The
Treaty of Tripoli was the first treaty concluded between the
United States of AmericaThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and
TripolitaniaThe coastal region of what is today Libya was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911, from 1864 as the Vilayet of Tripolitania . It was also known as the Kingdom of Tripoli, even though it was not technically a kingdom, but an Ottoman province ruled by pashas , as the Karamanli dynasty...
, signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796 and at
Algiers' is the capital and largest city of Algeria. According to the 1998 census, the population of the city proper was 1,519,570 and that of the urban agglomeration was 2,135,630. In 2009, the population was about 3,500,000...
(for a third-party witness) on January 3, 1797. It was submitted to the Senate by President
John AdamsJohn Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
, receiving
ratificationRatification is a principal's approval of an act of its agent where the agent lacked authority to legally bind the principal. The term applies to private contract law, international treaties, and constitutionals in federations such as the United States and Canada.- Private law :In contract law, the...
unanimously from the U.S.
SenateThe United States Senate is the upper house of the bicameral legislature of the United States, and together with the United States House of Representatives comprises the United States Congress. The composition and powers of the Senate are established in Article One of the U.S. Constitution. Each...
on June 7, 1797 and signed by Adams, taking effect as the law of the land on June 10, 1797.
The treaty was a routine diplomatic agreement but has attracted later attention because the English version included a clause about religion in America.
- As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
The treaty is cited as historical evidence in the modern day controversy over whether there was religious intent by the founders of the United States government. Article 11 of the treaty has been interpreted as an official denial of a
ChristianA Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
basis for the U.S. government.
Barbary Pirates
For three centuries up to the time of the Treaty, the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
lanes had been preyed on by the
North AfricaNorth Africa or Northern Africa is the northernmost region of the African continent, linked by the Sahara to Sub-Saharan Africa. Geopolitically, the United Nations definition of Northern Africa includes eight countries or territories; Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, South Sudan, Sudan, Tunisia, and...
n Muslim states of the
Barbary CoastThe Barbary Coast, or Barbary, was the term used by Europeans from the 16th until the 19th century to refer to much of the collective land of the Berber people. Today, the terms Maghreb and "Tamazgha" correspond roughly to "Barbary"...
(Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco and Tunis) through privateering (government-sanctioned
piracyPiracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea. The term can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the perpetrator...
).
HostageA hostage is a person or entity which is held by a captor. The original definition meant that this was handed over by one of two belligerent parties to the other or seized as security for the carrying out of an agreement, or as a preventive measure against certain acts of war...
s captured by the Barbary pirates were either
ransomRansom is the practice of holding a prisoner or item to extort money or property to secure their release, or it can refer to the sum of money involved.In an early German law, a similar concept was called bad influence...
ed or forced into
slaverySlavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, contributing to the greater
Ottoman slave tradeSlavery was an important part of Ottoman society until the Ottoman Empire extinguished slavery of Caucasians in the early 19th century. The practice carried over into Ottoman reign...
(of which the Barbary states were a segment). Life for the captives often was harsh, especially for Christian captives, and many died from their treatment. Some captives "went Turk", that is, converted to Islam, a choice that made life in captivity easier for them.
Before the
American RevolutionThe American Revolution was the political upheaval during the last half of the 18th century in which thirteen colonies in North America joined together to break free from the British Empire, combining to become the United States of America...
, the British colonies in
North AmericaNorth America is a continent wholly within the Northern Hemisphere and almost wholly within the Western Hemisphere. It is also considered a northern subcontinent of the Americas...
were protected from the Barbary pirates by British warships and treaties. During the Revolution, the
Kingdom of FranceThe Kingdom of France was one of the most powerful states to exist in Europe during the second millennium.It originated from the Western portion of the Frankish empire, and consolidated significant power and influence over the next thousand years. Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King, developed a...
formed an alliance with the colonies and assumed the responsibility of providing protection of U.S. ships against the Barbary pirates. After the U.S. won its independence with the signing of the
Treaty of Paris (1783)The Treaty of Paris, signed on September 3, 1783, ended the American Revolutionary War between Great Britain on the one hand and the United States of America and its allies on the other. The other combatant nations, France, Spain and the Dutch Republic had separate agreements; for details of...
