tl;dr
The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret Mission of 1805 by Richard Zacks
My Takeaways
- America has tried to interfere in foreign affairs since (at least) Jefferson. His administration acknowledged it was un-American…but didn’t seem to mind.
- Don’t make up lines of credit backed by the U.S. Government. They won’t honor it (unless you happen to rat out Aaron Burr)
- My dislike of Thomas Jefferson for being a wily and dirty politician is further cemented.
Should you read it?
If you want a well-told and almost fantastical history story, yes. However, it’s a very narrow story that, to be honest, doesn’t have much impact on our world today. Fun story, but not a lot of bang-for-your-buck when it comes to deeply understanding American History.
Review
There is really nothing new under the sun in American History. The things we think are so outrageous in our modern politics usually aren’t anything new. Our current issues with foreign interference in elections, fake news, and partisanship, are all just echos of the early days of the United States.
I came across The Pirate Coast by Richard Zacks at Green Apple Books’s Annex closing sale. It deals with the original instance of another modern issue–interference in foreign governments.
The book covers the relatively unknown Barbary Coast wars, America’s first foreign war, and the first time we tried to overthrow a foreign government. It’s a real-life political thriller with pirates, Marines, and an Indiana Jones-esque trek down the Nile. The author half-jokingly admits in the Acknowledgements that he’s hoping someone makes a movie out of it, and it shows–it would make a great movie or TV series, but it makes you wonder if some of the details or interpretations are portrayed specifically for this purpose.
The most telling quote is from then-Secretary of State James Madison:
Although it does not accord with the general sentiments or views of the United States to intermeddle in the domestic contests of other countries, it cannot be unfair, in the prosecution of a just war or the accomplishment of a reasonable peace, to turn to their advantage, the enmity and pretention of others against a common foe.
In other words, “Everyone knows meddling in the affairs of other countries is wrong…but if it furthers our ends, why not?” You can imagine every president since rationalizing their foreign actions in the same way.
The Adventure
The Barbary Coast (modern day Libya, Algeria, and Tunisia) in the 18th and 19th centuries made their wealth through piracy and protection rackets on the Mediterranean. The countries that didn’t pay for their protection racket would find their ships attacked and their crews sold into slavery in the egalitarian slave markets of North Africa. There, you could buy European and African slaves, Christian and Muslim, male and female. No one, including the king of Tunis, hid that the purpose was primarily sexual, regardless of race, creed, or gender.
The regional governor (Bashaw) of one of the Barbary States, Tripoli, had consolidated power by killing one of his older brothers and sending the other, Hamet, into exile. Eager to show his strength, he was proud to be the first power to formally declare war on the new United States for refusing to pay tribute. After capturing the crew of the USS Philadelphia and holding them for ransom, he earned the ire of the prideful and patriotic William Eaton, former consul to the Barbary States.
In order to save face and defend America’s honor, Eaton hatched a plan to track down the Bashaw’s exiled brother Hamet, use him to lead a popular uprising in Tripoli, depose the Bashaw, and install Hamet as the rightful ruler in exchange for the prisoners and stopping piracy against US ships.
He pitched this idea to Jefferson…and Jefferson took him up on it! But, in typical Jeffersonian shrewdness, the plan was carefully constructed to give Jefferson the credit if it worked and to give him plausible deniability if it didn’t. Eaton was given a vague verbal mandate to enact his plan. At the same time, Jefferson sent a diplomat to negotiate peace officially, giving him the secret authorization to pay them tribute and ransom if all else failed. This was against all of Jefferson’s public views on the matter, and would have been a very unpopular view if it had gotten out.
Eaton travels to Egypt with some European mercenaries and a few US Marines (who were, at the time, glorified boat police to keep sailors in line) to track down Hamet. He learns Hamet’s holed up in a besieged city upstream on the Nile. He floats his small army down the Nile, avoiding various warring Arab factions and Bedouins in a saga that could have been straight from Indiana Jones. They eventually get to Cairo and celebrate Ramadan with the viceroy–who is the one besieging the city Hamet’s in. They convince the viceroy to smuggle Hamet out through his own army. All the way, Eaton is paying people off with money he doesn’t have, making up lines of credit on the spot and saying that the US government or one of his friends will pay the debt.
They finally get Hamet and convince him to go along with their plan to regain the throne and release Hamet’s family. Since Hamet is wanted in the major cities, they decide to trek over 1000 miles across the desert to get to Tripoli. Hamet rounds up some friendly Bedouin tribes, and this ragtag army of half-Europeans and half-Arabs starts marching across the desert. The Arabs are really only in it for the money and the victory–whenever they start to think they won’t win in the end (which is several times a week), they turn around. Eaton and Hamet constantly chase them down and convince them to come back, either through threat of force or by more made-up lines of credit.
Finally, they get to a seaside town which they take over. They rendezvous with the US Navy and prepare to march towards Tripoli.
Meanwhile, the diplomat Tobias Lear is negotiating peace with the Bashaw. Lear was secretly authorized by Jefferson to offer tribute and to pay ransom for the prisoners, which he does. He bungles the peace treaty even further by defining a monetary value for each American captured in the future, encouraging Tripoli to keep up the piracy. Lear is further manipulated by the Danish consul in Tripoli to include an unwritten and secret provision that Hamet’s family, who had been held hostage by the Bashaw, would be returned…within four years.
With the peace treaty signed and the US prisoners returned, Lear writes to Eaton that he needs to call off his plans and cut Hamet loose–the US is now allied with the Bashaw and can’t be seen to be supporting one of his enemies.
Eaton is outraged–he’s promised Hamet fame, glory, and the full support of the US government, and now they’re withdrawing support. Eaton, Hamet, and the European part of the army sneak out of the town they had conquered, leaving the Arabs to face the Bashaw’s oncoming forces alone.
The Aftermath
Eaton returns home. He’s furious at Lear for making such a bad treaty and he’s furious at Jefferson and Madison for not paying the money Eaton kept telling people the US government would pay them. He’s completely broke and becomes an angry drunk.
Even so, Eaton is famous across the states and between both parties as an intrepid explorer. Aaron Burr tries to capitalize on this and recruit him for the big insurrection he has planned. Here, Eaton shows his patriotism– even though he despises Jefferson for his role in cutting Hamet loose and would do anything to make Jefferson fail, he ends up ratting out Burr. Suddenly, the Jefferson administration decides to pay Eaton’s expenses, not only getting him out of debt, but giving him a good amount extra.
Eventually Burr is captured and put on trial for treason. In a bizarre scene, Burr acts as his own defence while Jefferson leads the prosecution against his former vice-president. Eaton knows Burr is guilty, so he starts placing bets on the outcome of the trial. His sense of justice is so strong, he bets all of the money he just got that Burr will be found guilty of treason.
Unfortunately, Eaton’s sense of justice runs up against Chief Justice John Marshall’s disdain of Jefferson. He acquits Burr, and Eaton loses everything–again. He dies embittered, drunk and angry.
The (lack of) Relevance
The author claims the book is relevant because it documents the first time a US president tried to overthrow a foreign government. I’m not so sure about that. Although the book is exciting and well-written, I’m having trouble seeing the relevance of Eaton’s expedition. The author builds up this great story of a mixed Christian/Arab army led by a duty-bound US civilian marching across the desert to install the rightful ruler on the throne…but peace is negotiated faster and it all comes to nothing. Sure, this is the first time the US tries to interfere in another country’s leadership, but it never actually happens.
This adventure may have been the precursor to Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, or US actions in any number of communist South American countries, but that doesn’t mean it set a precedent. Just because Jefferson was the first president to authorize the overthrow of a foreign government doesn’t mean he came up with the idea or opened the floodgates, changing American history forever. This sort of statescraft has been around for as long as there have been multiple states to craft. If Jefferson hadn’t authorized this mission, nothing much would have changed and some other president would have the honor of being the first foreign meddler.
The real solution to the Barbary Wars was forged by Lear’s diplomacy and later shows of strength by the Navy. Eaton’s expedition and this entire book is really just an interesting footnote to that. A very exciting footnote that would make for great TV, but still ultimately irrelevant.