Barbary Pirates controlled parts of the Mediterranean Sea from ports in present- day Algeria, Libya, and Tunisia (the Barbary coast ). They demanded "tributes"— payment to keep them from attacking vessels passing on trade routes through the Mediterranean. When the pirates seized an American ship and took ten sailors hostage, the United States (then under the Articles of Confederation) had neither the naval power nor the unity needed to negotiate to free the hostages. President Washington paid a ransom to free them as part of the Algiers Treaty (1791), one of a series of treaties with the Barbary coast nations. That treaty was broken during the presidency of Thomas Jefferson and war followed.

The Barbary coast was dominated by pirates beginning in the sixteenth century. Many of the pirates were Muslims who preyed on vessels in the Mediterranean Sea. In the seventeenth century, the port city of...