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The Barbary Coast, or Barbary, was the term used by European
European ethnic groups

The European peoples are the various nations and ethnic groups of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
s from the 16th until the 19th century to refer to the middle and western coastal regions of North Africa—what is now Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
, Algeria
Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country of the Mediterranean sea, second largest in the Arab World, and the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area....
, Tunisia
Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast....
, and Libya
Libya

Libya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya lies between Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
. The name is derived from the Berber people
Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....
 of north Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
. In the West, the name commonly evokes the Barbary pirates and slave trade
Barbary Slave Trade

The Barbary Slave Trade refers to the slave markets which flourished on the Barbary Coast, or modern day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Western Libya between the 16th and 19th centuries....
rs based on that coast, who attacked ships and coastal settlements in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic and captured and traded slaves from Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara....
.

"Barbary" was not always a unified political entity.






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The Barbary Coast, or Barbary, was the term used by European
European ethnic groups

The European peoples are the various nations and ethnic groups of Europe. European ethnology is the field of anthropology focusing on Europe....
s from the 16th until the 19th century to refer to the middle and western coastal regions of North Africa—what is now Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
, Algeria
Algeria

Algeria , officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country located in North Africa. It is the largest country of the Mediterranean sea, second largest in the Arab World, and the second largest on the African continent and the eleventh-largest country in the world in terms of land area....
, Tunisia
Tunisia

Tunisia , officially the Tunisian Republic , is a country located in North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and Libya to the southeast....
, and Libya
Libya

Libya , officially the Great Socialist People's Libyan Arab Jamahiriya , is a country located in North Africa. Bordering the Mediterranean Sea to the north, Libya lies between Egypt to the east, Sudan to the southeast, Chad and Niger to the south, and Algeria and Tunisia to the west....
. The name is derived from the Berber people
Berber people

Berbers are the indigenous ethnic groups of North Africa west of the Nile Valley. They are discontinuously distributed from the Atlantic to the Siwa oasis, in Egypt, and from the Mediterranean to the Niger River....
 of north Africa
Africa

Africa is the world's second-largest and second most-populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km? including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area....
. In the West, the name commonly evokes the Barbary pirates and slave trade
Barbary Slave Trade

The Barbary Slave Trade refers to the slave markets which flourished on the Barbary Coast, or modern day Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Western Libya between the 16th and 19th centuries....
rs based on that coast, who attacked ships and coastal settlements in the Mediterranean and North Atlantic and captured and traded slaves from Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 and sub-Saharan Africa
Sub-Saharan Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa is a geographical term used to describe the area of the African continent which lies south of the Sahara, or those African countries which are fully or partially located south of the Sahara....
.

"Barbary" was not always a unified political entity. From the sixteenth-century onwards, it was divided into the familiar political entities of Morocco
Morocco

Morocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa with a population of nearly 34 million and an area just under 447,000 km2....
, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripolitania
Tripolitania

Tripolitania or Tripolitana is a historic region and former province of Libya, situated alongside Cyrenaica and Fezzan). The system of administrative divisions that included Tripolitania was abolished in the early 1970s in favour of a system of smaller-size municipality or baladiyah ....
 (Tripoli). Major rulers during the times of the barbary states' plundering parties were the Pasha
Pasha

Pasha or pacha, formerly bashaw, was a high rank in the Ottoman Empire political system, typically granted to governors and generals....
 or Dey
Dey

Dey was the title given to the rulers of the Regency of Algiers and Tunis under the Ottoman Empire from 1671 onwards. Twenty-nine deys held office from the establishment of the deylicate until the French conquest in 1830....
 of Algiers
Algiers

Algiers Nicknamed El-Bahdja or Alger la Blanche for the glistening white of its buildings as seen rising up from the sea, Algiers is situated on the west side of a bay of the Mediterranean Sea....
, the Bey
Bey

Bey is a Turkish language title for "chieftain," traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. In historical accounts, many Turkey, other Turkic peoples and Iran leaders are titled Baig....
 of Tunis
Tunis

Tunis is the Capital of the Tunisian Republic and also the Tunis Governorate, with a population of 1 200,000 in 2008 and over 3,980,500 in the municipal area....
 and the Bey
Bey

Bey is a Turkish language title for "chieftain," traditionally applied to the leaders of small tribal groups. In historical accounts, many Turkey, other Turkic peoples and Iran leaders are titled Baig....
 of Tripoli
Tripoli

Tripoli is the largest and Capital city of Libya.Tripoli has a population of 1.69 million. The city is located in the northwest of the country on the edge of the desert, on a point of rocky land projecting into the Mediterranean Sea and forming a bay....
, all very good subjects who were anxious to get rid of the Ottoman
Ottoman Empire

The Ottoman Empire , also known by its contemporaries as the Turkish Empire or Turkey , was an empire that lasted from 1299?1923. It was Treaty of Lausanne by the Republic of Turkey, which was officially proclaimed on October 29, 1923....
 sultan
Sultan

Sultan is an Islamic honorifics, with several historical meanings. Originally it was an Arabic language abstract noun meaning "strength", "authority", or "rulership", derived from the verbal noun ???? sulah, meaning "authority" or "power"....
, but were de facto independent rulers.

Before then the territory was usually divided between Ifriqiya
Ifriqiya

In Middle Ages, Ifriqiya or Ifriqiyah was the area comprising the coastal regions of what are today western Libya, Tunisia, and eastern Algeria....
, Morocco, and a west-central Algerian state centered on Tlemcen
Tlemcen

Tlemcen is a town in Northwestern Algeria, and the capital of the Tlemcen Province. Its population is 132,341 as of the 1998 census. Located inland, it is located in the center of a region known for its olive plantations and vineyards....
 or Tiaret. Powerful Berber dynasties such as the Almohad
Almohad

The Almohad Dynasty , was a Berber people, Muslim dynasty that was founded in the 12th century, and conquered all northern Africa as far as Libya, together with Al-Andalus ....
s, and briefly the Hafsids, occasionally unified it for short periods. From a European perspective its "capital" or chief city was often considered to be Tripoli in modern-day Libya, although Marrakesh in Morocco was the largest and most important Berber city at the time. In addition, Algiers in Algeria and Tangiers in Morocco were also sometimes seen as its "capital".

The first United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 military action overseas, executed by the U.S. Marines
United States Marine Corps

The United States Marine Corps is a branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for providing Military power projection from the sea, using the mobility of the United States Navy to rapidly deliver Marine Air-Ground Task Force....
 and Navy
United States Navy

The United States Navy is the navy of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy currently has approximately 331,682 personnel on active duty as of 31 December 2008 and 124,000 in the United States Navy Reserve....
, was the Battle of Derne, Tripoli, in 1805. It was an effort to destroy all of the Barbary pirates, free the American slaves in captivity, and put an end to piracy
Piracy

Piracy is a warlike act committed by a foreign nonstate actor, especially robbery or crime committed at sea, on a river, or sometimes on shore, either from a vessel flying no national flag, or one flying a national flag but without authorization from a nation....
 acts between these warring tribes on the part of the Barbary states. The opening line of the "Marine's Hymn" refers to this action: "From the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli..."

External links

  • , Ohio State University