Everything about The Barbary Coast totally explained
The
Barbary Coast, or
Barbary, was the term used by
Europeans from the 16th until the 19th century to refer to the middle and western coastal regions of North Africa, what is now
Morocco,
Algeria,
Tunisia, and
Libya. The name is derived from the
Berber people of north
Africa. In the West, the name commonly evokes the
Barbary pirates and
slave traders, based on that coast, who attacked ships and coastal settlements in the
Mediterranean and North
Atlantic and captured and traded slaves from
Europe and
sub-Saharan Africa.
"Barbary" was almost never a unified political entity. From the sixteenth century onwards, it was divided into the familiar political entities of
Morocco,
Algiers,
Tunis, and
Tripolitania (Tripoli). Major rulers during the heyday of the barbary states were the
Pasha or
Dey of
Algiers, the
Bey of
Tunis and the
Bey of
Tripoli, all nominally subjects of the
Ottoman sultan, but de facto independent rulers. Before then it was usually divided between
Ifriqiya, Morocco, and a west-central Algerian state centered on
Tlemcen or
Tiaret, although powerful dynasties such as the
Almohads, and briefly the
Hafsids, occasionally unified it for short periods. From a European perspective its "capital" or chief city was often considered to be Tripoli, in modern-day Libya, although Algiers, in Algeria, and
Tangiers, in Morocco, were also sometimes seen as its "capital" by Europeans of the era.
The first
United States military action overseas, executed by the
U.S. Marines and
Navy, was the
Battle of Derne, Tripoli, in 1805, in an effort to bolster diplomatic efforts in securing the freedom of American prisoners and putting an end to
piracy on the part of the Barbary states. The opening line of the
Marine's Hymn refers to this action:
Further Information
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