, it had to face the threat of the Barbary pirates on its own. Two American ships were captured by Algerian pirates in July 1785 and the survivors forced into slavery, their ransom set at $60,000. A rumor that
Benjamin FranklinDr. Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. A noted polymath, Franklin was a leading author, printer, political theorist, politician, postmaster, scientist, musician, inventor, satirist, civic activist, statesman, and diplomat...
, who was en route from France to Philadelphia about that time, had been captured by Barbary pirates, caused considerable upset in the U.S. Without a standing navy, much less a navy capable of projecting force across an ocean, the U.S. was forced to pay tribute monies and goods to the Barbary nations for the security of its ships and the freedom of its captured citizens. As General William Eaton informed newly-appointed
Secretary of StateThe United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
John MarshallJohn Marshall was the Chief Justice of the United States whose court opinions helped lay the basis for American constitutional law and made the Supreme Court of the United States a coequal branch of government along with the legislative and executive branches...
in 1800, "It is a maxim of the Barbary States, that 'The Christians who would be on good terms with them must fight well or pay well.'"
Soon after the formation of the United States,
privateerA privateer is a private person or ship authorized by a government by letters of marque to attack foreign shipping during wartime. Privateering was a way of mobilizing armed ships and sailors without having to spend public money or commit naval officers...
ing in the
Mediterranean SeaThe Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean surrounded by the Mediterranean region and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Anatolia and Europe, on the south by North Africa, and on the east by the Levant...
and
Atlantic OceanThe Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's oceanic divisions. With a total area of about , it covers approximately 20% of the Earth's surface and about 26% of its water surface area...
from the nations of the
Barbary CoastThe Barbary Coast, or Barbary, was the term used by Europeans from the 16th until the 19th century to refer to much of the collective land of the Berber people. Today, the terms Maghreb and "Tamazgha" correspond roughly to "Barbary"...
prompted the U.S. to initiate a series of so-called peace treaties, collectively known as the
Barbary TreatiesThe Barbary Treaties refer to several treaties between the United States of America and the semi-autonomous North African city-states of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, under the rule of the Ottoman Empire, known collectively as the Barbary States....
. Individual treaties were negotiated with
MoroccoMorocco , officially the Kingdom of Morocco , is a country located in North Africa. It has a population of more than 32 million and an area of 710,850 km², and also primarily administers the disputed region of the Western Sahara...
(1786), Algiers (1795),
TripoliThe coastal region of what is today Libya was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from 1551 to 1911, from 1864 as the Vilayet of Tripolitania . It was also known as the Kingdom of Tripoli, even though it was not technically a kingdom, but an Ottoman province ruled by pashas , as the Karamanli dynasty...
(1797) and Tunis (1797), all of them more than once. The United States consul-general to the Barbary states of Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis was
Joel BarlowJoel Barlow was an American poet, diplomat and politician. In his own time, Barlow was well-known for the epic Vision of Columbus. Modern readers may be more familiar with "The Hasty Pudding"...
, who dealt with the text of various treaties (including the Treaty of Tripoli) and supported U.S. diplomatic efforts in the Barbary Coast.
Commissioner Plenipotentiary-Ambassadors:*John Jay**Appointed: September 29, 1779**Title: Minister Plenipotentiary**Presented credentials:**Terminated mission: ~May 20, 1782*William Carmichael**Appointed: April 20, 1790**Title: Chargé d'Affaires...
of the United States,
David HumphreysDavid Humphreys was a American Revolutionary War colonel and aide de camp to George Washington, American minister to Portugal and then to Spain, entrepreneur who brought Merino sheep to America and member of the Connecticut state legislature...
, was given the right to establish a treaty with Tripoli and assigned Joel Barlow and Joseph Donaldson to broker it. It was Joel Barlow who certified the signatures on the Arabic original and the English copy provided to him. Later, Captain Richard O'Brien established the original transport of the negotiated goods along with the Treaty, but it was the American Consul
James Leander CathcartJames Leander Cathcart was a diplomat, slave, and sailor. He is notable for his narrative as a slave in Algiers for eleven years.-Revolutionary War :...
who delivered the final requirements of payment for the treaty.
