Saturday, April 21, 2007

Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates

Interesting article on America's first war against the pirates of the Barbary coast. Interesting that it was also against Muslims.

This quote is very striking, I didn't realize this:

How many know that perhaps 1.5 million Europeans and Americans were enslaved in Islamic North Africa between 1530 and 1780? We dimly recall that Miguel de Cervantes was briefly in the galleys. But what of the people of the town of Baltimore in Ireland, all carried off by “corsair” raiders in a single night? Read the rest.

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