Treaty of Tripoli 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 the first treaty concluded between the United States of America and Tripolitania , signed at Tripoli on November 4 , 1796 and at Algiers ( for a third - party witness ) on January 3 , 1797 . It was submitted to the Senate by President John Adams , receiving ratification unanimously from the U . S . Senate on June 7 , 1797 and signed by Adams , taking effect as the law of the land on June 10 , 1797 . The treaty was a routine diplomatic agreement but has attracted later attention because the English version included a clause about religion in the United States . As the Government of the United States of America is not , in any sense , founded on the Christian religion , — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws , religion , or tranquility , of Mussulmen < nowiki > [ < / nowiki > Muslims < nowiki > ] < / nowiki > , — and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan < nowiki > [ < / nowiki > Mohammedan < nowiki > ] < / nowiki > nation , it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries . Barbary pirates . For three centuries up to the time of the Treaty , the Mediterranean Sea lanes had been preyed on by the North Africa n 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 . Some captives " went Turk " , that is , converted to Islam , a choice that made life in captivity easier for them . Before the American Revolution , the British colonies in North America were protected from the Barbary pirates by British warships and treaties . During the Revolution , the Kingdom of France formed an alliance with the colonies and assumed the responsibility of providing protection of U . S . ships against the Barbary pirates . After the U . S . 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 . 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 General 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 , privateer ing in the Mediterranean Sea and 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 in the Barbary Coast . Commissioner Plenipotentiary 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 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 . Signing and ratification . President George Washington appointed his old colleague David Humphreys as Commissioner Plenipotentiary on March 30 , 1795 , in order to negotiate a treaty with the Barbary powers . On February 10 , 1796 , Humphreys appointed Joel Barlow and Joseph Donaldson as " Junior Agents " to forge a " Treaty of Peace and Friendship " . Under Humphreys ' authority , the treaty was signed at Tripoli on November 4 , 1796 , and certified at Algiers on January 3 , 1797 . Humphreys reviewed the treaty and approved it in Lisbon on February 10 , 1797 . The official treaty was in Arabic text , and a translated version by Consul - General Barlow was ratified by the United States on June 10 , 1797 . Article 11 of the treaty was said to have not been part of the original Arabic version of the treaty ; in its place is a letter from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli . However , it is the English text which was ratified by Congress . Miller says , " the Barlow translation is that which was submitted to the Senate ( American State Papers , Foreign Relations , II , 18 - 19 ) and which is printed in the Statutes at Large and in treaty collections generally ; it is that English text which in the United States has always been deemed the text of the treaty . " The Treaty had spent seven months traveling from Tripoli to Algiers to Portugal and , finally , to the United States , and had been signed by officials at each stop along the way . There is no record of discussion or debate of the Treaty of Tripoli at the time that it was ratified . However , there is a statement made by President Adams on the document that reads : Now be it known , That I John Adams , President of the United States of America , having seen and considered the said Treaty do , by and with the advice and consent of the Senate , accept , ratify , and confirm the same , and every clause and article thereof . And to the End that the said Treaty may be observed , and performed with good Faith on the part of the United States , I have ordered the premises to be made public ; And I do hereby enjoin and require all persons bearing office civil or military within the United States , and all other citizens or inhabitants thereof , faithfully to observe and fulfill the said Treaty and every clause and article thereof . Official records show that after President John Adams sent the treaty to the Senate for ratification in May 1797 , the entire treaty was read aloud on the Senate floor , and copies were printed for every Senator . A committee considered the treaty and recommended ratification . Twenty - three of the thirty - two sitting Senators were present for the June 7 vote which unanimously approved the ratification recommendation . However , before anyone in the United States saw the Treaty , its required payments , in the form of goods and money , had been made in part . As Barlow declared : " The present writing done by our hand and delivered to the American Captain OBrien makes known that he has delivered to us forty thousand Spanish dollars , - thirteen watches of gold , silver & pinsbach , - five rings , of which three of diamonds , one of saphire and one with a watch in it , One hundred & forty piques of cloth , and four caftans of brocade , - and these on account of the peace concluded with the Americans . " However , this was an incomplete amount of goods stipulated under the treaty ( according to the Pasha of Tripoli ) and an additional $ 18 , 000 had to be paid by the American Consul James Leander Cathcart at his arrival on April 10 , 1799 . It was not until these final goods were delivered that the Pasha of Tripoli recognized the Treaty as official . In " Treaties and Other International Acts of the United States of America " by David Hunter Miller , which is regarded as an authoritative collection of international agreements of the United States between 1776 and 1937 , Hunter Miller describes , " While the original ratification remained in the hands of Cathcart . . . it is possible that a copy thereof was delivered upon the settlement of April 10 , 1799 , and further possible that there was something almost in the nature of an exchange of ratifications of the treaty on or about April 10 , 1799 , the day of the agreed settlement . " It is then that the Pasha declares in a Letter to John Adams on April 15 , 1799 , " Whereby we have consummated the Peace which shall , on our side , be inviolate , provided You are Willing to treat us as You do other Regencies , without any difference being made between Us . Which is the whole of what We have , at present , to say to You , wishing you at the same time the most unlimited prosperity . " Article 11 . Article 11 has been a point of contention in popular culture disputes on the doctrine of separation of church and state as it applies to the founding principles of the United States . Some religious spokesmen claim variously that — despite unanimous ratification by the U . S . Senate in English — the text which appears as Article 11 in the English translation does not appear in the Arabic text of the treaty . Some historians , secular and religious , have argued that the phrase specifically refers to the government and not the culture , that it only speaks of the founding and not what America became or might become , and that many Founding Fathers and newspapers described America as a Christian nation during the early Republic . Art . 