Left to Right:  Moroccan Minister of Culture, Hadj Ahmed Bahnini (in fez), James Tull, and U.S.  Senator Charles (Chuck)  Percy (Illinois)

The Tangier American Legation Museum came into being and thrives because of the devotion of many individuals such as the late James (Jim) Tull who served in Morocco and participated in the opening ceremonies that established TALM in 1976. 

Jim died In December 2005 just before Christmas after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease.  He was present at the founding of the Tangier American Legation Museum Society (TALMS).  In 1975, one of Jim’s first projects as Public Affairs Officer at the American Embassy in Rabat was to help prepare "something" for the upcoming Bicentennial of American Independence. Fossicking—one of Jim's favorite words—in the embassy files in 1975, Jim learned that the United States had something truly worthy of celebration in Morocco - no less than one hundred ninety years of treaty relations.  Using documents from the embassy and copies of American consuls' letters from the National Archives, Jim and his excellent staff in Rabat put together an exhibit on American-Moroccan relations. This exhibit was sent to Tangier in 1976 to be exhibited at the old Legation building as part of the opening ceremonies of the Tangier American Legation Museum.

The Barclay Project—Documenting an American Patriot

Following his retirement from the Foreign Service, Jim maintained his interest in world affairs, current events, and Morocco, an interest that informed the research and writing on American diplomat, Thomas Barclay, in which he and Priscilla Roberts collaborated. Jim and Priscilla Roberts, TALMS Fellow and founding organizer of the TALMS Research Library, met through their mutual association with TALMS; it was at a Board meeting that they discovered a common interest in Thomas Barclay (1728-1793),  Barclay was the American diplomat who met with Moroccan Sultan Sidi Muhammad 219 years ago and negotiated the U.S.-Moroccan Treaty of Friendship of 1778 that remains the longest unbroken treaty relationship in United States history.

Beginning in 1990 Priscilla Roberts and Jim Tull set out to track down some biographical information on Thomas Barclay. Priscilla Roberts explains: “Initially we figured we could find information in the usual American biographical dictionaries, photocopy the appropriate pages, and ship them off to the TALM research library for its vertical file on Barclay.  When we drew blanks in our preliminary research, we kept digging and digging.  Thus began our long collaboration into the life and times of Thomas Barclay, first American consul in France, 1781-1787, and the man who negotiated our treaty with Morocco in 1786, the first with a non-European nation. Our collaboration continued over the years in spite of life-threatening illnesses, a spouse's death, a civil war in Rwanda, loss of research notes and papers, failing eyesight, hard-to-read 18th-century manuscripts, and impossibly antiquated microfilm readers. Jim was there through it all, faithfully squinting at documents, persevering over illegible ancient handwriting, transcribing hundreds of 18th century letters, and in his inimitable way pulling it all together into coherent, readable form. 

Our collaboration resulted in the following publications: "The Forgotten Patriot," Foreign Service Journal, October 1994, 24-30; "Emissary to Barbary, Aramco World, September/October 1998, 28-35; "Moroccan Sultan Sidi Muhammad ibn Abdallah's Diplomatic Initiatives Toward the United States, 1777-1786," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,  vol. 143, no. 2 (June 1999), 233-265; and "Adam Hoops, Thomas Barclay, and the House in Morrisville Known as Summerseat, 1764-1791," Transactions of the American Philosophical Society ,vol. 90, Pt. 5 (2005), 106p. Our magnum opus, tentatively titled "'A Person in the Highest Confidence': Thomas Barclay, 1728-1793: Consul in France, Diplomat in Barbary," is currently making the rounds of readers and hopefully will find a publisher this year.

About five years ago Jim sent me a headline from a newspaper article: "Hard work fills gaps in history."  Taped to my desk, I look at it everyday.  It is Jim's hard work and his unflagging enthusiasm up to the very end of his life that has helped to bring the Barclay Project to fruition.”

Priscilla Roberts

Denver Colorado

Return to Contents

Return to Main Page

© TALMS and/or the writers and photographers reserve the rights to all graphic and textual content within this site.