' price. This demand was repulsed and the pasha with his allies from the Barbary Coast declared war in the United States on 14 May 1801.
US President Thomas Jefferson then sent United States Navy ships shelling the cities of Tripoli and Algiers and renegotiated the treaty in 1805.
In April 2006, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice offered Washington a copy of the original of the treaty to Algerian Foreign Minister Mohammed Bedjaoui [7]
USS Congress was a nominally rated 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted heavy frigate of the United States Navy. James Hackett built her at the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard and she was launched on 15 August 1799. She was one of the original six frigates whose construction the Naval Act of 1794 had authorized. The name "Congress" was among ten names submitted to President George Washington by Secretary of War Timothy Pickering in March 1795 for the frigates that were to be constructed.Joshua Humphreys designed these frigates to be the young Navy's capital ships, and so Congress and her sisters were larger and more heavily armed and built than the standard frigates of the period.
The First Barbary War (1801–1805), also known as the Tripolitan War and the Barbary Coast War, was a conflict during the Barbary Wars, in which the United States and Sweden fought against Tripolitania. Tripolitania had declared war against Sweden and the United States over disputes regarding tributary payments made by both states in exchange for a cessation of Tripolitanian commerce raiding at sea. United States President Thomas Jefferson refused to pay this tribute. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800. The First Barbary War was the first major American war fought outside the New World, and in the Arab world.
The Barbary Wars were a series of two wars fought by the United States, Sweden, and the Kingdom of Sicily against the Barbary states and Morocco of North Africa in the early 19th century. Sweden had been at war with the Tripolitans since 1800 and was joined by the newly independent US. The First Barbary War extended from 10 May 1801 to 10 June 1805, with the Second Barbary War lasting only three days, ending on 19 June 1815. The Barbary Wars were the first major American war fought entirely outside the New World, and in the Arab World.
The Second Barbary War, also known as the U.S.–Algerian War and the Algerine War, was a brief military conflict between the United States and the North African state of Algiers in 1815.
USS Constellation was a nominally rated 38-gun wooden-hulled, three-masted frigate of the United States Navy.
The Treaty of Tripoli was signed in 1796. It was the first treaty between the United States and Tripoli to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from local Barbary pirates.
William Eaton was a United States Army officer and the diplomatic officer Consul General to Tunis (1797–1803). He played an important diplomatic and military role in the First Barbary War between the United States and Tripoli (1801–1805). He led the first foreign United States military victory at the Battle of Derne by capturing the Tripoli subject city of Derne in support of the restoration of the pasha, Hamet Caramelli. He also gave testimony at the treason trial of former Vice President Aaron Burr. Eaton served one term in the General Court of Massachusetts, which is the state legislature both during and after the colonial era. Eaton died on June 1, 1811, at the age of 47.
The Barbary pirates, Barbary corsairs, or Ottoman corsairs were mainly Muslim pirates and privateers who operated from the largely independent Ottoman Barbary states. This area was known in Europe as the Barbary Coast, in reference to the Berbers. Slaves in Barbary could be of many ethnicities, and of many different religions, such as Christian, Jewish, or Muslim. Their predation extended throughout the Mediterranean, south along West Africa's Atlantic seaboard and into the North Atlantic as far north as Iceland, but they primarily operated in the western Mediterranean. In addition to seizing merchant ships, they engaged in razzias, raids on European coastal towns and villages, mainly in Italy, France, Spain, and Portugal, but also in the British Isles, the Netherlands, and Iceland.
The Treaty with Tunis was signed on August 28, 1797, between the United States of America and the Barbary State of Tunis. As the treaty provided in Article One:
USS Guerriere was the first frigate built in the United States since 1801. The name came from a fast 38-gun British frigate captured and destroyed in a half-hour battle by USS Constitution on 19 August 1812. This victory was one of the United States' first in the War of 1812.
