Before the American Revolution, Britain's navy protected its colonist tradesmen sailing from the Americas. By the 1770s one-fifth of the maritime trade from Britain's Atlantic coast colonies went to the Mediterranean in the holds of around 100 American-owned ships. One seaman from the British Isles complained that there was hardly a "petty harbor" without a Yankee bargaining with the natives.
At this time in the Mediterranean, Arabic-speaking pirates were taking cargoes and hostages, collecting ransoms and dealing in slaves. They sailed from where Morocco is today, and they sailed from Tripoli, Tunis and Algiers, semi-independent areas attached at least in name to the Ottoman sultan in Turkey. Westerners called the region along this North African coastline, the Barbary in reference to the Berber peoples of North Africa.
Those whom the pirates kidnapped who had wealth usually won their freedom quickly with ransom money. This included women associated with wealth. They have been described as unusually not molested and as ransomed quickly. Money talked. But other captives suffered in prisons or roamed towns with chains on their legs. According to historian Paul Johnson,
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