TRUTH about the White Slave Trade – Forgotten History

Foreign is as old as human civilization dating back beyond recorded history and it exists even still today. Every culture on every continent practiced some form of slavery whether it was serfdom, indentured servitude, or collective peasantry. However, when the slave trade is mentioned, people normally think of the black African slave trade to the Western Hemisphere during the colonial period from 1500 to the mid-1800s as practiced by the European colonial powers, with estimates ranging from 10 to 13 million Africans being brought to the new world. With around 10 million surviving to be sold in North and South America as well as in the Caribbean islands, of this number the best estimate is that 450,000 went to the British, French, and Spanish colonies in what is now the United States and Caribbean, while Brazil alone received almost 5 million, and the rest went to the Spanish colonies in South America. Slavery still exists in the world yet most of the major powers ignore the fact and refuse to even acknowledge that it still exists, as it is still quite active yet six decades before the American Civil War, a war was fought by the United States on foreign shores to try and stop the white slave trade. What was the white slave trade, does it still exist, who were the Barbary Pirates, what was the result of American intervention, how did it occur and what was the aftermath, and how did nine U.S. Marines and their mercenaries make history and give birth to a legendary fighting force while also ending the white slave trade in North Africa? Hello, I am Colin Heaton, former soldier, Marine Corps scout sniper, history professor, historian, and book author, and we will answer these questions and other issues on this segment of Forgotten History.

During the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the world was on fire as France and Britain were engaged in the Napoleonic Wars, which was another series of conflicts just like the Seven Years War, again involving every nation in Europe. The Seven Years War was also known as the French and Indian War in the United States, and both these conflicts were fought on every continent, on every ocean, and in every colony. Even during these protracted Wars, the transatlantic slave trade continued as it was big business, while the European powers were destroying each other, Thomas Jefferson became the third president of the United States from March 4th, 1801, to March 4th, 1809, and he had several major issues to contend with. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 from France doubled the size of the United States, the Yazoo territorial disputes in Western Georgia were hotly contested, the launching of the Lewis and Clark expedition in 1804 to explore the newly acquired country took place, and there was the contested issue of slavery. In 1806, Jefferson denounced the international slave trade as a violation of human rights and called upon Congress to criminalize it, and Congress responded by approving the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves the following year, meaning no longer could slaves be brought from Africa although slavery was still legal in the United States. Then there were also the rising tensions between the United States and Great Britain which dominated the final years of Jefferson’s second term as the Royal Navy had been seizing American merchant ships and impressing sailors.

However, one situation which has gone largely unnoticed in history was Jefferson being the first president to send the military overseas into direct action, which was the war against the Barbary pirates. For decades prior to Jefferson’s accession to office, the Barbary Coast pirates of North Africa had been capturing foreign merchant and warships, stealing their valuable cargoes and enslaving crew members while often demanding huge ransoms for their release, and many of these ships and crews were American. Before independence, American merchant ships were protected from the Barbary Pirates by the naval and diplomatic influence of Great Britain, which had threatened the use of military force should their ships be molested, but that American protection came to an end after the colonies won their independence. The Barbary Pirates also attacked the coastal Northern Mediterranean, launching attacks against France, Italy, and Sicily, kidnapping women as white slaves primarily and whenever possible notable wealthy persons and ships for ransom. In their feverish search for white women slaves, a few pirates even went as far as the coast of Iceland, raiding inland to kidnap women and bring them back to North Africa. North African slave markets thrived as under Islamic law known as Sharia, although fellow Muslims could not be enslaved, non-muslims could be and were. Over a period of more than 300 years, it is estimated that one million white Europeans, to include those captured at sea as well as during land raids abroad, were enslaved, and many of these were Americans captured at sea.

