![]() By 1800, ransom and tribute payments were in the $1 million range annually, which amounted to between 10 and 20 percent of the total federal budget. Navy even lost a frigate-the Philadelphia-along with her captain and crew. So effective were the Barbary pirates that the U.S. Today that would be roughly $1.5 million per person, which would translate to a total ship ransom in the range of $29 million-not the $2.1 million the Somali pirates averaged per ship in 2009. The Barbary pirates, being astute businessmen, had a more-or-less established rate for ransom of roughly $4,000 per person. That prompted the Naval Act of 1794, authorizing construction of the post-Revolutionary War Navy. The Barbary pirates had a vast and active business, capturing hundreds if not thousands of merchant vessels of all flags. commerce goes nowhere near Somali pirate territory. In fact, less than 1 percent of container traffic originating in Asia bound for the East Coast moves via the Suez Canal. ![]() Asia is by far America’s largest sea-trade partner for everything else, and the overwhelming majority of that shipping-somewhere around 80 percent-goes through West Coast ports or to the East Coast via the Panama Canal. oil imports come out of the Persian Gulf region, for example, but the oil that does come from there goes around the Cape of Good Hope rather than through the Suez Canal-because that is the best way to do it, not because of pirates. trade was through the pirates’ primary area of operations, very little of our foreign commerce today transits high-risk waters where pirates ply their trade. Unlike the era of the Barbary pirates, when the majority of U.S. international commerce actually moves through the Somali Basin/Gulf of Aden. Further, comparatively little of the flow of U.S. businesses even view the export market as a target. It is the world’s third-largest exporter behind China and Germany, but that’s only because its internal market is so large that only about 1 percent of U.S. It has the largest economy in the world and, contrary to what many believe, remains the world’s largest manufacturer. Today the United States is the dominant global player. Overall, the United States lost more than 600 merchant ships to adversaries of all stripes. In fact that is why the United States ventured to the Mediterranean in the first place: it had few other good options. Relations with Great Britain were not good, what with the English having pushed the United States out of the Caribbean, the predominant trade route of the U.S. The French were seizing more American merchant ships than were the pirates. It was at odds with the dominant powers in the world. In the late 18th century, the United States was a fledgling nation whose primary concern was survival. The world was a much more dangerous place back then, and while the “not one cent” remark was not a reference to Barbary pirates, they did indeed represent a threat at the time-unlike the Somali pirates today.Īt the outset the position of the United States in world affairs has relevance. History remembers the incident as the XYZ Affair. maritime commerce, during which 300 or so U.S. Jefferson did not make the remark-it came from an otherwise relatively obscure member of Congress-and it was not a reference to Barbary pirates, but rather to a French demand in 1797 for what amounted to tribute after repeated attacks on U.S. But, as with much else about equating Somali pirates to those of Barbary, attributing that comment to Jefferson or linking it to the Barbary pirates, is wrong. ![]() The general thrust of invoking the comment is that the United States knew how to take care of business back then, unlike today, when it is letting the pirates win. A quotation often attributed to Jefferson-“Millions for defense, but not one cent for tribute”-frequently is cited in the somewhat heated rhetoric surrounding modern piracy. Today, President Barack Obama-and the country-faces nowhere near the level of threat that Thomas Jefferson did. It is very possible to learn the wrong lessons from history, and distorted perspectives lead to distorted policy. ![]() But trying to understand modern-day piracy-especially Somali piracy-by looking at the past can present a distorted view of what’s happening today. In much of the froth about piracy off the Horn of Africa one sees a tendency to compare that problem today with the problem the young United States had with Barbary pirates 200 years ago.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |