Ottoman Algeria in Western Diplomatic History with ... - Bibliothèque

Conclusion
The Ocean fashioned the Thirteen Colonies in much the same way as
did the land; and the ‘frontier’ may be seen as both terrestrial and oceanic. It
was that dimension which shaped American expansionism first toward the
wilderness of the American West, then at a later stage, towards the transoceanic
Orient. While forcibly penetrating the West in the name of Manifest
Destiny, the Americans moved to force the door of Mediterranean trade open in
the name of free navigation and free markets. In both cases, ready-made
justifications were at hand: on the one hand, the native Americans were no
more than heathens and savages who did not deserve to enjoy the abundant
natural resources of the West and on the other, the ‘pirates’ of the ‘Barbary
Coast’ were a hindrance to America’s economic well-being. Therefore, for the
American bullish settlers and trans-Atlantic merchants alike, both had to
disappear so that room would be made for the white, civilized, and Christian
element and his growing insatiable interests.
From Franklin who declared enmity to Algiers while the United States
was still an embryo, passing by Adams who explicitly aggressed Islam and
Jefferson who started devising plans for attacking Algiers when the United
States was still in layers, to Stephen Decatur who midway, with the growth of
the first American tooth, bit Algiers, and ending by William Shaler who barely
as soon as the United States could stand on its feet recommended colonization,
Algiers definitely was going to have hard times with that new race of rising
jingos and Rambos. But before all that, the Americans had first to secure an
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