October 8, 2008 • 10 mins
When the U.S. was still a young nation, the notorious Barbary pirates demanded tribute from countries across the world. Rumor has it that President Jefferson was the first to stand up to the pirates. Check out this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn more.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined today by the fabulous and
oh so awesome Josh Click. Thank you Cannis and let
(00:21):
me say you are and ahoy to you. Oh that
reminds me of a joke that I know. Okay, yeah,
what what do pirates drive cars? That's great. You know,
there's not enough pirate jokes these days. No, but there's
no shortage of pirates. I mean you've got Johnny Depp
and sure Keith Richards, and Johnny Depp doing Keith Richards,
(00:43):
and then Johnny Depp pretending East Keith Richards, which is
totally different. And then Johnny Depp recently played a musical
instrument on stage somewhere, not under the guise of a
pirate musical, a guitar, nice one. That's great. You know
there's also some real life pirates off the coast of
Somalia is a strong haven for pirates these days. And
(01:08):
actually that's uh, that's kind of been the way it's
been for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Do you
remember when we were doing the America's first Murderer podcast,
and we were saying, like, one of the cool things
about America being such a young nation as we can
point to the first you know, like, we know who
America's first murderer was, and um, the first child born
(01:31):
in America. Sure, that kind of thing, Virginia Dair, first
English child born in America was Virginia Dare. Uh. We
should really make that that distinction, thank you. Um. Actually,
we can point to America's first terrorist threat. We know
exactly what it was. And you know, in the world today,
it's it's kind of a commonplace thing. We're always thinking
(01:53):
about terrorism. It's always somewhere in the back of our mind,
especially around you know, September eleven, which is around the
time and we're recording this right, um, But the terrorists
of your are well are kind of a different ilk
than than the ones we're running into today. Do you
(02:13):
do you know much about the Barbary pirates? I do.
These guys were smart. They were Class A extorationists. They
essentially set up camp along the Barbary coast and they
had really gosh full rain over the Mediterranean. Really, they
(02:33):
were European ships that would make several routes back and
forth between Europe and the East Indies which is today
the Middle East, and the Barbary Pirates caught one of
this and they're like, you know, these guys, they they're wealthy,
they have all these goods on board their ships. Why
don't we kidnap them and thunder? They're good? This is
they weren't the first ones to come up with the
(02:54):
bar The Barbary Pirates were named after the Barbary Coast,
which is the North African coast today like live and
l Jeers and that kind of thing. Morocco Um and
the coast was named after the brothers Barbarossa, which was
I believe Spanish for red beards. It was the Spaniards
who were getting attacked the most frequently Um and the
these these two brothers, the two red Beard brothers, were
(03:18):
actually Turks who came down to the coast of North
Africa to assist the Moors. So anyway, these two Turkish brothers,
the red Beard brothers, Um, the Barbarossa brothers, came down.
They're helping the Moors get back at the Spanish by
um molesting ships, capturing people, enslaving them, and they started
to make a lot of money doing this. But like
(03:40):
I said, they weren't the first once the Mediterranean, especially
in the area, had been the site of piracy for
thousands of years by the time the Barbarossa brothers showed up.
So that's the story of the Barbary coast up to well,
I stand correct, and I don't even know what to
do with myself now. I'm say he used to being
an at all. So not coincidentally, that year really begins
(04:04):
the age of exploration to the New World. But like
you said, by this time, all of Europe was going
to the East Indies for hundreds of years by then, right,
And as a result, all of Europe was under the
thumb of these Barbary pirates. Uh. The thing is is
people kept giving tribute to them, kept paying them off,
(04:24):
kept basically bribing these people to leave their country alone
or leaving ships from the country alone, but you know,
maybe harass other countries. I had heard though, that it
was actually your favorite president, Mr Thomas Jefferson, who finally
stood up to the Barbary pirates when no one else would.
(04:45):
Is that fact or fiction? That's fact? Okay, it is fact.
T Jay is my faith and you know he had
red hair, not to be confused with the red bearded pirates.
