<P> In 1795, Algeria came to an agreement that resulted in the release of 115 American sailors they held, at a cost of over $1 million . This amount totaled about one - sixth of the entire U.S. budget, and was demanded as tribute by the Barbary States to prevent further piracy . The continuing demand for tribute ultimately led to the formation of the United States Department of the Navy, founded in 1798 to prevent further attacks upon American shipping and to end the demands for extremely large tributes from the Barbary States . </P> <P> Various letters and testimonies by captured sailors describe their captivity as a form of slavery, even though Barbary Coast imprisonment was different from that practiced by the U.S. and European powers of the time . Barbary Coast prisoners were able to obtain wealth and property, along with achieving status beyond that of a slave . One such example was James Leander Cathcart, who rose to the highest position a Christian slave could achieve in Algeria, becoming an adviser to the bey (governor). Even so, most captives were pressed into hard labor in the service of the Barbary pirates, and struggled under extremely poor conditions that exposed them to vermin and disease . As word of their treatment reached the U.S., through freed captives' narratives and letters, Americans pushed for direct government action to stop the piracy against U.S. ships . </P> <P> In March 1786, Thomas Jefferson and John Adams went to London to negotiate with Tripoli's envoy, ambassador Sidi Haji Abdrahaman (or Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja). When they enquired "concerning the ground of the pretensions to make war upon nations who had done them no injury", the ambassador replied: </P> <P> It was written in their Koran, that all nations which had not acknowledged the Prophet were sinners, whom it was the right and duty of the faithful to plunder and enslave; and that every mussulman who was slain in this warfare was sure to go to paradise . He said, also, that the man who was the first to board a vessel had one slave over and above his share, and that when they sprang to the deck of an enemy's ship, every sailor held a dagger in each hand and a third in his mouth; which usually struck such terror into the foe that they cried out for quarter at once . </P>

When did the united states stop paying tribute to the barbary states