Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates: The Forgotten War That Changed American History
Publisher: Sentinel
Published: 2015
Place of publication: New York, USA
Language: eng
Format: eBook
ISBN-13: 9780698197411
Description: From the Prologue...

Mercilessly, the pirates stripped O'Brien and his men of shoes, hats, and handkerchiefs, leaving them unprotected from the burning sun during the twelve-day voyage back to the North African coast. On arrival in Algiers, the American captives were paraded through the streets as spectators jeered.

[...]

“Our sufferings are beyond our expression or your conception,” O'Brien wrote to America's minister to France, Thomas Jefferson, two weeks after his arrival in Algiers. Those sufferings would only get worse. Several of the captives from the Maria and the Dauphin would die in captivity of yellow fever, overwork, and exposure--and in some ways, they were the lucky ones. The ways out of prison for the remaining prisoners were few: convert to Islam, attempt to escape, or wait for their country to negotiate their release. A few of the captives would be ransomed but, for most, their thin blankets wore out as year after year passed and freedom remained out of reach. Richard O'Brien would be ten years a slave.

America had not yet elected its first president, but it already had its first enemy.
Table of contents: label: Also by Brian Kilmeade and Don Yaeger; label: Title Page; label: Copyright; label: Dedication; label: Cast of Characters; label: Author's Note; title: Unprepared and Unprotected
label: Prologue; title: Americans Abroad
label: Chapter 1; title: Secretary Jefferson
label: Chapter 2; title: The Humiliation of the USS George Washington
label: Chapter 3; title: Jefferson Takes Charge
label: Chapter 4; title: A Flagpole Falls
label: Chapter 5; title: The First Flotilla
label: Chapter 6; title: Skirmish at Sea
label: Chapter 7; title: Patience Wears Thin
label: Chapter 8; title: The Doldrums of Summer
label: Chapter 9; title: The Omens of October
label: Chapter 10; title: The Philadelphia Disaster
label: Chapter 11; title: By the Cover of Darkness
label: Chapter 12; title: The Battle of Tripoli
label: Chapter 13; title: Opening a New Front
label: Chapter 14; title: Win in the Desert or Die in the Desert
label: Chapter 15; title: Endgame
label: Chapter 16; title: Fair Winds and Following Seas
label: Chapter 17; label: Epilogue; label: Images; label: Acknowledgments; label: Notes; label: A Note on Sources; label: Index