11 . As the Government of the United States of America is not , in any sense , founded on the Christian religion , — as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws , religion , or tranquility , of Mussulmen [ Muslims ] , — and as the said States never entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mahometan [ Muslim ] nation , it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries . According to Frank Lambert , Professor of History at Purdue University , the assurances in Article 11 were " intended to allay the fears of the Muslim state by insisting that religion would not govern how the treaty was interpreted and enforced . John Adams and the Senate made clear that the pact was between two sovereign states , not between two religious powers . " Lambert writes , The treaty was printed in the Philadelphia Gazette and two New York papers , with only scant public dissent , most notably from William Cobbett . At least one member of Adams ' cabinet , Secretary of War James McHenry , is known to have protested the language of article 11 , before its ratification . A second treaty , the Treaty of Peace and Amity signed on July 4 , 1805 superseded the 1796 treaty . The 1805 treaty did not contain the phrase " not , in any sense , founded on the Christian religion . " Translation and Article 11 . The translation of the Treaty of Tripoli by Barlow has been questioned , and it has been disputed whether Article 11 in the English version of the treaty ratified by the U . S . Senate corresponds to anything of the same purport in the Arabic version . In 1931 Hunter Miller completed a commission by the United States government to analyze United States ' treaties and to explain how they function and what they mean to the United States ' legal position in relationship with the rest of the world . According to Hunter Miller ' s notes , " the Barlow translation is at best a poor attempt at a paraphrase or summary of the sense of the Arabic " and " Article 11 . . . does not exist at all . " After comparing the United States ' version by Barlow with the Arabic and the Italian version , Miller continues by claiming that : The Arabic text which is between Articles 10 and 12 is in form a letter , crude and flamboyant and withal quite unimportant , from the Dey of Algiers to the Pasha of Tripoli . How that script came to be written and to be regarded , as in the Barlow translation , as Article 11 of the treaty as there written , is a mystery and seemingly must remain so . Nothing in the diplomatic correspondence of the time throws any light whatever on the point . From this , Miller concludes : " A further and perhaps equal mystery is the fact that since 1797 the Barlow translation has been trustfully and universally accepted as the just equivalent of the Arabic . . . yet evidence of the erroneous character of the Barlow translation has been in the archives of the Department of State since perhaps 1800 or thereabouts . . . " It is important to note , though , that as Miller said : It is to be remembered that the Barlow translation is that which was submitted to the Senate ( American State Papers , Foreign Relations , II , 18 - 19 ) and which is printed in the Statutes at Large and in treaty collections generally ; it is that English text which in the United States has always been deemed the text of the treaty . However the Arabic and English texts differ , the Barlow translation ( Article 11 included ) was the text presented by the President and ratified unanimously in 1797 by the U . S . Senate following strict Constitutional procedures . Barbary wars . The treaty was broken in 1801 by the Pasha of Tripoli over President Thomas Jefferson ' s refusal to submit to the Pasha ' s demands for increased payments . In the course of negotiating with the Barbary nations , each of the Barbary rulers continuously demanded increased payments to maintain peace , even while occasionally capturing U . S . ships . The Pasha of Tripoli was jealous of the ships the U . S . had recently given to Algeria , and demanded similar payment be made to him . On September 25 , 1800 , Tripoli captured the U . S . ship , " Catherine " , robbed the crew and plundered its cargo . The Pasha said this was a mistake and the captain responsible for the capture had been punished . Even so , the Pasha warned Cathcart that either the U . S . send additional payments , or the Pasha would declare war on U . S . vessels within six months . The Pasha then commenced thus : " Counsul there is no Nation I wish more to be at Peace with than yours , but all Nations pay me & so must the Americans . " I answered " we have already paid you all we owe you & are nothing in arrears . " He answered that for the Peace we had paid him it was true , but to maintain the Peace we had given him nothing . I observed that the terms of our Treaty were to pay him the stipulated stores [ and the ] cash and in full of all demands forever . . . The Pasha then observed that we had given a great deal to Algiers and Tunis . . . he hoped the United States would [ not ] neglect him as six or eight vessels of the value of his would amount to a much larger sum than ever he expected to get from the United States for remaining at Peace . Meanwhile , the U . S was quickly losing patience with the Barbary nations , and had been building up its Navy in preparation for armed confrontation . On May 15 , 1801 , President Thomas Jefferson ' s cabinet again advised him to send a squadron to the Mediterranean , but only as a retaliatory force . On May 20 , 1801 , Commodore Richard Dale was commissioned to lead three frigates and a schooner to patrol the Mediterranean sea lanes . They set sail on June 2 , 1801 . However , unknown to Jefferson , the Pasha of Tripoli declared war against the United States on May 10 , 1801 . In sending the Navy squadron to the Mediterranean , Jefferson declared , " To this state of general peace with which we have been blessed , one only exception exists . Tripoli , the least considerable of the Barbary States , had come forward with demands unfounded either in right or in compact , and had permitted itself to denounce war , on our failure to comply before a given day . The style of the demand admitted but one answer . I sent a small squadron of frigates into the Mediterranean . " Soon after Commodore Dale sailed into a neutral British port near the Straits of Gibraltar , he discovered that Tripoli had declared war on the United States . Commodore Dale ’ s commission only authorized him to blockade adversarial ports and capture hostile ships , so he could not attack Tripoli directly . However , he notified the Pasha of Tripoli that he could negotiate terms of surrender . 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 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 , the United States was unable to respond to the provocations until 1815 , with the Second Barbary War , thereby concluding the encompassing the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War ( 1800 – 1815 ) .