Signing and ratification
President
George WashingtonGeorge Washington was the dominant military and political leader of the new United States of America from 1775 to 1799. He led the American victory over Great Britain in the American Revolutionary War as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army from 1775 to 1783, and presided over the writing of...
appointed his old colleague
David HumphreysDavid Humphreys may refer to:* David Humphreys , British American soldier* David Humphreys , Irish rugby player* David Campbell Humphreys , U.S. federal judge...
as Commissioner
PlenipotentiaryThe word plenipotentiary has two meanings. As a noun, it refers to a person who has "full powers." In particular, the term commonly refers to a diplomat fully authorized to represent his government as a prerogative...
on March 30, 1795, in order to negotiate a treaty with the Barbary powers. On February 10, 1796, Humphreys appointed Joel Barlow and Joseph Donaldson as "Junior Agents" to forge a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship". Under Humphreys' authority, the treaty was signed at Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and certified at Algiers on January 3, 1797. Humphreys reviewed the treaty and approved it in Lisbon on February 10, 1797.
The official treaty was in Arabic text, and a translated version by Consul-General Barlow was ratified by the United States on June 10, 1797. Article 11 of the treaty was said to have not been part of the original
ArabicArabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
version of the treaty; in its place is a letter from the Dey of Algiers to the
Pasha of TripoliPasha of Tripoli is a title that was held by many rulers of Tripoli in Ottoman Libya. Other titles include Dey and Agha.-List of Pashas 1551-1609:* Murad Agha 1551-1556* Turgut Reis Pasha 1556-1565* Yahya Pasha 1565-1566...
. However, it is the English text which was ratified by Congress. Miller says, "the Barlow translation is that which was submitted to the Senate (American State Papers, Foreign Relations, II, 18-19) and which is printed in the Statutes at Large and in treaty collections generally; it is that English text which in the United States has always been deemed the text of the treaty."
The Treaty also had spent seven months traveling from Tripoli to Algiers to Portugal and, finally, to the United States, and had been signed by officials at each stop along the way. Neither Congress nor President Adams would have been able to cancel the terms of the Treaty by the time they first saw it, and there is no record of discussion or debate of the Treaty of Tripoli at the time that it was ratified. However, there is a statement made by President Adams on the document that reads:
Now be it known, That I John Adams, President of the United States of America, having seen and considered the said Treaty do, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, accept, ratify, and confirm the same, and every clause and article thereof. And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed, and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States, I have ordered the premises to be made public; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States, and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof, faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof.
Official records show that after President
John AdamsJohn Adams was an American lawyer, statesman, diplomat and political theorist. A leading champion of independence in 1776, he was the second President of the United States...
sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification in May 1797, the entire treaty was read aloud on the Senate floor, and copies were printed for every Senator. A committee considered the treaty and recommended ratification. Twenty-three of the thirty-two sitting Senators were present for the June 7 vote which unanimously approved the ratification recommendation.
However, before anyone in the United States saw the Treaty, its required payments, in the form of goods and money, had been made in part. As Barlow declared: "The present writing done by our hand and delivered to the American Captain OBrien makes known that he has delivered to us forty thousand Spanish dollars,-thirteen watches of gold, silver & pinsbach,-five rings, of which three of diamonds, one of saphire and one with a watch in it, One hundred & forty piques of cloth, and four caftans of brocade,-and these on account of the peace concluded with the Americans." However, this was an incomplete amount of goods stipulated under the treaty (according to the Pasha of Tripoli) and an additional $18,000 dollars had to be paid by the American Consul James Leander Cathcart at his arrival on April 10, 1799.
It was not until these final goods were delivered that the Pasha of Tripoli recognized the Treaty as official. In
Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America by
David Hunter MillerDavid Hunter Miller was a U.S. lawyer and an expert on treaties who participated in the drafting of the covenant of the League of Nations...
