PC: US Grabs Land in Barbary Wars?

Read the book Jefferson's War by Joseph Wheelan before you assume to say I am incorrect. I have facts to back me up.

No listen I've read a lot about the barbary corsairs.

What the USA did to project their power from the other side of the atlantic to sink corsair ships and bombard corsair ports is impressive and an achievement worthy of respect.

But the idea that as you said that no european power had ever thought of doing the same and it wasn't until the usa had proved it was possible that the europeans started going after the corsairs is just not true.

Did european states buy off corsairs, yes they did. Did they negotiate deals to get their prisoners back peacefully yes they did. Did they also bombard the ports and sink the ships, yes they did that too.

Between the capture of Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli by the Ottomans and the barbary wars with the United States, those three ports were bombarded and attacked by european christian powers precisely 27 times. 27!

It was not an idea that 'even the British navy had failed to think of-'.
 
No listen I've read a lot about the barbary corsairs.

What the USA did to project their power from the other side of the atlantic to sink corsair ships and bombard corsair ports is impressive and an achievement worthy of respect.

But the idea that as you said that no european power had ever thought of doing the same and it wasn't until the usa had proved it was possible that the europeans started going after the corsairs is just not true.

Did european states buy off corsairs, yes they did. Did they negotiate deals to get their prisoners back peacefully yes they did. Did they also bombard the ports and sink the ships, yes they did that too.

Between the capture of Tunis, Algiers and Tripoli by the Ottomans and the barbary wars with the United States, those three ports were bombarded and attacked by european christian powers precisely 27 times. 27!

It was not an idea that 'even the British navy had failed to think of-'.
Um... you havent read as much as you think. The US didnt just bomb some ports and sink ships. Which yes the british did... in the same way the US just bombed sites in Yemen for the attacks of destroyers. It was proportional response. What the US did was much stronger and included Marine landings and occupation of land. Which the British did not do. At all before the US did. The US did a non-proportional response which would cause UN condemnation today. There's a reason the Marines sing of Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.
 
Um... you havent read as much as you think. The US didnt just bomb some ports and sink ships. Which yes the british did... in the same way the US just bombed sites in Yemen for the attacks of destroyers. It was proportional response. What the US did was much stronger and included Marine landings and occupation of land. Which the British did not do. At all before the US did. The US did a non-proportional response which would cause UN condemnation today. There's a reason the Marines sing of Halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli.

Spain literally held Tunis for three years.
 
Still 30 years before Jamestown, VA or Albany, NY were even founded. And it has nothing to do with the Barbary pirate era!

You're arguing they were no barbary corsairs in the late 16th century? Seriously? Dragut? Barbarossa? Murat Reis? Sayyida al Hurra? Sinan Reis?

Listen I have no desire to downplay the american victories of the barbary wars. They were solid wins against a formidable enemy a long away from their home waters.

But the idea that european states having endured hundreds of years of piracy from the barbary states had never done anything about them in the same way is just not true.

And the main reason for the end of the era of the barbary corsairs was not the usa, but rather the end of the napoleonic wars and the peace in europe that meant the french and the british could concentrate on the corsairs and not each other.
 
Given that the berber piracy in the Mediterranian exists since the 9th century can you expand what you consider as the Barbary Pirate Era?
In history the Barbary era is considered to begin with Ottoman take over in 1570s. And even though it is called the Barbary Coast, and pirates existed, you cant anachronistically call all piracy on that coast. Calling them Berbers is a misnomer, though the coast is named for them, mostly Arabs and other peoples. Berbers are an ethnic group unrelated to Arabs and are not native to the coast, they come from the inland areas.
 
In history the Barbary era is considered to begin with Ottoman take over in 1570s. And even though it is called the Barbary Coast, and pirates existed, you cant anachronistically call all piracy on that coast. Calling them Berbers is a misnomer, though the coast is named for them, mostly Arabs and other peoples. Berbers are an ethnic group unrelated to Arabs and are not native to the coast, they come from the inland areas.

Yeah and the leaders of Barbary piracy tended not to be berbers at all but moriscos, europeans and turks.

But what Ottoman take over in the 1570s? Djerba was first conquered by the Ottomans in 1503, Algiers in 1516, Tlemcen in 1517, Constantine in 1529, Tunis in 1534, Tripoli in 1551, Mahdia in 1553. It's hard to think of any major city that was first taken in the 1570s.

If you think of Barbary corsairs you think of Dragut and Barbarossa and his brothers and the great jew and the pirate queen of tetouan and Murat Reis. You think of the assault on lanzarote and the attacks on the baelerics and the depopulation of gozo. All of which happened before the 1570s.

Yes you also think of the later European renegades like jan janszoon and jack ward and simon de danzer. But the 1530s to the 1650s was the golden age of the Barbary corsairs.

The 1770s to 1820s was them in their decline.

The Spanish occupation of Barbary ports in the 1570s in the aftermath of the Battle of Lepanto wasn't the last gasp of the old order before the age of the corsairs began it was a direct reaction to the fact the age of corsairs had already started.

You're just trying to twist the facts to suit a narrative (of the americans being the first to launch a serious attack on the corsairs) that simply can't be logically supported.
 
Still 30 years before Jamestown, VA or Albany, NY were even founded. And it has nothing to do with the Barbary pirate era!
Tangiers was held by the Portuguese to 1662 and then the British held it as a dowry until 1684. Morocco was generally friendly towards the USA but if they had been less friendly then the possibility of a US outpost at Tangiers analogous to British Gibraltar is not impossible to imagine.

After all Spain held Cueta and Melilla for literally centuries. A US free port at the edge of Europe would have some attractions and would have some interesting geopolitical impacts if held through to the 20th century - think Guantanamo Bay.
 
The US could hold Derna, then it becomes a faraway place that they just kind of "have." The Era of Colonization is still a good ways away, it can't really do anything with it. Plus, the US would much rather expand westwards.
 
The US could hold Derna, then it becomes a faraway place that they just kind of "have." The Era of Colonization is still a good ways away, it can't really do anything with it. Plus, the US would much rather expand westwards.

I think the thing is it is going to hard to hold. English Tangier was under pretty much constant attack.

The USA can hold it, no doubt, but it'll cost a lot of money and require troops constantly stationed there and supplied with food from Europe.

They can do it, I just don't see why they would. It'll be really expensive.
 
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