| Treaty of Tripoli | |
| Long Name: | Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary (Ottoman Empire) |
| Type: | "Treaty of perpetual peace and friendship" |
| Date Signed: | November 4, 1796 |
| Location Signed: | Tripoli |
| Date Effective: | June 10, 1797 |
| Parties: |
|
| Language: | Arabic (original), English[1] |
| Wikisource: | Treaty of Tripoli |
The Treaty of Tripoli (Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary) was signed in 1796.[2] It was the first treaty between the United States and Tripoli (now Libya) to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from local Barbary pirates.
It was authored by Joel Barlow, an ardent Jeffersonian republican, and signed in Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers (for a third-party witness) on January 3, 1797. It was ratified by the United States Senate unanimously and without debate on June 7, 1797, taking effect June 10, 1797, with the signature of President John Adams.
Succeeding Adams as president, Thomas Jefferson refused to continue paying Tripolitania the tributes stipulated by this treaty, partially leading to the First Barbary War. A superseding treaty, the Treaty of Peace and Amity, was signed on June 4, 1805.[3]
The treaty is often cited in discussions regarding the role of religion in United States government due to a clause in Article 11 of the English language translation that was ratified by the Senate and signed by the president, which states, "[t]he Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."[4] However, modern translations of the official Arabic text of the treaty confirm that no such phrase exists.[5]
See main article: Barbary pirates. For three centuries up to the time of the treaty, the Mediterranean Sea lanes had been preyed on by the North African Muslim states of the Barbary Coast (Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco, and Tunis) through privateering (government-sanctioned piracy). Hostages captured by the Barbary pirates were either ransomed or forced into slavery, contributing to the greater Ottoman slave trade (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.
Before the American Revolution (1775–1783), the British colonies in North America were protected from the Barbary pirates by British warships of the Royal Navy and treaties. During the Revolution, the Kingdom of France formed an alliance with the former British colonies in 1778, now the proclaimed independent United States of America and assumed the responsibility of providing protection of U.S. merchant ships in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic Ocean against the Barbary pirates with the French Navy.[6] After the Revolutionary War ended and the new United States won its independence with the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783), 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 Franklin, who was en route from France to Philadelphia about that time, had been captured by Barbary pirates, caused considerable upset in the U.S.[7] With the disbanding of the former Continental Navy and the selling of its last warship by the Confederation Congress in 1785, now 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 Lieutenant and consul William Eaton informed newly appointed Secretary of State John Marshall 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.'"[8]
Soon after the formation of the United States, privateering in the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Atlantic Ocean from the nations of the Barbary Coast prompted the U.S. to initiate a series of so-called peace treaties, collectively known as the Barbary Treaties. Individual treaties were negotiated with Morocco (1786), Algiers (1795), Tripoli (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 Barlow, who dealt with the text of various treaties (including the Treaty of Tripoli) and supported U.S. diplomatic efforts on the Barbary Coast. Commissioner Plenipotentiary (and Minister to the Kingdom of Spain in Madrid) of the United States, David Humphreys, 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, USN, established the original transport of the negotiated goods along with the treaty, but it was the American Consul James Leander Cathcart who delivered the final requirements of payment for the treaty.
The first U.S. president, George Washington, appointed his old colleague David Humphreys as Commissioner Plenipotentiary on March 30, 1795, in order to negotiate a treaty with the Barbary powers.[9] On February 10, 1796, Humphreys appointed Joel Barlow and Joseph Donaldson as "Junior Agents" to forge a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship".[10] 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.[10]
The official treaty was in Arabic, 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 Arabic version of the treaty; in its place is a letter from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli. However, it is the English text that 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."[11]
The treaty had spent seven months traveling from Tripoli to Algiers to Portugal and, finally westward across the North Atlantic Ocean, to the United States, and had been signed by officials at each stop along the way. 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 John 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 Adams sent the treaty to the U.S. 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 that unanimously approved the ratification recommendation.[12]