In 1785, Algerian corsairs stopped two American merchant ships off the coast of Portugal and seized twenty-one crew members. Taken to Algiers, the captives were held as slaves and forced to toil in quar ries. One captive went insane; altogether, ten prisoners died in captiv ity, several from bubonic plague. Over the next decade, Algerian priva teers captured more than one hundred American seamen. The U.S. gov ernment felt powerless. Would to Heaven we had a navy to reform those enemies to mankind, or crush them into non-exis tence, George Washing ton wrote in 1786. It was not until 1795?ten years after the first crew members were captured?that the sur viving captives and those subsequently seized were ransomed. To secure the captives' release, the United States had to pay the Dey of Algiers almost $990,000, at a time when all federal revenues amounted to just $6 million or $7 million. This is money thrown away, declared Thomas Jefferson regard ing the ransom payment. In 1801, after the pasha of Tripoli demanded that the United States pay a higher amount of tribute than that paid to the Dey, President Jefferson imposed a naval blockade on Tripoli. In 1803, however, the U.S. frigate Philadelphia ran aground off Tripoli's coast, and its 307-member crew was taken prisoner. The stage was now set for one of the most colorful episodes in Ameri can military history. In 1805, William Eaton, the American consul to Tunis, led a ragtag army consisting of eight Marines, two Navy midshipmen, and some three hundred Muslim and European mercenaries on a 50-day, 520-mile march from Egypt and successfully stormed the Tripolitan city of Derna. The famous phrase from the Marine Corps hymn?'To the shores of Tripoli?refers to this military conflict. Actually, negotiations and payment of a $60,000 ransom?not the capture of Derna?freed the Philadelphia's crew, and the United States continued to pay tribute to other North African states until 1815, when a squadron command ed by Stephen Decatur forced the Dey of Algiers to agree to a treaty releas ing American prisoners and ending demands for tribute. American involve ment with the Muslim world has a long yet largely forgotten history. Muslims were present in significant numbers among slaves in colonial America, and many suc ceeded in maintaining their religious traditions, as recent scholarship has shown. While at times the Islamic world was viewed by Americans as backward and decadent?as in Mark Twain's Innocents Abroad?it was