Thomas Jefferson's Qur'an: Islam and the Founders (72 page)

49.
Adams’s promulgation appeared on the front page of the
Boston-Price Current and Marine Intelligencer
, Monday, June 26, 1797. See also Jon Meacham,
American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers, and the Making of a Nation
(New York: Random House, 2006), 262, where Article 11 is reprinted with the assertion that it “was widely discussed and published.”

50.
William Cobbett,
Porcupine Gazette
, June 23, 1797.

51.
For the first to note Cobbett’s criticism, see Frank Lambert,
The Founding Fathers and the Place of Religion in America
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003), 238–41.

52.
For the idea of Barlow as the author of Article 11, see Borden,
Jews, Turks, and Infidels
, 77–78.

53.
Quoted ibid., 77.

54.
Although some have attempted to attribute Article 11 to George Washington because negotiations for it occurred during his presidency, this connection has no basis in fact; see Paul F. Boller,
George Washington and Religion
(Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1963), 87–88.

55.
“Appointment of Joel Barlow, as U.S. Agent, Algiers,” February 10, 1796, in
Naval Documents
, 1:133.

56.
Arthur L. Ford,
Joel Barlow
(New York: Twayne, 1971), 18–19, 27.

57.
Sam Haselby, “The Enigma of America’s Secular Roots: Joel Barlow’s Disavowal of Christianity as the Basis for US Government in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli Is a Mystery,”
Guardian
, January 3, 2011. Haselby refers to Barlow’s
Advice to Privileged
Orders.
My thanks to Bernard Bailyn for this reference. See also Robert Boston, “Joel Barlow and the Treaty with Tripoli,”
http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/archive/boston_tripoli.html
.

58.
Joel Barlow,
Advice to the Privileged Orders in the Several States of Europe, resulting from the Necessity and propriety of a general revolution in the principles of government
, Part I (London: Childs and Swaine, 1792), 39.

59.
Ibid., 53; Marr,
Cultural Roots
, 58.

60.
Barlow,
Advice
, 53.

61.
Lambert,
Founding Fathers
, 240.

62.
“To Tobias Lear, appointed U.S. Consul General, Algiers, from Secretary of State, [James Madison],” July 14, 1803, in
Naval Documents
, 2:485; Frank Lambert,
The Barbary Wars: American Independence in the Atlantic World
(New York: Hill and Wang, 2005), 118.

63.
James Madison,
A Memorial and Remonstrance against Religious Assessments
, in
The Sacred Rights of Conscience: Selected Readings on Religious Liberty and Church-State Relations in the American Founding
, ed. Daniel L. Dreisbach and Mark David Hall (Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, 2009), 311.

64.
Ibid., 312.

65.
Robert A. Rutland, ed.,
The Papers of George Mason
, 3 vols. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970), 2:832; also cited in Thomas E. Buckley,
Church and State in Revolutionary Virginia, 1776–1787
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1977), 136.

66.
Papers of James Mason
, 2:832; Buckley,
Church and State
, 136.

67.
“Chesterfield Assembly Petition (Virginia), November 14, 1785,”
Religious Petitions Virginia
, Library of Congress,
http://memory.loc.gov/ndlpcoop/relpet.215
. I would like to thank James Hutson for this reference; see also James H. Hutson, “The Founding Fathers and Islam,”
The Library of Congress Information Bulletin
61, no. 5 (2002): 1,
http://www.loc.gov/loc/lcib/0205/tolerance.html
.

68.
“Chesterfield Assembly, 1785”; for the importance of Virginia’s dissenters in this movement to end an establishment of the Christian religion, see John A. Ragosta,
Wellspring of Liberty: How Virginia’s Religious Dissenters Helped Win the American Revolution and Secured Religious Liberty
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 12, 144–45.

69.
American diplomats relied upon the consul from Spain,
Gerardo de Souza, to verify the Arabic seals; see “Tripoli: November 4, 1796, and January 3, 1797,” in Miller,
Treaties
, 2:378–79.

70.
Even
James Cathcart, a prisoner in Algiers eleven years before taking up his post as consul at Tripoli, “did not read Arabic, although he seems to have been familiar with Turkish and Italian”; see ibid., quote on 2:382.

71.
See “The Annotated Translation of 1930,” by Dr. C. Snouck Hurgronje, of Leiden, in Miller,
Treaties
, 2:368–79.

72.
Charles O. Lerche Jr., “Jefferson and the Election of 1800: A Case Study in the Political Smear,”
William and Mary Quarterly
, 3rd ser., 5, no. 4 (October 1948): 467–91; Azizah Y. al-Hibri, “Islamic and American Constitutional Law: Borrowing Possibilities or a History of Borrowing?”
University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law
1, no. 3 (1999): 501. For a chapter dedicated to Jefferson as “The Pious Infidel,” without any connection to Islam, see Steven Waldman,
Founding Faith: Providence, Politics, and the Birth of Religious Freedom in America
(New York: Random House, 2008), 72-84.

73.
Lerche, “Jefferson and the Election of 1800,” 470, 472, 473; Ferling,
Adams vs. Jefferson
, 154; Thomas S. Kidd,
God of Liberty: A Religious History of the American Revolution
(New York: Basic Books, 2010), 234–43.

74.
“Infidel,”
Oxford English Dictionary
, 13 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1970), 5:260; al-Hibri, “Islamic and American Constitutional Law,” 501, who cites this term as a politically viable one, albeit without specific reference to the presidential campaign of 1800.

75.
Quoted in Lambert,
Founding Fathers
, 276–77; Lerche, “Jefferson and the Election of 1800,” 473; Ferling,
Adams vs. Jefferson
, 154.

