Second Barbary War

Second Barbary War
Part of the Barbary Wars
Decatur's squadron off Algiers
Date 17–19 June 1815 Location Mediterranean Sea Result American victory
Belligerents
United States	Regency of Algiers
Commanders and leaders
James Madison Stephen Decatur	Omar Agha Raïs Hamidou †
Strength
3 frigates 3 brigs 2 schooners 2 sloops	5 frigates 7 smaller warships
Casualties and losses
40 killed and wounded[1]	53 killed Many wounded 486 captured 2 ships captured 1 ship sunk

The Second Barbary War (1815) or the U.S.–Algerian War^[2] was fought between the United States and the North African Barbary Coast states of Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers. The war ended when the United States Senate ratified Commodore Stephen Decatur's Algerian treaty on 5 December 1815.^[3] However, Dey Omar Agha of Algeria repudiated the US treaty, refused to accept the terms of peace that had been ratified by the Congress of Vienna, and threatened the lives of all Christian inhabitants of Algiers. William Shaler was the US commissioner in Algiers who had negotiated alongside Decatur, but he fled aboard British vessels^[4] during the 1816 bombardment of Algiers. He negotiated a new treaty in 1816^{[citation needed]} which was not ratified by the Senate until 11 February 1822, because of an oversight.^[3]

After the end of the war, the United States and European nations stopped paying tribute to the pirate states; this marked the beginning of the end of piracy in that region, which had been rampant in the days of Ottoman domination during the 16th–18th centuries. The western nations built ever more sophisticated and expensive ships which the Barbary pirates could not match in numbers or technology.^[5]