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Barbary States

(Encyclopedia)Barbary States, term used for the North African states of Tripolitania, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco. From the 16th cent. Tripolitania, Tunisia, and Algeria were autonomous provinces of the Turkish E...

Barbary Coast

(Encyclopedia)Barbary Coast bärˈbərē [key], waterfront area of San Francisco, Calif., in the years after the 1849 gold rush. Gamblers, gangsters, prostitutes, and confidence men flourished, and the brothels, sa...

Barbary ape

(Encyclopedia)Barbary ape: see macaque.

Tripolitan War

(Encyclopedia)Tripolitan War trĭpŏlˈĭtən [key], 1800–1815, conflict between the United States and the Barbary States. Piracy had become a normal source of income in the N African Barbary States long before t...

Algerine War

(Encyclopedia)Algerine War ălˈjərēnˌ [key], early 19th-century conflict between Algiers and the United States. The Tripolitan War (1801–5) had brought a temporary halt to the pirate activities of the Barbary...

states' rights

(Encyclopedia)states' rights, in U.S. history, doctrine based on the Tenth Amendment to the Constitution, which states, “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to ...

States-General

(Encyclopedia)States-General or Estates-General, diet or national assembly in which the chief estates (see estate) of a nation—usually clergy, nobles, and towns (or commons)—were represented as separate bodies....

corsair

(Encyclopedia)corsair: see Barbary States; piracy. ...

Eaton, William

(Encyclopedia)Eaton, William, 1764–1811, U.S. army officer, celebrated for his exploit in the Tripolitan War, b. Woodstock, Conn. Captain Eaton was sent to Tunis as consul in 1798 and learned much about the Barba...

Papal States

(Encyclopedia)Papal States, Ital. Lo Stato della Chiesa, from 754 to 1870 an independent territory under the temporal rule of the popes, also called the States of the Church and the Pontifical States. The territory...