Some things never change. I was browsing through wikipedia's "on this day" section and saw that it is indeed 207 years since the Pasha of Tripoli (and the other Barbary states) declared war on America (which, incidentally, they did by cutting down the flagstaff in front of the embassy in Tripoli).
In 1786, Ambassadors Thomas Jefferson and John Adams met with Ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman, of Tripoli, in London, to negotiate a peace. This excerpt, taken from an article in Atlantic Monthly in 1872 called "Jefferson, American Minister in France" (page 413), describes the meeting:
They [Jefferson and Adams] "took the liberty to make some inquiries concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury". The ambassador replied: It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise. He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once.
Pretty remarkable. (Check out "The Crescent Obscured" for a thorough read, or here for a brief version of events.)
0 comments:
Post a Comment