In 1794, in reaction to the attacks, Congress had passed a law authorizing the payment of tribute to the Barbary States, part of that law being the Naval Act of 1794 which authorized the construction of six frigates, establishing the United States Navy. By the end of the 1700s, when Jefferson was Secretary of State, the United States had concluded treaties with all of the Barbary States, the Ottoman regencies of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, along with independent Morocco. When Congress authorized $80,000 for Morocco to not molest American shipping, it was considered a good deal as it was a cost savings when compared to the loss of ships, cargo, and sailors. The Bey of Algiers, Mustafa Baba, also and many American merchantmen were escorted by Portuguese warships as Portugal also had a treaty with the Islamic States, but Jefferson was opposed to paying tribute which he considered to be a modern danegeld, similar to when Saxon England paid the Danish Vikings not to attack, which did not work. Although Morocco and Algiers initially agreed, just weeks before Jefferson took office, Tripoli began attacking American merchant ships in an attempt to extract further tribute, and Jefferson had seen enough.

Jefferson tried diplomacy, and his letter to Pasha Yusuf Karamanli emphasized our sincere desire to cultivate peace and commerce with your subjects. Pasha Karamanli, the ruler of modern-day Tunisia, felt that the Americans had insulted him by not offering to pay tribute, and he threatened continued actions if not so respected. Pasha Karamanli was already at war with Sweden, having broken an existing treaty after Sweden agreed to pay annual tribute and ransom for 131 captives, resulting in 14 Swedish merchantmen being seized by tripolitan corsairs. Some of these were white women who were being transported on Swedish merchantmen, and it is not known if they were ever recovered as the white women were rarely ransomed, being highly prized and sold. The Pasha then declared war on the United States on May 14, 1801, by chopping down the flagpole at the American Consulate in Tripoli, a direct act of war. Jefferson sent three frigates and a schooner under the command of U.S. Navy Commodore Richard Dale as a show of force and to protect U.S. ships entering the Mediterranean through the Straits of Gibraltar.

Dale learned of the declaration when he reached Gibraltar on July 1st, 1801, and from that point Dale’s ships blocked two of the Pasha’s corsairs operating as raiders and messengers inside the harbor. Yusuf Karamanli was shocked at the American audacity, and the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, Selim III in Istanbul, was also less than amused yet did not interfere when the Americans became involved. He had just concluded treaties with Russia and Austria and was trying to westernize his empire along western lines, which included eliminating the white slave trade, and this position was not favored by many of his subordinate regional leaders, especially in North Africa, and they launched a revolt against him. His cousin and successor, Mustafa IV, had him murdered in 1807 because he was not about to give up such a lucrative business. The U.S. blockade halted Barbary trade and raids with Europe, but did not stop Tripoli’s trade with the other Barbary States, though it did incite the other rulers who considered siding with the Pasha and expelled their American diplomats.

The United States was putting a major dent into their pirate enterprises to include the white slave trade, and the possibility of Tunis, Algiers, and Morocco joining forces as a result of losing this lucrative business became a serious concern during 1802. In 1803, Captain Edward Preble was the new American naval commander, and he was aware of the white slave trade and piracy and began to deal with it. On September 12, 1803, the USS Constitution arrived off the Barbary Coast to confront the tripolitan pirates, but in October 1803, the frigate USS Philadelphia ran aground and was attacked and seized, with the 307-man crew being held for ransom. In response, on February 16, 1804, a group under Navy Lieutenant Stephen Decatur slipped into Tripoli Harbor after dark, boarded, and set fires that destroyed the Philadelphia. The Pasha in response demanded an outrageous sum at ransom for his American hostages, even threatening death if it was not paid.

