America among Muslims and Christians: After 1776

When America was a colony, it was heavily involved in shipping and foreign trade. Britain garnered the lion’s share of American goods but, today, every school child learns about the slave-sugar-rum triangle with the Caribbean and African nations. It is less well-known that a significant number of American merchants plied the waters of the Mediterranean, trading with many nations and cities on that sea.

The Declaration of Independence in 1776 brought home an overlooked truth. When it was a British colony, American shipping trade had been protected by the might of the British Navy, which dominated the seas at that time. Now that it was independent, America had no such protection. Indeed, it had no navy at all. This fact was not lost on the Barbary Pirates of the North African coast. They preyed on American shipping with impunity, taking captives, demanding ransom and stealing American goods.  They even sailed into the Atlantic Ocean and interfered with American trade with Western Europe.

The problem arose from the religiopolitical situation of the Muslim Ottoman Empire. The empire was based in Istanbul, in modern-day Turkey, which nominally controlled the countries along the northeastern, eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea, from Greece clockwise around to Algiers. Unfortunately, the Ottoman Empire was decaying and some North African leaders had carved out independent states under the Ottoman umbrella. Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli were ruled by pashas who had created their kingdoms by force, and they continued to use force -- piracy to be specific -- as a tool of state to earn their countries revenue.

Although the Barbary kingdoms targeted Americans, the Ottomans themselves held America in great esteem. At a time when the British, Russians and Austrians were pressuring the Empire, and Napoleon even had the temerity to invade Egypt and Syria, Sultan Selim III was impressed when the ship George Washington sailed into Istanbul harbor in 1800, representing the one nation in the world that had thrown off European over-lordship.

If divisions in the Muslim Mediterranean caused America’s pirate problem, then divisions in Christian Europe hindered the solution. France had just sided with America against Britain in the War of Independence, as had the Netherlands and Spain. But, their alliance with the nascent America did not lead to alliances at home. Rather than confront the Barbary Pirates, each nation paid them an annual tribute to leave their ships alone.

The problem was that this did not work for America. When it offered tribute or tried to ransom a captured ship, Algiers or Tripoli would simply seize another ship and demand another higher ransom. Since America had no navy, it could not enforce ransom or tribute agreements. The European nations all had navies. Even though some were small, they were large enough to keep tribute and ransom demands in check and could, in theory, at least launch an attack on Tunis or Tripoli if ship attacks got out of hand. Since America had no navy, it was at the mercy of the Barbary kingdoms.

At first, America tried diplomacy. In the 1780s, they suggested an alliance with the French, the Dutch and other nations with smaller navies to create a force to rid the Mediterranean of the pirates. Although some thought this was a good idea, no nation volunteered the use of its ships.

In the end, it took the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which formally created the United States of America, to lay the conditions for the creation of the U.S. Navy. And, it was not until the end of the second war against the British, the War of 1812, that American naval power was sufficient to put down the state-sponsored activities of the Barbary Pirates. On June 1815, 10 American warships entered the Algerian harbor. The Pasha appealed to the British, who gave him no help. So, he accepted the terms of Admiral Stephen Decatur, which included payment of compensation to the USA. Tunis and Tripoli followed suit.

America solved its pirate problem. American merchants were once again free to trade on the open seas. And the nation had created a navy. Although Americans today think that involvement with Islamic countries is new, it is as old as the nation itself.

This essay is indebted to Michael B. Oren’s book, titled “Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present” (New York: Norton, 2007).

From the Reformation to Brexit: Divorcing Europe

In 1517, five hundred years ago this month, Martin Luther nailed 95 Theses to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral. Six years later, the Catholic Church excommunicated Luther and by 1526 he began organizing a new church. This was the beginning of the Protestant Reformation.

            From its beginning, the reformation was both religious and political. Where reformers had political backing, it succeeded. Where Catholicism had political backing, it failed. Many German dukes and princes supported Luther, while other dukes and the Holy Roman emperor, who was nominally superior to them, stayed with Catholicism.

