international

American International Trade

/ Sarah Kay Bierle / 3 Comments

19th-century-american-maritimeTrade – a rather nebulous word has been used frequently in the last few weeks’ blog posts. The U.S. Navy was established to protect trade. The Barbary Pirates were disrupting trade. So…what’s so important about “trade”? Where did trade happen? What did they trade for?

Today’s article addresses some pretty amazing facts about early 19th Century maritime trade and its role in the United States’ international, interstate, investments, and infrastructure goals and opportunities. We can’t really do the topic justice in a short article, but we’ll give an overview. Continue reading →

The Top 10 Things You Should Know About The Barbary Wars

/ Sarah Kay Bierle / 3 Comments

19th-century-american-maritimeSo, America built six frigates, but those weren’t the only warships in the fledging navy. The Barbary Wars tend to be forgotten conflicts in overview studies of U.S. History, but they are incredibly important for understanding diplomacy and America’s earliest national interactions with Islamic countries.

They are particularly interesting to our study of 19th Century maritime for two reasons. 1) They take place at the very beginning of the 19th Century 2) They are fought to protect American maritime commerce in the Mediterranean.

Here are the top 10 things you should know about the First & Second Barbary Wars:

(And just to be clear, here are the conflict dates. First – 1801 to 1805. Second – 1815 to 1816.) Continue reading →