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

extermination of that “race of seamen,” 100
a method reminiscent of the one
adopted for the extermination of Native Americans:
The attempts heretofore made to suppress these powers have been to
exterminate them at one blow. They are too numerous and powerful by
land for that. A small effort, but long continued, seems to be the only
method. By suppressing their marine and trade totally and continuing
this till the present race of seamen should be pretty well out of the way,
these nests of banditti might be reformed. 101
From his retirement Washington, however, could but implore providence for
wiping the corsairs from the face of earth simply because paying tribute was
not to his taste: “Would to Heaven we had a navy able to reform those enemies
to mankind, or crush them into non-existence.” 102
b) Fallacious preempting: For centuries, the European countries had
paid the North African regencies tribute in the form of naval stores as a
counterbalance for commercial privileges according to bilateral treaties; and
since 1783, rumors had been spreading that the Algerian corsairs particularly
had seized or were about to seize American ships. Late in 1784, following one
of those rumors, Adams speculated that the naval material provided by tribute
was probably “employed in corsairs against American trade.” More, since such
alarms generally caused a raise in insurance rates, he thought that “the piratical
corsairs will go all over the ocean, and will even raise the insurance upon all
100 PTJ, 7:511-12, To James Monroe, 11 Nov., 1784.
101 PTJ, 7:639, To James Monroe, 6 Feb. 1785.
102 WGW, 11:59, To the Marquis de Lafayette, 15 August, 1786. R. T. Naylor considers that “it was
perhaps the first statement by a President of the “dead or alive” policy against Islamic Terrorists which
would figure so vividly after 9/11.” R. T. Naylor, “Ghosts of Terror Wars Past? Crime, Terror and
America’s First Clash with the Saracen Hordes,” Crime, Law & Social Change, 45:2 (Mar., 2006), p.
100.
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