76.
Lambert,
Founding Fathers
, 266.

77.
Ibid., 265–68, 276–77.

78.
Quoted ibid., 265.

79.
Thomas Jefferson,
Notes on Virginia
, in
The Life and Selected Writings of Thomas Jefferson
, ed. Adrienne Koch and William Peden (New York: Modern Library, 1998), 254.

80.
Quoted in Lambert,
Founding Fathers
, 278. This assertion was earlier made by Lerche, “Jefferson and the Election of 1800,” 273.

81.
Jefferson, “A Declaration by the Representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress Assembled,” a part of “Autobiography,” in
Life and Selected Writings
, 26.

82.
Jefferson, “Autobiography,” in
Life and Selected Writings
, 23.

83.
“Jefferson to Joseph Priestley,” March 21, 1801, in
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
, ed. Barbara Oberg (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006), 33:393.

84.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 103, gives the date of the meeting as May 10; Kitzen,
Tripoli
, 46, gives May 10; Irving Brant,
James Madison: Secretary of State, 1800–1809
, 6 vols. (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1953), 4:60, where the date for the vote is May 15.

85.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 106.

86.
For disagreement about the exact number of ships and American captives, compare Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 230 n. 37, with Wilson, “American Prisoners,” 320–21.

87.
Kola Folayan,
Tripoli During the Reign of Yusuf Pasha Qaramanli
(Ife, Nigeria: University of Ife Press, 1979), 31.

88.
Ibid., 27.

89.
Ibid., 28.

90.
For disagreement on the success of these measures, see Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 27; Folayan,
Tripoli
, 35.

91.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 122–23, 110. The captured Tripolitan ship was allowed to return to her port, with her armaments thrown overboard; Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 26–27.

92.
Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 27.

93.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 130.

94.
Folayan,
Tripoli
, 36; Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 28, says “300 sailors.”

95.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 134; Jonathan Cowdery, “American Captives in Tripoli,” in Paul Baepler, ed.,
White Slaves, African Masters: An Anthology of American Barbary Captivity Narratives
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), 167, 171, 180.

96.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 135; Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 190–95.

97.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 143.

98.
Lambert,
Barbary Wars
, 151; the ten Americans included “eight marines and two navy midshipmen.”

99.
Parker,
Uncle Sam
, xxvii; Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 147–48, offers a slightly different date.

100.
Parker,
Uncle Sam
, xxvii; Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 135.

101.
Dumas Malone,
Jefferson the President: First Term, 1801–1805
, vol. 4 of
Jefferson and His Time
(Boston: Little, Brown, 1970), 97–99; Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 25–33; Parker,
Uncle Sam
, xxviii.

102.
“Over four hundred and fifty citizens” are estimated by Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 204. Presumably Irwin includes the three hundred souls of the frigate
Philadelphia
. See, in contrast, for a total count of seven hundred American prisoners, Wilson, “American Prisoners,” 321.

103.
“A large number of British deserters” on the captured U.S. vessel
Philadelphia
were encouraged to petition for their freedom as British naval officers, which 140 did; see Wilson, “American Prisoners,” 197. By contrast, it is estimated that only twenty of that crew were considered native-born Americans by their captain; see Parker,
Uncle Sam
, 62.

104.
For the most thorough list of American captives from 1784 to 1816, see Wilson, “American Prisoners,” 321; Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 204

105.
“Tripoli: November 4, 1796, and January 3, 1797,” in Miller,
Treaties
, 2:365.

106.
“Tripoli: June 4, 1805,” ibid., 2:532.

107.
Irwin,
Diplomatic Relations
, 154; “Tripoli: June 4, 1805,” in Miller,
Treaties
, 2:529.

108.
“Tripoli: 1805,” in Miller,
Treaties
, 2:541 (Arabic). The Arabic version uses
madhab
, meaning school of law for laws, and also
shar‘
, for the revelation of the Qur’an and its laws, as well as
din
for religion.

109.
“Tripoli: November 4, 1796, and January 3, 1797,” ibid., 2:365.

110.
“Tripoli: 1805,” ibid., 2:532.

111.
“Tripoli: November 4, 1796, and January 3, 1797,” ibid., 2:365; “Tripoli: 1805,” ibid., 2:532. The variations are slight, with new capitals in the 1806 version and the addition of “contracting” to parties and the substitution in the last of “nations” instead of the original “countries.”

112.
“Tripoli: 1805,” ibid., 2:532.

113.
“Algiers: June 30 and July 3, 1815,” ibid., 2:588–89; “Algiers: December 22 and 23, 1816,” ibid., 2:620.

114.
“Algiers, June 30 and July 3, 1815,” ibid., 2:589.

115.
“Algiers: December 22 and 23, 1816,” ibid., 2:632, 2:639.

116.
Marr,
Cultural Roots
, 65–66; Allison,
Crescent Obscured
, 183–84. For the impact on early national identity, see Robert Battistini, “Glimpses of the Other before Orientalism: The Muslim World in Early American Periodicals, 1785–1800,”
Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal
8, no. 2 (Spring 2010): 469; Jennifer Costello Brezina, “A Nation in Chains: Barbary Captives and American Identity,” in
Captivating Subjects: Writing, Confinement, Citizenship and Nationhood in the Nineteenth Century
, ed. Jason Haslam and Julia M. Wright (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2005): 202–5. See also Jacob Rama Berman, “The Barbarous Voice of Democracy: American Captivity in Barbary and the Multicultural Specter,”
American Literature
79 (March 2007): 1–27; James Lewis, “Savages of the Seas: Barbary Captivity Tales and Images of Muslims in the Early Republic,”
Journal of American Culture
13 (Summer 1990): 75–84.