Having not receiving the demanded jizya, on May 10, 1801, the pasha of Tripoli proclaimed jihad on the United States. But by now, the latter had six war vessels, which Jefferson deployed to the Barbary Coast. Their initial show of force was enough to cause Tunis and Algiers, which were flirting with the idea of emulating Tripoli’s demands on America, to think otherwise. For the next five years, the U.S. Navy warred with Tripoli, making little headway and suffering some setbacks—the most humiliating being when the Philadelphia and its crew were captured in 1803.
