Atlantic allies

Special Issue: From Georges Washington to Bush, Americans find common cause in Casablanca | Mindy Belz

CASABLANCA— At the entrance to George Washington Academy stands an olive tree and a cherry tree. They tell a story few Americans know and help to explain why a private school named after America's Founding Father has a place in a Muslim country at the tip of north Africa.

When the Revolutionary War began, American traders who sailed under the British flag suddenly found themselves without protection against Barbary pirates operating in the Atlantic and Mediterranean. French protection was slow to come, and American merchant vessels had nowhere else to turn. The Brits, after all, ruled the seas.

But in 1777 the Sultan of Morocco, Mohammed III, declared that all American ships were to be given the right to freely enter Moroccan ports to "take refreshments and enjoy in them the same privileges and immunities as those of the other nations." This was de facto recognition of American independence—the first—and came as George Washington and his Continental Army hunkered at Valley Forge.