The
Barbary Wars were two wars fought at different times over the same reasons between the
United States and the
Barbary states (the
de jure Ottoman Empire possessions of, but
de facto independent,
Tunis,
Algiers, and
Tripoli) of
North Africa in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. At issue was the
Barbary pirates' demand for
tribute from American merchant vessels in the
Mediterranean Sea. If ships of a given country failed to pay, pirates would attack the ship and take their
goods, and often
enslave crew members or hold them for
ransom. When
Thomas Jefferson became President he refused to pay tribute and sent a
United States Naval fleet to the Mediterranean; they bombarded the various fortified pirate cities, ultimately extracting concessions of fair passage from their rulers. Both the administrations of
Thomas Jefferson and
James Madison undertook actions against the
Barbary States at different times. Jefferson led the first, from 1801 to 1805, against pirates' cities in what are today Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria. Madison directed forces for the second war in 1815.