He was, you know, his pretty ballsy. And America was
a very a young nation, but it had grown exponentially
by this time, and so the Barbary pirates had been
(05:05):
demanding tribute from American ships, and originally it had been
a more modest sum. I think that eighty thousand dollars
had been the first amount actually built into the United
States budgets. So the US was paying tribute like everybody
else because they were they were going through the Mediterranean
as well to get to the East Indies right precisely. Well,
(05:25):
that was four but then by sevent they were demanding
one million dollars. What was the what was the change? Well,
because the US was getting bigger and it was importing
and experting more and being more frequently on these trade routes.
And at this point Thomas Jefferson sort of took notice
of the situation, and the US had really good diplomatic
(05:48):
relations with France. Ben Franklin had originally been the US
Minister to France, and he had set up a treaty
with France that set essentially, you know, you look out
for the American sailors will look out for the French
sailors everything, you know, tip for tat on the high
seas against these pirates. And then Thomas Jefferson when he
was ministered to France, when he was actually in Paris,
you know, gathering ideas for the architecture of Monticello, he
(06:10):
also started to think about, well, why can't we take
the superpower of France and the growing strength of the
US and maybe reach out to England and see if
we can form some sort of coalition against these pirates.
But no one was on board. It was just him
and well, I imagine England was still a little irked
from you know, the whole revolution and everything. Yeah, pretty much.
(06:32):
So finally, when Thomas Jefferson has elected the presidency, he
has the ability to say at that point, okay, this
is it. And it was perfect timing because at this
point that Barbary pirates had gotten some American sailors and
essentially they told the U s Okay, we're going to
release two. You are going to pay us this much money,
and if you don't, we're going to war. And that
(06:54):
was just the door that Thomas Jefferson was looking for.
He was like, all right, we're going to war. It
was that simple. So he sent his eight eight to
the Mediterranean. And there were actually two sets of barbary
wars that resulted from this, and the first that Thomas
Jefferson wage, they were sort of uneventful. It was mostly
sea battles, you know, maritime fighting. It went on for
four years and it ended with a treaty and things
(07:16):
were okay for a couple of years after that. I mean,
I think that there was still some plundering and pillaging
and raping and slave trading going on, but typical pirates,
typical pirates stuff. Anyway. Uh In eighteen fifteen, when James
Monroe came along, there was a second set of barbary wars,
(07:37):
and he was a little bit more shall we say,
assertive than Thomas Jefferson was. Sure. He's the one who
came up with the Monroe doctrine, right, yeah, you wanna
you wanna have out of with that. That's the world
police doctrine pretty much right, that the US would serve
as the police of the Western hemisphere as far as
I know, And that they did, and they gave it
(07:57):
back to these pirates. It was like all those years
of pent up frustration of of having American sailors kidnapped
and having to doll out and money. Finally, just you know,
you came to Ahead today. It came to Ahead, I understand.
You know what I find striking though, and I've heard
this before, that you said that a treaty ended the
first Barbary War, right, and um, I think that was
(08:22):
brokered by a diplomat that the US actually had in Um,
one of the Barbary states. Then you find it on
that that we had diplomats like trying to broker peace
deals stationed in these these countries that were run by pirates.
You would think so, but I think that it was
sort of no holds barred when it came to this
piracy because for so long we had been negotiating with
(08:46):
pirates like they were businessmen. You know, there were sums
worked out, there were tributes paid, there were I think
some sort of backhand, backhanded deals waged against them in
order to get the release of prisoners. And you know,
it wasn't unheard of for something like this to occur.
So that's like the original state sponsored terrorism. Huh wow,
(09:08):
all right, thanks Cannice. I get it now. And is fact?
You say fact that's great. So I have a little
fact of my own. You want to hear it? Yeah, sure,
I want to hear it. So you know the marine him, Yes,
you've heard it. You know, from the halls of Montezouma
to the shores of Triple Lee. Yeah, that's a nice sparitane.
(09:30):
Thank you. That um that that shores of Tripoli was
actually from the Barbary war. I think it was the
second one. The Marines stormed Tripoli, Libya and basically took
care of business. So that's where that part of the
first line of the Marines him comes from. Did you did?