In 1804, Commodore Samuel Barron aboard the USS President took command of 11 vessels and he had new orders, but due to illness he handed command of the squadron to Captain John Rogers. Jefferson had again seen enough and decided to take direct and immediate action, sending the order that ex-consul William Eaton, a former Army captain who used the title of general, and United States Marine Corps First Lieutenant Presley O’Bannon would lead a force of eight U.S. Marines and 500 mercenaries to take Derna and free any hostages. These mercenaries were Greeks from Crete, Arabs, and Berbers opposed to the regime, and started on a march across the desert from Alexandria, Egypt, in April 1805, with their objective being to capture the tripolitan city of Derna. The Muslim troops were under the command of Egyptian Sheikh al-Tahib, while Ottoman Empire Viceroy William Eaton, who was overbearing and not very friendly, kept himself aloof from his men as an overall commander leading only half the group. He had a tough job controlling the largely undisciplined mercenaries and the infighting between the Christian Greeks and Muslims, few of whom were professional soldiers, which became a problem.

His promises of money and loot once they took Derna were looked upon skeptically, however O’Bannon and his eight Marines embedded with their mercenaries, shared food, hardship, and water, and earned their trust. O’Bannon decided to take the Muslims from Eaton, exchanging them for his Greeks, and the Marines built a strong fellowship by not denigrating the Islamic faith, discussing their similarities and differences. O’Bannon also knew that many of these men had either been hostages themselves or had lost friends and family to the white slave trade. Eaton reported in May 1805 that our only provisions are a handful of rice and two biscuits a day. From March 22nd to March 30th, several Arab mercenaries under the commander Sheikh Hamid al-Tahib staged mutinies, but by April 8th when he crossed the border into Libya and Tripoli, Eaton had quelled the Arab mutinies, though it could not stop the desertions.

In late April, his army finally reached the port city of Bomba some miles up the coast from Derna, where U.S. Navy warships USS Argus, Nautilus, and Hornet with Commodore James Barron and Captain Isaac Hull were waiting for him. Eaton received fresh supplies and the money to pay his mercenaries, and Argus gave an additional cannon to the troops. On April 26, Captain Hull’s ships then opened fire and bombarded Derna’s batteries for an hour, meanwhile Eaton divided his remaining army into two separate attacking parties. The attack began at 1445 hours with Lieutenant O’Bannon and his Marines leading the attack with 50 inexperienced Greek gunners. Eaton’s force was halted due to high volumes of enemy musket fire, but O’Bannon pushed his men through the inaccurate fire as witnessed from the ships, carefully interchanging his men into various ranks to fire, advance, reload, and continue the process.

O’Bannon’s force took the fort cannons, and Eaton, wounded in the left wrist, would report later that O’Bannon with his Marines and Greeks had passed through a shower of musketry from the walls of houses and took possession of the battery. Eaton’s forces caught up and turned the defender’s own abandoned guns against them, pushing them out of the city and into a well-placed ambush set up by O’Bannon just outside the main gate. During the entire battle, O’Bannon lost two men killed and three wounded Marines with nine of his mercenaries killed, while Eaton’s losses among the Muslims was unknown. Derna raised the flag over the captured city at 1600 hours, having just defeated a force four times their number who were in a fortified defensive posture, marking the first time in American history that a flag from the United States had been raised on foreign soil. Hostages were freed and the Navy sank the pirate ships in harbor, while accurate naval fire from Argus and the other ships forced them back, and Derna remained in American hands.

Yusuf reluctantly signed a peace treaty on June 10, 1805, aboard the USS Constitution, and the treaty granted American ships passage through the Mediterranean without further payments of tribute and freedom from harassment. This also meant joining the other European nations and halting the very active and overt white slave trade. The war was over, and so was active white slavery from North Africa. Marine Corps legend has it that Hamit presented O’Bannon with a Mameluke sword, a sign of prestige and power. Emboldened by this event, more European nations also increased their naval presence and resisted the Barbary pirates, stopped paying tribute, crippled their commercial trade and extortion rackets, ended their raids on southern coastal Europe, and stopped hostage taking and their demand for ransoms and the white slave trade. Personally, O’Bannon and his eight Marines had done the seemingly impossible, but it would not be the last time Marines were called upon to do the impossible and succeed. Semper Fidelis, and we hope you enjoyed this segment of Forgotten History.