Rockport History Book Club
North Africa History
Wednesday, August 25, 2021
Arab Spring in Egypt
Wednesday, August 25, 2021. History of North Africa, from Morocco to Egypt, and
including Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan,
Mauritania and more. Pick
a nation or a group of nations in the northern tier of Africa and learn how
they interact, how they came to be, what problems are they having, or had, that
attracted world attention in the past. Some examples: The Barbary
Pirates and how America’s President Jefferson took them on; The Italian
Colonial history in Abyssinia and Somaliland; World War II—Field Marshal Rommel
in North Africa; “Carthago delenda est!” The Punic War between Rome and
Carthage; Tunisia and he Start of Arab Spring. [Proposed by Sam
Coulbourn]
I thought it would be interesting to
look at the history of this layer of countries on the Mediterranean shore of
Africa, but my exposure was because of that body of water, more than those
countries.
I have read for years about the
heroic efforts of America’s young navy in fighting the Barbary pirates, and for
several years I sailed back and forth from Tangier to Tripoli to Marsa Matruh
and the Gulf of Sollum, often submerged, cruising at 200- or 300-feet depth,
but sometimes in a destroyer trailing warships of the Soviet Navy.
These nations have history going
back thousands of years, while there was a vast forest where the Sahara Desert
is now. The Phoenicians visited this
land and planted settlers, and so did the Greeks and the Romans. At the very
start of the birth of Islam in the seventh century CE Arabs swept over the
land, which became known as Maghreb, or “The West” in Arabic.
Muslims had advanced in Europe in
Spain and France and then 1492 marked the year when Grenada fell and they were
swept out of Europe, back across the Straits of Gibraltar to Africa. Spaniards
came after them and that marked the high-water mark of Spain’s colonialism in
North Africa.
Then came the Ottomans, who occupied the
Maghreb and extracted tribute from the residents and local leaders. Gradually collecting the tribute or sending
it to Constantinople got to be too hard.
But the local pirates on the Barbary Coast kept it up, attacking
merchant ships sailing along the eastern Atlantic coast, or along the
Mediterranean. Some Barbary pirates
sailed out further, toward South America, and along the British Isles.
One pair of brothers, called the
Barbarossa Brothers, Aruj and Khayr ad Din, born in Lesbos in the Aegean, became
Muslims, came to Tunis in 1504 and arranged with the ruler to give him a fifth
of their booty. They were wild. They gathered a squadron of ships and one day
they captured the treasure galley, a large boat propelled by slave rowers,
belonging to Pope Julius II. Aruj was killed soon after, but Khayr raised hell
for decades, while many thousands were killed.
European Navies worked out
individual arrangements with the Dey of Algiers, the Bey of Tunis, the Bashaw
of Tripoli and the Emperor of Morocco, and American colonial merchantmen
sailing the Barbary coast were protected by the Royal Navy—until the
Revolutionary War ended.
With war over, the American
Continental Congress sold the warships that had helped to win the war. Under Presidents Washington and Adams,
America began to pay tribute to these Barbary pirates, until President
Jefferson took over and he demanded that America build a Navy again, and
Congress agreed.
I supplemented my reading at this
point with an 1805 newspaper I have in my collection. The Boston Repertory for
Friday September 6, 1805, carries a story from Salem about the adventure of
General Eaton, operating under orders of the United States, landed the previous
December in Alexandria, Egypt with a cargo of money, musquets (sic), pikes,
ammunition, field artillery, camp equipment, etc. and several officers. They
met with the ex-Bashaw of Tripoli and gathered an army of some 6000 volunteers.
They marched west toward Tripoli. They encountered Tripolitan forces and
captured the city of Dern, seeking to free American slaves held there, and obtain
an “honorable treaty of peace” for the United States. When the city fell, one
of the eight U.S. Marines replaced the Tripolitan flag with the Stars and
Stripes. This was a first for the young
USA, and the reason for “the shores of Tripoli” in the Marines’ Hymn.