(09:50):
And if you want to know even more about the
Barbary pirates, maybe even as much, if not more than Josh,
you can read what was America's First terrorist threat on
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. M
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candice Gibson, joined today by the fabulous and
oh so awesome Josh Click. Thank you Cannis and let
(00:21):
me say you are and ahoy to you. Oh that
reminds me of a joke that I know. Okay, yeah,
what what do pirates drive cars? That's great. You know,
there's not enough pirate jokes these days. No, but there's
no shortage of pirates. I mean you've got Johnny Depp
and sure Keith Richards, and Johnny Depp doing Keith Richards,
(00:43):
and then Johnny Depp pretending East Keith Richards, which is
totally different. And then Johnny Depp recently played a musical
instrument on stage somewhere, not under the guise of a
pirate musical, a guitar, nice one. That's great. You know
there's also some real life pirates off the coast of
Somalia is a strong haven for pirates these days. And
(01:08):
actually that's uh, that's kind of been the way it's
been for hundreds, if not thousands of years. Do you
remember when we were doing the America's first Murderer podcast,
and we were saying, like, one of the cool things
about America being such a young nation as we can
point to the first you know, like, we know who
America's first murderer was, and um, the first child born
(01:31):
in America. Sure, that kind of thing, Virginia Dair, first
English child born in America was Virginia Dare. Uh. We
should really make that that distinction, thank you. Um. Actually,
we can point to America's first terrorist threat. We know
exactly what it was. And you know, in the world today,
it's it's kind of a commonplace thing. We're always thinking
(01:53):
about terrorism. It's always somewhere in the back of our mind,
especially around you know, September eleven, which is around the
time and we're recording this right, um, But the terrorists
of your are well are kind of a different ilk
than than the ones we're running into today. Do you
(02:13):
do you know much about the Barbary pirates? I do.
These guys were smart. They were Class A extorationists. They
essentially set up camp along the Barbary coast and they
had really gosh full rain over the Mediterranean. Really, they
(02:33):
were European ships that would make several routes back and
forth between Europe and the East Indies which is today
the Middle East, and the Barbary Pirates caught one of
this and they're like, you know, these guys, they they're wealthy,
they have all these goods on board their ships. Why
don't we kidnap them and thunder? They're good? This is
they weren't the first ones to come up with the
(02:54):
bar The Barbary Pirates were named after the Barbary Coast,
which is the North African coast today like live and
l Jeers and that kind of thing. Morocco Um and
the coast was named after the brothers Barbarossa, which was
I believe Spanish for red beards. It was the Spaniards
who were getting attacked the most frequently Um and the
these these two brothers, the two red Beard brothers, were
(03:18):
actually Turks who came down to the coast of North
Africa to assist the Moors. So anyway, these two Turkish brothers,
the red Beard brothers, Um, the Barbarossa brothers, came down.
They're helping the Moors get back at the Spanish by
um molesting ships, capturing people, enslaving them, and they started
to make a lot of money doing this. But like
(03:40):
I said, they weren't the first once the Mediterranean, especially
in the area, had been the site of piracy for
thousands of years by the time the Barbarossa brothers showed up.
So that's the story of the Barbary coast up to well,
I stand correct, and I don't even know what to
do with myself now. I'm say he used to being
an at all. So not coincidentally, that year really begins
(04:04):
the age of exploration to the New World. But like
you said, by this time, all of Europe was going
to the East Indies for hundreds of years by then, right,
And as a result, all of Europe was under the
thumb of these Barbary pirates. Uh. The thing is is
people kept giving tribute to them, kept paying them off,
(04:24):
kept basically bribing these people to leave their country alone
or leaving ships from the country alone, but you know,
maybe harass other countries. I had heard though, that it
was actually your favorite president, Mr Thomas Jefferson, who finally
stood up to the Barbary pirates when no one else would.
(04:45):
Is that fact or fiction? That's fact? Okay, it is fact.
T Jay is my faith and you know he had
red hair, not to be confused with the red bearded pirates.
He was, you know, his pretty ballsy. And America was
a very a young nation, but it had grown exponentially
by this time, and so the Barbary pirates had been
(05:05):
demanding tribute from American ships, and originally it had been
a more modest sum. I think that eighty thousand dollars
had been the first amount actually built into the United
States budgets. So the US was paying tribute like everybody
else because they were they were going through the Mediterranean
as well to get to the East Indies right precisely. Well,
(05:25):
that was four but then by sevent they were demanding
one million dollars. What was the what was the change? Well,
because the US was getting bigger and it was importing
and experting more and being more frequently on these trade routes.