, which is regarded as an authoritative collection of international agreements of the United States between 1776 and 1937, Hunter Miller describes, "While the original ratification remained in the hands of Cathcart... it is possible that a copy thereof was delivered upon the settlement of April 10, 1799, and further possible that there was something almost in the nature of an exchange of ratifications of the treaty on or about April 10, 1799, the day of the agreed settlement." It is then that the Pasha declares in a Letter to John Adams on April 15, 1799, "Whereby we have consummated the Peace which shall, on our side, be inviolate, provided You are Willing to treat us as You do other Regencies, without any difference being made between Us. Which is the whole of what We have, at present, to say to You, wishing you at the same time the most unlimited prosperity."
Article 11
Article 11 has been a point of contention in disputes on the doctrine of
separation of church and stateThe phrase "separation of church and state" , attributed to Thomas Jefferson and others, and since quoted by the Supreme Court of the United States, expresses an understanding of the intent and function of the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States...
as it applies to the founding principles of the United States. Some religious spokesmen such as David Barton claim variously that — despite unanimous ratification by the U.S. Senate in English — the text which appears as Article 11 in the English translation does not appear in the Arabic text of the treaty, that though the English phrase is not an untrue statement since it is referring to the federal government, a number of the founders described America as a Christian nation, or that the quotation is based on an incomplete reading of Article 11.
Article 11 reads:
Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquility, of Mussulmen,—and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
According to Frank Lambert, Professor of History at
Purdue UniversityPurdue University, located in West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S., is the flagship university of the six-campus Purdue University system. Purdue was founded on May 6, 1869, as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and...
, the assurances in Article 11 were "intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers." Lambert writes,
- "By their actions, the Founding Fathers made clear that their primary concern was religious freedom, not the advancement of a state religion. Individuals, not the government, would define religious faith and practice in the United States. Thus the Founders ensured that in no official sense would America be a Christian Republic. Ten years after the Constitutional Convention ended its work, the country assured the world that the United States was a secular state, and that its negotiations would adhere to the rule of law, not the dictates of the Christian faith. The assurances were contained in the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797 and were intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced. John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states, not between two religious powers.
The Senate's ratification was only the third time in history the Senate had voted unanimously. It was the 339th time that the Senate decided to require a recorded vote. The treaty was printed in the Philadelphia Gazette and two New York papers, with no evidence of any public dissent. This quiet assent to the Treaty of Tripoli is all the more remarkable because evidence of the erroneous character of the translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since approximately 1800. It is a mystery why no one made any notice of the defects in the translation or comparison of the English translation with other translations prior to 1930.
Translation and Article 11
The translation of the Treaty of Tripoli by Barlow has been questioned, and it has been disputed whether Article 11 in the English version of the treaty ratified by the U.S. Senate corresponds to anything of the same purport in the Arabic version.
In 1931 Hunter Miller completed a commission by the United States government to analyze United States' treaties and to explain how they function and what they mean to the United States' legal position in relationship with the rest of the world. According to Hunter Miller's notes, "the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic" and "Article 11... does not exist at all."
After comparing the United States' version by Barlow with the Arabic and the Italian version, Miller continues by claiming that:
The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter, crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant, from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. How that script came to be written and to be regarded, as in the Barlow translation, as Article 11 of the treaty as there written, is a mystery and seemingly must remain so. Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point.
From this, Miller concludes: "A further and perhaps equal mystery is the fact that since 1797 the Barlow translation has been trustfully and universally accepted as the just equivalent of the Arabic... yet evidence of the erroneous character of the Barlow translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since perhaps 1800 or thereabouts..." It is important to note, though, that as Miller said:
It is to be remembered that the Barlow translation is that which was submitted to the Senate (American State Papers, Foreign Relations, II, 18-19) and which is printed in the Statutes at Large and in treaty collections generally; it is that English text which in the United States has always been deemed the text of the treaty.
However the Arabic and English texts differ, the Barlow translation (Article 11 included) was the text presented by the President and ratified unanimously in 1796 by the U.S. Senate following strict Constitutional procedures.
