How Did Morocco Become the First Country to Recognize the United States?

Written by

Scott Spires

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

History

Although French support for American independence is well known, France was actually the second country to formally recognize the United States as independent. On December 20, 1777, a month and a half before France and the United States concluded their Treaty of Alliance, Sultan Muhammad III (also called Muḥammad ibn ʿAbd Allāh) of Morocco granted de facto recognition to American independence.

A sultan’s initiative

In the 1770s Sultan Muhammad, an enterprising ruler, was looking for ways to expand Morocco’s trade networks. With that purpose, he set about modernizing his country’s ports and signed trade agreements with several European countries. The sultan learned about the American colonists’ war for independence indirectly, through the local French consul and European reports. He took the initiative in December 1777, officially including the United States in a list of countries whose ships were welcome to visit Moroccan ports.

Despite the fact that American leaders paid scant attention to his initial overture, Sultan Muhammad pursued the relationship further. He appointed the French merchant Etienne d’Audibert Caille to serve as an ambassador to countries unrepresented in Morocco, including the United States. It was Caille who in April 1778 wrote directly to Benjamin Franklin—then in Paris—proposing a treaty between Morocco and the United States. When Franklin ignored this first letter, he wrote a second letter to Franklin some months later, prompting the latter to inform the American committee on foreign affairs that the sultan “wondered why we had never sent to thank him for being the first power on this side of the Atlantic that had acknowledged our independence and opened his ports to us.”

Using Franklin again as an intermediary, Caille wrote to Congress in 1779, reiterating Sultan Muhammad’s wish to conclude a treaty. He sent a similar communication to John Jay, then serving as an American representative in Madrid. It was Jay who finally sent the letter and accompanying documents to Congress, which received them in November 1780. Several years of diplomatic inaction followed. The lack of progress caused Sultan Muhammad to take drastic measures. In October 1784 the Moroccans captured an American merchant ship, the Betsey, and announced that the ship and its crew would be held pending the conclusion of a treaty. Finally, after direct talks with the U.S. consul general in Paris, Thomas Barclay (who had traveled to Morocco to finalize the agreement), the Treaty of Peace and Friendship was certified by the sultan’s seal in June 1786. Congress ratified it at the beginning of the next year.

The treaty was initially concluded for a term of 50 years but was renewed indefinitely when that term ended in 1836. It remains in force as the longest-lasting treaty to which the United States is a party. However, full diplomatic relations between the two countries were not established until 1905.

Another early claimant

It is sometimes claimed that the Netherlands was the first country to recognize the United States, thanks to an event that has gone down in history as “the First Salute.” On November 16, 1776, only a few months after the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Dutch-ruled Caribbean island Sint Eustatius fired its artillery in official recognition of the American-flagged ship Andrew Doria. This was done at the order of the island’s governor, Johannes de Graaff.

These early instances of recognition were soon followed by others. The Netherlands offered its formal recognition in 1782, with the first U.S. embassy being set up in The Hague. Spain, Portugal, and Sweden all recognized the United States in 1783—the same year in which the Revolutionary War was ended by the Treaty of Paris. Two countries that no longer exist—the republics of Ragusa and Venice—followed suit later that year. The Treaty of Paris also constituted Britain’s formal recognition of American independence.