And at this point Thomas Jefferson sort of took notice
of the situation, and the US had really good diplomatic
(05:48):
relations with France. Ben Franklin had originally been the US
Minister to France, and he had set up a treaty
with France that set essentially, you know, you look out
for the American sailors will look out for the French
sailors everything, you know, tip for tat on the high
seas against these pirates. And then Thomas Jefferson when he
was ministered to France, when he was actually in Paris,
you know, gathering ideas for the architecture of Monticello, he
(06:10):
also started to think about, well, why can't we take
the superpower of France and the growing strength of the
US and maybe reach out to England and see if
we can form some sort of coalition against these pirates.
But no one was on board. It was just him
and well, I imagine England was still a little irked
from you know, the whole revolution and everything. Yeah, pretty much.
(06:32):
So finally, when Thomas Jefferson has elected the presidency, he
has the ability to say at that point, okay, this
is it. And it was perfect timing because at this
point that Barbary pirates had gotten some American sailors and
essentially they told the U s Okay, we're going to
release two. You are going to pay us this much money,
and if you don't, we're going to war. And that
(06:54):
was just the door that Thomas Jefferson was looking for.
He was like, all right, we're going to war. It
was that simple. So he sent his eight eight to
the Mediterranean. And there were actually two sets of barbary
wars that resulted from this, and the first that Thomas
Jefferson wage, they were sort of uneventful. It was mostly
sea battles, you know, maritime fighting. It went on for
four years and it ended with a treaty and things
(07:16):
were okay for a couple of years after that. I mean,
I think that there was still some plundering and pillaging
and raping and slave trading going on, but typical pirates,
typical pirates stuff. Anyway. Uh In eighteen fifteen, when James
Monroe came along, there was a second set of barbary wars,
(07:37):
and he was a little bit more shall we say,
assertive than Thomas Jefferson was. Sure. He's the one who
came up with the Monroe doctrine, right, yeah, you wanna
you wanna have out of with that. That's the world
police doctrine pretty much right, that the US would serve
as the police of the Western hemisphere as far as
I know, And that they did, and they gave it
(07:57):
back to these pirates. It was like all those years
of pent up frustration of of having American sailors kidnapped
and having to doll out and money. Finally, just you know,
you came to Ahead today. It came to Ahead, I understand.
You know what I find striking though, and I've heard
this before, that you said that a treaty ended the
first Barbary War, right, and um, I think that was
(08:22):
brokered by a diplomat that the US actually had in Um,
one of the Barbary states. Then you find it on
that that we had diplomats like trying to broker peace
deals stationed in these these countries that were run by pirates.
You would think so, but I think that it was
sort of no holds barred when it came to this
piracy because for so long we had been negotiating with
(08:46):
pirates like they were businessmen. You know, there were sums
worked out, there were tributes paid, there were I think
some sort of backhand, backhanded deals waged against them in
order to get the release of prisoners. And you know,
it wasn't unheard of for something like this to occur.
So that's like the original state sponsored terrorism. Huh wow,
(09:08):
all right, thanks Cannice. I get it now. And is fact?
You say fact that's great. So I have a little
fact of my own. You want to hear it? Yeah, sure,
I want to hear it. So you know the marine him, Yes,
you've heard it. You know, from the halls of Montezouma
to the shores of Triple Lee. Yeah, that's a nice sparitane.
(09:30):
Thank you. That um that that shores of Tripoli was
actually from the Barbary war. I think it was the
second one. The Marines stormed Tripoli, Libya and basically took
care of business. So that's where that part of the
first line of the Marines him comes from. Did you did?
(09:50):
And if you want to know even more about the
Barbary pirates, maybe even as much, if not more than Josh,
you can read what was America's First terrorist threat on
how stuff works dot com. For more on this and
thousands of other topics, visit how stuff works dot com.
Let us know what you think. Send an email to
podcast at how stuff works dot com. M
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