Barbary Coast

Barbary Coast, name formerly applied to the coast of North Africa extending from the western border of Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean; its name is derived from the Berbers, who were the principal inhabitants of the region.

From the 16th to the 19th century, the coast was occupied by several independent Muslim states and polities under the sovereignty of the Ottoman Empire (see Algeria; Morocco; Tripolitania; Tunisia). Beginning in the early 1500s, these Barbary states were centers for pirates who preyed upon the commerce of European nations in both Mediterranean and Atlantic waters. After the American Revolution the Barbary pirates began to molest the shipping of the U.S. Following the example of European nations, the U.S. at first concluded treaties with the states of Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli, and Tunis, providing for immunity from attack by money payments. The breaking of these treaties by Tripoli and Algiers led to war. American naval action against Tripolitan ports (1801-5) and Algiers (1815), led by the American naval officer Stephen Decatur, was instrumental in ending the piracy.

During the remainder of the 19th century and in the early part of the 20th century, European nations gradually gained sovereignty over the entire Barbary Coast. France established the colony of Algeria in 1847, the protectorate of Tunisia in 1881, and a protectorate over most of Morocco in 1911. After a war between the Ottomans and Italians fought on North African soil in 1912, Tripoli and Cyrenaica were consolidated into the Italian colony of Libya.

The name Barbary Coast was also applied to the old waterfront area of San Francisco, a district of saloons, brothels, and gambling dens destroyed by the earthquake of 1906.