Early Recognition and First Treaty

Even before it fully consolidated its independence, the United States had laid the foundations of its relationship with Tunisia in the pragmatic language of trade and diplomacy. The new republic’s merchant ships ventured into the Mediterranean almost from the moment the Revolutionary War had ended. The question of how to secure their passage through waters patrolled by the Barbary powers quickly became one of the young nation’s most pressing foreign policy challenges. The Regency of Tunis proved to be a valuable interlocutor. In 1795, it became one of the first states to engage diplomatically with the newly independent United States, a recognition that carried real weight. That engagement was formalized in 1797, when the two nations signed a Treaty of Peace and Friendship, establishing a framework of formal relations and mutual protections for trade and shipping in the Mediterranean. William Eaton was appointed the first U.S. Consul in Tunis in 1798, arriving in a city that had already demonstrated a willingness to deal with the Americans on terms of relative equality and good faith. In this way, the very earliest chapter of American foreign relations in the Arab world was written not in Europe’s grand capitals but on the North African shore. Tunisia’s place in the American story is older, and deeper, than is commonly remembered.