Mediterranean Passport for the Ship Commerce

This document is a Mediterranean Passport for the Ship Commerce, issued August 11, 1797, and signed by President John Adams and Secretary of State Timothy Pickering. Mediterranean Passports were special ship passports created after the establishment of a treaty between the United States and Algiers in 1795. This treaty allowed safe passage for American vessels sailing and conducting business in the Mediterranean area in return for tribute paid by the United States. 

Passports were intended to provide proof of official nationality of the vessel, and could not be transferred to other vessels. In an example of an early form of analog authentication, each passport was cut along the top scalloped line, and the top portions were sent to U.S. Consuls along the Barbary Coast. The passports could then be matched top to bottom to verify authenticity. The National Archives at Boston holds Mediterranean Passports collected by Customs Collectors for New Bedford, MA, Salem, MA, and Newport, RI.

View and download the file for Commerce [Ship] on our online Catalog. This record is one example of the many records held in the Mediterranean Passports in the National Archives at Boston, Massachusetts. You can explore more records held at the National Archives at Boston by visiting our online Catalog or by visiting the National Archives at Boston, Massachusetts. This record is located within Record Group 26: Records of the U.S. Coast Guard, Series: Mediterranean Passports, 1797-1845. This collection is fully digitized. We encourage researchers to visit us onsite to learn more about the archival collections held in the National Archives at Boston.