Over two centuries ago, the United States was dragged into the affairs of the Islamic world by an escalating series of unprovoked attacks on Americans by Muslim pirates, the terrorists of the era. These pirates preyed on unsuspecting trade ships. The hulking merchant vessels of the period were no match for the Muslim pirate ships, which were built for speed and lightning strikes. It was simply a fact of life that- over the centuries-took its toll on countless merchant ships and their crews.
Contemporary scholars estimate that over 1 million white Christians from France and Italy to Spain, Holland, Great Britain, the Americas, and even Iceland were captured between 1500 and 1800. The bloodcurdling tales of brutality and horror that awaited Christians unlucky enough to fall victim to the Barbary Pirates were widely known, although sometimes wildly exaggerated.
The reality was often much more prosaic, although no less cruel. After seizing the cargo and scuttling the vessel, the pirates would strip the crew of anything deemed remotely valuable. The shaken, naked, terrified crewmen would then be dragged back to North Africa. There, they would be imprisoned and enslaved or, if they were lucky, ransomed back to their sovereign or their family or the company they worked for.
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