The Barbary Pirates, And A Lesson Learned Early

This weekend, I finally had to break down and clean my office. When you reach the point where you must write on top of piles of paper because there’s no clear desk space left, it’s time to admit the situation has gotten out of hand. While sorting through one of those stacks, I came across an old file containing an old article written by the late Christopher Hitchens.

Hitchens was, by any fair description, a man of the left. He was an atheist, an intellectual, and often a fierce critic of religion and conservative thought—but he was something else as well: he was principled and honest. I might not have agreed with Hitch on many things, but I always made a point of reading his work because it was rigorously researched and intellectually serious. Hitchens believed what he believed, and that belief didn’t shift depending on the political winds of the moment. Like Charlie Kirk, he was willing to respectfully go toe-to-toe with anyone, armed with facts and a willingness to argue his case openly.

That kind of intellectual honesty is increasingly rare.

Published in City Journal in the Spring 2007 issue and titled “Jefferson versus the Muslim Pirates”, the article recounted an early and often overlooked chapter of American history: the Barbary Wars. As Hitchens explains, one immediate consequence of the American Revolution was that American merchant ships lost the protection of the British Royal Navy. That left them exposed in the Mediterranean to the North African states of the Ottoman Empire—roughly corresponding to modern-day Algeria, Libya, Morocco, and Tunisia—which had long engaged in piracy and the seizure of Christian sailors for ransom or slavery.

The young United States suddenly faced a serious question: would it tolerate this extortion, or would it defend its commerce and its citizens?

Some historians have argued that the conflict with the Barbary states was primarily about trade rather than ideology or religion. Hitchens quotes historian Frank Lambert, who suggests that the Barbary Wars were essentially an extension of the struggle for American independence and freedom of navigation.

There is truth to that interpretation. Thomas Jefferson himself likely would have been just as willing to send a naval squadron to suppress piracy by Christian states if they had been threatening American trade—but there is another element that should not be ignored.

When Jefferson and John Adams met the ambassador from Tripoli in London in 1785, they asked by what right the Barbary states preyed upon American ships and enslaved their crews. The answer they received was straightforward and chilling. The ambassador told them that it was written in the Koran that nations which had not acknowledged Muslim authority were sinners, and that it was both the right and duty of Muslims to wage war against them, enslave their people, and take their property.

There was also, of course, a practical alternative: tribute.

If the United States paid protection money, the piracy might stop.

Here was an early version of what we would now call a “heads I win, tails you lose” dilemma. America could submit to extortion and pay tribute, or it could fight a long and costly war against piracy backed by corrupt regimes and religious justification.

John Adams, ever the pragmatist, warned that fighting such enemies could become an endless struggle. As he put it bluntly, “We ought not to fight them at all unless we determine to fight them forever.”

History has a way of proving some warnings prophetic. Aren’t these the same choices we have faced for decades regarding Iran?

The Barbary Wars were expensive and difficult, and Adams’s caution was not without merit. Yet the consequences of resisting tribute were significant. American trade in the Mediterranean expanded dramatically after the conflicts, and the wars helped establish the young nation’s ability to project naval power abroad. They also contributed—somewhat paradoxically—to early anti-slavery sentiment, as Americans became increasingly aware of the contradiction between condemning Muslim slave-taking while tolerating the Atlantic slave trade.

Perhaps most importantly, the Barbary Wars forced Americans to confront a reality that still defines our foreign policy today: the United States could not remain isolated from global affairs. Geography might provide two vast oceans as buffers, but commerce, security, and principle would inevitably pull the nation into conflicts beyond its shores. In other words, the United States discovered very early that neutrality and withdrawal were not always options.

Hitchens ended the piece by invoking Rudyard Kipling’s poem “Dane-Geld,” which describes the temptation to buy peace from aggressors who threaten violence. Kipling’s warning is timeless: once a nation begins paying tribute, it encourages more demands, more extortion, and ultimately humiliation.

“We never pay anyone Dane-geld,” the poem concludes,

“For the end of that game is oppression and shame,

And the nation that plays it is lost.”

Whether you agreed with Hitchens or not, he forced you to confront uncomfortable facts, historical context, and arguments that refused to bend to ideological convenience. The one thing I miss about him is that no matter how much I agreed or disagreed with him, I always felt a little smarter after spending time with his work.

That is a rare quality in a writer.

Most certainly, it is rarer still in our current political moment.