АҚШ пен Триполи арасындағы 1796 жылғы шарттық келісім

1797 treaty between the US and Tripolitania
the 1796 treaty

The Treaty of Tripoli (Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli of Barbary) was signed in 1796. It was the first treaty between the United States and Tripoli (now Libya) to secure commercial shipping rights and protect American ships in the Mediterranean Sea from local Barbary pirates. It was authored by Joel Barlow, an ardent Jeffersonian republican, and signed in Tripoli on November 4, 1796, and at Algiers (for a third party witness) on January 3, 1797. It was ratified by the United States Senate unanimously without debate on June 7, 1797, taking effect June 10, 1797, with the signature of President John Adams. Succeeding Adams as president, Thomas Jefferson refused to continue paying Tripolitania the tributes stipulated by this treaty, partially leading to the First Barbary War. A superseding treaty, the Treaty of Peace and Amity, was signed on June 4, 1805. The Treaty is often cited in discussions regarding the role of religion in United States government for a clause in Article 11 of the English language American version which states that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."

For three centuries up to the time of the Treaty, the Mediterranean Sea lanes had been preyed on by the North African Muslim states of the Barbary Coast (Tripoli, Algiers, Morocco and Tunis) through privateering (government sanctioned piracy). Hostages captured by the Barbary pirates were either ransomed or forced into slavery, contributing to the greater Ottoman slave trade (of which the Barbary states were a segment). Life for the captives often was harsh, especially for Christian captives, and many died from their treatment. Before the American Revolution (1775–1783), the British colonies in North America were protected from the Barbary pirates by British warships of the Royal Navy and treaties. During the Revolution, the Kingdom of France formed an alliance with the former British colonies in 1778, now the proclaimed independent United States of America and assumed the responsibility of providing protection of U. S. merchant ships in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic Ocean against the Barbary pirates with the French Navy. After the Revolutionary War ended and the new United States won its independence with the signing of the Treaty of Paris (1783), it had to face the threat of the Barbary pirates on its own. Two American ships were captured by Algerian pirates in July 1785 and the survivors forced into slavery, their ransom set at $60,000. A rumor that Benjamin Franklin, who was en route from France to Philadelphia about that time, had been captured by Barbary pirates, caused considerable upset in the U. S. With the disbanding of the former Continental Navy and the selling of its last warship by the Confederation Congress in 1785, now without a standing navy, much less a navy capable of projecting force across an ocean, the U. S. was forced to pay tribute monies and goods to the Barbary nations for the security of its ships and the freedom of its captured citizens. As Lieutenant and consul William Eaton informed newly appointed Secretary of State John Marshall in 1800, "It is a maxim of the Barbary States, that 'The Christians who would be on good terms with them must fight well or pay well.'" Soon after the formation of the United States, privateering in the Mediterranean Sea and the eastern Atlantic Ocean from the nations of the Barbary Coast prompted the U. S. to initiate a series of so called peace treaties, collectively known as the Barbary Treaties. Individual treaties were negotiated with Morocco (1786), Algiers (1795), Tripoli (1797) and Tunis (1797), all of them more than once. The United States consul general to the Barbary states of Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis was Joel Barlow, who dealt with the text of various treaties (including the Treaty of Tripoli) and supported U. S. diplomatic efforts on the Barbary Coast. Commissioner Plenipotentiary (and Minister to the Kingdom of Spain in Madrid) of the United States, David Humphreys, was given the right to establish a treaty with Tripoli and assigned Joel Barlow and Joseph Donaldson to broker it. It was Joel Barlow who certified the signatures on the Arabic original and the English copy provided to him. Later, Captain Richard O'Brien, USN established the original transport of the negotiated goods along with the Treaty, but it was the American Consul James Leander Cathcart who delivered the final requirements of payment for the treaty.

A prominent member of Adams' cabinet, Secretary of War James McHenry, claimed that he protested the language of Article 11 before its ratification. He wrote to Secretary of the Treasury Oliver Wolcott Jr., September 26, 1800: "The Senate, my good friend, and I said so at the time, ought never to have ratified the treaty alluded to, with the declaration that 'the government of the United States, is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.' What else is it founded on? This act always appeared to me like trampling upon the cross. I do not recollect that Barlow was even reprimanded for this outrage upon the government and religion."

The treaty was broken in 1801 by Yusuf Karamanli, the Pasha of Tripoli, over President Thomas Jefferson's refusal to submit to the Pasha's demands for increased payments. Through subsequent battles, Tripoli eventually agreed to terms of peace with the United States. Tobias Lear negotiated a second "Treaty of Peace and Amity" with the Pasha Yusuf on June 4, 1805. To the dismay of many Americans, the new settlement included a ransom of $60,000 (equal to $60000.0 in 1805 is equivalent to about <calculated amount> in recent years today) paid for the release of prisoners from the USS Philadelphia and several U. S. merchant ships. By 1807, Algiers had gone back to taking U. S. ships and seamen hostage. Distracted by the preludes to the War of 1812 and the war itself, the United States was unable to respond to the provocations until 1815, with the Second Barbary War, thereby concluding the First and the Second Barbary Wars (1800–1815).