<p dir="ltr">This dissertation examines the interplay between environmental crises and the escalation of North African corsairing activities from 1793-1805. This period, rife with environmental adversities and faltering economies, witnessed a significant upsurge in North African maritime raids launched from the Ottoman-governed provinces of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. I argue that this noticeable increase was not a reaction to the events in Europe but a consequential response to the acute environmental and socio-economic pressures of the time.</p>

The following essay examines the image of "Barbary piracy" created by two prominent political figures, Thomas Jefferson and William Eaton, and by the American public from 1784 to 1805, and how those images shaped the policy of the American-Barbary War. Eaton‟s Orientalist approach to describing piracy and the North African population limited his views of this region, thus reducing the American conflict to the annihilation of animalistic "brutes." Jefferson‟s practical approach to describing piracy and the North African population focused on emancipating the region from the corrupting influence of greed, allowing him the necessary flexibility to solve the conflict by either by military force or with peace treaties, whichever was necessary. I will show the impact that categorizing piracy as either the result of a depraved society or as a corrupting force had on both American perceptions of the North Africa people and on the outcome of the American-Barbary War.