            In England, King Henry VIII remained without a male heir. When the pope refused to annul his marriage, Henry had himself appointed the head of the Church of England in 1534. Henry was not a reformer and English church goers experienced little change in their weekly worship. Henry’s move was really a political rejection of the pope’s authority over England, and his actions emphasized the English refusal to be governed by Europe.

            That was just as well, for back on the continent matters deteriorated. New Protestant champions, John Calvin and his fellow Reformers, gained ground in Switzerland.

            Meanwhile the conflict between Luther’s church and Catholicism grew worse and had to be settled by the Peace of Augsburg in 1555, which stated that the duke of a region could determine its religion, Lutheran or Catholic. Calvinism was not an option.

            Conflict continued nonetheless. The Calvinist Dutch Republic fought for independence from Catholic Spain in the Eighty Years War. In Germany, the Thirty Years War began as a fight between Lutherans and Catholics. By the time these conflicts were settled by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, millions of Europeans had died through war, famine and disease.

            The Westphalia treaty finally included Calvinists as well as Lutherans and Catholics.

            The religious wars on the continent had little direct impact on the British Isles. England experienced neither the frequent battles nor the widespread deaths; although it occasionally sent troops to support one side or the other.

            The English and ultimately British religious conflicts took a complete different shape. Henry’s son, King Edward VI, brought in protestant reforms after 1547. Drawing mostly from Calvinist ideas, these included the rejection of images (stained glass and statues) and worship reforms carried out through the Book of Common Prayer. Lutheranism never got a foothold in Britain.

            When Queen Mary came to the throne in 1558, she reversed these religious changes, working to make England once again subordinate to the papacy. Ultimately, this resulted in heresy trials and executions.

            Her successor, Queen Elizabeth I, established a set of religious compromises that provided the foundation for the Anglican Church, combining a largely Calvinist-Protestant foundation with Catholic elements.

            The political struggle between the Anglican Parliament and the sometimes Catholic monarchy in the 1600s was ultimately drawn along religious lines, with Anglicans and (Calvinist) Puritans supporting the Parliament and Catholics supporting the Royals.

            The ensuing English Civil War lasted from 1643 to 1651 and established England under the rule of Parliament, even though it also brought back the monarchy. Conflicts in Ireland and Scotland took longer to settle. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia essentially went unnoticed in the British Isles.

            Britain took another half-century to work out a stable solution to the Protestant-Catholic divide, but problems continued. Many Puritan members of the Anglican Church came to the Americas to escape religious discrimination. Ireland remained unsettled, divided by both religion and politics until the southern part gained independence in 1922; conflict continued in the north until recent times.

            What does the Reformation reveal about Brexit, the current plan of the United Kingdom to leave the European Union? 

            As with Henry VIII, large parts of England want to divorce the country from Europe, to rid itself of European control over Britain. This time it is solely political, not religious at all. Immigration control constitutes one of several disputes.

            The claim is that what happens in Europe is largely irrelevant in Britain. If it were not for the laws of the European Union, there would be little need for a deep connection to Europe. 

            That claim is of course widely and hotly disputed. Both Scotland and London voted against Brexit by a wide margin, seeing their futures irrevocably tied to Europe.

            But the myth of an England free from continental authority, promoted by Henry VIII during the Reformation, beats in many English breasts. And they can point to 150 years of separate courses of the Protestant Reformation, one on the continent and one in the British Isles, as providing historical backing for separation. Is that historical example still valid in modern times? We will see.

Note: On October 15 and 16, the Religious Studies Department at the University of Wyoming will host a mini-conference Protestant Reformations: 500 Years and Counting. There will be a public lecture on Monday the 16th at 4:10, by Philip Cary, “How Luther Became Protestant” in Berry Center 138. For more information, visit uwyo.edu/relstds.