“AN ENTERTAINING NARRATIVE OF . CRUEL AND BARBAROUS TREATMENT”: CAPTIVITY, NARRATIVE, AND DEBATE IN THE EARLY AMERICAN REPUBLIC 1775-1816 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of the Ohio State University By David J. Dzurec III, M.A. ***** The Ohio State University 2008 Dissertation Committee: Professor Saul Cornell, Adviser Approved by Professor John Brooke Professor Randolph Roth ___________________________ Adviser History Graduate Program Copyright by David J. Dzurec III 2008 ABSTRACT In 1979, the seizure of the American Embassy in Tehran marked the beginning of a national crisis that reshaped American politics and media. In putting in place the building blocks for the twenty-four hour cable news networks that would emerged in the subsequent decades, the Iran Hostage Crisis fundamentally altered the American public sphere. Despite the significance of this crisis in shaping American politics and culture, it was by no means the first time that the plight of Americans held captive by a foreign power had played a formative role in the development of the United States. From the beginning of the American Revolution in 1775, the imprisonment of Americans by foreign nations has influenced public debate in the United States. Key to their impact was the wide readership that followed these debates. Newspaper coverage fed and expanded these debates, drawing a wide audience to what otherwise might have been a private affair. With such wide readership, these events often times seemed to take on a life of their own, sparking national debates which extended to involve issues well beyond the fate of the hostage Americans. During the American Revolution, the status of British-held American prisoners reflected the status of the nation. In both public and private venues, American and British officials engaged in an ongoing debate over the status of the captured Americans. At its core, this exchange was a debate about the legitimacy of the American cause. ii Following American independence, the plight of American sailors held captive in the Barbary States of North Africa served as a focal point for a wide range of issues in the new American Republic. From the debate over the creation and ratification of a new Constitution to a debate about the role of the American people in government the imprisonment of American sailors served as a lightening rod at key moments in the development of the American public sphere. Finally, in the final years of the War of 1812 and in the wake of the success of the American fleet in finally bringing an end to the Barbary threat in the Mediterranean, the national discussion over the fate of captive Americans served to bolster national confidence and establish an independent American sense of self. iii Dedicated to my Family Brooke, Morbo, David, Laura, Kate, Paul, Charlie, and Dan iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to thank a host of people without whom this project would never have been completed. My dissertation committee has been incredibly supportive throughout my time at Ohio State. Saul Cornell has both given me the freedom to explore the ideas presented here to their fullest and provided the necessary support to keep the project moving. Countless conversations with John Brooke have helped transform a good idea into a solid project. Randy Roth helped shape this project in its earliest stages and has served as a source of support as I have moved through this process. I also wish to thank my graduate colleagues Dom DeBrincat, Alison Efford, Rob Haberman, Brian Kennedy, Nate Kozuskanich, John Maas, and Hugh Randall for the feedback and moral support that is a requisite part of any graduate work. Lastly, I wish to thank my family. My parents, David and Laura, have been my inspiration and greatest supporters in all of my years of learning; my siblings, Kate, Paul, Charlie, and Dan, have been constant companions through many adventures, academic and otherwise; finally, my wife Brooke, who has served as my sounding board, my editor, and my greatest fan. Without support from all of those mentioned here none of this would have been possible and so to all of them I say thank you. v VITA 1999 . B.A. History, Fairfield University 2002 . M.A. History, University of Connecticut 2002 - 2007 . Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University 2007- present . Lecturer, The Ohio State University, Newark PUBLICATIONS 1. “The Barbary Wars” in David Staley et al, eds. Retrieving the American Past . Boston: Pearson Publishing, 2007. 2. “The War of 1812,” in Christopher Bates et al, eds. The Encyclopedia of the Early Republic and Antebellum American . New York: M.E. Sharpe, 2007. 3. Review of Nathaniel Philbrick, Mayflower: A Story of Courage, Community, and War in e-history.com November, 2006. 4. “‘An Entertaining Narrative of . .Cruel and Barbarous Treatment’: Captivity and Narrative in the American Revolution” in the Proceedings of the Tenth Annual History in the Making Conference Montreal, Canada 2005. 