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WEEKLY NEWSLETTER
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Libya
Index
Lacking direction from the Porte (Ottoman government), Tripoli
lapsed into a period of military anarchy during which coup followed
coup and few deys survived in office more than a year. In 1711
Ahmad Karamanli, a popular khouloughli cavalry officer,
seized Tripoli and then purchased his confirmation by the sultan as
pasha-regent with property confiscated from Turkish officials he
had massacred during the coup. Although he continued to recognize
nominal Ottoman suzerainty, Ahmad (reigned 1711-45) created an
independent hereditary monarchy in Tripoli with a government that
was essentially Arab in its composition. Intelligent and
resourceful as well as ruthless, he increased his revenues from
piracy, pursued an active foreign policy with European powers, used
a loyal military establishment to win the allegiance of the tribes,
and extended his authority into Cyrenaica.
The Karamanli regime, however, declined under Ahmad's
successors. Then in 1793, a Turkish officer, Ali Benghul, overthrew
the Karamanlis and restored Tripoli to Ottoman rule. With the aid
of the bey of Tunis, Yusuf ibn Ali Karamanli (reigned 1795-1832)
returned to Tripoli and installed himself as pasha. A throwback to
the founder of the dynasty, he tamed the tribes and defied both the
Porte and British naval power to assist Napoleon Bonaparte during
his Egyptian campaign in 1799.
The effectiveness of Tripoli's corsairs had long since
deteriorated, but their reputation alone was enough to prompt
European maritime states to pay the tribute extorted by the pasha
to ensure safe passage of their shipping through Tripolitanian
waters. American merchant ships, no longer covered by British
protection, were seized by Barbary pirates in the years after
United States independence, and American crews were enslaved. In
1799 the United States agreed to pay Yusuf US$18,000 a year in
return for a promise that Tripoli-based corsairs would not molest
American ships. Similar agreements were made at the time with the
rulers of Morocco, Algiers, and Tunis.
In the years immediately after the Napoleonic wars, which ended
in 1815, the European powers forced an end to piracy and the
payment of tribute in the Barbary states. Deprived of the basis of
its economy, Tripoli was unable to pay for basic imports or to
service its foreign debt. When France and Britain pressed for
payment of debts on behalf of Tripoli's creditors, the Divan
authorized extraordinary taxes to provide the needed revenue. The
imposition of the taxes provoked an outcry in the towns and among
the tribes that quickly degenerated into civil war. With the
allegiance of the country split among rival claimants to the
throne, Yusuf abdicated in favor of his son, Ali II (reigned 1832-
35). In response to Ali's appeal for assistance and out of fear of
the European takeover in Tripoli, the Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II
sent Turkish troops, ostensibly to put down the numerous rebellions
against the pasha and to restore order. But Ali was packed aboard
a Turkish warship, which carried him into exile, while the sultan's
troops reinstated Ottoman rule in Tripoli.
Data as of 1987
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