Barbary

Barbary was the term used from the 1200s to the 1820s to refer to the coastal regions of what is now Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya. This region was known as Barbary because of the Arab slave traders, who sold black Africans from sub-Saharan Africa, and because of the many Muslim pirates, who attacked European ships in the Mediterannean, who used this region as a haven and base of operations.

Barbary was not always a unified entity. Many times it was fragmented due to revolts and local sheiks and rulers taking power. Its "capital" or chief city is usually acknowledged to be Tripoli, in modern-day Libya, although Algiers, in Algeria, and Tangiers, in Morocco, were also sometimes seen as its "capital" by Europeans of the era. The first United States military action overseas, executed by the U.S. Marines and Navy, was the storming of Tripoli to end pirate raids from Barbary.