The first war of the United States
with the Barbary States—the Tripolitan, from 1801 to 1805, was mainly the young
U.S. Navy growing, with officers like Decatur, Preble and Bainbridge showing
their skill and improving their leadership for fighting and defeating the Royal
Navy in the War of 1812.
The second, the Algerine war from
1815-16 was exacerbated by the British and lasted only three days. It resulted in the end of tribute payments
and enslavement of American sailors.
-end-
HISTORY BOOK CLUB TOPICS FOR 2021
Elizabeth
Eckford goes to school, Little Rock, 1957
Wednesday, September 29, 2021. The Fight for Civil Rights. America
began with the fight for Civil Rights for colonists and the fight continues for
groups of Americans. Pick a group – what are they fighting for, what’s
their strategy, are they gaining or losing ground and why? [Proposed by Mary Beth Smith]
Karen women in Myanmar
Wednesday,
October 27, 2021. Mass Refugee movements in History. Movements of a large number from one
nation to another can and have changed the face of the earth. Read about any
era on this topic or read about the phenomenon as a whole. Consider the
movement of Arab nationals today into Europe, or the pre-historic migration of
peoples from Siberia to North America. Or perhaps Irish victims of the potato
famine coming to America and Canada in the 1840s. [Proposed by Sam
Coulbourn]
K. Moran, New York Times
Wednesday, December 1, 2021. [Moved back one week to avoid conflict with Thanksgiving.] Is the American Empire in retreat? Roman troops met their match in German forests and Parthian deserts, and there was decay at home, and suddenly, the Roman Empire was gone. America saw the limits of empire as helicopters lifted escapees from the American Embassy in Saigon in 1975, and then again in a dramatic exodus from Kabul in 2021. We keep learning that our military power can destroy but it cannot build. China is growing and aiming at world-wide supremacy, and Russia is straining to recover its super-power. At home there are signs of decay, as our democracy is challenged, millions resist cures for a pandemic and our spirit is tested. Is this the twilight of American ascendance? [Proposed by Sam Coulbourn]
There will be no later meeting
in December.
2022
Women defense workers, World War II
Wednesday, January 26, 2022. World War II at Home.
World War II raged from the jungles
of Burma to the steppes of Russia, all over the world. But this is a look at the Home Front, from
Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Fireside Chats to children collecting tin cans and
lead toothpaste tubes, paper and even jars of grease for “The War Effort”. It
includes the movement of many thousands of Black Americans from menial jobs in
the South to better paying jobs in the North, working in defense plants. Millions of women also joined the work force
as men went to fight overseas. Also, how Hollywood helped with patriotic films
and propaganda cartoons, as well as War Bond drives. [Proposed by Cindy
Grove].
Landing of Pedro Cabral in future Brazil,
1500.
Painting by Oscar da Silva, 1922.
Wednesday,
February 23, 2022. South America has a rich history, from Incas and other
indigenous peoples to colonization by Spanish, Portuguese, and other European
nations, onward to monarchy in Argentina, slavery, and struggling democracies. It’s
the history of Machu Pichu, exploration and exploitation of the Amazon, Simon
Bolivar, Pedro Cabral, Juan Peron, Hugo Chavez, Augusto Pinochet, The Falklands
War, Shining Path. Select any period,
any nation or group, and let us learn together. [Proposed
by Sam Coulbourn]
Wednesday, March 30, 2022. Reconstruction, 1865-77 Abraham Lincoln had a clear picture of what should be
done after the end of the War Between the States, but his assassination meant
that Andrew Johnson, the Democrat who succeeded him, would be President. Read
about this dangerous, murderous time in our history as we sought to regain the
11 Confederate States in the Union. Read about the growth of white
supremacist organizations, and the different ways that America handled the end
of slavery, and welcoming (?) millions of newly freed Africans to
America. [Proposed by
Mary Beth Smith]
