Key Battles of the Barbary Wars, Episode 3: The Barbary States and Their 300-Year Reign of Mediterranean Piracy

History Unplugged Podcast

History Unplugged

Society & Culture, History

4.2 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 31 October 2024

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Barbary States (Morocco, Tripoli, Algiers, Tunis) were the greatest thorn in the side of the young American republic after it won independence, preying on trade ships, enslaving American crews, and demanding levels of ransom that consumed much of the federal budget. But why did the Barbary states rely on piracy for economic survival and why couldn't they engage in typical commerce?

In the 16th century, the Barbary States transitioned from Mediterranean trade to piracy after Spain's conquests and Ottoman expansion disrupted their economy. Algiers and other North African ports became notorious bases for corsairs, launching raids on European shipping under the protection of the Ottoman Empire. By the early 17th century, piracy became central to their economy, with hundreds of corsair vessels operating from Algerine ports, capturing ships and enslaving crews. However, by the late 1800s, the Barbary States' power had waned due to European naval interventions, reducing their fleets and influence significantly.

But they were still a major threat, as the newborn United States was soon to find out. In this episode, James and Scott look at the origins of the Barbary States and understand their perspective in the Barbary Wars.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Noble Gold Investments is the official gold sponsor of History Unplun, a company that specializes in gold IRAs and physical delivery of precious metals.
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0:11.2	Noble Gold Investments.com.
0:19.3	Welcome back to our series Key Battles of the Barbary Wars. am Scott Rank and in the last episode we left off the
0:25.6	American Navy being somewhere between non-existent and microscopic we're gonna switch
0:31.1	our focus from America and we're going to look at the Barbary States themselves before we look at the war.
0:37.0	And I guess it's worth asking. So, James, I consider you someone who knows a thing or two about history. You know you've been around a block, we write a book here there. So if there's someone who's knowledgeable about things and as a general knowledge about a lot of stuff, you probably would. Before we started this series, what did you know about the Barbary States?
0:55.4	This is a pretty good avatar about someone who's fairly well read.
0:59.4	How much would a general person who generally likes history know about them.
1:03.0	What was your knowledge level?
1:04.6	Hey everyone, Scott here.
1:08.9	Before we get started with this episode,
1:10.4	a quick break for word from our sponsors.
1:20.0	Well if you don't mind, hello everybody out of the way, this is James here. Glad to be back with Scott again and let me modify your question slightly because I as you know and most of the listeners know I also am a history professor I teach part time at a community college in the Houston area and I teach a survey course and in the survey course in the first semester the American History 1 we call it. I always teach on this this topic I don't go into a ton of detail
1:44.2	nowhere near what we're going into in this series but I do talk very briefly about
1:49.4	the first Barbary war or the Tripolitanian War.
1:53.1	So I think a better way to ask the question
1:55.4	was how much did I know about it
1:56.8	before I started teaching college history?
1:59.3	And the answer would be not very much, very, very little. this is really obscure topic and I imagine if you even
2:06.0	asked like let's say a hundred high school US history teachers what do you know
2:11.9	about the Barbary Wars I would venture to guess that a lot
	...

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