[2] In 1799, the Bey of Tunis, Hammuda ibn Ali, sent ten Tunisian Barbarin sheep as a gift to George Washington.

It was much written about, and is documented in the writings of several noted figures of the time, among them John Adams, George Washington Custis and Thomas Jefferson, and later Charles Roundtree, who in the early twentieth century was secretary of the American Tunis Sheep Breeders Association.

[3][5]: 10  The Tunis became the principal meat breed of the Mid-Atlantic and Upper South regions, but virtually disappeared during the American Civil War.

[3][6] After the Civil War, the Tunis was raised mostly in New England and in the Great Lakes region.

[3] In the late nineteenth century some were moved to Indiana, where there was some cross-breeding with Southdown stock.