Day 12, February 6

What two books did Jefferson encode on his cypher?  The Koran and DON QUIXOTE.

To understand this, we need to understand something of the history of DON QUIXOTE and its author.  Meguel de Cervantes was a Spanish soldier who had fought in numerous battles against the Muslims, including the Battle of Lepanto.  This battle proved a decisive victory for European Christians against invading Muslim forces.  Though he was weak with fever, Cervantes refused to stay belowdecks and kept fighting, earning him two gunshot wounds to the chest.  One wound rendered his left hand and part of his left arm useless for the rest of his life.

Following six months of recuperation, Cervantes rejoined his unit in Naples and remained with them until 1575, when he set sail for Spain.  His ship was attaced by the Islamist pirates who murdered the captain and most of the crew.  Cervantes and a handful of passengers were taken to Algiers as slaves.

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Day 11, February 5

I had known that Thomas Jefferson was a well-read and well-traveled man.  However, I had not known that he was a gifted inventor and scientist as well.

Before he was elected President, Jerfferson maintained homes on the Champs-Elysees in Paris and a small suite of private rooms at the Carthusian monastery in the Jardin Du Luxembourg where he could work and think in peace.  Because his home on the Champs Elysees had been broken into three times in 1789, he did much of his work at the monastery.

Jefferson had an obsession with codes.  One code was created using an ingenious machine he invented called the wheel cipher.    The cipher had twenty-six wooden discs, like donuts or circular coasters with a hole drilled through the center of each.  Each disc was a quarter of an inch thick and four inches in diameter.  The letters of the alphabet were printed in random order around the edge.  The donuts slid into a metal axle.  From there the discs could be rotated to spell out the decoded message.

For the message to be decoded, the recipient had to have his own wheel cipher and also needed to know the order in which to place the wooden wheels along the code.  Without that, any encoded message was worthless.

Jefferson felt two books were important enough to be encrypted on his wheel cipher.

Day 10, February 4

Jefferson continued to maintain that paying "tribute," which he called nothing more than blackmail, to the Muslim states was not the way to deal with the pirates.  He told others, including John Adams, that only through "the medium of war" would America be free of the piracy that plagued her ships.

Jefferson drew heavy criticism when the pirates captured the USS Philadelphia in 1803 and its 300 man crew. In his diary, he related how in 1805 he sent Army officer William Eaton  along with a unit of Marines under Lieutenant Presley O'Bannon to attack Tripoli.  This was America's first battle to take place on foreign soil. 

Eaton joined forces with the pasha's brother, Hamet, the rightful heir to the Tripolitanian throne, who was currently in exile in Egypt.  Their target was the highly fortified port of Derna.  Under the leadership of Captain Isaac Hull, Hamet led soldiers to cut off the road to Tripoli while the Marines and the rest of the hired mercenaries attacked the harbor.

The Marines fought hand-to-hand all the way to the governonor's palace.  An hour and fifteen minutes after their ground assault, Lieutenant O'Bannon raised the American flag over Derna.  Eaton and O'Bannon wanted to press farther into Tripoli, but Jefferson refused to give the order.  He believed securing the release of all Americans being held in Tripoli, including the crew from the USS Philadelphia, to be more important.

Day 9, February 3

Declaring that America would spend "millions for defense but not one cent for tribute," Jefferson pressed the issue of piracy on American ships by deploying the Marines as well as six frigates to fight the Barbary Pirates.

In 1805, American Marines marched across the desert from Egypt into Tripolitania, forcing the surrender of Tripoli and the freeing of all American slaves.

Jefferson determined that no nation or religion would blackmail the United States.  His stand against extortion was not a popular one, earning him censor from Congress, the people, and European countries.  However, he did not back off and he did not back down.  (Go, Jefferson!)

Under his administration, the Muslim Barbary States crumbled as a result of intense American naval strikes and shore raids by Marines.  The Barbary States finally officially agreed to abandon slavery and piracy.

Jefferson's victory over the Muslims lives on today in the Marine Hymn, with the line, "From the halls of Montezuma, to the shores of Tripoli, We fight our country's battles in the air, on land and sea."

Can you tell that I am a fan of the Marines?

Day 8, February 2

Thomas Jefferson was a true visionary when it came to foreseeing future events as America faced Islamist threats.  He knew that, if left unchecked, extremists would subject their world view on everyone.  His concern was not only for the loss of revenue if American trade were hindered/ he was also deeply concerned with human rights.

Muslim terror was not confined to the high seas.  It extended to the land as well.  The taking of slaves in pre-dawn raids on unsuspecting coastal villages had a high casualty rate. It was typical of Muslim raiders to kill off as many of the "non-Muslim" older men and women as possible so the preferred "booty" of only young women and children could be collected.

(Note:  the following is not for the squeamish.  Feel free to skip it.) 

Young non-Muslim women were targeted because of their value as concubines in Islamic markets. Islamic law provides for the sexual interests of Muslim men by allowing them to take as many as four wives at one time and to have as many concubines as their fortunes allow.

Boys, as young as nine or ten years old, were often mutilated to create eunuchs who would bring higher prices in the slave markets of the Middle East. Muslim slave traders created "eunuch stations" along major African slave routes so the necessary surgery could be performed. It was estimated that only a small number of the boys subjected to the mutilation survived after the surgery

Such practices were abhorrent to Jefferson..

Day 7, February 1

Can you guess what the pasha  did upon receiving Jefferson's refusal?  He chopped down the flagpole in front of the United States Consulate in Tripoli and declared war on America.  Like dominoes, Algiers, Morocco, and Tunis fell in line.

Jefferson decided to meet force with force.  Immediately, he dispatched a squadron of frigates to the Mediterranean Sea to teach the Barbary Coast states a lesson.  With Congress's authorization, Jefferosn empowered American ships to seize all vessels and goods of the pasha of Tripol and also to "cause to be done all other acts of precaution or hostility as the state of war would dictate."

Accustomed to American acquiesance to the outrageous demands, Algiers and Tunis were taken aback that the United States had both the will and the means to fight.  They quickly abandoned their allegiance to Tripoli.

Under Jefferson's leadership, American proved herself.  His refusal to be cowed by the Muslim pirates earned respect among both the nations of the Barbary Coast and others.