Fun fact #398 The Barbary Pirates

 Fun Fact #398

Barbary Pirates

In the years following its successful Independence, The United States had trouble finding the funds to keep The Continental Navy running and so it was disbanded, with even the famed Alliance being sold to a state navy.
Yet not all was smooth sailing, as The British –still bitter from the war– informed the Barbary coast that they would no longer pay tributes for any American ships to safely pass. At first the US paid the corsairs for safe passage afterall to lose access to Europe from these raiders would have been unacceptable. Yet when they began enslaving US merchants and laborers anyway Tomas Jefferson ceased paying 20% of the US economy to them and instead put that money to use, creating The US Navy. Its first job? To hunt down and destroy the Barbary pirates and put an end to their 900 years of terror across Europe. 

 While the capital ship Philadelphia was lost during the fighting other ships such as The President and The Enterprise continued on to win the war securing safe passage for all but British ships in the Mediterranean. This event was the first time the US had projected its Military might abroad, and much of Europe took notice with most of the continent’s countries opening the first true post revolution diplomacy efforts the US had seen with even countries as far as China taking note of how it affected their trade with Europe. 

USS Philadelphia burning at the Battle of Tripoli Harbor