The Mediterranean Squadron, also known as the Mediterranean Station, was part of the United States Navy in the 19th century that operated in the Mediterranean Sea. It was formed in response to the First and Second Barbary Wars. Between 1801 and 1818, the squadron was composed of a series of rotating squadrons. Later, squadrons were sent in the 1820s to the 1860s to suppress piracy, primarily in Greece and to engage in gunboat diplomacy. In 1865 the force was renamed the European Squadron.
Yusuf Karamanli, Caramanli or Qaramanli or al-Qaramanli, (1766–1838) was the longest-reigning Pasha of the Karamanli dynasty of Tripolitania. He is noted for his role in the Barbary Wars against the United States.
Ottoman Tripolitania, also known as the Regency of Tripoli, was officially ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1912. It corresponded roughly to the northern parts of modern-day Libya in historic Tripolitania and Cyrenaica. It was initially established as an Ottoman province ruled by a pasha (governor) in Tripoli who was appointed from Constantinople, though in practice it was semi-autonomous due to the power of the local Janissaries. From 1711 to 1835, the Karamanli dynasty ruled the province as a de facto hereditary monarchy while remaining under nominal Ottoman suzerainty. In 1835, the Ottomans reestablished direct control over the region until its annexation by Italy in 1912.
In July 2001, President Abdelaziz Bouteflika became the first Algerian President to visit the White House since 1985. This visit, followed by a second meeting in November 2001, and President Bouteflika's participation at the June 2004 G8 Sea Island Summit, is indicative of the growing relationship between the United States and Algeria. Since the September 11 attacks in the United States, contacts in key areas of mutual concern, including law enforcement and counter-terrorism cooperation, have intensified. Algeria publicly condemned the terrorist attacks on the United States and has been strongly supportive of the Global War on Terrorism. The United States and Algeria consult closely on key international and regional issues. The pace and scope of senior-level visits has accelerated.
Hamidou ben Ali, known as Raïs Hamidou, or Amidon in American literature, born around 1770, and died on June 17, 1815, near Cape Gata off the coast of southern Spain, was an Algerian corsair. He captured up to 200 ships during his career. Hamidou ensured the prosperity of the Deylik of Algiers, and gave it its last glory before the French invasion. His biography is relatively well known because the French archivist Albert Devoulx found documents that told of this charismatic character.
Stephen Decatur Jr. was a U.S. naval officer and commodore. He was born on the eastern shore of Maryland in Worcester County. His father, Stephen Decatur Sr., was a commodore in the United States Navy who served during the American Revolution; he brought the younger Stephen into the world of ships and sailing early on. Shortly after attending college, Decatur followed in his father's footsteps and joined the U.S. Navy at age 19 as a midshipman.
Omar Agha was the Dey of the Deylik of Algiers from April 1815 to September 1817, after the assassination of his predecessor Mohamed Kharnadji on 7 April 1815, who had been in office for only 17 days.
Until 1815 the Beylik of Tunis maintained a corsair navy to attack European shipping, raid coastal towns on the northern shores of the Mediterranean and defend against incursions from Algiers or Tripoli. After 1815 Tunis tried, with limited success, to create a modern navy, which fought in the Greek War of Independence and the Crimean War.
The ta'ifa of raïs or the Raïs for short, were Barbary pirates based in Ottoman Algeria who were involved in piracy and the slave trade in the Mediterranean Sea from the 16th to the 19th century. They were an ethnically mixed group of seafarers, including mostly "renegades" from European provinces of the Mediterranean and the North Sea, along with a minority of Turks and Moors. Such crews were experienced in naval combat, making Algiers a formidable pirate base. Its activity was directed against the Spanish empire, but it did not neglect the coasts of Sicily, Sardinia, Naples or Provence. It was the taifa which, through its seizures, maintained the prosperity of Algiers and its finances.
The Algerian–American War was a state of conflict which existed between the Regency of Algiers and the United States that lasted from 1785 to 1795. Occurring after the U.S. became independent from the British Empire as a result of the American Revolutionary War, Algiers declared war on the United States after realizing that American merchant shipping was no long under the protection of the Royal Navy.
