Thomas Jefferson, Ben Franklin, John Adams and James Madison: Young America’s Fight with Islamism
by Andrew Walden @ HawaiiFreePress.com
(In light of the ongoing naval battles with Muslim pirates operating from Somalia, we are re-publishing this January, 2007 article.)
America has been fighting Islamists for longer than many realize. Even before independence was declared, American ships were pirated, and their Christian crews enslaved, by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the “Dey of Algiers”—an Ottoman Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
When the colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American ships lost Royal Navy protection. A Revolutionary War-era alliance with France offered French protection to US ships, but it expired in 1783. Immediately, U.S. ships came under attack and in October 1784 the American trader “Betsey” was taken by Moroccan forces. This was followed with Algerians and Libyans (Tripolitans) capturing two more U.S. ships in 1785.
Lacking the ability to project U.S. naval force in the Mediterranean, America tried appeasement. In 1784, Congress agreed to fund tributes and ransoms in order to rescue U.S. ships and buy the freedom of enslaved American sailors.
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. ambassador to France, and John Adams, then American Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote of funding. To Congress, these two future presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
Ben Franklin died on April 17, 1790, just 25 days after his letter was published.
Read the rest HERE
(In light of the ongoing naval battles with Muslim pirates operating from Somalia, we are re-publishing this January, 2007 article.)
America has been fighting Islamists for longer than many realize. Even before independence was declared, American ships were pirated, and their Christian crews enslaved, by Muslim pirates operating under the control of the “Dey of Algiers”—an Ottoman Islamist warlord ruling Algeria.
When the colonists rebelled against British rule in 1776, American ships lost Royal Navy protection. A Revolutionary War-era alliance with France offered French protection to US ships, but it expired in 1783. Immediately, U.S. ships came under attack and in October 1784 the American trader “Betsey” was taken by Moroccan forces. This was followed with Algerians and Libyans (Tripolitans) capturing two more U.S. ships in 1785.
Lacking the ability to project U.S. naval force in the Mediterranean, America tried appeasement. In 1784, Congress agreed to fund tributes and ransoms in order to rescue U.S. ships and buy the freedom of enslaved American sailors.
In 1786, Thomas Jefferson, then U.S. ambassador to France, and John Adams, then American Ambassador to Britain, met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the Dey’s ambassador to Britain, in an attempt to negotiate a peace treaty based on Congress’ vote of funding. To Congress, these two future presidents later reported the reasons for the Muslims’ hostility towards America, a nation with which they had no previous contacts.
…that it was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise. Sound familiar?In this 1790 satirical piece, his last published letter, Ben Franklin, in the midst of a Congressional debate on slavery, compares the arguments of pro-slavery Southerners (“Mr. Jackson”, a South Carolina delegate) to the arguments of a hypothetical Algerian Muslim “Mussulmen” pirate, Sidi Mehemet Ibrahim. The rationalizations, justifications and excuses of Franklin’s “Sidi” are almost word-for-word those of the Georgia and South Carolina Congressional delegates. The Algerian Islamic “Erika” sect was an allegory to members of the American Christian “Quaker” sect who in 1790 unsuccessfully petitioned Congress, with Franklin’s support, for an end to the importation of slaves from Africa. (Text and link HERE.)
Ben Franklin died on April 17, 1790, just 25 days after his letter was published.
Read the rest HERE
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