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After the Revolution, the United States lost the protection of the British and French navies just as Congress sold off its last warship in 1785. The Barbary states of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli ran state-sponsored corsair fleets that demanded tribute or seized ships and enslaved crews. Algiers took the Maria and the Dauphin in July 1785 and set a $60,000 ransom. By 1797 the United States had paid $1.25 million, and under Washington and Adams about 20 percent of the federal budget went to the Barbary states. Only Morocco, through the 1777 friendship pledge, offered relief.

In 1800 Captain William Bainbridge of the USS George Washington was forced under shore guns to fly the Algerian flag and carry the dey’s tribute to Constantinople. The Naval Act of 1794 funded six heavy frigates, and when Tripoli’s pasha cut down the U.S. consulate’s flagpole in 1801, Jefferson sent them. The USS Philadelphia ran aground off Tripoli in 1803, and in 1804 Stephen Decatur slipped into the harbor and burned it. After the War of 1812, Decatur returned in 1815, captured the Algerian flagship, killed Rais Hamidou and dictated a treaty with no tribute.

• A false rumor that Benjamin Franklin had been enslaved by Barbary pirates spread in America.
• The dey told Bainbridge that paying tribute made Americans his slaves.
• William Eaton wrote that Christians must fight well or pay well to stay on good terms.
• The 1805 treaty with Tripoli still required a $60,000 ransom for Bainbridge’s crew.
• In 1815 the dey of Algiers had to pay the United States $10,000.