AUTHOR’S NOTE

It is my observation that American history has been for the most part focused on the genius of our founding fathers and not enough on those who fought and died for their ideals. We have written Thomas Jefferson and the Tripoli Pirates for those men and women who have been forgotten by most, though they were saluted in their day.

This is the story of how a new nation, saddled with war debt and desperate to establish credibility, was challenged by four Muslim powers. Our merchant ships were captured and the crews enslaved. Despite its youth, America would do what established western powers chose not to do: stand up to intimidation and lawlessness.

Tired of Americans being captured and held for ransom, our third president decided to take on the Barbary powers in a war that is barely remembered today but is one that, in many ways, we are still fighting.

In the following pages you will read how Jefferson, the so-called pacifist president, changed George Washington’s and John Adams’s policies to take on this collection of Muslim nations. You will travel alongside the fearless William Eaton as he treks five hundred miles across the desert. You will learn about the leadership of Stephen Decatur and Edward Preble, and about the fighting prowess of Marine lieutenant Presley O’Bannon, just to name a few. You will discover how the Marine Corps emerged as the essential military force it is today. Most important, you will see the challenges Presidents Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison faced with the Barbary nations. And you will learn how military strength and the courage of our first generation of Americans led to victory, and ultimately respect in a world of nations that believed—and even hoped—that the American experiment would fail. Because of these brave men, the world would learn that in America failure is not an option.

I love this story and the brave men who secured our freedom. If this book does anything to restore them to America’s memory, it will have succeeded.

—Brian Kilmeade