5. A Teachers’ Guide to Retrieving the American Past (modules to Jacksonian Democracy). David Staley ed., New York: Pearson Publishing, 2005. 6. “Pontiac’s War,” in Paul Finkelman et al, eds. The Encyclopedia of the New American Nation . New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2005. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract . ii Dedication . iv Acknowledgments . v Vita . vi List of Tables . viii List of Figures . ix Introduction . 1 Chapters: 1. “Obligations Arising from the Rights of Humanity”: American Prisoners of War and Public Opinion in the American Revolution . 15 2. “The Obligations of Every Government”: The Continental Congress, Public Opinion, and American Captives in Algiers 1783-1787 . 43 3. “A Speedy Release to our Suffering Captive Brethren in Algiers”: American Liberty and Public Opinion in the Early American Republic . 81 4. “Floating Hells of Old England”: The Prisoner Debate and Federalist Opposition to the War of 1812 . 132 5. Mr. Madison’s Other War: The Dartmoor Massacre, The End of the Barbary Wars, and American Self-Confidence 1815-1816 . 178 Epilogue . 213 Bibliography . 217 Appendix A: EAN Tripoli and Impressment Data . 226 Appendix B: EAN Dartmoor and Algiers Data . 228 vii LIST OF TABLES Page Tables: 1. Early American Newspaper Database Coverage of the Conflict with Tripoli and the Impressment of American Sailors 1794-1816 . 226 2. Early American Newspaper Database Coverage of the “Dartmoor Massacre” and the End of the Barbary Wars April 1815-August 1816 . 228 viii LIST OF FIGURES Page Figures: 1. Early American Newspaper Database Coverage of the Conflict with Tripoli and the Impressment of American Sailors 1794-1816 . 131 2. Early American Newspaper Database Coverage of the “Dartmoor Massacre” and the End of the Barbary Wars April 1815-August 1816 . 210 ix INTRODUCTION On January 20, 1981, fifty-two Americans boarded a plane at Iran’s Mehrabad Airport. The airport itself was blacked out for fear of Iraqi air raids, but the passengers had no trouble finding their way as the lights of television cameras illuminated their path across the tarmac. The flight was bound for Algeria and its American passengers had spent the previous four hundred forty four days in Iran as “guests of the ayatollah.” The Americans had been taken hostage when Iranian student protesters had seized the American embassy in Tehran in November 1979. Fittingly, the hostages’ departure from Iran coincided with Jimmy Carter’s departure from the White House. The Iranian hostage crisis had dominated Carter’s final year in office and had emerged as one of the critical issues in the presidential election of 1980. Carter had worked tirelessly during his final days in office to negotiate a settlement and secure the release of the American hostages, hoping to bring an end to the standoff before his term in office expired. Although Carter had been denied the satisfaction of announcing the resolution of the crisis from the White House he was able to make the announcement to those who had gathered to greet him as he returned to his home in Plains, Georgia. “Just a few moments ago on Air Force One,” he announced “before we landed at Warner Robins, I received word officially for the first time that the aircraft carrying the fifty-two American hostages 1 . has cleared Iranian airspace. Every one of the fifty-two hostages is alive, well, and free.” After more than a year of negotiations, a failed rescue attempt, and a presidential election, the standoff in Tehran was finally at an end. 1 In addition to its impact on Carter’s presidency, the reach of Iranian hostage crisis extended beyond the realm of politics to reshape the American media. In response to events in Iran, Television networks extended their news casts and created hour-long primetime specials exploring and analyzing the crisis in great detail. Four days after the embassy was overrun, ABC News began running a late night news program, opposite NBC’s The Tonight Show , entitled The Iran Crisis—America Held Hostage . Hosted by Ted Koppel, the news program, which would eventually be renamed Nightline , provided the American people with daily updates of the situation in Iran and kept a running tally of the days since the captive Americans had first been imprisoned. Before long, the families of the hostages became the center of much of the media attention. They found themselves surrounded by reporters and barraged with telephone calls from interview seekers. In “man on the street” interviews, Americans vacillated between calling for the President to “get off his duff,” or to avoid direct conflict because “I don’t want [the hostages] to be harmed.” The crisis in Iran focused national attention on a single issue that evolved into a national conversation extending from the halls of Congress to the “man on the street” and reshaping the contours of the American public sphere.