How the U.S. Solved the Piracy Problem in 1815 and Why it Can’t in 2009

Actually I do not have an exact answer to the title question. Instead I will draw and outline a few interesting parallels between back then and nowadays and let you find out the answer for yourself.

The Threat

End of 18th – beginning of 19th century

For many centuries, pirates based on the coasts of North Africa in modern-day territories such as Tunisia and Algeria, posed a very heavy and serious threat to international communications. Collectively called the “Barbary Pirates”, their theater of operations was initially limited to the Mediterranean Sea, but eventually towards the end of the 18th century, they have expanded to include the rich coastal areas of Western Europe (Spain, Portugal), and soon to cover the Atlantic ocean from the cold Iceland, all the way down to warm Brazil, including the North American coast and naturally – the Caribbean. These Barbary Pirates played significant roles in the African slave trade, supplying the market with both the black and white contingents alike. They were so successful in this that estimates of their human enterprise are in the range of 6-figure numbers: only between the 16th and 19th centuries, 800,000 to 1,250,000 Europeans alone were brought into slavery by the Barbary Pirates. As a result, European shipping in the Mediterranean was an extremely dangerous occupation, and regular trading operations were rarely carried out without warship escort. But the regular navy’s protection was naturally not enough and so most of the European countries paid tribute to the Corsair rulers in the form of annual ransom for Christian prisoners.

New-born United States of America has encountered this problem in its full scale.

History records that between 1783 and 1793 over a dozen of American ships have been captured, with goods “confiscated” and everyone on board enslaved. Some of them spent as much as 11 years in the slavery of the Algerian Moors.

US ransom payment to the Barbary Coast rise exponentially and in the beginning of the 19th century stood at a staggering 20% of US governmental expenditure. Let us try and imagine for a second how much 20% would be of today’s 2009 US budget. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

End of 20th – beginning of 21st century. April 2009

Since last December, 17 oceangoing ships belonging to different nations are captured by Somali pirates. Over 250 sailors and crew are still hostages, awaiting ransom.

Over 400 ships harvested by Somalis in the Indian Ocean waters as booty during the 2007-2008 period. Ship owners pay an estimated total of 80-140 million USD in ransom in 2008. America has her own share. 

“Merck Alabama”, carrying 17,000 tons of cargo under the US flag was captured and a few days later another American-owned tugboat shares the same fate. However…this is the only American flagged ship captured in open seas after the Barbary Pirates’ downfall. Ironically “Merck Alabama” carries a humanitarian cargo load, to help Africans fight-off starvation.

Despite the fact that cargo is free now, the ship’s captain is still held hostage by the pirates, who demand 2 million USD ransom for his head (that is obviously not 20% of US government expenditures. So we have enough room and a good point to be optimistic).