The End of Barbary Terror: America's 1815 War Against the Pirates of North Africa (review)

America's struggle to eliminate state-sponsored piracy and the enslavement of its seamen by the Barbary states of North Africa during the early national era constitutes one of the most dramatic episodes of the young Republic. For the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps the Barbary War created some of its earliest heroes and most daring exploits of its entire history. The best remembered of these involves Stephen Decatur and the burning of the USS Philadelphia in the harbor of Tripoli. For the most part, the studies of this first undeclared war end with the ransom of the Philadelphia's prisoners in 1805. But this was not the last episode in the evolution of American relations with these states, as Baltimore lawyer Frederick Leiner recounts in his second book on the early American navy.

During the War of 1812, the British offered to protect Algeria from foreign attack if that nation would not allow its ports to receive enemy prize vessels. Because the Royal Navy kept American cruisers and privateers out of the Mediterranean, only the two-masted merchantman Edwin fell to the Algerians early in the conflict. Her crew languished in Algerine captivity until 1815 when the United States sent an expedition commanded by Stephen Decatur to recover them. Decatur captured the Algerine flagship and another vessel and forced the remaining Algerian vessels into hiding at a Spanish port before blockading Algiers. Working closely with William Shaler, the American consul in Algiers, Decatur secured a most favorable treaty; it freed the prisoners without ransom, secured payment for the Edwin and its cargo, allowed American warships and privateers to sell their prizes in Algiers, and ended United States tribute to Algiers. It was a remarkable achievement, with better provisions than any European nation had been able to achieve with any Barbary state, but Decatur was not finished. He went on to secure equally favorable treatment from the Tunisians and Tripolitans much to the chagrin of the British, who were dismayed that their maritime rival and upstart republic had secured better terms than they had.

Given the fact there have been three new biographies of Decatur—by James Tertius de Kay, Robert Allison, and Spencer Tucker—and a recent study of American–North African diplomacy by Allison, Leiner's greatest achievement is not merely providing greater detail than any of these about Decatur's accomplishments, but rather an all-too-brief look at the post-1815 situation when the dey of Algiers sought to renegotiate the treaty terms with the connivance of the British. In the second round, Consul Shaler worked deftly with Commodore John Shaw and Captain Oliver Hazard Perry to maintain the original provisions. Shaler clearly deserves more scholarly attention than has been paid this State Department official.

While Leiner has solidly researched the naval and diplomatic archives and secondary accounts of the period, he has neglected such standard diplomatic histories as those by Bradford Perkins that shed light on Anglo-American relations. Nonetheless, this is a solid study written in a lively style about the role of the U.S. Navy and State Department in terminating state-sponsored piracy in the Mediterranean.