Barbary Wars
The treaty was broken in 1801 by the
Pasha of TripoliPasha of Tripoli is a title that was held by many rulers of Tripoli in Ottoman Libya. Other titles include Dey and Agha.-List of Pashas 1551-1609:* Murad Agha 1551-1556* Turgut Reis Pasha 1556-1565* Yahya Pasha 1565-1566...
over President
Thomas JeffersonThomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
's refusal to pay the Pasha's demands for increased payments. In the course of negotiating with the Barbary nations, each of the Barbary rulers continuously demanded increased payments to maintain peace, even while occasionally capturing U.S. ships. The Pasha of Tripoli was jealous of the ships the U.S. had recently given to Algeria, and demanded similar payment be made to him. On September 25, 1800, Tripoli captured the U.S. ship,
Catherine, robbed the crew and plundered its cargo. The Pasha said this was a mistake and the captain responsible for the capture had been punished. Even so, the Pasha warned Cathcart that either the U.S. send additional payments, or the Pasha would declare war on U.S. vessels within six months.
The Pasha then commenced thus: "Counsul there is no Nation I wish more to be at Peace with than yours, but all Nations pay me & so must the Americans." I answered "we have already paid you all we owe you & are nothing in arrears." He answered that for the Peace we had paid him it was true, but to maintain the Peace we had given him nothing. I observed that the terms of our Treaty were to pay him the stipulated stores [and the] cash and in full of all demands forever.... The Pasha then observed that we had given a great deal to Algiers and Tunis.... he hoped the United States would [not] neglect him as six or eight vessels of the value of his would amount to a much larger sum than ever he expected to get from the United States for remaining at Peace.
Meanwhile, the U.S. was quickly losing patience with the Barbary nations, and had been building up its Navy in preparation for armed confrontation. On May 15, 1801, President Thomas Jefferson's cabinet again advised him to send a squadron to the Mediterranean, but only as a retaliatory force. On May 20, 1801, Commodore Richard Dale was commissioned to lead three frigates and a schooner to patrol the Mediterranean sea lanes. They set sail on June 2, 1801. However, unknown to Jefferson, the Pasha of Tripoli declared war against the United States on May 10, 1801. In sending the Navy squadron to the Mediterranean, Jefferson declared,
"To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed, one only exception exists. Tripoli, the least considerable of the Barbary States, had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact, and had permitted itself to denounce war, on our failure to comply before a given day. The style of the demand admitted but one answer. I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean."
Soon after Commodore Dale sailed into a neutral British port near the Straits of Gibraltar, he discovered that Tripoli had declared war on the United States. Commodore Dale’s commission only authorized him to blockade adversarial ports and capture hostile ships, so he could not attack Tripoli directly. However, he notified the Pasha of Tripoli that he could negotiate terms of surrender.
Through subsequent battles, Tripoli eventually agreed to terms of peace with the United States. Tobias Lear negotiated a second "Treaty of Peace and Amity" with the Pasha Yusuf on June 4, 1805. To the dismay of many Americans, the new settlement included a ransom of $60,000 paid for the release of prisoners from the
USS PhiladelphiaThe second USS Philadelphia was a 1240-ton, 36-gun sailing frigate of the United States Navy.Originally named City of Philadelphia, she was built in 1798–1799 for the United States government by the citizens of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Funding for her construction was the result of a...
and several U.S. merchant ships. By 1807, Algiers had gone back to taking U.S. ships and seamen hostage. Distracted by the preludes to the
War of 1812The War of 1812 was a military conflict fought between the forces of the United States of America and those of the British Empire. The Americans declared war in 1812 for several reasons, including trade restrictions because of Britain's ongoing war with France, impressment of American merchant...
, the United States was unable to respond to the provocations until 1815, with the
Second Barbary WarThe Second Barbary War , also known as the Algerine or Algerian War, was the second of two wars fought between the United States and the Ottoman Empire's North African regencies of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algeria known collectively as the Barbary states. The war between the Barbary States and the U.S...
, thereby concluding the encompassing
Barbary WarsThe Barbary Wars were a series of wars between the United States of America and the Barbary States of North Africa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At issue was the Barbary pirates' demand of tribute from American merchant vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. If ships failed to pay, pirates...
(1800–1815).
External links
- Arguments in support of view that Article 11 shows the United States was not a Christian nation: