fbpx
Wikipedia

Piracy

Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, vessels used for piracy are pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy,[1] as well as for privateering and commerce raiding. Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks.[2][3] The term piracy generally refers to maritime piracy, although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land,[4] in the air, on computer networks, and (in science fiction), outer space. Piracy usually excludes crimes committed by the perpetrator on their own vessel (e.g. theft), as well as privateering, which implies authorization by a state government.

The traditional "Jolly Roger" of piracy

Piracy or pirating is the name of a specific crime under customary international law and also the name of a number of crimes under the municipal law of a number of states. In the early 21st century, seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US$16 billion per year in 2004),[5] particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore. Modern-day pirates are armed with automatic weapons, such as assault rifles, and machine guns, grenades and rocket propelled grenades. They often use small motorboats to attack and board ships, a tactic that takes advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels and transport ships. The international community is facing many challenges in bringing modern pirates to justice, as these attacks often occur in international waters.[6] Nations have used their naval forces to repel and pursue pirates, and some private vessels use armed security guards, high-pressure water cannons, or sound cannons to repel boarders, and use radar to avoid potential threats.

Romanticised accounts of piracy during the Age of Sail have long been a part of Western pop culture. The two-volume A General History of the Pyrates, published in London in 1724, is generally credited with bringing key piratical figures and a semi-accurate description of their milieu in the "Golden Age of Piracy" to the public's imagination. The General History inspired and informed many later fictional depictions of piracy, most notably the novels Treasure Island (1883) and Peter Pan (1911), both of which have been adapted and readapted for stage, film, television, and other media across over a century. More recently, pirates of the "golden age" were further stereotyped and popularized by the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, which began in 2003.

Etymology

The English word "pirate" is derived from the Latin pirata ("pirate, corsair, sea robber"), which comes from Greek πειρατής (peiratēs), "brigand",[7] in turn from πειράομαι (peiráomai), "I attempt", from πεῖρα (peîra), "attempt, experience".[8] The meaning of the Greek word peiratēs literally is "anyone who attempts something". Over time it came to be used of anyone who engaged in robbery or brigandry on land or sea.[9]The term first appeared in English c. 1300.[10] Spelling did not become standardised until the eighteenth century, and spellings such as "pirrot", "pyrate" and "pyrat" occurred until this period.[11][12]

History

Europe

Antiquity

 
Mosaic of a Roman trireme in Tunisia

The earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC. In classical antiquity, the Phoenicians, Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates. In the pre-classical era, the ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession; it apparently was widespread and "regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living".[13] References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence in many texts including in Homer's Iliad and Odyssey, and abduction of women and children to be sold into slavery was common. By the era of Classical Greece, piracy was looked upon as a "disgrace" to have as a profession.[13][14]

In the 3rd century BC, pirate attacks on Olympus in Lycia brought impoverishment. Among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians, a people populating the western Balkan peninsula. Constantly raiding the Adriatic Sea, the Illyrians caused many conflicts with the Roman Republic. It was not until 229 BC when the Romans finally decisively beat the Illyrian fleets that their threat was ended.[15] During the 1st century BC, there were pirate states along the Anatolian coast, threatening the commerce of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean. On one voyage across the Aegean Sea in 75 BC,[16] Julius Caesar was kidnapped and briefly held by Cilician pirates and held prisoner in the Dodecanese islet of Pharmacusa.[17] The Senate finally invested the general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus with powers to deal with piracy in 67 BC (the Lex Gabinia), and Pompey, after three months of naval warfare, managed to suppress the threat.

As early as 258 AD, the Gothic-Herulic fleet ravaged towns on the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara. The Aegean coast suffered similar attacks a few years later. In 264, the Goths reached Galatia and Cappadocia, and Gothic pirates landed on Cyprus and Crete. In the process, the Goths seized enormous booty and took thousands into captivity.[citation needed] In 286 AD, Carausius, a Roman military commander of Gaulish origins, was appointed to command the Classis Britannica, and given the responsibility of eliminating Frankish and Saxon pirates who had been raiding the coasts of Armorica and Belgic Gaul. In the Roman province of Britannia, Saint Patrick was captured and enslaved by Irish pirates.

Middle Ages

 
A fleet of Vikings, painted mid-12th century

The most widely recognized and far-reaching pirates in medieval Europe were the Vikings,[18] seaborne warriors from Scandinavia who raided and looted mainly between the 8th and 12th centuries, during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages. They raided the coasts, rivers and inland cities of all Western Europe as far as Seville, which was attacked by the Norse in 844. Vikings also attacked the coasts of North Africa and Italy and plundered all the coasts of the Baltic Sea. Some Vikings ascended the rivers of Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia.

In the Late Middle Ages, the Frisian pirates known as Arumer Zwarte Hoop led by Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijerd Jelckama, fought against the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V with some success.

Toward the end of the 9th century, Moorish pirate havens were established along the coast of southern France and northern Italy.[19] In 846 Moor raiders sacked the extra muros Basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Rome. In 911, the bishop of Narbonne was unable to return to France from Rome because the Moors from Fraxinet controlled all the passes in the Alps. Moor pirates operated out of the Balearic Islands in the 10th century. From 824 to 961 Arab pirates in the Emirate of Crete raided the entire Mediterranean. In the 14th century, raids by Moor pirates forced the Venetian Duke of Crete to ask Venice to keep its fleet on constant guard.[citation needed]

After the Slavic invasions of the former Roman province of Dalmatia in the 5th and 6th centuries, a tribe called the Narentines revived the old Illyrian piratical habits and often raided the Adriatic Sea starting in the 7th century. Their raids in the Adriatic increased rapidly, until the whole Sea was no longer safe for travel.

The Narentines took more liberties in their raiding quests while the Venetian Navy was abroad, as when it was campaigning in Sicilian waters in 827–882. As soon as the Venetian fleet would return to the Adriatic, the Narentines momentarily outcasted their habits again, even signing a Treaty in Venice and baptising their Slavic pagan leader into Christianity. In 834 or 835 they broke the treaty and again they raided Venetian traders returning from Benevento, and all of Venice's military attempts to punish them in 839 and 840 utterly failed. Later, they raided the Venetians more often, together with the Arabs. In 846, the Narentines broke through to Venice itself and raided its lagoon city of Caorle. This caused a Byzantine military action against them that finally brought Christianity to them. After the Arab raids on the Adriatic coast circa 872 and the retreat of the Imperial Navy, the Narentines continued their raids of Venetian waters, causing new conflicts with the Italians in 887–888. The Venetians futilely continued to fight them throughout the 10th and 11th centuries.

Domagoj was accused of attacking a ship which was bringing home the papal legates who had participated in the Eighth Catholic Ecumenical Council, after which Pope John VIII addresses to Domagoj with request that his pirates stop attacking Christians at sea.[20][21]

 
The Vitalienbrüder. Piracy became endemic in the Baltic sea in the Middle Ages because of the Victual Brothers.

In 937, Irish pirates sided with the Scots, Vikings, Picts, and Welsh in their invasion of England. Athelstan drove them back.

The Slavic piracy in the Baltic Sea ended with the Danish conquest of the Rani stronghold of Arkona in 1168. In the 12th century the coasts of western Scandinavia were plundered by Curonians and Oeselians from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. In the 13th and 14th century, pirates threatened the Hanseatic routes and nearly brought sea trade to the brink of extinction. The Victual Brothers of Gotland were a companionship of privateers who later turned to piracy as the Likedeelers. They were especially noted for their leaders Klaus Störtebeker and Gödeke Michels. Until about 1440, maritime trade in both the North Sea, the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia was seriously in danger of attack by the pirates.

H. Thomas Milhorn mentions a certain Englishman named William Maurice, convicted of piracy in 1241, as the first person known to have been hanged, drawn and quartered,[22] which would indicate that the then-ruling King Henry III took an especially severe view of this crime.

The ushkuiniks were Novgorodian pirates who looted the cities on the Volga and Kama Rivers in the 14th century.

 
"Cossacks of Azov fighting a Turk ship" by Grigory Gagarin

As early as Byzantine times, the Maniots (one of Greece's toughest populations) were known as pirates. The Maniots considered piracy as a legitimate response to the fact that their land was poor and it became their main source of income. The main victims of Maniot pirates were the Ottomans but the Maniots also targeted ships of European countries.

Zaporizhian Sich was a pirate republic in Europe from the 16th through to the 18th century. Situated in Cossack territory in the remote steppe of Eastern Europe, it was populated with Ukrainian peasants that had run away from their feudal masters, outlaws, destitute gentry, run-away slaves from Turkish galleys, etc. The remoteness of the place and the rapids at the Dnieper river effectively guarded the place from invasions of vengeful powers. The main target of the inhabitants of Zaporizhian Sich who called themselves "Cossacks" were rich settlements at the Black Sea shores of Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate.[citation needed] By 1615 and 1625, Zaporozhian Cossacks had even managed to raze townships on the outskirts of Istanbul, forcing the Ottoman Sultan to flee his palace.[citation needed] Don Cossacks under Stenka Razin even ravaged the Persian coasts.[23][unreliable source?]

Mediterranean corsairs

 
French ship under attack by Barbary pirates, ca. 1615

Though less famous and romanticized than Atlantic or Caribbean pirates, corsairs in the Mediterranean equaled or outnumbered the former at any given point in history.[24] Mediterranean piracy was conducted almost entirely with galleys until the mid-17th century, when they were gradually replaced with highly maneuverable sailing vessels such as xebecs and brigantines. They were, however, of a smaller type than battle galleys, often referred to as galiots or fustas.[25] Pirate galleys were small, nimble, lightly armed, but often crewed in large numbers in order to overwhelm the often minimal crews of merchant ships. In general, pirate craft were extremely difficult for patrolling craft to actually hunt down and capture. Anne Hilarion de Tourville, a French admiral of the 17th century, believed that the only way to run down raiders from the infamous corsair Moroccan port of Salé was by using a captured pirate vessel of the same type.[26] Using oared vessels to combat pirates was common, and was even practiced by the major powers in the Caribbean. Purpose-built galleys (or hybrid sailing vessels) were built by the English in Jamaica in 1683[27] and by the Spanish in the late 16th century.[28] Specially-built sailing frigates with oar-ports on the lower decks, like the James Galley and Charles Galley, and oar-equipped sloops proved highly useful for pirate hunting, though they were not built in sufficient numbers to check piracy until the 1720s.[29]

The expansion of Muslim power through the Ottoman conquest of large parts of the eastern Mediterranean in the 15th and 16th century resulted in extensive piracy on sea trading. The so-called Barbary pirates began to operate out of North African ports in Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, Morocco around 1500, preying primarily on the shipping of Christian powers, including massive slave raids at sea as well as on land. The Barbary pirates were nominally under Ottoman suzerainty, but had considerable independence to prey on the enemies of Islam. The Muslim corsairs were technically often privateers with support from legitimate, though highly belligerent, states. They considered themselves as holy Muslim warriors, or ghazis,[30] carrying on the tradition of fighting the incursion of Western Christians that had begun with the First Crusade late in the 11th century.[31]

 
The Bombardment of Algiers by the Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1816 to support the ultimatum to release European slaves

Coastal villages and towns of Italy, Spain and islands in the Mediterranean were frequently attacked by Muslim corsairs, and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants; after 1600 the Barbary corsairs occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland. According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary corsairs and sold as slaves in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. The most famous corsairs were the Ottoman Albanian Hayreddin and his older brother Oruç Reis (Redbeard), Turgut Reis (known as Dragut in the West), Kurtoglu (known as Curtogoli in the West), Kemal Reis, Salih Reis and Koca Murat Reis. A few Barbary corsairs, such as the Dutch Jan Janszoon and the English John Ward (Muslim name Yusuf Reis), were renegade European privateers who had converted to Islam.[32][33]

The Barbary pirates had a direct Christian counterpart in the military order of the Knights of Saint John that operated first out of Rhodes and after 1530 Malta, though they were less numerous and took fewer slaves. Both sides waged war against the respective enemies of their faith, and both used galleys as their primary weapons. Both sides also used captured or bought galley slaves to man the oars of their ships; the Muslims relying mostly on captured Christians, the Christians using a mix of Muslim slaves, Christian convicts and a small contingency of buonavoglie, free men who out of desperation or poverty had taken to rowing.[31]

Historian Peter Earle has described the two sides of the Christian-Muslim Mediterranean conflict as "mirror image[s] of maritime predation, two businesslike fleets of plunderers set against each other".[34] This conflict of faith in the form of privateering, piracy and slave raiding generated a complex system that was upheld/financed/operated on the trade in plunder and slaves that was generated from a low-intensive conflict, as well as the need for protection from violence. The system has been described as a "massive, multinational protection racket",[35] the Christian side of which was not ended until 1798 in the Napoleonic Wars. The Barbary corsairs were finally quelled as late as the 1830s, effectively ending the last vestiges of counter-crusading jihad.[36]

 
Amaro Pargo was one of the most famous corsairs of the Golden Age of Piracy

Piracy off the Barbary coast was often assisted by competition among European powers in the 17th century. France encouraged the corsairs against Spain, and later Britain and Holland supported them against France. However, by the second half of the 17th century the greater European naval powers began to initiate reprisals to intimidate the Barbary States into making peace with them. The most successful of the Christian states in dealing with the corsair threat was England.[citation needed] From the 1630s onwards England had signed peace treaties with the Barbary States on various occasions, but invariably breaches of these agreements led to renewed wars. A particular bone of contention was the tendency of foreign ships to pose as English to avoid attack. However, growing English naval power and increasingly persistent operations against the corsairs proved increasingly costly for the Barbary States. During the reign of Charles II a series of English expeditions won victories over raiding squadrons and mounted attacks on their home ports which permanently ended the Barbary threat to English shipping. In 1675 a bombardment from a Royal Navy squadron led by Sir John Narborough and further defeats at the hands of a squadron under Arthur Herbert negotiated a lasting peace (until 1816) with Tunis and Tripoli.[citation needed]

France, which had recently emerged as a leading naval power, achieved comparable success soon afterwards, with bombardments of Algiers in 1682, 1683 and 1688 securing a lasting peace, while Tripoli was similarly coerced in 1686. In 1783 and 1784 the Spaniards also bombarded Algiers in an effort to stem the piracy. The second time, Admiral Barceló damaged the city so severely that the Algerian Dey asked Spain to negotiate a peace treaty and from then on Spanish vessels and coasts were safe for several years.

Until the American Declaration of Independence in 1776, British treaties with the North African states protected American ships from the Barbary corsairs. Morocco, which in 1777 was the first independent nation to publicly recognize the United States, became in 1784 the first Barbary power to seize an American vessel after independence. While the United States managed to secure peace treaties, these obliged it to pay tribute for protection from attack. Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20% of United States government annual expenditures in 1800,[37] leading to the Barbary Wars that ended the payment of tribute. However, Algiers broke the 1805 peace treaty after only two years, and subsequently refused to implement the 1815 treaty until compelled to do so by Britain in 1816.

In 1815, the sacking of Palma on the island of Sardinia by a Tunisian squadron, which carried off 158 inhabitants, roused widespread indignation. Britain had by this time banned the slave trade and was seeking to induce other countries to do likewise. This led to complaints from states which were still vulnerable to the corsairs that Britain's enthusiasm for ending the trade in African slaves did not extend to stopping the enslavement of Europeans and Americans by the Barbary States.

 
U.S. naval officer Stephen Decatur boarding a Tripolitan gunboat during the First Barbary War, 1804

In order to neutralise this objection and further the anti-slavery campaign, in 1816 Lord Exmouth was sent to secure new concessions from Tripoli, Tunis, and Algiers, including a pledge to treat Christian captives in any future conflict as prisoners of war rather than slaves and the imposition of peace between Algiers and the kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily. On his first visit he negotiated satisfactory treaties and sailed for home. While he was negotiating, a number of Sardinian fishermen who had settled at Bona on the Tunisian coast were brutally treated without his knowledge. As Sardinians they were technically under British protection and the government sent Exmouth back to secure reparation. On August 17, in combination with a Dutch squadron under Admiral Van de Capellen, he bombarded Algiers.[38] Both Algiers and Tunis made fresh concessions as a result.

However, securing uniform compliance with a total prohibition of slave-raiding, which was traditionally of central importance to the North African economy, presented difficulties beyond those faced in ending attacks on ships of individual nations, which had left slavers able to continue their accustomed way of life by preying on less well-protected peoples. Algiers subsequently renewed its slave-raiding, though on a smaller scale. Measures to be taken against the city's government were discussed at the Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818. In 1820 another British fleet under Admiral Sir Harry Neal again bombarded Algiers. Corsair activity based in Algiers did not entirely cease until its conquest by France in 1830.[38]

Southeast Asia

 
A 19th-century illustration of an Iranun pirate

In thalassocratic Austronesian cultures in Island Southeast Asia, maritime raids for slaves and resources against rival polities have ancient origins. It was associated with prestige and prowess and often recorded in tattoos. Reciprocal raiding traditions were recorded by early European cultures as being prevalent throughout Island Southeast Asia.[39][40][41][42][43]

 
Iban war prahu in Skerang river
 
1890 illustration by Rafael Monleón of a late 18th-century Iranun lanong warship. The Malay word for "pirate", lanun, originates from an exonym of the Iranun people
 
Double-barrelled lantaka cannons, kalasag shields, armor, and various swords (including kalis, panabas, and kampilan) used by Moro pirates in the Philippines (c. 1900)

With the advent of the Islam and the colonial era, slaves became a valuable resource for trading with European, Arab, and Chinese slavers, and the volume of piracy and slave raids increased significantly.[43] Numerous native peoples engaged in sea raiding, they include the Iranun and Balanguingui slavers of Sulu, the Iban headhunters of Borneo, the Bugis sailors of South Sulawesi, and the Malays of western Southeast Asia. Piracy was also practiced by foreign seafarers on a smaller scale, including Chinese, Japanese, and European traders, renegades, and outlaws.[41] The volume of piracy and raids were often dependent on the ebb and flow of trade and monsoons, with pirate season (known colloquially as the "Pirate Wind") starting from August to September.[40]

Slave raids was particularly economically important to the Muslim Sultanates in the Sulu Sea: the Sultanate of Sulu, the Sultanate of Maguindanao, and the Confederation of Sultanates in Lanao (the modern Moro people). It is estimated that from 1770 to 1870, around 200,000 to 300,000 people were enslaved by Iranun and Banguingui slavers.[39][40] David P. Forsythe put the estimate much higher, at around 2 million slaves captured within the first two centuries of Spanish rule of the Philippines after 1565.[44]

 
Spanish warships bombarding the Moro Pirates of the southern Philippines in 1848

These slaves were taken from piracy on passing ships as well as coastal raids on settlements as far as the Malacca Strait, Java, the southern coast of China and the islands beyond the Makassar Strait. Most of the slaves were Tagalogs, Visayans, and "Malays" (including Bugis, Mandarese, Iban, and Makassar). There were also occasional European and Chinese captives who were usually ransomed off through Tausug intermediaries of the Sulu Sultanate. Slaves were the primary indicators of wealth and status, and they were the source of labor for the farms, fisheries, and workshops of the sultanates. While personal slaves were rarely sold, they trafficked extensively in slaves purchased from the Iranun and Banguingui slave markets. By the 1850s, slaves constituted 50% or more of the population of the Sulu archipelago.[39][41][40]

The scale was so massive that the word for "pirate" in Malay became lanun, an exonym of the Iranun people. The economy of the Sulu sultanates was largely run by slaves and the slave trade. Male captives of the Iranun and the Banguingui were treated brutally, even fellow Muslim captives were not spared. They were usually forced to serve as galley slaves on the lanong and garay warships of their captors. Female captives, however, were usually treated better. There were no recorded accounts of rapes, though some were starved for discipline. Within a year of capture, most of the captives of the Iranun and Banguingui would be bartered off in Jolo usually for rice, opium, bolts of cloth, iron bars, brassware, and weapons. The buyers were usually Tausug datu from the Sultanate of Sulu who had preferential treatment, but buyers also included European (Dutch and Portuguese) and Chinese traders as well as Visayan pirates (renegados).[40]

 
British forces engaging Iranun pirates off Sarawak in 1843

Spanish authorities and native Christian Filipinos responded to the Moro slave raids by building watchtowers and forts across the Philippine archipelago, many of which are still standing today. Some provincial capitals were also moved further inland. Major command posts were built in Manila, Cavite, Cebu, Iloilo, Zamboanga, and Iligan. Defending ships were also built by local communities, especially in the Visayas Islands, including the construction of war "barangayanes" (balangay) that were faster than the Moro raiders and could give chase. As resistance against raiders increased, Lanong warships of the Iranun were eventually replaced by the smaller and faster garay warships of the Banguingui in the early 19th century. The Moro raids were eventually subdued by several major naval expeditions by the Spanish and local forces from 1848 to 1891, including retaliatory bombardment and capture of Moro settlements. By this time, the Spanish had also acquired steam gunboats (vapor), which could easily overtake and destroy the native Moro warships.[39][45][46]

Aside from the Iranun and Banguingui pirates, other polities were also associated with maritime raiding. The Bugis sailors of South Sulawesi were infamous as pirates who used to range as far west as Singapore and as far north as the Philippines in search of targets for piracy.[47] The Orang laut pirates controlled shipping in the Straits of Malacca and the waters around Singapore,[48] and the Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo.[49]

East Asia

In East Asia by the ninth century, populations centered mostly around merchant activities in coastal Shandong and Jiangsu. Wealthy benefactors, including Jang Bogo established Silla Buddhist temples in the region. Jang Bogo had become incensed at the treatment of his fellow countrymen, who in the unstable milieu of late Tang often fell victim to coastal pirates or inland bandits. After returning to Silla around 825, and in possession of a formidable private fleet headquartered at Cheonghae (Wando), Jang Bogo petitioned the Silla king Heungdeok (r. 826–836) to establish a permanent maritime garrison to protect Silla merchant activities in the Yellow Sea. Heungdeok agreed and in 828 formally established the Cheonghae (淸海, "clear sea") Garrison(청해진) at what is today Wando island off Korea's South Jeolla province. Heungdeok gave Jang an army of 10,000 men to establish and man the defensive works. The remnants of Cheonghae Garrison can still be seen on Jang islet just off Wando's southern coast. Jang's force, though nominally bequeathed by the Silla king, was effectively under his own control. Jang became arbiter of Yellow Sea commerce and navigation.[50]

From the 13th century, Wokou based in Japan made their debut in East Asia, initiating invasions that would persist for 300 years. The wokou raids peaked in the 1550s, but by then the wokou were mostly Chinese smugglers who reacted strongly against the Ming dynasty's strict prohibition on private sea trade.

 
Sixteenth century Japanese pirate raids

During the Qing period, Chinese pirate fleets grew increasingly large. The effects large-scale piracy had on the Chinese economy were immense. They preyed voraciously on China's junk trade, which flourished in Fujian and Guangdong and was a vital artery of Chinese commerce. Pirate fleets exercised hegemony over villages on the coast, collecting revenue by exacting tribute and running extortion rackets. In 1802, the menacing Zheng Yi inherited the fleet of his cousin, captain Zheng Qi, whose death provided Zheng Yi with considerably more influence in the world of piracy. Zheng Yi and his wife, Zheng Yi Sao (who would eventually inherit the leadership of his pirate confederacy) then formed a pirate coalition that, by 1804, consisted of over ten thousand men. Their military might alone was sufficient to combat the Qing navy. However, a combination of famine, Qing naval opposition, and internal rifts crippled piracy in China around the 1820s, and it has never again reached the same status.

In the 1840s and 1850s, United States Navy and Royal Navy forces campaigned together against Chinese pirates. Major battles were fought such as those at Ty-ho Bay and the Tonkin River though pirate junks continued operating off China for years more. However, some British and American individual citizens also volunteered to serve with Chinese pirates to fight against European forces. The British offered rewards for the capture of westerners serving with Chinese pirates. During the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion, piratical junks were again destroyed in large numbers by British naval forces but ultimately it wasn't until the 1860s and 1870s that fleets of pirate junks ceased to exist.

 
Four Chinese pirates who were hanged in Hong Kong in 1863

Chinese Pirates also plagued the Tonkin Gulf area.[51][52]

Piracy in the Ming dynasty

Pirates in the Ming era tended to come from populations on the geographic periphery of the state.[53] They were recruited largely from the lower classes of society, including poor fishermen, and many were fleeing from obligatory labor on state-building projects organized by the dynasty. These lower-class men, and sometimes women, may have fled taxation or conscription by the state in the search of better opportunities and wealth, and willingly joined local pirate bands.[54][55] These local, lower class individuals seem to have felt unrepresented, and traded the small amount of security afforded them from their allegiance to the state for the promise of a relatively improved existence engaging in smuggling or other illegal trade.

Originally, pirates in the coastal areas near Fujian and Zhejiang may have been Japanese, suggested by the Ming government referring to them as “wokou (倭寇),” but it is probable that piracy was a multi-ethnic profession by the 16th century, although coastal brigands continued to be referred to as wokou in many government documents.[56] Most pirates were probably Han Chinese, but Japanese and even Europeans engaged in pirate activities in the region.[57]

Illegal trade and authority

Pirates engaged in a number of different schemes to make a living. Smuggling and illegal trade overseas were major sources of revenue for pirate bands, both large and small.[58] As the Ming government mostly outlawed private trade overseas, at least until the overseas silver trade contributed to a lifting of the ban, pirates basically could almost by default control the market for any number of foreign goods.[58][59][60] The geography of the coastline made chasing pirates quite difficult for the authorities, and private overseas trade began to transform coastal societies by the 15th century, as nearly all aspects of the local society benefitted from or associated with illegal trade.[61] The desire to trade for silver eventually led to open conflict between the Ming and illegal smugglers and pirates. This conflict, along with local merchants in southern China, helped persuade the Ming court to end the haijin ban on private international trade in 1567.[60]

Pirates also projected local political authority.[62] Larger pirate bands could act as local governing bodies for coastal communities, collecting taxes and engaging in “protection” schemes. In addition to illegal goods, pirates ostensibly offered security to communities on land in exchange for a tax.[63] These bands also wrote and codified laws that redistributed wealth, punished crimes, and provided protection for the taxed community.[62] These laws were strictly followed by the pirates, as well.[64] The political structures tended to look similar to the Ming structures.[64]

Hierarchy and structure

Pirates did not tend to stay pirates permanently. It seems to have been relatively easy both to join and leave a pirate band, and these raiding groups were more interested in maintaining a willing force.[65] Members of these pirate groups did not tend to stay longer than a few months or years at a time.[65]

There appears to have been a hierarchy in most pirate organizations. Pirate leaders could become very wealthy and powerful, especially when working with the Chinese dynasty, and, consequently, so could those who served under them.[63] These pirate groups were organized similarly to other “escape societies” throughout history, and maintained a redistributive system to reward looting; the pirates directly responsible for looting or pillaging got their cut first, and the rest was allocated to the rest of the pirate community.[63] There seems to be evidence that there was an egalitarian aspect to these communities, with capability to do the job being rewarded explicitly. The pirates themselves had some special privileges under the law when they interacted with communities on land, mostly in the form of extra allotments of redistributed wealth.[63]

Clientele

Pirates, of course, had to sell their loot. They had trading relationships with land communities and foreign traders in the southeastern regions of China. Zhu Wan, who held the office of Grand Coordinator for Coastal Defense, documented that pirates in the region to which he had been sent had the support of the local elite gentry class.[66] These “pirates in gowns and caps” directly or indirectly sponsored pirate activity and certainly directly benefitted from the illegal private trade in the region. When Zhu Wan or other officials from the capital attempted to eliminate the pirate problem, these local elites fought back, having Zhu Wan demoted and eventually even sent back to Beijing to possibly be executed.[67] The gentry who benefitted from illegal maritime trade were too powerful and influential, and they were clearly very invested in the smuggling activities of the pirate community.[68]

In addition to their relationship with the local elite class on the coast, pirates also had complicated and often friendly relationships and partnerships with the dynasty itself, as well as with international traders.[69] When pirate groups recognized the authority of the dynasty, they would often be allowed to operate freely and even profit from the relationship. There were also opportunities for these pirates to ally themselves with colonial projects from Europe or other overseas powers.[70] Both the dynasty and foreign colonial projects would employ pirates as mercenaries to establish dominance in the coastal region.[71] Because of how difficult it was for established state powers to control these regions, pirates seem to have had a lot of freedom to choose their allies and their preferred markets.[72] Included in this list of possible allies, sea marauders and pirates even found opportunities to bribe military officials as they engaged in illegal trade.[73] They seem to have been incentivized mostly by money and loot, and so could afford to play the field with regards to their political or military allies.

Because pirate organizations could be so powerful locally, the Ming government made concerted efforts to weaken them. The presence of colonial projects complicated this, however, as pirates could ally themselves with other maritime powers or local elites to stay in business. The Chinese government was clearly aware of the power of some of these pirate groups, as some documents even refer to them as “sea rebels,” a reference to the political nature of pirates.[70] Pirates like Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong accrued tremendous local power, eventually even being hired as naval commanders by the Chinese dynasties and foreign maritime powers.[74]

South Asia

Pirates who accepted the Royal Pardon from the Chola Empire would get to serve in the Chola Navy as "Kallarani". They would be used as coast guards, or sent on recon missions to deal with Arab piracy in the Arabian Sea. Their function is similar to the 18th century privateers, used by the Royal Navy.

Starting in the 14th century, the Deccan (Southern Peninsular region of India) was divided into two entities: on the one side stood the Muslim Bahmani Sultanate and on the other stood the Hindu kings rallied around the Vijayanagara Empire. Continuous wars demanded frequent resupplies of fresh horses, which were imported through sea routes from Persia and Africa. This trade was subjected to frequent raids by thriving bands of pirates based in the coastal cities of Western India. One of such was Timoji, who operated off Anjadip Island both as a privateer (by seizing horse traders, that he rendered to the raja of Honavar) and as a pirate who attacked the Kerala merchant fleets that traded pepper with Gujarat.

During the 16th and 17th centuries, there was frequent European piracy against Mughal Indian merchants, especially those en route to Mecca for Hajj. The situation came to a head when the Portuguese attacked and captured the vessel Rahimi which belonged to Mariam Zamani the Mughal queen, which led to the Mughal seizure of the Portuguese town Daman.[75] In the 18th century, the famous Maratha privateer Kanhoji Angre ruled the seas between Mumbai and Goa.[76] The Marathas attacked British shipping and insisted that East India Company ships pay taxes if sailing through their waters.[77]

Persian Gulf

The southern coast of the Persian Gulf was known to the British from the late 18th century as the Pirate Coast, where control of the seaways of the Persian Gulf was asserted by the Qawasim (Al Qasimi) and other local maritime powers. Memories of the privations carried out on the coast by Portuguese raiders under Albuquerque were long and local powers antipathetic as a consequence to Christian powers asserting dominance of their coastal waters.[78] Early British expeditions to protect the Imperial Indian Ocean trade from competitors, principally the Al Qasimi from Ras Al Khaimah and Lingeh, led to campaigns against those headquarters and other harbours along the coast in 1809 and then, after a relapse in raiding, again in 1819.[79] This led to the signing of the first formal treaty of maritime peace between the British and the rulers of several coastal sheikhdoms in 1820. This was cemented by the Treaty of Maritime Peace in Perpetuity in 1853, resulting in the British label for the area, 'Pirate Coast' being softened to the 'Trucial Coast', with several emirates being recognised by the British as Trucial States.[78]

Madagascar

 
The cemetery of past pirates at Île Ste-Marie (St. Mary's Island)

At one point, there were nearly 1,000 pirates located in Madagascar.[80] Île Sainte-Marie was a popular base for pirates throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The most famous pirate utopia is that of the probably fictional Captain Misson and his pirate crew, who allegedly founded the free colony of Libertatia in northern Madagascar in the late 17th century, until it was destroyed in a surprise attack by the island natives in 1694.[81]

The Caribbean

 
Jacques de Sores looting and burning Havana in 1555
 
Puerto del Príncipe being sacked in 1668 by Henry Morgan
 
Book about pirates "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers" was first published in 1678 in Amsterdam

The classic era of piracy in the Caribbean lasted from circa 1650 until the mid-1720s.[82] By 1650, France, England and the United Provinces began to develop their colonial empires. This involved considerable seaborne trade, and a general economic improvement: there was money to be made – or stolen – and much of it traveled by ship.

French buccaneers were established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625,[83] but lived at first mostly as hunters rather than robbers; their transition to full-time piracy was gradual and motivated in part by Spanish efforts to wipe out both the buccaneers and the prey animals on which they depended. The buccaneers' migration from Hispaniola's mainland to the more defensible offshore island of Tortuga limited their resources and accelerated their piratical raids. According to Alexandre Exquemelin, a buccaneer and historian who remains a major source on this period, the Tortuga buccaneer Pierre Le Grand pioneered the settlers' attacks on galleons making the return voyage to Spain.

The growth of buccaneering on Tortuga was augmented by the English capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655. The early English governors of Jamaica freely granted letters of marque to Tortuga buccaneers and to their own countrymen, while the growth of Port Royal provided these raiders with a far more profitable and enjoyable place to sell their booty. In the 1660s, the new French governor of Tortuga, Bertrand d'Ogeron, similarly provided privateering commissions both to his own colonists and to English cutthroats from Port Royal. These conditions brought Caribbean buccaneering to its zenith.

 
Henry Every is shown selling his loot in this engraving by Howard Pyle. Every's capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695 stands as one of the most profitable pirate raids ever perpetrated.

A new phase of piracy began in the 1690s as English pirates began to look beyond the Caribbean for treasure. The fall of Britain's Stuart kings had restored the traditional enmity between Britain and France, thus ending the profitable collaboration between English Jamaica and French Tortuga. The devastation of Port Royal by an earthquake in 1692 further reduced the Caribbean's attractions by destroying the pirates' chief market for fenced plunder.[84] Caribbean colonial governors began to discard the traditional policy of "no peace beyond the Line," under which it was understood that war would continue (and thus letters of marque would be granted) in the Caribbean regardless of peace treaties signed in Europe; henceforth, commissions would be granted only in wartime, and their limitations would be strictly enforced. Furthermore, much of the Spanish Main had simply been exhausted; Maracaibo alone had been sacked three times between 1667 and 1678,[85] while Río de la Hacha had been raided five times and Tolú eight.[86]

 
Bartholomew Roberts was the pirate with most captures during the Golden Age of Piracy. He is now known for hanging the governor of Martinique from the yardarm of his ship.

At the same time, England's less favored colonies, including Bermuda, New York, and Rhode Island, had become cash-starved by the Navigation Acts, which restricted trade with foreign ships. Merchants and governors eager for coin were willing to overlook and even underwrite pirate voyages; one colonial official defended a pirate because he thought it "very harsh to hang people that brings in gold to these provinces."[87] Although some of these pirates operating out of New England and the Middle Colonies targeted Spain's remoter Pacific coast colonies well into the 1690s and beyond, the Indian Ocean was a richer and more tempting target. India's economic output was large during this time, especially in high-value luxury goods like silk and calico which made ideal pirate booty;[88] at the same time, no powerful navies plied the Indian Ocean, leaving both local shipping and the various East India companies' vessels vulnerable to attack. This set the stage for the famous pirates, Thomas Tew, Henry Every, Robert Culliford and (although his guilt remains controversial) William Kidd.

In 1713 and 1714, a series of peace treaties ended the War of the Spanish Succession. As a result, thousands of seamen, including European privateers who had operated in the West Indies, were relieved of military duty, at a time when cross-Atlantic colonial shipping trade was beginning to boom. In addition, European sailors who had been pushed by unemployment to work onboard merchantmen (including slave ships) were often enthusiastic to abandon that profession and turn to pirating, giving pirate captains a steady pool of recruits various coasts across the Atlantic.[89]

In 1715, pirates launched a major raid on Spanish divers trying to recover gold from a sunken treasure galleon near Florida. The nucleus of the pirate force was a group of English ex-privateers, all of whom would soon be enshrined in infamy: Henry Jennings, Charles Vane, Samuel Bellamy, and Edward England. The attack was successful, but contrary to their expectations, the governor of Jamaica refused to allow Jennings and their cohorts to spend their loot on his island. With Kingston and the declining Port Royal closed to them, Jennings and his comrades founded a new pirate base at Nassau, on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, which had been abandoned during the war. Until the arrival of governor Woodes Rogers three years later, Nassau would be home for these pirates and their many recruits.

Shipping traffic between Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe began to soar in the 18th century, a model that was known as triangular trade, and was a rich target for piracy. Trade ships sailed from Europe to the African coast, trading manufactured goods and weapons in exchange for slaves. The traders would then sail to the Caribbean to sell the slaves, and return to Europe with goods such as sugar, tobacco and cocoa. Another triangular trade saw ships carry raw materials, preserved cod, and rum to Europe, where a portion of the cargo would be sold for manufactured goods, which (along with the remainder of the original load) were transported to the Caribbean, where they were exchanged for sugar and molasses, which (with some manufactured articles) were borne to New England. Ships in the triangular trade made money at each stop.[90]

 
Born to a noble family in Puerto Rico, Roberto Cofresí was the last notably successful pirate in the Caribbean.

As part of the peace settlement of the War of the Spanish succession, Britain obtained the asiento, a Spanish government contract, to supply slaves to Spain's new world colonies, providing British traders and smugglers more access to the traditionally closed Spanish markets in America. This arrangement also contributed heavily to the spread of piracy across the western Atlantic at this time. Shipping to the colonies boomed simultaneously with the flood of skilled mariners after the war. Merchant shippers used the surplus of sailors' labor to drive wages down, cutting corners to maximize their profits, and creating unsavory conditions aboard their vessels. Merchant sailors suffered from mortality rates as high or higher than the slaves being transported (Rediker, 2004). Living conditions were so poor that many sailors began to prefer a freer existence as a pirate. The increased volume of shipping traffic also could sustain a large body of brigands preying upon it. Among the most infamous Caribbean pirates of the time were Edward Teach or Blackbeard, Calico Jack Rackham, and Bartholomew Roberts. Most of these pirates were eventually hunted down by the Royal Navy and killed or captured; several battles were fought between the brigands and the colonial powers on both land and sea.

Piracy in the Caribbean declined for the next several decades after 1730, but by the 1810s many pirates roamed the waters though they were not as bold or successful as their predecessors. The most successful pirates of the era were Jean Lafitte and Roberto Cofresi. Lafitte is considered by many to be the last buccaneer due to his army of pirates and fleet of pirate ships which held bases in and around the Gulf of Mexico. Lafitte and his men participated in the War of 1812 battle of New Orleans. Cofresi's base was in Mona Island, Puerto Rico, from where he disrupted the commerce throughout the region. He became the last major target of the international anti-piracy operations.[91]

 
Hanging of Captain Kidd; illustration from The Pirates Own Book (1837)

The elimination of piracy from European waters expanded to the Caribbean in the 18th century, West Africa and North America by the 1710s and by the 1720s even the Indian Ocean was a difficult location for pirates to operate.

England began to strongly turn against piracy at the turn of the 18th century, as it was increasingly damaging to the country's economic and commercial prospects in the region. The Piracy Act of 1698 for the "more effectual suppression of Piracy"[92] made it easier to capture, try and convict pirates by lawfully enabling acts of piracy to be "examined, inquired of, tried, heard and determined, and adjudged in any place at sea, or upon the land, in any of his Majesty's islands, plantations, colonies, dominions, forts, or factories." This effectively enabled admirals to hold a court session to hear the trials of pirates in any place they deemed necessary, rather than requiring that the trial be held in England. Commissioners of these vice-admiralty courts were also vested with "full power and authority" to issue warrants, summon the necessary witnesses, and "to do all thing necessary for the hearing and final determination of any case of piracy, robbery, or felony." These new and faster trials provided no legal representation for the pirates; and ultimately led in this era to the execution of 600 pirates, which represented approximately 10 percent of the pirates active at the time in the Caribbean region.[93] Being an accessory to piracy was also criminalised under the statute.

 
Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard, 1718 depicting the battle between Blackbeard and Robert Maynard in Ocracoke Bay; romanticized depiction by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris from 1920

Piracy saw a brief resurgence between the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713 and around 1720, as many unemployed seafarers took to piracy as a way to make ends meet when a surplus of sailors after the war led to a decline in wages and working conditions. At the same time, one of the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht that ended the war gave to Great Britain's Royal African Company and other British slavers a thirty-year asiento, or contract, to furnish African slaves to the Spanish colonies, providing British merchants and smugglers potential inroads into the traditionally closed Spanish markets in America and leading to an economic revival for the whole region. This revived Caribbean trade provided rich new pickings for a wave of piracy. Also contributing to the increase of Caribbean piracy at this time was Spain's breakup of the English logwood settlement at Campeche and the attractions of a freshly sunken silver fleet off the southern Bahamas in 1715. Fears over the rising levels of crime and piracy, political discontent, concern over crowd behaviour at public punishments, and an increased determination by parliament to suppress piracy, resulted in the Piracy Act of 1717 and of 1721. These established a seven-year penal transportation to North America as a possible punishment for those convicted of lesser felonies, or as a possible sentence that capital punishment might be commuted to by royal pardon. In 1717, a pardon was offered to pirates who surrendered to British authorities.

After 1720, piracy in the classic sense became extremely rare as increasingly effective anti-piracy measures were taken by the Royal Navy, making it impossible for any pirate to pursue an effective career for long. By 1718, the British Royal Navy had approximately 124 vessels and 214 by 1815; a big increase from the two vessels England had possessed in 1670.[93] British Royal Navy warships tirelessly hunted down pirate vessels, and almost always won these engagements.

 
Blackbeard's severed head hanging from Maynard's bowsprit; illustration from The Pirates Own Book (1837)

Many pirates did not surrender and were killed at the point of capture; notorious pirate Edward Teach, or "Blackbeard", was hunted down by Lieutenant Robert Maynard at Ocracoke Inlet off the coast of North Carolina on November 22, 1718 and killed. His flagship was a captured French slave ship known originally as La Concorde, he renamed the frigate Queen Anne's Revenge. Captain Chaloner Ogle of HMS Swallow cornered Bartholomew Roberts in 1722 at Cape Lopez, and a fatal broadside from the Swallow killed the pirate captain instantly. Roberts' death shocked the pirate world, as well as the Royal Navy. The local merchants and civilians had thought him invincible, and some considered him a hero.[94] Roberts' death was seen by many historians as the end of the Golden Age of Piracy. Also crucial to the end of this era of piracy was the loss of the pirates' last Caribbean safe haven at Nassau.

In the early 19th century, piracy along the East and Gulf Coasts of North America as well as in the Caribbean increased again. Jean Lafitte was just one of hundreds of pirates operating in American and Caribbean waters between the years of 1820 and 1835. The United States Navy repeatedly engaged pirates in the Caribbean, Gulf of Mexico and in the Mediterranean. Cofresí's El Mosquito was disabled in a collaboration between Spain and the United States. After fleeing for hours, he was ambushed and captured inland. The United States landed shore parties on several islands in the Caribbean in pursuit of pirates; Cuba was a major haven. By the 1830s piracy had died out again, and the navies of the region focused on the slave trade.

About the time of the Mexican–American War in 1846, the United States Navy had grown strong and numerous enough to eliminate the pirate threat in the West Indies. By the 1830s, ships had begun to convert to steam propulsion, so the Age of Sail and the classical idea of pirates in the Caribbean ended. Privateering, similar to piracy, continued as an asset in war for a few more decades and proved to be of some importance during the naval campaigns of the American Civil War.

Privateering would remain a tool of European states until the mid-19th century's Declaration of Paris. But letters of marque were given out much more sparingly by governments and were terminated as soon as conflicts ended. The idea of "no peace beyond the Line" was a relic that had no meaning by the more settled late 18th and early 19th centuries.

Canary Islands

 
Mural representing the attack of Charles Windon to San Sebastián de La Gomera (1743)

Due to the strategic situation of this Spanish archipelago as a crossroads of maritime routes and commercial bridge between Europe, Africa and America,[95] this was one of the places on the planet with the greatest pirate presence.

In the Canary Islands, the following stand out: the attacks and continuous looting of Berber, English, French and Dutch corsairs sometimes successful and often a failure;[95] and on the other hand, the presence of pirates and corsairs from this archipelago, who made their incursions into the Caribbean. Pirates and corsairs such as François Le Clerc, Jacques de Sores, Francis Drake defeat in Gran Canaria,[96] Pieter van der Does, Murat Reis and Horacio Nelson attacked the islands and was defeated in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife (1797).[97] Among those born in the archipelago stands out above all Amaro Pargo, whom the monarch Felipe V of Spain frequently benefited in his commercial incursions and corsairs.[98][99]

North America

 
Dan Seavey was a pirate on the Great Lakes in the early 20th century.

Piracy on the east coast of North America first became common in the early seventeenth century, as English privateers discharged after the end of the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) turned to piracy.[100][101] The most famous and successful of these early pirates was Peter Easton.

River piracy in late 18th-mid-19th century America was primarily concentrated along the Ohio River and Mississippi River valleys. In 1803, at Tower Rock, the U.S. Army dragoons, possibly, from the frontier army post up river at Fort Kaskaskia, on the Illinois side opposite St. Louis, raided and drove out the river pirates.

Stack Island was also associated with river pirates and counterfeiters in the late 1790s. In 1809, the last major river pirate activity took place, on the Upper Mississippi River, and river piracy in this area came to an abrupt end, when a group of flatboatmen raided the island, wiping out the river pirates. From 1790 to 1834, Cave-In-Rock was the principal outlaw lair and headquarters of river pirate activity in the Ohio River region, from which Samuel Mason led a gang of river pirates on the Ohio River.

River piracy continued on the lower Mississippi River, from the early 1800s to the mid-1830s, declining as a result of direct military action and local law enforcement and regulator-vigilante groups that uprooted and swept out pockets of outlaw resistance.

"Roaring" Dan Seavey was a pirate active in the early 1900s in the Great Lakes region.

Culture and social structure

Rewards

Pirates had a system of hierarchy on board their ships determining how captured money was distributed. However, pirates were more egalitarian than any other area of employment at the time. In fact, pirate quartermasters were a counterbalance to the captain and had the power to veto his orders. The majority of plunder was in the form of cargo and ship's equipment, with medicines the most highly prized. A vessel's doctor's chest would be worth anywhere from £300 to £400, or around $470,000 in today's values. Jewels were common plunder but not popular, as they were hard to sell, and pirates, unlike the public of today, had little concept of their value. There is one case recorded where a pirate was given a large diamond worth a great deal more than the value of the handful of small diamonds given to his crewmates as a share. He felt cheated and had it broken up to match what they received.[102]

 
Henry Morgan who sacked and burned the city of Panama in 1671 – the second most important city in the Spanish New World at the time; engraving from 1681 Spanish edition of Alexandre Exquemelin's The Buccaneers of America

Spanish pieces of eight minted in Mexico or Seville were the standard trade currency in the American colonies. However, every colony still used the monetary units of pounds, shillings, and pence for bookkeeping while Spanish, German, French, and Portuguese money were all standard mediums of exchange as British law prohibited the export of British silver coinage. Until the exchange rates were standardised in the late 18th century each colony legislated its own different exchange rates. In England, 1 piece of eight was worth 4s 3d while it was worth 8s in New York, 7s 6d in Pennsylvania and 6s 8d in Virginia. One 18th-century English shilling was worth around $58 in modern currency, so a piece of eight could be worth anywhere from $246 to $465. As such, the value of pirate plunder could vary considerably, depending on who recorded it and where.[103][104]

Ordinary seamen received a part of the plunder at the captain's discretion but usually a single share. On average, a pirate could expect the equivalent of a year's wages as his share from each ship captured while the crew of the most successful pirates would often each receive a share valued at around £1,000 ($1.17 million) at least once in their career.[102] One of the larger amounts taken from a single ship was that by captain Thomas Tew from an Indian merchantman in 1692. Each ordinary seaman on his ship received a share worth £3,000 ($3.5 million), with officers receiving proportionally larger amounts as per the agreed shares, with Tew himself receiving 2½ shares. It is known there were actions with multiple ships captured where a single share was worth almost double this.[102][105]

By contrast, an ordinary seamen in the Royal Navy received 19s per month to be paid in a lump sum at the end of a tour of duty, which was around half the rate paid in the Merchant Navy. However, corrupt officers would often "tax" their crews' wage to supplement their own, and the Royal Navy of the day was infamous for its reluctance to pay. From this wage, 6d per month was deducted for the maintenance of Greenwich Hospital, with similar amounts deducted for the Chatham Chest, the chaplain and surgeon. Six months' pay was withheld to discourage desertion. That this was insufficient incentive is revealed in a report on proposed changes to the RN Admiral Nelson wrote in 1803; he noted that since 1793 more than 42,000 sailors had deserted. Roughly half of all RN crews were pressganged and these not only received lower wages than volunteers but were shackled while the vessel was docked and were never permitted to go ashore until released from service.[106]

Although the Royal Navy suffered from many morale issues, it answered the question of prize money via the 'Cruizers and Convoys' Act of 1708 which handed over the share previously gained by the Crown to the captors of the ship. Technically it was still possible for the Crown to get the money or a portion of it but this rarely happened. The process of condemnation of a captured vessel and its cargo and men was given to the High Court of the Admiralty and this was the process which remained in force with minor changes throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.

Ship prize shares
Rank Pre 1808 Post 1808
Captain 3/8 2/8
Admiral of fleet 1/8 1/8
Sailing Master
& Lieutenants
& Captain of Marines
1/8 1/8
Warrant Officers 1/8 1/8
Wardroom Warrant officers
& Petty Officers
1/8 1/8
Gunners, Sailors 1/8 2/8
 
Bartholomew Roberts' crew carousing at the Calabar River; illustration from The Pirates Own Book (1837). Roberts is estimated to have captured over 470 vessels.

Even the flag officer's share was not quite straightforward; he would only get the full one-eighth if he had no junior flag officer beneath him. If this was the case then he would get a third share. If he had more than one then he would take one-half while the rest was shared out equally.

There was a great deal of money to be made in this way. The record breaker was the capture of the Spanish frigate Hermione, which was carrying treasure in 1762. The value of this was so great that each individual seaman netted £485 ($1.4 million in 2008 dollars).[107] The two captains responsible, Evans and Pownall, received £65,000 each ($188.4 million). In January 1807 the frigate Caroline took the Spanish San Rafael, which brought in £52,000 for her captain, Peter Rainier (who had been only a midshipman some thirteen months before). All through the wars there are examples of this kind of luck falling on captains. Another famous 'capture' was that of the Spanish frigates Thetis and Santa Brigada, which were loaded with gold specie. They were taken by four British frigates who shared the money, each captain receiving £40,730. Each lieutenant got £5,091, the Warrant Officer group, £2,468, the midshipmen £791 and the individual seamen £182.

It should also be noted that it was usually only the frigates which took prizes; the ships of the line were far too ponderous to be able to chase and capture the smaller ships which generally carried treasure. Nelson always bemoaned that he had done badly out of prize money and even as a flag officer received little. This was not that he had a bad command of captains but rather that British mastery of the seas was so complete that few enemy ships dared to sail.[108]

Comparison chart using the share distribution known for three pirates against the shares for a Privateer and wages as paid by the Royal Navy.
Rank Bartholomew Roberts George Lowther William Phillips Privateer
(Sir William Monson)
Royal Navy
(per month)
Captain 2 shares 2 shares 1.5 shares 10 shares £8, 8s
Master 1.5 shares 1.5 shares 1.25 shares 7 or 8 shares £4
Boatswain 1.5 shares 1.25 shares 1.25 shares 5 shares £2
Gunner 1.5 shares 1.25 shares 1.25 shares 5 shares £2
Quartermaster 2 shares 4 shares £1, 6s
Carpenter 1.25 shares 5 shares £2
Mate 1.25 shares 5 shares £2, 2s
Doctor 1.25 shares 5 shares £5 +2d per man aboard
"Other Officers" 1.25 shares various rates various rates
Able Seamen (2 yrs experience)
Ordinary Seamen (some exp)
Landsmen (pressganged)

1 share

1 share

1 share
22s
19s
11s

Loot

 
Pirate treasure looted by Samuel Bellamy and recovered from the wreck of the Whydah; exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, 2010

Even though pirates raided many ships, few, if any, buried their treasure. Often, the "treasure" that was stolen was food, water, alcohol, weapons, or clothing. Other things they stole were household items like bits of soap and gear like rope and anchors, or sometimes they would keep the ship they captured (either to sell off or keep because it was better than their ship). Such items were likely to be needed immediately, rather than saved for future trade. For this reason, there was no need for the pirates to bury these goods. Pirates tended to kill few people aboard the ships they captured; usually they would kill no one if the ship surrendered, because if it became known that pirates took no prisoners, their victims would fight to the last breath and make victory both very difficult and costly in lives. In contrast, ships would quickly surrender if they knew they would be spared. In one well-documented case 300 heavily armed soldiers on a ship attacked by Thomas Tew surrendered after a brief battle with none of Tew's 40-man crew being injured.[109]

Punishment

 
A contemporary flyer depicting the public execution of 16th-century pirate Klein Henszlein and his crew in 1573

During the 17th and 18th centuries, once pirates were caught, justice was meted out in a summary fashion, and many ended their lives by "dancing the hempen jig", a euphemism for hanging. Public execution was a form of entertainment at the time, and people came out to watch them as they would to a sporting event today. Newspapers reported details such as condemned men's last words, the prayers said by the priests, and descriptions of their final moments in the gallows. In England most of these executions took place at Execution Dock on the River Thames in London.

In the cases of more famous prisoners, usually captains, their punishments extended beyond death. Their bodies were enclosed in iron cages (gibbet) (for which they were measured before their execution) and left to swing in the air until the flesh rotted off them- a process that could take as long as two years. The bodies of captains such as William "Captain" Kidd, Charles Vane, William Fly, and Jack Rackham ("Calico Jack") were all treated this manner.[110]

Role of women

 
Pirate Anne Bonny (1697–1720). Engraving from Captain Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates (1st Dutch Edition, 1725)

While piracy was predominantly a male occupation throughout history, a minority of pirates were female.[111] Pirates did not allow women onto their ships very often. Additionally, women were often regarded as bad luck among pirates. It was feared that the male members of the crew would argue and fight over the women. On many ships, women (as well as young boys) were prohibited by the ship's contract, which all crew members were required to sign.[112] : 303 

Because of the resistance to allowing women on board, many female pirates did not identify themselves as such. Anne Bonny, for example, dressed and acted as a man while on Captain Calico Jack's ship.[112]: 285  She and Mary Read, another female pirate, are often identified as being unique in this regard.[113] However, it is possible many women dressed as men during the Golden Age of Piracy, in an effort to take advantage of the many rights, privileges, and freedoms that were exclusive to men.

Democracy among Caribbean pirates

Unlike traditional Western societies of the time, many Caribbean pirate crews of European descent operated as limited democracies. Pirate communities were some of the first to instate a system of checks and balances similar to the one used by the present-day democracies. The first record of such a government aboard a pirate sloop dates to the 17th century.[114]

Pirate Code

As recorded by Captain Charles Johnson regarding the articles of Bartholomew Roberts.

  1. Every man shall have an equal vote in affairs of moment. He shall have an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized, and shall use them at pleasure unless a scarcity may make it necessary for the common good that a retrenchment may be voted.
  2. Every man shall be called fairly in turn by the list on board of prizes, because over and above their proper share, they are allowed a shift of clothes. But if they defraud the company to the value of even one dollar in plate, jewels or money, they shall be marooned. If any man rob another he shall have his nose and ears slit, and be put ashore where he shall be sure to encounter hardships.
  3. None shall game for money either with dice or cards.
  4. The lights and candles should be put out at eight at night, and if any of the crew desire to drink after that hour they shall sit upon the open deck without lights.
  5. Each man shall keep his piece, cutlass and pistols at all times clean and ready for action.
  6. No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them. If any man shall be found seducing any of the latter sex and carrying her to sea in disguise he shall suffer death.
  7. He that shall desert the ship or his quarters in time of battle shall be punished by death or marooning.
  8. None shall strike another on board the ship, but every man's quarrel shall be ended on shore by sword or pistol in this manner. At the word of command from the quartermaster, each man being previously placed back to back, shall turn and fire immediately. If any man do not, the quartermaster shall knock the piece out of his hand. If both miss their aim they shall take to their cutlasses, and he that draw the first blood shall be declared the victor.
  9. No man shall talk of breaking up their way of living till each has a share of 1,000. Every man who shall become a cripple or lose a limb in the service shall have 800 pieces of eight from the common stock and for lesser hurts proportionately.
  10. The captain and the quartermaster shall each receive two shares of a prize, the master gunner and boatswain, one and one half shares, all other officers one and one quarter, and private gentlemen of fortune one share each.
  11. The musicians shall have rest on the Sabbath Day only by right. On all other days by favor only.[115]

Known pirate shipwrecks

To date, the following identifiable pirate shipwrecks have been discovered:

  • Whydah Gally (discovered in 1984), a former slave ship seized on its maiden voyage from Africa by the pirate captain "Black Sam" Bellamy. The wreck was found off the coast of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, buried under 10 ft (3 m) to 50 ft (15 m) feet of sand, in depths ranging from 16 ft (5 m) to 30 ft (9 m) feet deep, spread for four miles, parallel to the Cape's easternmost coast. With the discovery of the ship's bell in 1985 and a small brass placard in 2013, both inscribed with the ship's name and maiden voyage date, the Whydah is the only fully authenticated Golden Age pirate shipwreck ever discovered.[116] Since 2007, the Wydah collection has been touring as part of the exhibit "Real Pirates" sponsored by National Geographic.[117]
  • Queen Anne's Revenge (discovered in 1996), the flagship of the infamous pirate Blackbeard. He used the ship for less than a year, but it was an effective tool in his prize-taking. In June 1718, Blackbeard ran the ship aground at Topsail Inlet, now known as Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. Intersal,[118] a private firm working under a permit with the state of North Carolina, discovered the remains of the vessel[119] in 28 feet (8.5m) of water about one mile (1.6 km) offshore of Fort Macon State Park, Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Thirty-one cannons have been identified to date, and more than 250,000 artifacts have been recovered.[120] The cannons are of different origins (such as English, Swedish, and possibly French) and different sizes, as would be expected with a colonial pirate crew.[119][121]
  • Golden Fleece (discovered in 2009), the ship of the notorious English pirate Joseph Bannister, which was found by the American shipwreck hunters John Chatterton and John Mattera in the Dominican Republic, at Samaná Bay. The discovery is recounted in Robert Kurson's book Pirate Hunters (2015).[122][123][124][125]

Privateers

 
Modern reconstruction of skull alleged to have belonged to 14th century pirate Klaus Störtebeker. He was the leader of the privateer guild Victual Brothers, who later turned to piracy and roamed European seas.

A privateer or corsair used similar methods to a pirate, but acted under orders of the state while in possession of a commission or letter of marque and reprisal from a government or monarch authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation. For example, the United States Constitution of 1787 specifically authorized Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal. The letter of marque and reprisal was recognized by international convention and meant that a privateer could not technically be charged with piracy while attacking the targets named in his commission. This nicety of law did not always save the individuals concerned, however, since whether one was considered a pirate or a legally operating privateer often depended on whose custody the individual found himself in—that of the country that had issued the commission, or that of the object of attack. Spanish authorities were known to execute foreign privateers with their letters of marque hung around their necks to emphasize Spain's rejection of such defenses. Furthermore, many privateers exceeded the bounds of their letters of marque by attacking nations with which their sovereign was at peace (Thomas Tew and William Kidd are notable alleged examples), and thus made themselves liable to conviction for piracy. However, a letter of marque did provide some cover for such pirates, as plunder seized from neutral or friendly shipping could be passed off later as taken from enemy merchants.

 
Kent battling Confiance, a privateer vessel commanded by French corsair Robert Surcouf in October 1800, as depicted in a painting by Garneray

The famous Barbary corsairs of the Mediterranean, authorized by the Ottoman Empire, were privateers, as were the Maltese corsairs, who were authorized by the Knights of St. John, and the Dunkirkers in the service of the Spanish Empire. In the years 1626–1634 alone, the Dunkirk privateers captured 1,499 ships, and sank another 336.[126] From 1609 to 1616, England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates, and 160 British ships were captured by Algerians between 1677 and 1680.[127] One famous privateer was Sir Francis Drake. His patron was Queen Elizabeth I, and their relationship ultimately proved to be quite profitable for England.[128]

Privateers constituted a large proportion of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. During the Nine Years War, the French adopted a policy of strongly encouraging privateers (French corsairs), including the famous Jean Bart, to attack English and Dutch shipping. England lost roughly 4,000 merchant ships during the war.[129] In the following War of Spanish Succession, privateer attacks continued, Britain losing 3,250 merchant ships.[130] During the War of Austrian Succession, Britain lost 3,238 merchant ships and France lost 3,434 merchant ships to the British.[129]

During King George's War, approximately 36,000 Americans served aboard privateers at one time or another.[129] During the American Revolution, about 55,000 American seamen served aboard the privateers.[131] The American privateers had almost 1,700 ships, and they captured 2,283 enemy ships.[132] Between the end of the Revolutionary War and 1812, less than 30 years, Britain, France, Naples, the Barbary states, Spain, and the Netherlands seized approximately 2,500 American ships.[133] Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20% of United States government annual revenues in 1800.[134] Throughout the American Civil War, Confederate privateers successfully harassed Union merchant ships.[135]

Privateering lost international sanction under the Declaration of Paris in 1856.

Commerce raiders

A wartime activity similar to piracy involves disguised warships called commerce raiders or merchant raiders, which attack enemy shipping commerce, approaching by stealth and then opening fire. Commerce raiders operated successfully during the American Revolution.[citation needed] During the American Civil War, the Confederacy sent out several commerce raiders, the most famous of which was the CSS Alabama.[citation needed] During World War I and World War II, Germany also made use of these tactics, both in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Since commissioned naval vessels were openly used, these commerce raiders should not be considered even privateers, much less pirates—although the opposing combatants were vocal in denouncing them as such.

1990s–2020s

Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue (with estimated worldwide losses of US$16 billion per year),[5] particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore, which are used by over 50,000 commercial ships a year. In the Gulf of Guinea, maritime piracy has also led to pressure on offshore oil and gas production, providing security for offshore installations and supply vessels is often paid for by oil companies rather than the respective governments.[136] In the late 2000s,[137] the emergence of piracy off the coast of Somalia spurred a multi-national effort led by the United States to patrol the waters near the Horn of Africa. In 2011, Brazil also created an anti-piracy unit on the Amazon River.[138] Sir Peter Blake, a New Zealand world champion yachtsman, was killed by pirates on the Amazon river in 2001.[139]

River piracy happens in Europe, with vessels suffering from pirate attacks on the Serbian and Romanian stretches of the international Danube river, i.e. inside the European Union's territory.[140][141][142]

 
Map showing the extent of Somali pirate attacks on shipping vessels between 2005 and 2010

Modern pirates favor small boats and taking advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels. They also use large vessels to supply the smaller attack/boarding vessels. Modern pirates can be successful because a large amount of international commerce occurs via shipping. Major shipping routes take cargo ships through narrow bodies of water such as the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca making them vulnerable to be overtaken and boarded by small motorboats.[143][144] Other active areas include the South China Sea and the Niger Delta. As usage increases, many of these ships have to lower cruising speeds to allow for navigation and traffic control, making them prime targets for piracy.

Also, pirates often operate in regions of poor developing or struggling countries with small or nonexistent navies and large trade routes. Pirates sometimes evade capture by sailing into waters controlled by their pursuer's enemies. With the end of the Cold War, navies have decreased in size and patrol less frequently, while trade has increased, making organized piracy far easier. Modern pirates are sometimes linked with organized-crime syndicates, but often are small individual groups.

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) maintains statistics regarding pirate attacks dating back to 1995. Their records indicate hostage-taking overwhelmingly dominates the types of violence against seafarers. For example, in 2006, there were 239 attacks, 77 crew members were kidnapped and 188 taken hostage but only 15 of the pirate attacks resulted in murder.[145] In 2007 the attacks rose by 10 percent to 263 attacks. There was a 35 percent increase on reported attacks involving guns. Crew members that were injured numbered 64 compared to just 17 in 2006.[146] That number does not include instances of hostage taking and kidnapping where the victims were not injured.

 
Aerial photograph of the Niger Delta, a center of piracy

The number of attacks from January to September 2009 had surpassed the previous year's total due to the increased pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia. Between January and September the number of attacks rose to 306 from 293. Pirates boarded the vessels in 114 cases and hijacked 34 of them. Gun use in pirate attacks increased to 176 cases from 76 in 2008.[147]

Rather than cargo, modern pirates have targeted the personal belongings of the crew and the contents of the ship's safe, which potentially contains large amounts of cash needed for payroll and port fees. In other cases, the pirates force the crew off the ship and then sail it to a port to be repainted and given a new identity through false papers purchased from corrupt or complicit officials.[148]

Modern piracy can take place in conditions of political unrest. For example, following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam, Thai piracy was aimed at the many Vietnamese who took to boats to escape. Further, following the disintegration of the government of Somalia, warlords in the region have attacked ships delivering UN food aid.[149]

 
A collage of Somali pirates armed with AKM assault rifles, RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and semi-automatic pistols in 2008

The attack against the German-built cruise ship the Seabourn Spirit offshore of Somalia in November 2005 is an example of the sophisticated pirates mariners face. The pirates carried out their attack more than 100 miles (160 km) offshore with speedboats launched from a larger mother ship. The attackers were armed with automatic firearms and an RPG.[150]

Since 2008, Somali pirates centered in the Gulf of Aden made about $120 million annually, reportedly costing the shipping industry between $900 million and $3.3 billion per year.[151] By September 2012, the heyday of piracy in the Indian Ocean was reportedly over. Backers were now reportedly reluctant to finance pirate expeditions due to the low rate of success, and pirates were no longer able to reimburse their creditors.[152] According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirate attacks had by October 2012 dropped to a six-year low.[153] Only five ships were captured by the end of the year, representing a decrease from 25 in 2011 and 27 in 2010,[154] with only one ship attacked in the third quarter compared to 36 during the same period in 2011.[153] However, pirate incidents off on the West African seaboard increased to 34 from 30 the previous year, and attacks off the coast of Indonesia rose from 2011's total of 46 to 51.[153]

Many nations forbid ships to enter their territorial waters or ports if the crew of the ships are armed, in an effort to restrict possible piracy.[155] Shipping companies sometimes hire private armed security guards.

Modern definitions of piracy include the following acts:

For the United States, piracy is one of the offenses against which Congress is delegated power to enact penal legislation by the Constitution of the United States, along with treason and offenses against the law of nations.[citation needed] Treason is generally making war against one's own countrymen, and violations of the law of nations can include unjust war among other nationals or by governments against their own people.

In modern times, ships and airplanes are hijacked for political reasons as well. The perpetrators of these acts could be described as pirates (for instance, the French term for plane hijacker is pirate de l'air, literally air pirate), but in English are usually termed hijackers. An example is the hijacking of the Italian civilian passenger ship Achille Lauro by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1985, which is regarded as an act of piracy. A 2009 book entitled International Legal Dimension of Terrorism called the attackers "terrorists".[156]

Modern pirates also use a great deal of technology. It has been reported that crimes of piracy have involved the use of mobile phones, satellite phones, GPS, machetes, AK74 rifles, sonar systems, modern speedboats, shotguns, pistols, mounted machine guns, and even RPGs and grenade launchers.[citation needed]

In 2020, the amount of piracy increased by 24% after being at its lowest 21st century level in 2019. The Americas and Africa have been identified by the International Chamber of Commerce as the most vulnerable to piracy as a result of less-wealthy governments in the regions being unable to adequately combat piracy.[157]

IMB Piracy Reporting Centre keeps a live piracy map to help keep track of all recent piracy and armed robbery incidents.[158]

Anti-piracy measures

 
Incidents of pipeline vandalism by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea, 2002–2011

Under a principle of international law known as the "universality principle", a government may "exercise jurisdiction over conduct outside its territory if that conduct is universally dangerous to states and their nationals."[159] The rationale behind the universality principle is that states will punish certain acts "wherever they may occur as a means of protecting the global community as a whole, even absent a link between the state and the parties or the acts in question." Under this principle, the concept of "universal jurisdiction" applies to the crime of piracy.[160] For example, the United States has a statute (section 1651 of title 18 of the United States Code) imposing a sentence of life in prison for piracy "as defined by the law of nations" committed anywhere on the high seas, regardless of the nationality of the pirates or the victims.[161]

The goal of maritime security operations is "actively to deter, disrupt and suppress piracy in order to protect global maritime security and secure freedom of navigation for the benefit of all nations",[162] and pirates are often detained, interrogated, disarmed, and released. With millions of dollars at stake, pirates have little incentive to stop. In Finland, one case involved pirates who had been captured and whose boat was sunk. As the pirates attacked a vessel of Singapore, not Finland, and are not themselves EU or Finnish citizens, they were not prosecuted. A further complication in many cases, including this one, is that many countries do not allow extradition of people to jurisdictions where they may be sentenced to death or torture.[163]

The Dutch are using a 17th-century law against sea robbery to prosecute.[164] Warships that capture pirates have no jurisdiction to try them, and NATO does not have a detention policy in place. Prosecutors have a hard time assembling witnesses and finding translators, and countries are reluctant to imprison pirates because the countries would be saddled with the pirates upon their release.[165]

 
Suspected Somali pirates keep their hands in the air

George Mason University professor Peter Leeson has suggested that the international community appropriate Somali territorial waters and sell them, together with the international portion of the Gulf of Aden, to a private company which would then provide security from piracy in exchange for charging tolls to world shipping through the Gulf.[166][167]

Self-defense

The fourth volume of the handbook: Best Management Practices to Deter Piracy off the Coast of Somalia and in the Arabian Sea Area (known as BMP4)[168] is the current authoritative guide for merchant ships on self-defense against pirates. The guide is issued and updated by Oil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF), a consortium of interested international shipping and trading organizations including the EU, NATO and the International Maritime Bureau.[169] It is distributed primarily by the Maritime Security Centre – Horn of Africa (MSCHOA), the planning and coordination authority for EU naval forces (EUNAVFOR). BMP4 encourages vessels to register their voyages through the region with MSCHOA as this registration is a key component of the operation of the International Recommended Transit Corridor (IRTC, the navy-patrolled route through the Gulf of Aden). BMP4 contains a chapter entitled "Self-Protective Measures" which lays out a list of steps a merchant vessel can take on its own to make itself less of a target to pirates and make it better able to repel an attack if one occurs. This list includes rigging the deck of the ship with razor wire, rigging fire-hoses to spray sea-water over the side of the ship (to hinder boardings), having a distinctive pirate alarm, hardening the bridge against gunfire and creating a "citadel" where the crew can retreat in the event pirates get on board. Other unofficial self-defense measures that can be found on merchant vessels include the setting up of mannequins posing as armed guards or firing flares at the pirates.[170]

Though it varies by country, generally peacetime law in the 20th and 21st centuries has not allowed merchant vessels to carry weapons. As a response to the rise in modern piracy, however, the U.S. government changed its rules so that it is now possible for U.S.-flagged vessels to embark a team of armed private security guards. The US Coastguard leaves it to ship owners' discretion to determine if those guards will be armed.[171][172] The International Chamber of Shipping (ICS) in 2011 changed its stance on private armed guards, accepting that operators must be able to defend their ships against pirate attacks.[173] This has given birth to a new breed of private security companies that provide training for crew members and operate floating armouries for protection of crew and cargo; this has proved effective in countering pirate attacks.[174][175] The use of floating armouries in international waters allows ships to carry weapons in international waters, without being in possession of arms within coastal waters where they would be illegal. Seychelles has become a central location for international anti-piracy operations, hosting the Anti-Piracy Operation Center for the Indian Ocean. In 2008, VSOS became the first authorized armed maritime security company to operate in the Indian Ocean region.[176]

With safety trials complete in the late 2000s, laser dazzlers have been developed for defensive purposes on super-yachts.[177] They can be effective up to 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) with the effects going from mild disorientation to flash blindness at closer range.[178]

In February 2012, Italian Marines based on the tanker Enrica Lexie allegedly fired on an Indian fishing trawler off Kerala, killing two of her eleven crew. The Marines allegedly mistook the fishing vessel as a pirate vessel. The incident sparked a diplomatic row between India and Italy. Enrica Lexie was ordered into Kochi where her crew were questioned by officers of the Indian Police.[179] The fact is still sub juris and its legal eventual outcome could influence future deployment of VPDs, since states will be either encouraged or discouraged to provide them depending on whether functional immunity is ultimately granted or denied to the Italians.[180]

Another similar incident has been reported to have happened in the Red Sea between the coasts of Somalia and Yemen, involving the death of a Yemeni fisherman allegedly at the hands of a Russian Vessel Protection Detachment (VPD) on board a Norwegian-flagged vessel.[181][182]

However, despite VPD deployment being controversial because of these incidents, according to the Associated Press,[183] during a United Nations Security Council conference about piracy "U.S. Ambassador Susan Rice told the council that no ship carrying armed guards has been successfully attacked by pirates" and "French Ambassador Gerard Araud stressed that private guards do not have the deterrent effect that government-posted marine and sailors and naval patrols have in warding off attacks".

Self protection measures

 
Private guard escort on a merchant ship providing security services against piracy in the Indian Ocean
 
An LRAD sound cannon mounted on RMS Queen Mary 2

The best protection against pirates is to avoid encountering them. This can be accomplished by using tools such as radar,[184] or by using specialised systems that use shorter wavelengths (as small boats are not always picked up by radar). An example of a specialised system is WatchStander.[185]

In addition, while the non-wartime 20th century tradition has been for merchant vessels not to be armed, the U.S. Government has recently changed the rules so that it is now "best practice" for vessels to embark a team of armed private security guards.[171][186] The guards are usually supplied from ships intended specifically for training and supplying such armed personnel.[187] The crew can be given weapons training,[188] and warning shots can be fired legally in international waters.

Other measures vessels can take to protect themselves against piracy are air-pressurised boat stopping systems which can fire a variety of vessel-disabling projectiles,[189] implementing a high freewall[190] and vessel boarding protection systems (e.g., hot water wall, electricity-charged water wall, automated fire monitor, slippery foam).[191] Ships can also attempt to protect themselves using their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS).[192] Every ship over 300 tons carries a transponder supplying both information about the ship itself and its movements. Any unexpected change in this information can attract attention. Previously this data could only be picked up if there was a nearby ship, thus rendering single ships vulnerable. However, special satellites have been launched recently that are now able to detect and retransmit this data. Large ships cannot therefore be hijacked without being detected. This can act as a deterrent to attempts to either hijack the entire ship or steal large portions of cargo with another ship since an escort can be sent more quickly than might otherwise have been the case.

Patrol

In an emergency warships can be called upon. In some areas such as near Somalia, patrolling naval vessels from different nations are available to intercept vessels attacking merchant vessels. For patrolling dangerous coastal waters, or keeping cost down, robotic or remote-controlled USVs are also sometimes used.[193] Shore- and vessel-launched UAVs are used by the U.S. Navy.[194][195] A British former British chief of defence staff (David Richards), questioned the value of expensive kit procured by successive governments, saying "We have £1bn destroyers trying to sort out pirates in a little dhow with RPGs [rocket-propelled grenade launchers] costing US$50, with an outboard motor [costing] $100".

Legal aspects

United Kingdom laws

 
A merchant seaman aboard a fleet oil tanker practices target shooting with a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun as part of training to repel pirates in the Strait of Malacca

Section 2 of the Piracy Act 1837 creates a statutory offence of aggravated piracy. See also the Piracy Act 1850.

In 2008 the British Foreign Office advised the Royal Navy not to detain pirates of certain nationalities as they might be able to claim asylum in Britain under British human rights legislation, if their national laws included execution, or mutilation as a judicial punishment for crimes committed as pirates.[196]

Definition of piracy jure gentium

See section 26 of, and Schedule 5 to, the Merchant Shipping and Maritime Security Act 1997. These provisions replace the Schedule to the Tokyo Convention Act 1967. In Cameron v HM Advocate, 1971 SLT 333, the High Court of Justiciary said that that Schedule supplemented the existing law and did not seek to restrict the scope of the offence of piracy jure gentium.

See also:

  • Re Piracy Jure Gentium [1934] AC 586, PC
  • Attorney General of Hong Kong v Kwok-a-Sing (1873) LR 5 PC 179

Jurisdiction

See section 46(2) of the Senior Courts Act 1981 and section 6 of the Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act 1878. See also R v Kohn (1864) 4 F & F 68.

Piracy committed by or against aircraft

See section 5 of the Aviation Security Act 1982.

Sentence

The book Archbold says that in a case that does not fall within section 2 of the Piracy Act 1837, the penalty appears to be determined by the Offences at Sea Act 1799, which provides that offences committed at sea are liable to the same penalty as if they had been committed upon the shore.[197]

History

William Hawkins said that under common law, piracy by a subject was esteemed to be petty treason. The Treason Act 1351 provided that this was not petty treason.[198]

In English admiralty law, piracy was classified as petty treason during the medieval period, and offenders were accordingly liable to be hanged, drawn and quartered on conviction. Piracy was redefined as a felony during the reign of Henry VIII. In either case, piracy cases were cognizable in the courts of the Lord High Admiral. English judges in admiralty courts and vice admiralty courts emphasized that "neither Faith nor Oath is to be kept" with pirates; i.e. contracts with pirates and oaths sworn to them were not legally binding. Pirates were legally subject to summary execution by their captors if captured in battle. In practice, instances of summary justice and annulment of oaths and contracts involving pirates do not appear to have been common.[citation needed]

United States laws

In the United States, criminal prosecution of piracy is authorized in the U.S. Constitution, Art. I Sec. 8 cl. 10:

To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

Title 18 U.S.C. § 1651 states:

Whoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life.

Citing the United States Supreme Court decision in the 1820 case of United States v. Smith,[199] a U.S. District Court ruled in 2010 in the case of United States v. Said that the definition of piracy under section 1651 is confined to "robbery at sea". The piracy charges (but not other serious federal charges) against the defendants in the Said case were dismissed by the Court.[200]

The U.S. District Court for the E.D.Va. has since been overturned: "On May 23, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion vacating the Court's dismissal of the piracy count. United States v. Said, 680 F.3d 374 (4th Cir.2012). See also United States v. Dire, 680 F.3d 446, 465 (4th Cir.2012) (upholding an instruction to the jury that the crime of piracy includes 'any of the three following actions: (A) any illegal acts of violence or detention or any act of depredation committed for private ends on the high seas or a place outside the jurisdiction of any state by the crew or the passengers of a private ship and directed against another ship or against persons or property on board such ship; or (B) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship; or (C) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in (A) or (B) above").'" The case was remanded to E.D. Va., see US v. Said, 3 F. Supp. 3d 515 – Dist. Court, ED Virginia (2014).

International law

Effects on international boundaries

During the 18th century, the British and the Dutch controlled opposite sides of the Straits of Malacca. The British and the Dutch drew a line separating the Straits into two halves. The agreement was that each party would be responsible for combating piracy in their respective half. Eventually this line became the border between Malaysia and Indonesia in the Straits.

Law of nations

 
International Maritime Organization (IMO) conference on capacity-building to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean

Piracy is of note in international law as it is commonly held to represent the earliest invocation of the concept of universal jurisdiction. The crime of piracy is considered a breach of jus cogens, a conventional peremptory international norm that states must uphold. Those committing thefts on the high seas, inhibiting trade, and endangering maritime communication are considered by sovereign states to be hostis humani generis (enemies of humankind).[201]

Because of universal jurisdiction, action can be taken against pirates without objection from the flag state of the pirate vessel. This represents an exception to the principle extra territorium jus dicenti impune non paretur ("One who exercises jurisdiction out of his territory is disobeyed with impunity").[202]

International conventions

Articles 101 to 103 of UNCLOS

 
British Royal Navy Commodore gives a presentation on piracy at the MAST 2008 conference

Articles 101 to 103 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (1982) contain a definition of piracy iure gentium (i.e. according to international law).[203] They read:

Article 101

Definition of piracy

Piracy consists of any of the following acts:

  • (a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed—
    • (i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;
    • (ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State;
  • (b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft;
  • (c) any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph (a) or (b).
Article 102

Piracy by a warship, government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutinied

The acts of piracy, as defined in article 101, committed by a warship, government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutinied and taken control of the ship or aircraft are assimilated to acts committed by a private ship or aircraft.

Article 103

Definition of a pirate ship or aircraft

A ship or aircraft is considered a pirate ship or aircraft if it is intended by the persons in dominant control to be used for the purpose of committing one of the acts referred to in article 101. The same applies if the ship or aircraft has been used to commit any such act, so long as it remains under the control of the persons guilty of that act.[204]

This definition was formerly contained in articles 15 to 17 of the Convention on the High Seas signed at Geneva on April 29, 1958.[205] It was drafted[206] by the International Law Commission.[203]

A limitation of article 101 above is that it confines piracy to the High Seas. As the majority of piratical acts occur within territorial waters, some pirates are able to go free as certain jurisdictions lack the resources to monitor their borders adequately.[citation needed]

IMB definition

The International Maritime Bureau (IMB) defines piracy as:

the act of boarding any vessel with an intent to commit theft or any other crime, and with an intent or capacity to use force in furtherance of that act.[207]

Uniformity in maritime piracy law

Given the diverging definitions of piracy in international and municipal legal systems, some authors argue that greater uniformity in the law is required in order to strengthen anti-piracy legal instruments.[208]

Cultural perceptions

 
"Mic the Scallywag" of the Pirates of Emerson Haunted Adventure Fremont, California

Pirates are a frequent topic in fiction and, in their Caribbean incarnation, are associated with certain stereotypical manners of speaking and dress, some of them wholly fictional: "nearly all our notions of their behavior come from the golden age of fictional piracy, which reached its zenith in 1881 with the appearance of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island."[209] Hugely influential in shaping the popular conception of pirates, Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, published in London in 1724, is the prime source for the biographies of many well known pirates of the Golden Age.[210] The book gives an almost mythical status to pirates, with naval historian David Cordingly writing: "it has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates."[210]

 
A person costumed in the character of captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp's lead role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series

Some inventions of pirate culture such as "walking the plank"—in which a bound captive is forced to walk off a board extending over the sea—were popularized by J. M. Barrie's 1911 novel, Peter Pan, where the fictional pirate Captain Hook and his crew helped define the fictional pirate archetype.[211] English actor Robert Newton's portrayal of Long John Silver in Disney's 1950 film adaptation also helped define the modern rendition of a pirate, including the stereotypical West Country "pirate accent".[212][213] Other influences include Sinbad the Sailor, and the recent Pirates of the Caribbean films have helped rekindle modern interest in piracy and have performed well at the box office. The video game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag also revolves around pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy.

The classic 1879 Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Pirates of Penzance focuses on The Pirate King and his hapless band of pirates.[214]

Many sports teams use "pirate" or a related term such as "raider" or "buccaneer" as their nickname, based on the popular stereotypes of pirates. The earliest such example was probably the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball that acquired their nickname in 1891 after allegedly "pirating" a player from another team.[215] Many amateur and school-based sports programs along with several professional sports franchises have also adopted pirate-related names, including the Las Vegas Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League. In turn, the Buccaneer's name was inspired by the Gasparilla Pirate Festival, a large community parade and related events in Tampa, Florida centered around the legend of José Gaspar, a mythical pirate who supposedly operated in the area.

Economics of piracy

Sources on the economics of piracy include Cyrus Karraker's 1953 study Piracy was a Business,[216] in which the author discusses pirates in terms of contemporary racketeering. Patrick Crowhurst researched French piracy and David Starkey focused on British 18th-century piracy. Note also the 1998 book The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates by Peter T. Leeson.[217]

Piracy and entrepreneurship

Some 2014 research examines the links between piracy and entrepreneurship. In this context, researchers take a nonmoral approach to piracy as a source of inspiration for 2010s-era entrepreneurship education[218] and to research in entrepreneurship[219] and in business-model generation.[220]

In this respect, analysis of piracy operations may distinguish between planned (organised) and opportunistic piracy.[221]

See also

References

Notes

  1. ^ Pennell, C. R. (2001). "The Geography of Piracy: Northern Morocco in the Mod-Nineteenth Century". In Pennell, C. R. (ed.). Bandits at Sea: A Pirates Reader. NYU Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-8147-6678-1. Sea raiders [...] were most active where the maritime environment gave them most opportunity. Narrow straits which funneled shipping into places where ambush was easy, and escape less chancy, called the pirates into certain areas.
  2. ^ Heebøll-Holm, Thomas (2013). Ports, Piracy and Maritime War: Piracy in the English Channel and the Atlantic, c. 1280–c. 1330. Medieval Law and Its Practice. Leiden: Brill. p. 67. ISBN 978-9004248168. [...] through their extensive piracies the Portsmen [of the Cinque Ports] were experts in predatory actions at sea. [...] Furthermore, the geostrategic location of the [Cinque] Ports on the English coast closest to the Continent meant that the Ports [...] could effectively control the Narrow Seas.
  3. ^ "TEDx Talk: What is Piracy?". Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  4. ^ Arquilla, John (2011). Insurgents, Raiders, and Bandits: How Masters of Irregular Warfare Have Shaped Our World. Ivan R. Dee. p. 242. ISBN 978-1-56663-908-8. From ancient high seas pirates to 'road agents' and a host of other bush and mountain pass brigands, bandits have been with us for ages.
  5. ^ a b . Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original on December 14, 2007. Retrieved December 8, 2007.
  6. ^ D.Archibugi, M.Chiarugi (April 9, 2009). . openDemocracy. Archived from the original on April 12, 2009. Retrieved April 9, 2009.
  7. ^ Peirates, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, "A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ^ Peira, Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, "A Greek-English Lexicon", at Perseus December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine.
  9. ^ Janice J. Gabbert, 'Piracy in the Early Hellenistic Period: A Career Open to Talents,' August 11, 2022, at the Wayback Machine Greece & Rome , October 1986, Vol. 33, No. 2 pp. 156-163, p.157.
  10. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Retrieved December 18, 2008.
  11. ^ "pirate". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.)
  12. ^ "Online Etymology Dictionary". Etymonline.com. Retrieved July 12, 2014.
  13. ^ a b Møller, Bjørn. "Piracy, Maritime Terrorism and Naval Strategy." Copenhagen: Danish Institute for International Studies, November 16, 2008. 10.
  14. ^ Thucydides wrote: "For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and islands, as communication by sea became more common, were tempted to turn pirate...indeed, this came to be the main source of their livelihood, no disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement, but even some glory."
  15. ^ Allen M. Ward; Fritz M. Heichelheim; Cedric A. Yeo (2016). History of the Roman People. Routledge. p. 100. ISBN 978-1-315-51120-7.
  16. ^ Again, according to Suetonius's chronology (Julius 4 December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine). Plutarch (Caesar 1.8–2 Archived February 13, 2018, at the Library of Congress Web Archives) says this happened earlier, on his return from Nicomedes's court. Velleius Paterculus (Roman History 2:41.3–42 July 31, 2022, at the Wayback Machine says merely that it happened when he was a young man.
  17. ^ Plutarch, Caesar 1–2.
  18. ^ "The Golden Age of Piracy". www.rmg.co.uk. Retrieved October 13, 2021.
  19. ^ .
  20. ^ Vedran Duančić; (2008) Hrvatska između Bizanta i Franačke (in Croatian) p. 17; [1] November 13, 2020, at the Wayback Machine
  21. ^ Maddalena Betti; (2013) The Making of Christian Moravia (858–882): Papal Power and Political Reality p. 129; Brill Academic Publishers, ISBN 900421187X
  22. ^ H Thomas Milhorn, Crime: Computer Viruses to Twin Towers, Universal Publishers, 2004. ISBN 1-58112-489-9.
  23. ^ Stepan Razin. . www.cindyvallar.com. Archived from the original on August 5, 2007. Retrieved August 28, 2007.
  24. ^ Earle (2003), p. 89
  25. ^ Guilmartin (1974), pp. 217–219
  26. ^ Earle (2003), p. 45
  27. ^ Earle (2003), p. 137
  28. ^ Glete (2000), p. 151
  29. ^ Earle (2003), p. 139
  30. ^ Guilmartin (1974), p. 120
  31. ^ a b Earle (2003), pp. 39–52
  32. ^ . Archived from the original on July 25, 2011.
  33. ^ "Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800 December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine". Robert Davis (2004) ISBN 1-4039-4551-9
  34. ^ Earle (2003), pp. 51–52
  35. ^ Earle (2003), p. 83
  36. ^ Earle (2003), p. 85
  37. ^ Oren, Michael B. (November 3, 2005). "The Middle East and the Making of the United States, 1776 to 1815". Retrieved February 18, 2007.
  38. ^ a b   One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domainChisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Barbary Pirates". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.
  39. ^ a b c d James Francis Warren (2007). The Sulu Zone, 1768–1898: The Dynamics of External Trade, Slavery, and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State. NUS Press. pp. 257–258. ISBN 9789971693862.
  40. ^ a b c d e James Francis Warren (2002). Iranun and Balangingi: Globalization, Maritime Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity. NUS Press. pp. 53–56. ISBN 9789971692421.
  41. ^ a b c Antony, Robert J. (February 2013). "Turbulent Waters: Sea Raiding in Early Modern South East Asia". The Mariner's Mirror. 99 (1): 23–38. doi:10.1080/00253359.2013.766996. S2CID 162926825.
  42. ^ Sim, Y.H. Teddy, ed. (2014). Piracy and surreptitious activities in the Malay Archipelago and adjacent seas, 1600–1840. Springer. ISBN 9789812870858.
  43. ^ a b Junker, Laura Lee (1999). Raiding, Trading, and Feasting: The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 9780824820350.
  44. ^ David P. Forsythe (2009). "Encyclopedia of Human Rights, Volume 1 December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine". Oxford University Press. p. 464. ISBN 0195334027
  45. ^ Domingo M. Non (1993). "Moro Piracy during the Spanish Period and its Impact" (PDF). Southeast Asian Studies. 30 (4): 401–419. doi:10.20495/tak.30.4_401.
  46. ^ David P. Barrows (1905). A History of the Philippines. American Book Company.
  47. ^ . Archived from the original on September 27, 2007.
  48. ^ "Pirates of the East | ThingsAsian". thingsasian.com.
  49. ^ . Archived from the original on June 9, 2008. Alt URL September 24, 2015, at the Wayback Machine
  50. ^ Chong Sun Kim, "Slavery in Silla and its Sociological and Economic Implications", in Andrew C. Nahm, ed. Traditional Korea, Theory and Practice (Kalamazoo, MI: Center for Korean Studies, 1974)
  51. ^ John Kleinen; Manon Osseweijer (2010). Pirates, Ports, and Coasts in Asia: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives. Institute of Southeast Asian Studies. p. 60. ISBN 978-981-4279-07-9.
  52. ^ New Peterson magazine. 1896. p. 578.
  53. ^ MacKay, Joseph. “Pirate Nations: Maritime Pirates as Escape Societies in Late Imperial China.” Social Science History 37, no. 4 (2013): 551–g573. doi:10.1017/S0145553200011962. p. 554
  54. ^ MacKay. 2013. p. 553
  55. ^ MacKay. 2013. p. 555
  56. ^ Higgins, Roland L. “Pirates in Gowns and Caps: Gentry Law-Breaking in the Mid-Ming.” Ming Studies Volume 1980, Issue #1. pp. 30–37 [31]
  57. ^ Robinson, David M. "Banditry and the Subversion of State Authority in China: The Capital Region During the Middle Ming Period (1450–1525)." Journal of Social History 33, no. 3 (2000): 527–563. https://muse.jhu.edu/ July 8, 2011, at the Wayback Machine (accessed February 20, 2019). p. 547
  58. ^ a b Higgins. 1980. p. 31
  59. ^ Von Glahn, Richard. The Economic History of China: From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century. Cambridge, UK. ISBN 9781107030565. OCLC 919452147. p. 307
  60. ^ a b Von Glahn. 2016. p. 308
  61. ^ Higgins. 1980. p. 32
  62. ^ a b MacKay. 2013. p. 558
  63. ^ a b c d MacKay. 2013. p. 557
  64. ^ a b MacKay. 2013. p. 567
  65. ^ a b MacKay. 2013. pp. 564, 568
  66. ^ Higgins. 1980. p. 30
  67. ^ Higgins. 1980. p. 34
  68. ^ Robinson. 2000. p. 547
  69. ^ MacKay. 2013. pp. 552, 557
  70. ^ a b MacKay. 2013. p. 559
  71. ^ MacKay. 2013. p. 551
  72. ^ Szonyi, Michael. The Art of Being Governed: Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China. Princeton. ISBN 9781400888887. OCLC 1007291604. pp. 101, 102
  73. ^ Szonyi. 2017. pp. 101–102
  74. ^ MacKay. 2013. pp. 559, 561
  75. ^ Findly, Elison B (April–June 1988). "The Capture of Maryam-uz-Zamani's Ship: Mughal Women and European Traders," Journal of the American Oriental Society, 108 (2): 227–238.
  76. ^ "Cross-Cultural Perceptions of Piracy: Maritime Violence in the Western Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf Region during a Long Eighteenth Century".
  77. ^ . Archived from the original on September 6, 2008. Retrieved July 20, 2008.
  78. ^ a b Heard-Bey, Frauke (1996). From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates. UK: Longman. pp. 282–284. ISBN 0582277280.
  79. ^ . Archived from the original on August 29, 2008. Retrieved July 20, 2008.
  80. ^ Gemma Pitcher, Patricia C. Wright. " Madagascar & Comoros December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine " p. 178.
  81. ^ "Libertatia". everything2.com.
  82. ^ Lucie-Smith, Edward (1978). Outcasts of the Sea: Pirates and Piracy. Paddington Press. ISBN 9780448226170.
  83. ^ "Tortuga – Pirate History – The Way Of The Pirates". Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  84. ^ Nigel Cawthorne (2005), Pirates: An Illustrated History, Arturus Publishing Ltd., 2005, p. 65.
  85. ^ Cawthorne, pp. 34, 36, 58
  86. ^ Peter Earle (2003), The Pirate Wars, ISBN 0-312-33579-2, p. 94.
  87. ^ Earle, p. 148.
  88. ^ Geoffrey Parker, ed. (1986), The World: An Illustrated History, Times Books Ltd., p. 317.
  89. ^ Kuhn, Gabriel (2010). Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy. PM Press.
  90. ^ Mark Kurlansky, Cod: A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World. Penguin, 1998.
  91. ^ Wombwell, A. James (2010). The Long War Against Piracy: Historical Trends. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press. p. 204. ISBN 978-0-9823283-6-1.
  92. ^ William III, 1698–99: An Act for the more effectual suppression of Piracy. June 23, 2020, at the Wayback Machine [Chapter VII. Rot. Parl. 11 Gul. III. p. 2. n. 5.]', Statutes of the Realm: volume 7: 1695–1701 (1820), pp. 590–594. Date accessed: February 16, 2007.
  93. ^ a b Boot, Max (2009). "Pirates, Then and Now". Foreign Affairs. 88 (4): 94–107.
  94. ^ Pike, Luke Owen (1876). A History of Crime in England: From the accession of Henry VII to the present time. Smith, Elder & Company. p. 266. ISBN 9780875850191.
  95. ^ a b "La piratería – Historia – (GEVIC) Gran Enciclopedia Virtual Islas Canarias". www.gevic.net.
  96. ^ "The Gran Canaria Mistake That Cost Sir Francis Drake His Life". Gran-Canaria-Info.com. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  97. ^ Allan, Peter. "The Defeat of Nelson at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1797". etenerifeholidays.co.uk.
  98. ^ Fariña González, Manuel. "La evolución de una fortuna indiana: D. Amaro Rodríguez Felipe (Amaro Pargo)". Retrieved June 10, 2016.
  99. ^ Amaro Pargo: documentos de una vida, I. Héroe y forrajido. Ediciones Idea. 2017. p. 520. ISBN 978-8416759811. Retrieved March 20, 2018.
  100. ^ Clive Malcolm Senior, An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates, 1603–40 May 31, 2022, at the Wayback Machine (University of Bristol, PhD thesis, 1973)
  101. ^ Clive Senior, A Nation of Pirates: English Piracy in its Heyday (Newton Abbot, 1976)
  102. ^ a b c "Treasure". Retrieved April 21, 2009.
  103. ^ . Archived from the original on March 2, 2009. Retrieved April 20, 2009.
  104. ^ "University of Notre Dame". Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  105. ^ Gosse, Philip (2007). The Pirates' Who's Who. BiblioBazaar, LLC. ISBN 978-1-4346-3302-6. p. 251.
  106. ^ Hill, J.R. (2002). The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-860527-7. p. 157.
  107. ^ Current value December 18, 2017, at the Wayback Machine is based on the average annual income for the respective years.
  108. ^ Nelson and His Navy – Prize Money June 21, 2008, at the Wayback Machine Historical Maritime Society.
  109. ^ . Archived from the original on September 27, 2013.
  110. ^ Pirates by John Matthews
  111. ^ . www.pantherbay.com. Archived from the original on April 28, 2015. Retrieved November 26, 2018.
  112. ^ a b Pennell, C. R. 2001. Bandits at sea : A pirates reader. New York: New York University Press.
  113. ^ Stock, Jennifer, ed. (2011). "Life Aboard Ship in the Golden Age of Piracy". Pirates Through the Ages Reference Library. 2: 117–135.[permanent dead link]
  114. ^ Leeson, Peter T. "An-arrghchy: The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization." Journal of Political Economy 115, no. 6 (2007): 1049–1094. p. 1066 University of Chicago February 9, 2016, at the Wayback Machine
  115. ^ Fox, E.T., ed. (March 15, 2016). "In the show 'Black Sails', the pirates have laws they quote every now and then when there are disputes". redditt. Retrieved March 18, 2016.
  116. ^ Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Maritime Underwater Surveys, Inc. 403 Mass. 501.. Massachusetts Supreme Court. 1988.
  117. ^ Burlingame, Liz (August 23, 2013). . weather.com. The Weather Channel. Archived from the original on August 26, 2013. Retrieved December 13, 2013.
  118. ^ "Intersal". Intersal, Inc.
  119. ^ a b Moore, D. (1997). "A General History of Blackbeard the Pirate, the Queen Anne's Revenge and the Adventure". Tributaries. North Carolina Maritime History Council. VII: 31–35.
  120. ^ Killough III, Willard H. (ed.). . Island Gazette. Archived from the original on July 9, 2015.
  121. ^ "Blackbeard's Ship Confirmed off North Carolina". National Geographic News.
  122. ^ Kurson, Robert (2015). Pirate Hunters. New York: Random House. ISBN 978-1-4000-6336-9.
  123. ^ Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies. British National Archives.
  124. ^ Buisseret, David (2000). Port Royal Jamaica. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 9766400989.
  125. ^ Buisseret, David (2009). Jamaica in 1687. Kingston: University of the West Indies Press. ISBN 978-9766402365.
  126. ^ "The New Cambridge Modern History: Volume 4, The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years' War, 1609–48/49 December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine". J. P. Cooper (1979). p. 229. ISBN 0-521-29713-3
  127. ^ Rees Davies, British Slaves on the Barbary Coast April 25, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, BBC, July 1, 2003.
  128. ^ Kelsey, Harry, Sir Francis Drake; The Queen's Pirate, Yale University Press, New Haven, 1998, ISBN 0-300-07182-5.
  129. ^ a b c Privateering and the Private Production of Naval Power December 11, 2003, at the Wayback Machine, Gary M. Anderson and Adam Gifford Jr.
  130. ^ Brewer, John. The Sinews of Power: War, Money, and the English State, 1688–1783. New York.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989. p. 197.
  131. ^ Privateers or Merchant Mariners help win the Revolutionary War June 4, 2019, at the Wayback Machine.
  132. ^ Privateers November 13, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  133. ^ US Navy Fleet List War of 1812 January 9, 2009, at the Wayback Machine.
  134. ^ Oren, Michael B. (November 3, 2005). "The Middle East and the Making of the United States, 1776 to 1815". Retrieved February 18, 2007.
  135. ^ The Confederate Privateers December 6, 2008, at the Wayback Machine.
  136. ^ Siebels, Dirk (November 1, 2014). "Nigeria, Angola and beyond – unlocking offshore potential requires a safe environment". Ship&Offshore. Retrieved September 27, 2015.
  137. ^ Krane, Jim (March 19, 2006). "U.S. Navy warships exchange gunfire with suspected pirates off Somali coast". The Seattle Times. Retrieved January 18, 2007.
  138. ^ Phillips, Tom (June 17, 2011). "Brazil creating anti-pirate force after spate of attacks on Amazon riverboats". The Guardian. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  139. ^ Romero, Simon (November 18, 2016). "'There's No Law on the Amazon': River Pirates Terrorize Ships by Night". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 20, 2016.
  140. ^ "Riječni gusari u Srbiji pljačkaju hrvatske brodove: Sa 'Sloge' ukrali opremu vrijednu 60 tisuća eura! – Jutarnji List". www.jutarnji.hr. October 12, 2011.
  141. ^ . Ukrainian News Agency. Archived from the original on January 14, 2012. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  142. ^ "Українські кораблі все частіше стають жертвами румунських піратів". Gazeta.ua. January 20, 2012.
  143. ^ "Pirates – Part Two". BBC Radio World Service. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  144. ^ Coffen-Smout, Scott. "Pirates, Warlords and Rogue Fishing Vessels in Somalia's Unruly Seas". chebucto.ns. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  145. ^ . Security Management. Archived from the original on January 3, 2008. Retrieved October 23, 2007.
  146. ^ . ICC Commercial Crime Services. Archived from the original on March 25, 2008. Retrieved January 22, 2008.
  147. ^ "World pirate attacks surge in 2009 due to Somalia".
  148. ^ "Anarchy at Sea". Atlantic Monthly. September 2003.
  149. ^ "Pirates Open Fire on Cruise Ship off Somalia". The Washington Post. Reuters. November 5, 2005. Retrieved November 14, 2005.
  150. ^ "Piracy is still troubling the shipping industry: report; Industry fears revival of attacks though current situation has improved". The Business Times Singapore. August 14, 2006.
  151. ^ "Plumer, Brad (March 3, 2013). "The economics of Somali piracy". The Washington Post. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  152. ^ Guled, Abdi; Straziuso, Jason (September 25, 2012). . AP Impact. Archived from the original on July 29, 2013. Retrieved October 3, 2012.
  153. ^ a b c Nightingale, Alaric; Bockmann, Michelle Wiese (October 22, 2012). . Bloomberg News. Archived from the original on June 2, 2013. Retrieved October 25, 2012.
  154. ^ Apps, Peter (February 10, 2013). . Reuters. Archived from the original on February 23, 2013. Retrieved March 16, 2013 – via Yahoo! News.
  155. ^ "Guns On Board". Maritimesecurity.com.
  156. ^ Sánchez, Pablo Antonio Fernandez . International Legal Dimension of Terrorism. Brill, 2009. p. 231
  157. ^ Prins, Brandon. "Global sea piracy ticks upward, and the coronavirus may make it worse". The Conversation. Retrieved May 30, 2020.
  158. ^ "Live piracy map". Commercial Crime Services. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  159. ^ Thomas Buergenthal & Sean D. Murphy, Public International Law in a Nutshell, p. 211, West Group (3d ed. 2002).
  160. ^ Thomas Buergenthal & Sean D. Murphy, Public International Law in a Nutshell, pp. 211–212, West Group (3d ed. 2002), citing generally K. Randall, Universal Jurisdiction Under International Law, 66 Tex. L. Rev. 785 (1988).
  161. ^ "Whoever, on the high seas, commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations, and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States, shall be imprisoned for life." See 18 U.S.C. § 1651.
  162. ^ "2010 to 2015 government policy: piracy off the coast of Somalia". UK Government. May 8, 2015. Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  163. ^ Stephens, Bret (November 25, 2008). "Why Don't We Hang Pirates Anymore?". The Wall Street Journal.
  164. ^ Verzameling Nederlandse Wetgeving-539a WvSv. p. 105.
  165. ^ . Associated Press. April 18, 2009. Archived from the original on April 22, 2009.
  166. ^ Leeson, Peter T. (April 13, 2009). . National Review. Archived from the original on April 22, 2009. Retrieved March 3, 2010.
  167. ^ Stossel, John & Kirell, Andrew (May 8, 2009). "Could Profit Motive Put an End to Piracy?". ABC News.
  168. ^ "Publications". www.ocimf.org.
  169. ^ Consortium of International Organizations (2011). (PDF). Livingston: Witherby Seamanship International, London. ISBN 978-1-85609-505-1. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 9, 2016. Retrieved September 10, 2016.
  170. ^ ""CNN's Zain Verjee reports on modern day piracy," 22 February 2011". Edition.cnn.com. July 16, 2010. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
  171. ^ a b John W. Miller (January 6, 2010). "Loaded: Freighters Ready to Shoot Across Pirate Bow". WSJ.
  172. ^ . maritimeaccident.org. Archived from the original on July 9, 2012.
  173. ^ . Af.reuters.com. February 15, 2011. Archived from the original on February 20, 2011. Retrieved June 8, 2016.
  174. ^ "Spanish fishing boat repels pirate attack". Edition.cnn.com. November 29, 2009. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
  175. ^ "'Pirate' dies as ship's guards repel attack off Somalia". BBC News. March 24, 2010. Retrieved March 27, 2011.
  176. ^ . vsos.sc. Archived from the original on December 8, 2013. Retrieved December 8, 2014.
  177. ^ DiSalvo, David (December 6, 2010). . mental floss. Archived from the original on January 19, 2012. Retrieved September 5, 2011.
  178. ^ "SeaLase Offers Shipping Companies Effective Counter to Pirates". Handy Shipping Guide. Retrieved January 19, 2010.
  179. ^ "India police open murder case against Italian ship crew". BBC News. February 17, 2012. Retrieved February 21, 2012.
  180. ^ Phillips, Roger L. (March 9, 2012). "The Enrica Lexie Incident – Private Security Counterpoint". piracy Law. Retrieved January 3, 2013.
  181. ^ Phillips, Roger L. (November 25, 2012). "Private Security Liability under the Alien Tort Statute". piracy-law.com. Retrieved December 22, 2012.
  182. ^ Alan, Katz (September 17, 2012). "Fighting Piracy Goes Awry With Killings of Fishermen". Bloomberg. Retrieved December 22, 2012.
  183. ^ Spielmann, Peter James (November 19, 2012). "UN Security Council debates piracy for first time". Associated Press. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
  184. ^ . Archived from the original on August 12, 2014. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  185. ^ Hodson, Hal (May 28, 2014). "Pirates incoming! Ship radar keeps watch and hits back". New Scientist. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  186. ^ . Archived from the original on July 9, 2012. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  187. ^ . HBO. Archived from the original on August 17, 2016. Retrieved August 17, 2016.
  188. ^ Weapons training for crew on YouTube
  189. ^ Belton, Padraig (September 9, 2016). "Do you have an AK-47 and can you swim?". BBC News. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  190. ^ "Shipping company head wants to arm vessels against pirates". CNN. May 5, 2009. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  191. ^ "Secure-Waters" (PDF). secure-marine.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on March 11, 2010. Retrieved January 7, 2010.
  192. ^ Amos, Jonathon (July 20, 2012). "Ahoy! Your ship is being tracked from orbit". BBC News. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  193. ^ . Popular Mechanics. Archived from the original on January 30, 2010. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  194. ^ "The Tortoise in the Air". naval-technology.com. August 27, 2009. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  195. ^ . Stars and Stripes. Archived from the original on September 2, 2009. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
  196. ^ Woolf, Marie (April 13, 2008). "Pirates can claim UK asylum". The Sunday Times. London. Retrieved February 26, 2021.
  197. ^ Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice, 1999, para. 25–46 at p. 1979
  198. ^ William Hawkins, Treatise of Pleas of the Crown (1824 ed.), vol. 1, chapter XIV. See also 40 Ass. 35
  199. ^ 18 U.S. 153 (1820).
  200. ^ Memorandum Opinion and Order, August 17, 2010, docket entry 94, United States v. Said, 2:10-cr-00057-RAJ-FBS, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia (Norfolk Div.).
  201. ^ Kissinger, Henry (July–August 2001). . Foreign Affairs. Archived from the original on January 14, 2009.
  202. ^ Black's Law Dictionary, p. 528 (5th ed. 1979).
  203. ^ a b Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice. 1999. Paragraph 25–39 at p. 1976.
  204. ^ "Preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the sea". www.un.org.
  205. ^ Archbold Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice. 1999. Paragraph 25–39 at p. 1976 refers to the Schedule to the Tokyo Convention Act 1967. That Schedule, and section 4 of that Act, refer to the said articles of Convention on the High Seas.
  206. ^ Yearbook of the ILC [1956] Vol 2, 282
  207. ^ "Modern High Seas Piracy". cargolaw.com.
  208. ^ Bento, Lucas (2011). "Toward An International Law of Piracy Sui Generis: How the Dual Nature of Maritime Piracy Law Enables Piracy to Flourish". Berkeley Journal of International Law. 29 (2). SSRN 1682624.
  209. ^ Adams, C. "The Straight Dope", October 12, 2007 The Straight Dope – Fighting Ignorance Since 1973 December 26, 2007, at the Wayback Machine
  210. ^ a b A general history of the robberies & murders of the most notorious pirates. Charles Johnson December 26, 2022, at the Wayback Machine. Introduction and commentary to A General History of the Pyrates by David Cordingly. p. viii. Conway Maritime Press (2002).
  211. ^ Bonanos, Christopher (June 5, 2007). "Did pirates really say "arrrr"?". Slate.com. Retrieved December 18, 2008.
  212. ^ Angus Konstam (2008) Piracy: The Complete History P. 313. Osprey Publishing. Retrieved October 11, 2011
  213. ^ Dan Parry (2006). "Blackbeard: The Real Pirate of the Caribbean". p. 174. National Maritime Museum
  214. ^ Libretto of The Pirates of Penzance September 29, 2012, at the Wayback Machine (1879), the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive, accessed May 1, 2014
  215. ^ "History of the Pittsburgh Pirates: Early Years". MLB.com. Pittsburgh Pirates.
  216. ^ Karraker, Cyrus Harreld (1953). Piracy was a Business. Rindge, New Hampshire: Richard R. Smith, Publisher, Inc. ISBN 9780598227775. Retrieved August 29, 2022.
  217. ^ Pennell, C.R. (1998). "Who Needs Pirate Heroes?" (PDF). The Northern Mariner. Canadian Nautical Research Society. 8 (2): 61–79. doi:10.25071/2561-5467.660.
  218. ^ Lawrence, Daina (November 5, 2014). "Disruptors are just pirates on the high seas of capitalism". The Globe and Mail. Retrieved June 23, 2021.
  219. ^ Roth, S. (2014). . International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business. 22 (4): 439–448. doi:10.1504/IJESB.2014.064272. S2CID 53140269. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014.
  220. ^ Roth, S. (2014). . International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business. 22 (4): 399–407. doi:10.1504/IJESB.2014.064271. Archived from the original on August 26, 2014.
  221. ^ For example: Eklöf, Stefan (2006). "Opportunistic Piracy". Pirates in Paradise: A Modern History of Southeast Asia's Maritime Marauders. Nias Monographs: Studies in contemporary Asian history. Vol. 101. Copenhagen: Nordic Institute of Asian Studies (NIAS). p. 35. ISBN 978-8791114373. Retrieved July 13, 2018. [...] it is useful to distinguish between organised and non-organised (or opportunistic) piracy, with the latter type being by far the most common in South-east Asia today and over the past decades. Opportunistic piracy is mostly perpetrated by quite small groups [...]. The attacks require little detailed information or planning ahead [...].

Bibliography

  • "bonaventure.org.uk – Pirate Ranks". Retrieved April 24, 2008.
  • Beal, Clifford (2007). Quelch's Gold: Piracy, Greed, and Betrayal in Colonial New England. Praeger. p. 243. ISBN 978-0-275-99407-5.
  • Burnett, John (2002). Dangerous Waters: Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas. Plume. p. 346. ISBN 0-452-28413-9.
  • Cordingly, David (1997). Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Harvest Books. ISBN 0-15-600549-2.
  • Hanna, Mark G. Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570–1740 (University of North Carolina Press, 2015). xvi, 448 pp.
  • Menefee, Samuel (1996). Trends in Maritime Violence. Jane's Information Group. ISBN 0-7106-1403-9.
  • Girard, Geoffrey (2006). Tales of the Atlantic Pirates. Middle Atlantic Press. ISBN 0-9754419-5-7.
  • Langewiesche, William (2004). The Outlaw Sea: A World of Freedom, Chaos, and Crime. North Point Press. ISBN 0-86547-581-4.
  • Rediker, Marcus. Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates, and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail (Boston: Beacon, 2014). xii, 241 pp.
  • Rediker, Marcus (1987). Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0-521-37983-0.
  • Kimball, Steve (2006). . The Pyrates Way, LLC. p. 64. Archived from the original on March 9, 2021. Retrieved June 26, 2021.
  • Heller-Roazen, Daniel (2009). The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations. Zone Books. ISBN 978-1890951948.
  • Lucie-Smith, Edward (1978). Outcasts of the Sea: Pirates and Piracy. Paddington Press. ISBN 978-0448226170.
  • Earle, Peter (2003) The Pirate Wars Methuen, London. ISBN 0-413-75880-X
  • Guilmartin, John Francis, Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, London. 1974. ISBN 0-521-20272-8

Further reading

  • Amirell, Stefan, Bruce Buchan and Hans Hägerdal (eds) (2021) Piracy in World History. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press. Open Access Piracy in World History
  • "Tackling piracy on the high seas" (Slideshow). Reuters. April 30, 2009. Retrieved June 9, 2021.
  • Bradford, John (December 2004). "Japanese Anti-Piracy Initiatives in Southeast Asia". Contemporary Southeast Asia. Vol. 26, no. 3. pp. 480–505, 26pp. (AN 15709264).
  • Bueger, Christian (2011). Stockbruegger, Jan & Werthes, Sascha (eds.). "Pirates, Fishermen and Peacebuilding – Options for Counter-Piracy in Somalia". Contemporary Security Policy. Vol. 32, no. 2.
  • Burnett, John S. (2003). Dangerous Waters, Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas. New York: Dutton. ISBN 0-452-28413-9.
  • Caninas, Commander Osvaldo Peçanha. "Rogue Wave: Modern Maritime Piracy and International Law". The Culture & Conflict Review. Monterey, CA: United States Naval Postgraduate School.
  • Chalk, Peter (January–March 1998). "Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia". Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. Vol. 21, no. 1. pp. 87, 26p. 1 chart; (AN 286864).
  • Exquemelin, Alexandre-Olivier (1891). The buccaneers and marooners of America being an account of the famous adventures and daring deeds of certain notorious freebooters of the Spanish main. London: T. Fisher Unwin.
  • Gerhard, Peter (2003). Pirates of New Spain, 1575–1742. Dover Books. ISBN 978-0486426112.
  • Gerhard, Peter (1990). Pirates of the Pacific, 1575–1742. University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 978-0803270305.
  • Goodman, Timothy H. (Winter 1999). "Leaving the Corsair's name to other times: How to enforce the law of sea piracy in the 21st century through regional international agreements". Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law. Vol. 31, no. 1. pp. 139–168.
  • Goorangai (August 2006). (PDF). RANR Occasional Papers. Royal Australian Navy. Archived from the original (PDF) on August 4, 2008.
  • Herrmann, Wilfried (2004). "Maritime Piracy and Anti-Piracy Measures". Naval Forces. Vol. 25, no. 2. pp. 18–25, 6p. (AN 13193917).
  • Johnson, Captain Charles (1724). A General History of the Pyrates.
  • Koknar, Ali (June 2004). "Terror on the High Seas". Security Management. Vol. 48, no. 6. pp. 75–81, 6p. (AN 13443749)
  • Lane, Kris (1967). Blood and Silver: The history of piracy in the Caribbean and Central America. O'Shaughnessy, Hugh (foreword). Oxford (1967).
  • Lilius, Aleko (October 17, 1991). I Sailed With Chinese Pirates. US: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-585297-4.
  • Liss, Carolin (2003). "Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia". Southeast Asian Affairs. pp. 52, 17p. (AN 10637324).
  • Mason, R. Chuck (December 13, 2010). Piracy: A Legal Definition (PDF). Congressional Research Service.
  • "Modern Piracy". Naval Forces. Vol. 26, no. 5. 2005. pp. 20–31, 7p. (AN 18506590).
  • Patton, Robert H. (2008). Patriot Pirates: the privateer war for freedom and fortune in the American Revolution. New York: Pantheon Books. ISBN 978-0375422843.
  • Clive Malcolm Senior, 'An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates, 1603–40' (University of Bristol, PhD thesis, 1973);
  • Clive M. Senior, A Nation of Pirates: English Piracy in its Heyday (Newton Abbot, 1976)
  • Shearer, Ivan. "Piracy". Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law. (Last updated October 2010).

External links

  • European Union Naval Force Somalia Official website.
  • . International Chamber of Commerce. Commercial Crime Services. Archived from the original on October 11, 2007.
  • "Maritime Security and Piracy". International Maritime Organization.
  • Operation Atalanta (EU NAVFOR Somalia), the ongoing EU military operation to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden.
  • Piracy-Studies.org — academic research portal on modern-day piracy and maritime security
  • N.C Supreme Court revives lawsuit over Blackbeard's ship and lost Spanish treasure ship, Fayetteville Observer
  • Episode 955: Pirate Videos, Planet Money, NPR

piracy, unauthorized, published, media, copyright, infringement, pirate, redirects, here, other, uses, pirate, disambiguation, pirate, ship, redirects, here, amusement, ride, pirate, ship, ride, robbery, criminal, violence, ship, boat, borne, attackers, upon, . For the unauthorized use of published media see Copyright infringement Pirate redirects here For other uses see Pirate disambiguation Pirate ship redirects here For the amusement ride see Pirate ship ride Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates vessels used for piracy are pirate ships The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC when the Sea Peoples a group of ocean raiders attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy 1 as well as for privateering and commerce raiding Historic examples include the waters of Gibraltar the Strait of Malacca Madagascar the Gulf of Aden and the English Channel whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks 2 3 The term piracy generally refers to maritime piracy although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land 4 in the air on computer networks and in science fiction outer space Piracy usually excludes crimes committed by the perpetrator on their own vessel e g theft as well as privateering which implies authorization by a state government The traditional Jolly Roger of piracy Piracy or pirating is the name of a specific crime under customary international law and also the name of a number of crimes under the municipal law of a number of states In the early 21st century seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue with estimated worldwide losses of US 16 billion per year in 2004 5 particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean off the Somali coast and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore Modern day pirates are armed with automatic weapons such as assault rifles and machine guns grenades and rocket propelled grenades They often use small motorboats to attack and board ships a tactic that takes advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels and transport ships The international community is facing many challenges in bringing modern pirates to justice as these attacks often occur in international waters 6 Nations have used their naval forces to repel and pursue pirates and some private vessels use armed security guards high pressure water cannons or sound cannons to repel boarders and use radar to avoid potential threats Romanticised accounts of piracy during the Age of Sail have long been a part of Western pop culture The two volume A General History of the Pyrates published in London in 1724 is generally credited with bringing key piratical figures and a semi accurate description of their milieu in the Golden Age of Piracy to the public s imagination The General History inspired and informed many later fictional depictions of piracy most notably the novels Treasure Island 1883 and Peter Pan 1911 both of which have been adapted and readapted for stage film television and other media across over a century More recently pirates of the golden age were further stereotyped and popularized by the Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise which began in 2003 Contents 1 Etymology 2 History 2 1 Europe 2 1 1 Antiquity 2 1 2 Middle Ages 2 1 3 Mediterranean corsairs 2 2 Southeast Asia 2 3 East Asia 2 3 1 Piracy in the Ming dynasty 2 3 2 Illegal trade and authority 2 3 3 Hierarchy and structure 2 3 4 Clientele 2 4 South Asia 2 5 Persian Gulf 2 6 Madagascar 2 7 The Caribbean 2 8 Canary Islands 2 9 North America 3 Culture and social structure 3 1 Rewards 3 2 Loot 3 3 Punishment 3 4 Role of women 3 5 Democracy among Caribbean pirates 3 6 Pirate Code 4 Known pirate shipwrecks 5 Privateers 6 Commerce raiders 7 1990s 2020s 8 Anti piracy measures 8 1 Self defense 8 2 Self protection measures 8 3 Patrol 9 Legal aspects 9 1 United Kingdom laws 9 1 1 Definition of piracy jure gentium 9 1 2 Jurisdiction 9 1 3 Piracy committed by or against aircraft 9 1 4 Sentence 9 1 5 History 9 2 United States laws 9 3 International law 9 3 1 Effects on international boundaries 9 3 2 Law of nations 9 3 3 International conventions 9 3 4 Articles 101 to 103 of UNCLOS 9 3 5 IMB definition 9 3 6 Uniformity in maritime piracy law 10 Cultural perceptions 11 Economics of piracy 11 1 Piracy and entrepreneurship 12 See also 13 References 13 1 Notes 13 2 Bibliography 14 Further reading 15 External linksEtymologyThe English word pirate is derived from the Latin pirata pirate corsair sea robber which comes from Greek peiraths peirates brigand 7 in turn from peiraomai peiraomai I attempt from peῖra peira attempt experience 8 The meaning of the Greek word peirates literally is anyone who attempts something Over time it came to be used of anyone who engaged in robbery or brigandry on land or sea 9 The term first appeared in English c 1300 10 Spelling did not become standardised until the eighteenth century and spellings such as pirrot pyrate and pyrat occurred until this period 11 12 HistoryFor a chronological guide see Timeline of piracy Europe Antiquity Further information Ancient Mediterranean piracy Mosaic of a Roman trireme in Tunisia The earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of the Sea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC In classical antiquity the Phoenicians Illyrians and Tyrrhenians were known as pirates In the pre classical era the ancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession it apparently was widespread and regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living 13 References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence in many texts including in Homer s Iliad and Odyssey and abduction of women and children to be sold into slavery was common By the era of Classical Greece piracy was looked upon as a disgrace to have as a profession 13 14 In the 3rd century BC pirate attacks on Olympus in Lycia brought impoverishment Among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians a people populating the western Balkan peninsula Constantly raiding the Adriatic Sea the Illyrians caused many conflicts with the Roman Republic It was not until 229 BC when the Romans finally decisively beat the Illyrian fleets that their threat was ended 15 During the 1st century BC there were pirate states along the Anatolian coast threatening the commerce of the Roman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean On one voyage across the Aegean Sea in 75 BC 16 Julius Caesar was kidnapped and briefly held by Cilician pirates and held prisoner in the Dodecanese islet of Pharmacusa 17 The Senate finally invested the general Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus with powers to deal with piracy in 67 BC the Lex Gabinia and Pompey after three months of naval warfare managed to suppress the threat As early as 258 AD the Gothic Herulic fleet ravaged towns on the coasts of the Black Sea and Sea of Marmara The Aegean coast suffered similar attacks a few years later In 264 the Goths reached Galatia and Cappadocia and Gothic pirates landed on Cyprus and Crete In the process the Goths seized enormous booty and took thousands into captivity citation needed In 286 AD Carausius a Roman military commander of Gaulish origins was appointed to command the Classis Britannica and given the responsibility of eliminating Frankish and Saxon pirates who had been raiding the coasts of Armorica and Belgic Gaul In the Roman province of Britannia Saint Patrick was captured and enslaved by Irish pirates Middle Ages A fleet of Vikings painted mid 12th century The most widely recognized and far reaching pirates in medieval Europe were the Vikings 18 seaborne warriors from Scandinavia who raided and looted mainly between the 8th and 12th centuries during the Viking Age in the Early Middle Ages They raided the coasts rivers and inland cities of all Western Europe as far as Seville which was attacked by the Norse in 844 Vikings also attacked the coasts of North Africa and Italy and plundered all the coasts of the Baltic Sea Some Vikings ascended the rivers of Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia In the Late Middle Ages the Frisian pirates known as Arumer Zwarte Hoop led by Pier Gerlofs Donia and Wijerd Jelckama fought against the troops of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V with some success Toward the end of the 9th century Moorish pirate havens were established along the coast of southern France and northern Italy 19 In 846 Moor raiders sacked the extra muros Basilicas of Saint Peter and Saint Paul in Rome In 911 the bishop of Narbonne was unable to return to France from Rome because the Moors from Fraxinet controlled all the passes in the Alps Moor pirates operated out of the Balearic Islands in the 10th century From 824 to 961 Arab pirates in the Emirate of Crete raided the entire Mediterranean In the 14th century raids by Moor pirates forced the Venetian Duke of Crete to ask Venice to keep its fleet on constant guard citation needed After the Slavic invasions of the former Roman province of Dalmatia in the 5th and 6th centuries a tribe called the Narentines revived the old Illyrian piratical habits and often raided the Adriatic Sea starting in the 7th century Their raids in the Adriatic increased rapidly until the whole Sea was no longer safe for travel The Narentines took more liberties in their raiding quests while the Venetian Navy was abroad as when it was campaigning in Sicilian waters in 827 882 As soon as the Venetian fleet would return to the Adriatic the Narentines momentarily outcasted their habits again even signing a Treaty in Venice and baptising their Slavic pagan leader into Christianity In 834 or 835 they broke the treaty and again they raided Venetian traders returning from Benevento and all of Venice s military attempts to punish them in 839 and 840 utterly failed Later they raided the Venetians more often together with the Arabs In 846 the Narentines broke through to Venice itself and raided its lagoon city of Caorle This caused a Byzantine military action against them that finally brought Christianity to them After the Arab raids on the Adriatic coast circa 872 and the retreat of the Imperial Navy the Narentines continued their raids of Venetian waters causing new conflicts with the Italians in 887 888 The Venetians futilely continued to fight them throughout the 10th and 11th centuries Domagoj was accused of attacking a ship which was bringing home the papal legates who had participated in the Eighth Catholic Ecumenical Council after which Pope John VIII addresses to Domagoj with request that his pirates stop attacking Christians at sea 20 21 The Vitalienbruder Piracy became endemic in the Baltic sea in the Middle Ages because of the Victual Brothers In 937 Irish pirates sided with the Scots Vikings Picts and Welsh in their invasion of England Athelstan drove them back The Slavic piracy in the Baltic Sea ended with the Danish conquest of the Rani stronghold of Arkona in 1168 In the 12th century the coasts of western Scandinavia were plundered by Curonians and Oeselians from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea In the 13th and 14th century pirates threatened the Hanseatic routes and nearly brought sea trade to the brink of extinction The Victual Brothers of Gotland were a companionship of privateers who later turned to piracy as the Likedeelers They were especially noted for their leaders Klaus Stortebeker and Godeke Michels Until about 1440 maritime trade in both the North Sea the Baltic Sea and the Gulf of Bothnia was seriously in danger of attack by the pirates H Thomas Milhorn mentions a certain Englishman named William Maurice convicted of piracy in 1241 as the first person known to have been hanged drawn and quartered 22 which would indicate that the then ruling King Henry III took an especially severe view of this crime The ushkuiniks were Novgorodian pirates who looted the cities on the Volga and Kama Rivers in the 14th century Cossacks of Azov fighting a Turk ship by Grigory Gagarin As early as Byzantine times the Maniots one of Greece s toughest populations were known as pirates The Maniots considered piracy as a legitimate response to the fact that their land was poor and it became their main source of income The main victims of Maniot pirates were the Ottomans but the Maniots also targeted ships of European countries Zaporizhian Sich was a pirate republic in Europe from the 16th through to the 18th century Situated in Cossack territory in the remote steppe of Eastern Europe it was populated with Ukrainian peasants that had run away from their feudal masters outlaws destitute gentry run away slaves from Turkish galleys etc The remoteness of the place and the rapids at the Dnieper river effectively guarded the place from invasions of vengeful powers The main target of the inhabitants of Zaporizhian Sich who called themselves Cossacks were rich settlements at the Black Sea shores of Ottoman Empire and Crimean Khanate citation needed By 1615 and 1625 Zaporozhian Cossacks had even managed to raze townships on the outskirts of Istanbul forcing the Ottoman Sultan to flee his palace citation needed Don Cossacks under Stenka Razin even ravaged the Persian coasts 23 unreliable source Mediterranean corsairs See also Barbary pirates and Albanian piracy French ship under attack by Barbary pirates ca 1615 Though less famous and romanticized than Atlantic or Caribbean pirates corsairs in the Mediterranean equaled or outnumbered the former at any given point in history 24 Mediterranean piracy was conducted almost entirely with galleys until the mid 17th century when they were gradually replaced with highly maneuverable sailing vessels such as xebecs and brigantines They were however of a smaller type than battle galleys often referred to as galiots or fustas 25 Pirate galleys were small nimble lightly armed but often crewed in large numbers in order to overwhelm the often minimal crews of merchant ships In general pirate craft were extremely difficult for patrolling craft to actually hunt down and capture Anne Hilarion de Tourville a French admiral of the 17th century believed that the only way to run down raiders from the infamous corsair Moroccan port of Sale was by using a captured pirate vessel of the same type 26 Using oared vessels to combat pirates was common and was even practiced by the major powers in the Caribbean Purpose built galleys or hybrid sailing vessels were built by the English in Jamaica in 1683 27 and by the Spanish in the late 16th century 28 Specially built sailing frigates with oar ports on the lower decks like the James Galley and Charles Galley and oar equipped sloops proved highly useful for pirate hunting though they were not built in sufficient numbers to check piracy until the 1720s 29 The expansion of Muslim power through the Ottoman conquest of large parts of the eastern Mediterranean in the 15th and 16th century resulted in extensive piracy on sea trading The so called Barbary pirates began to operate out of North African ports in Algiers Tunis Tripoli Morocco around 1500 preying primarily on the shipping of Christian powers including massive slave raids at sea as well as on land The Barbary pirates were nominally under Ottoman suzerainty but had considerable independence to prey on the enemies of Islam The Muslim corsairs were technically often privateers with support from legitimate though highly belligerent states They considered themselves as holy Muslim warriors or ghazis 30 carrying on the tradition of fighting the incursion of Western Christians that had begun with the First Crusade late in the 11th century 31 The Bombardment of Algiers by the Anglo Dutch fleet in 1816 to support the ultimatum to release European slaves Coastal villages and towns of Italy Spain and islands in the Mediterranean were frequently attacked by Muslim corsairs and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants after 1600 the Barbary corsairs occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland According to Robert Davis between 1 million and 1 25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary corsairs and sold as slaves in North Africa and the Ottoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries The most famous corsairs were the Ottoman Albanian Hayreddin and his older brother Oruc Reis Redbeard Turgut Reis known as Dragut in the West Kurtoglu known as Curtogoli in the West Kemal Reis Salih Reis and Koca Murat Reis A few Barbary corsairs such as the Dutch Jan Janszoon and the English John Ward Muslim name Yusuf Reis were renegade European privateers who had converted to Islam 32 33 The Barbary pirates had a direct Christian counterpart in the military order of the Knights of Saint John that operated first out of Rhodes and after 1530 Malta though they were less numerous and took fewer slaves Both sides waged war against the respective enemies of their faith and both used galleys as their primary weapons Both sides also used captured or bought galley slaves to man the oars of their ships the Muslims relying mostly on captured Christians the Christians using a mix of Muslim slaves Christian convicts and a small contingency of buonavoglie free men who out of desperation or poverty had taken to rowing 31 Historian Peter Earle has described the two sides of the Christian Muslim Mediterranean conflict as mirror image s of maritime predation two businesslike fleets of plunderers set against each other 34 This conflict of faith in the form of privateering piracy and slave raiding generated a complex system that was upheld financed operated on the trade in plunder and slaves that was generated from a low intensive conflict as well as the need for protection from violence The system has been described as a massive multinational protection racket 35 the Christian side of which was not ended until 1798 in the Napoleonic Wars The Barbary corsairs were finally quelled as late as the 1830s effectively ending the last vestiges of counter crusading jihad 36 Amaro Pargo was one of the most famous corsairs of the Golden Age of Piracy Piracy off the Barbary coast was often assisted by competition among European powers in the 17th century France encouraged the corsairs against Spain and later Britain and Holland supported them against France However by the second half of the 17th century the greater European naval powers began to initiate reprisals to intimidate the Barbary States into making peace with them The most successful of the Christian states in dealing with the corsair threat was England citation needed From the 1630s onwards England had signed peace treaties with the Barbary States on various occasions but invariably breaches of these agreements led to renewed wars A particular bone of contention was the tendency of foreign ships to pose as English to avoid attack However growing English naval power and increasingly persistent operations against the corsairs proved increasingly costly for the Barbary States During the reign of Charles II a series of English expeditions won victories over raiding squadrons and mounted attacks on their home ports which permanently ended the Barbary threat to English shipping In 1675 a bombardment from a Royal Navy squadron led by Sir John Narborough and further defeats at the hands of a squadron under Arthur Herbert negotiated a lasting peace until 1816 with Tunis and Tripoli citation needed France which had recently emerged as a leading naval power achieved comparable success soon afterwards with bombardments of Algiers in 1682 1683 and 1688 securing a lasting peace while Tripoli was similarly coerced in 1686 In 1783 and 1784 the Spaniards also bombarded Algiers in an effort to stem the piracy The second time Admiral Barcelo damaged the city so severely that the Algerian Dey asked Spain to negotiate a peace treaty and from then on Spanish vessels and coasts were safe for several years Until the American Declaration of Independence in 1776 British treaties with the North African states protected American ships from the Barbary corsairs Morocco which in 1777 was the first independent nation to publicly recognize the United States became in 1784 the first Barbary power to seize an American vessel after independence While the United States managed to secure peace treaties these obliged it to pay tribute for protection from attack Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20 of United States government annual expenditures in 1800 37 leading to the Barbary Wars that ended the payment of tribute However Algiers broke the 1805 peace treaty after only two years and subsequently refused to implement the 1815 treaty until compelled to do so by Britain in 1816 In 1815 the sacking of Palma on the island of Sardinia by a Tunisian squadron which carried off 158 inhabitants roused widespread indignation Britain had by this time banned the slave trade and was seeking to induce other countries to do likewise This led to complaints from states which were still vulnerable to the corsairs that Britain s enthusiasm for ending the trade in African slaves did not extend to stopping the enslavement of Europeans and Americans by the Barbary States U S naval officer Stephen Decatur boarding a Tripolitan gunboat during the First Barbary War 1804 In order to neutralise this objection and further the anti slavery campaign in 1816 Lord Exmouth was sent to secure new concessions from Tripoli Tunis and Algiers including a pledge to treat Christian captives in any future conflict as prisoners of war rather than slaves and the imposition of peace between Algiers and the kingdoms of Sardinia and Sicily On his first visit he negotiated satisfactory treaties and sailed for home While he was negotiating a number of Sardinian fishermen who had settled at Bona on the Tunisian coast were brutally treated without his knowledge As Sardinians they were technically under British protection and the government sent Exmouth back to secure reparation On August 17 in combination with a Dutch squadron under Admiral Van de Capellen he bombarded Algiers 38 Both Algiers and Tunis made fresh concessions as a result However securing uniform compliance with a total prohibition of slave raiding which was traditionally of central importance to the North African economy presented difficulties beyond those faced in ending attacks on ships of individual nations which had left slavers able to continue their accustomed way of life by preying on less well protected peoples Algiers subsequently renewed its slave raiding though on a smaller scale Measures to be taken against the city s government were discussed at the Congress of Aix la Chapelle in 1818 In 1820 another British fleet under Admiral Sir Harry Neal again bombarded Algiers Corsair activity based in Algiers did not entirely cease until its conquest by France in 1830 38 Southeast Asia See also Slavery in Sultanates of Southeast Asia Piracy in the Sulu Sea and Spanish expedition to Balanguingui A 19th century illustration of an Iranun pirate In thalassocratic Austronesian cultures in Island Southeast Asia maritime raids for slaves and resources against rival polities have ancient origins It was associated with prestige and prowess and often recorded in tattoos Reciprocal raiding traditions were recorded by early European cultures as being prevalent throughout Island Southeast Asia 39 40 41 42 43 Iban war prahu in Skerang river 1890 illustration by Rafael Monleon of a late 18th century Iranun lanong warship The Malay word for pirate lanun originates from an exonym of the Iranun people Double barrelled lantaka cannons kalasag shields armor and various swords including kalis panabas and kampilan used by Moro pirates in the Philippines c 1900 With the advent of the Islam and the colonial era slaves became a valuable resource for trading with European Arab and Chinese slavers and the volume of piracy and slave raids increased significantly 43 Numerous native peoples engaged in sea raiding they include the Iranun and Balanguingui slavers of Sulu the Iban headhunters of Borneo the Bugis sailors of South Sulawesi and the Malays of western Southeast Asia Piracy was also practiced by foreign seafarers on a smaller scale including Chinese Japanese and European traders renegades and outlaws 41 The volume of piracy and raids were often dependent on the ebb and flow of trade and monsoons with pirate season known colloquially as the Pirate Wind starting from August to September 40 Slave raids was particularly economically important to the Muslim Sultanates in the Sulu Sea the Sultanate of Sulu the Sultanate of Maguindanao and the Confederation of Sultanates in Lanao the modern Moro people It is estimated that from 1770 to 1870 around 200 000 to 300 000 people were enslaved by Iranun and Banguingui slavers 39 40 David P Forsythe put the estimate much higher at around 2 million slaves captured within the first two centuries of Spanish rule of the Philippines after 1565 44 Spanish warships bombarding the Moro Pirates of the southern Philippines in 1848 These slaves were taken from piracy on passing ships as well as coastal raids on settlements as far as the Malacca Strait Java the southern coast of China and the islands beyond the Makassar Strait Most of the slaves were Tagalogs Visayans and Malays including Bugis Mandarese Iban and Makassar There were also occasional European and Chinese captives who were usually ransomed off through Tausug intermediaries of the Sulu Sultanate Slaves were the primary indicators of wealth and status and they were the source of labor for the farms fisheries and workshops of the sultanates While personal slaves were rarely sold they trafficked extensively in slaves purchased from the Iranun and Banguingui slave markets By the 1850s slaves constituted 50 or more of the population of the Sulu archipelago 39 41 40 The scale was so massive that the word for pirate in Malay became lanun an exonym of the Iranun people The economy of the Sulu sultanates was largely run by slaves and the slave trade Male captives of the Iranun and the Banguingui were treated brutally even fellow Muslim captives were not spared They were usually forced to serve as galley slaves on the lanong and garay warships of their captors Female captives however were usually treated better There were no recorded accounts of rapes though some were starved for discipline Within a year of capture most of the captives of the Iranun and Banguingui would be bartered off in Jolo usually for rice opium bolts of cloth iron bars brassware and weapons The buyers were usually Tausug datu from the Sultanate of Sulu who had preferential treatment but buyers also included European Dutch and Portuguese and Chinese traders as well as Visayan pirates renegados 40 British forces engaging Iranun pirates off Sarawak in 1843 Spanish authorities and native Christian Filipinos responded to the Moro slave raids by building watchtowers and forts across the Philippine archipelago many of which are still standing today Some provincial capitals were also moved further inland Major command posts were built in Manila Cavite Cebu Iloilo Zamboanga and Iligan Defending ships were also built by local communities especially in the Visayas Islands including the construction of war barangayanes balangay that were faster than the Moro raiders and could give chase As resistance against raiders increased Lanong warships of the Iranun were eventually replaced by the smaller and faster garay warships of the Banguingui in the early 19th century The Moro raids were eventually subdued by several major naval expeditions by the Spanish and local forces from 1848 to 1891 including retaliatory bombardment and capture of Moro settlements By this time the Spanish had also acquired steam gunboats vapor which could easily overtake and destroy the native Moro warships 39 45 46 Aside from the Iranun and Banguingui pirates other polities were also associated with maritime raiding The Bugis sailors of South Sulawesi were infamous as pirates who used to range as far west as Singapore and as far north as the Philippines in search of targets for piracy 47 The Orang laut pirates controlled shipping in the Straits of Malacca and the waters around Singapore 48 and the Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo 49 East Asia In East Asia by the ninth century populations centered mostly around merchant activities in coastal Shandong and Jiangsu Wealthy benefactors including Jang Bogo established Silla Buddhist temples in the region Jang Bogo had become incensed at the treatment of his fellow countrymen who in the unstable milieu of late Tang often fell victim to coastal pirates or inland bandits After returning to Silla around 825 and in possession of a formidable private fleet headquartered at Cheonghae Wando Jang Bogo petitioned the Silla king Heungdeok r 826 836 to establish a permanent maritime garrison to protect Silla merchant activities in the Yellow Sea Heungdeok agreed and in 828 formally established the Cheonghae 淸海 clear sea Garrison 청해진 at what is today Wando island off Korea s South Jeolla province Heungdeok gave Jang an army of 10 000 men to establish and man the defensive works The remnants of Cheonghae Garrison can still be seen on Jang islet just off Wando s southern coast Jang s force though nominally bequeathed by the Silla king was effectively under his own control Jang became arbiter of Yellow Sea commerce and navigation 50 From the 13th century Wokou based in Japan made their debut in East Asia initiating invasions that would persist for 300 years The wokou raids peaked in the 1550s but by then the wokou were mostly Chinese smugglers who reacted strongly against the Ming dynasty s strict prohibition on private sea trade Sixteenth century Japanese pirate raids During the Qing period Chinese pirate fleets grew increasingly large The effects large scale piracy had on the Chinese economy were immense They preyed voraciously on China s junk trade which flourished in Fujian and Guangdong and was a vital artery of Chinese commerce Pirate fleets exercised hegemony over villages on the coast collecting revenue by exacting tribute and running extortion rackets In 1802 the menacing Zheng Yi inherited the fleet of his cousin captain Zheng Qi whose death provided Zheng Yi with considerably more influence in the world of piracy Zheng Yi and his wife Zheng Yi Sao who would eventually inherit the leadership of his pirate confederacy then formed a pirate coalition that by 1804 consisted of over ten thousand men Their military might alone was sufficient to combat the Qing navy However a combination of famine Qing naval opposition and internal rifts crippled piracy in China around the 1820s and it has never again reached the same status In the 1840s and 1850s United States Navy and Royal Navy forces campaigned together against Chinese pirates Major battles were fought such as those at Ty ho Bay and the Tonkin River though pirate junks continued operating off China for years more However some British and American individual citizens also volunteered to serve with Chinese pirates to fight against European forces The British offered rewards for the capture of westerners serving with Chinese pirates During the Second Opium War and the Taiping Rebellion piratical junks were again destroyed in large numbers by British naval forces but ultimately it wasn t until the 1860s and 1870s that fleets of pirate junks ceased to exist Four Chinese pirates who were hanged in Hong Kong in 1863 Chinese Pirates also plagued the Tonkin Gulf area 51 52 Piracy in the Ming dynasty Pirates in the Ming era tended to come from populations on the geographic periphery of the state 53 They were recruited largely from the lower classes of society including poor fishermen and many were fleeing from obligatory labor on state building projects organized by the dynasty These lower class men and sometimes women may have fled taxation or conscription by the state in the search of better opportunities and wealth and willingly joined local pirate bands 54 55 These local lower class individuals seem to have felt unrepresented and traded the small amount of security afforded them from their allegiance to the state for the promise of a relatively improved existence engaging in smuggling or other illegal trade Originally pirates in the coastal areas near Fujian and Zhejiang may have been Japanese suggested by the Ming government referring to them as wokou 倭寇 but it is probable that piracy was a multi ethnic profession by the 16th century although coastal brigands continued to be referred to as wokou in many government documents 56 Most pirates were probably Han Chinese but Japanese and even Europeans engaged in pirate activities in the region 57 Illegal trade and authority Pirates engaged in a number of different schemes to make a living Smuggling and illegal trade overseas were major sources of revenue for pirate bands both large and small 58 As the Ming government mostly outlawed private trade overseas at least until the overseas silver trade contributed to a lifting of the ban pirates basically could almost by default control the market for any number of foreign goods 58 59 60 The geography of the coastline made chasing pirates quite difficult for the authorities and private overseas trade began to transform coastal societies by the 15th century as nearly all aspects of the local society benefitted from or associated with illegal trade 61 The desire to trade for silver eventually led to open conflict between the Ming and illegal smugglers and pirates This conflict along with local merchants in southern China helped persuade the Ming court to end the haijin ban on private international trade in 1567 60 Pirates also projected local political authority 62 Larger pirate bands could act as local governing bodies for coastal communities collecting taxes and engaging in protection schemes In addition to illegal goods pirates ostensibly offered security to communities on land in exchange for a tax 63 These bands also wrote and codified laws that redistributed wealth punished crimes and provided protection for the taxed community 62 These laws were strictly followed by the pirates as well 64 The political structures tended to look similar to the Ming structures 64 Hierarchy and structure Pirates did not tend to stay pirates permanently It seems to have been relatively easy both to join and leave a pirate band and these raiding groups were more interested in maintaining a willing force 65 Members of these pirate groups did not tend to stay longer than a few months or years at a time 65 There appears to have been a hierarchy in most pirate organizations Pirate leaders could become very wealthy and powerful especially when working with the Chinese dynasty and consequently so could those who served under them 63 These pirate groups were organized similarly to other escape societies throughout history and maintained a redistributive system to reward looting the pirates directly responsible for looting or pillaging got their cut first and the rest was allocated to the rest of the pirate community 63 There seems to be evidence that there was an egalitarian aspect to these communities with capability to do the job being rewarded explicitly The pirates themselves had some special privileges under the law when they interacted with communities on land mostly in the form of extra allotments of redistributed wealth 63 Clientele Pirates of course had to sell their loot They had trading relationships with land communities and foreign traders in the southeastern regions of China Zhu Wan who held the office of Grand Coordinator for Coastal Defense documented that pirates in the region to which he had been sent had the support of the local elite gentry class 66 These pirates in gowns and caps directly or indirectly sponsored pirate activity and certainly directly benefitted from the illegal private trade in the region When Zhu Wan or other officials from the capital attempted to eliminate the pirate problem these local elites fought back having Zhu Wan demoted and eventually even sent back to Beijing to possibly be executed 67 The gentry who benefitted from illegal maritime trade were too powerful and influential and they were clearly very invested in the smuggling activities of the pirate community 68 In addition to their relationship with the local elite class on the coast pirates also had complicated and often friendly relationships and partnerships with the dynasty itself as well as with international traders 69 When pirate groups recognized the authority of the dynasty they would often be allowed to operate freely and even profit from the relationship There were also opportunities for these pirates to ally themselves with colonial projects from Europe or other overseas powers 70 Both the dynasty and foreign colonial projects would employ pirates as mercenaries to establish dominance in the coastal region 71 Because of how difficult it was for established state powers to control these regions pirates seem to have had a lot of freedom to choose their allies and their preferred markets 72 Included in this list of possible allies sea marauders and pirates even found opportunities to bribe military officials as they engaged in illegal trade 73 They seem to have been incentivized mostly by money and loot and so could afford to play the field with regards to their political or military allies Because pirate organizations could be so powerful locally the Ming government made concerted efforts to weaken them The presence of colonial projects complicated this however as pirates could ally themselves with other maritime powers or local elites to stay in business The Chinese government was clearly aware of the power of some of these pirate groups as some documents even refer to them as sea rebels a reference to the political nature of pirates 70 Pirates like Zheng Zhilong and Zheng Chenggong accrued tremendous local power eventually even being hired as naval commanders by the Chinese dynasties and foreign maritime powers 74 South Asia Pirates who accepted the Royal Pardon from the Chola Empire would get to serve in the Chola Navy as Kallarani They would be used as coast guards or sent on recon missions to deal with Arab piracy in the Arabian Sea Their function is similar to the 18th century privateers used by the Royal Navy Starting in the 14th century the Deccan Southern Peninsular region of India was divided into two entities on the one side stood the Muslim Bahmani Sultanate and on the other stood the Hindu kings rallied around the Vijayanagara Empire Continuous wars demanded frequent resupplies of fresh horses which were imported through sea routes from Persia and Africa This trade was subjected to frequent raids by thriving bands of pirates based in the coastal cities of Western India One of such was Timoji who operated off Anjadip Island both as a privateer by seizing horse traders that he rendered to the raja of Honavar and as a pirate who attacked the Kerala merchant fleets that traded pepper with Gujarat During the 16th and 17th centuries there was frequent European piracy against Mughal Indian merchants especially those en route to Mecca for Hajj The situation came to a head when the Portuguese attacked and captured the vessel Rahimi which belonged to Mariam Zamani the Mughal queen which led to the Mughal seizure of the Portuguese town Daman 75 In the 18th century the famous Maratha privateer Kanhoji Angre ruled the seas between Mumbai and Goa 76 The Marathas attacked British shipping and insisted that East India Company ships pay taxes if sailing through their waters 77 Persian Gulf Main article Piracy in the Persian Gulf The southern coast of the Persian Gulf was known to the British from the late 18th century as the Pirate Coast where control of the seaways of the Persian Gulf was asserted by the Qawasim Al Qasimi and other local maritime powers Memories of the privations carried out on the coast by Portuguese raiders under Albuquerque were long and local powers antipathetic as a consequence to Christian powers asserting dominance of their coastal waters 78 Early British expeditions to protect the Imperial Indian Ocean trade from competitors principally the Al Qasimi from Ras Al Khaimah and Lingeh led to campaigns against those headquarters and other harbours along the coast in 1809 and then after a relapse in raiding again in 1819 79 This led to the signing of the first formal treaty of maritime peace between the British and the rulers of several coastal sheikhdoms in 1820 This was cemented by the Treaty of Maritime Peace in Perpetuity in 1853 resulting in the British label for the area Pirate Coast being softened to the Trucial Coast with several emirates being recognised by the British as Trucial States 78 Madagascar The cemetery of past pirates at Ile Ste Marie St Mary s Island At one point there were nearly 1 000 pirates located in Madagascar 80 Ile Sainte Marie was a popular base for pirates throughout the 17th and 18th centuries The most famous pirate utopia is that of the probably fictional Captain Misson and his pirate crew who allegedly founded the free colony of Libertatia in northern Madagascar in the late 17th century until it was destroyed in a surprise attack by the island natives in 1694 81 The Caribbean Main articles Piracy in the Caribbean and Golden Age of Piracy Jacques de Sores looting and burning Havana in 1555 Puerto del Principe being sacked in 1668 by Henry Morgan Book about pirates De Americaensche Zee Roovers was first published in 1678 in Amsterdam The classic era of piracy in the Caribbean lasted from circa 1650 until the mid 1720s 82 By 1650 France England and the United Provinces began to develop their colonial empires This involved considerable seaborne trade and a general economic improvement there was money to be made or stolen and much of it traveled by ship French buccaneers were established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625 83 but lived at first mostly as hunters rather than robbers their transition to full time piracy was gradual and motivated in part by Spanish efforts to wipe out both the buccaneers and the prey animals on which they depended The buccaneers migration from Hispaniola s mainland to the more defensible offshore island of Tortuga limited their resources and accelerated their piratical raids According to Alexandre Exquemelin a buccaneer and historian who remains a major source on this period the Tortuga buccaneer Pierre Le Grand pioneered the settlers attacks on galleons making the return voyage to Spain The growth of buccaneering on Tortuga was augmented by the English capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655 The early English governors of Jamaica freely granted letters of marque to Tortuga buccaneers and to their own countrymen while the growth of Port Royal provided these raiders with a far more profitable and enjoyable place to sell their booty In the 1660s the new French governor of Tortuga Bertrand d Ogeron similarly provided privateering commissions both to his own colonists and to English cutthroats from Port Royal These conditions brought Caribbean buccaneering to its zenith Henry Every is shown selling his loot in this engraving by Howard Pyle Every s capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj i Sawai in 1695 stands as one of the most profitable pirate raids ever perpetrated A new phase of piracy began in the 1690s as English pirates began to look beyond the Caribbean for treasure The fall of Britain s Stuart kings had restored the traditional enmity between Britain and France thus ending the profitable collaboration between English Jamaica and French Tortuga The devastation of Port Royal by an earthquake in 1692 further reduced the Caribbean s attractions by destroying the pirates chief market for fenced plunder 84 Caribbean colonial governors began to discard the traditional policy of no peace beyond the Line under which it was understood that war would continue and thus letters of marque would be granted in the Caribbean regardless of peace treaties signed in Europe henceforth commissions would be granted only in wartime and their limitations would be strictly enforced Furthermore much of the Spanish Main had simply been exhausted Maracaibo alone had been sacked three times between 1667 and 1678 85 while Rio de la Hacha had been raided five times and Tolu eight 86 Bartholomew Roberts was the pirate with most captures during the Golden Age of Piracy He is now known for hanging the governor of Martinique from the yardarm of his ship At the same time England s less favored colonies including Bermuda New York and Rhode Island had become cash starved by the Navigation Acts which restricted trade with foreign ships Merchants and governors eager for coin were willing to overlook and even underwrite pirate voyages one colonial official defended a pirate because he thought it very harsh to hang people that brings in gold to these provinces 87 Although some of these pirates operating out of New England and the Middle Colonies targeted Spain s remoter Pacific coast colonies well into the 1690s and beyond the Indian Ocean was a richer and more tempting target India s economic output was large during this time especially in high value luxury goods like silk and calico which made ideal pirate booty 88 at the same time no powerful navies plied the Indian Ocean leaving both local shipping and the various East India companies vessels vulnerable to attack This set the stage for the famous pirates Thomas Tew Henry Every Robert Culliford and although his guilt remains controversial William Kidd In 1713 and 1714 a series of peace treaties ended the War of the Spanish Succession As a result thousands of seamen including European privateers who had operated in the West Indies were relieved of military duty at a time when cross Atlantic colonial shipping trade was beginning to boom In addition European sailors who had been pushed by unemployment to work onboard merchantmen including slave ships were often enthusiastic to abandon that profession and turn to pirating giving pirate captains a steady pool of recruits various coasts across the Atlantic 89 In 1715 pirates launched a major raid on Spanish divers trying to recover gold from a sunken treasure galleon near Florida The nucleus of the pirate force was a group of English ex privateers all of whom would soon be enshrined in infamy Henry Jennings Charles Vane Samuel Bellamy and Edward England The attack was successful but contrary to their expectations the governor of Jamaica refused to allow Jennings and their cohorts to spend their loot on his island With Kingston and the declining Port Royal closed to them Jennings and his comrades founded a new pirate base at Nassau on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas which had been abandoned during the war Until the arrival of governor Woodes Rogers three years later Nassau would be home for these pirates and their many recruits Shipping traffic between Africa the Caribbean and Europe began to soar in the 18th century a model that was known as triangular trade and was a rich target for piracy Trade ships sailed from Europe to the African coast trading manufactured goods and weapons in exchange for slaves The traders would then sail to the Caribbean to sell the slaves and return to Europe with goods such as sugar tobacco and cocoa Another triangular trade saw ships carry raw materials preserved cod and rum to Europe where a portion of the cargo would be sold for manufactured goods which along with the remainder of the original load were transported to the Caribbean where they were exchanged for sugar and molasses which with some manufactured articles were borne to New England Ships in the triangular trade made money at each stop 90 Born to a noble family in Puerto Rico Roberto Cofresi was the last notably successful pirate in the Caribbean As part of the peace settlement of the War of the Spanish succession Britain obtained the asiento a Spanish government contract to supply slaves to Spain s new world colonies providing British traders and smugglers more access to the traditionally closed Spanish markets in America This arrangement also contributed heavily to the spread of piracy across the western Atlantic at this time Shipping to the colonies boomed simultaneously with the flood of skilled mariners after the war Merchant shippers used the surplus of sailors labor to drive wages down cutting corners to maximize their profits and creating unsavory conditions aboard their vessels Merchant sailors suffered from mortality rates as high or higher than the slaves being transported Rediker 2004 Living conditions were so poor that many sailors began to prefer a freer existence as a pirate The increased volume of shipping traffic also could sustain a large body of brigands preying upon it Among the most infamous Caribbean pirates of the time were Edward Teach or Blackbeard Calico Jack Rackham and Bartholomew Roberts Most of these pirates were eventually hunted down by the Royal Navy and killed or captured several battles were fought between the brigands and the colonial powers on both land and sea Piracy in the Caribbean declined for the next several decades after 1730 but by the 1810s many pirates roamed the waters though they were not as bold or successful as their predecessors The most successful pirates of the era were Jean Lafitte and Roberto Cofresi Lafitte is considered by many to be the last buccaneer due to his army of pirates and fleet of pirate ships which held bases in and around the Gulf of Mexico Lafitte and his men participated in the War of 1812 battle of New Orleans Cofresi s base was in Mona Island Puerto Rico from where he disrupted the commerce throughout the region He became the last major target of the international anti piracy operations 91 Hanging of Captain Kidd illustration from The Pirates Own Book 1837 The elimination of piracy from European waters expanded to the Caribbean in the 18th century West Africa and North America by the 1710s and by the 1720s even the Indian Ocean was a difficult location for pirates to operate England began to strongly turn against piracy at the turn of the 18th century as it was increasingly damaging to the country s economic and commercial prospects in the region The Piracy Act of 1698 for the more effectual suppression of Piracy 92 made it easier to capture try and convict pirates by lawfully enabling acts of piracy to be examined inquired of tried heard and determined and adjudged in any place at sea or upon the land in any of his Majesty s islands plantations colonies dominions forts or factories This effectively enabled admirals to hold a court session to hear the trials of pirates in any place they deemed necessary rather than requiring that the trial be held in England Commissioners of these vice admiralty courts were also vested with full power and authority to issue warrants summon the necessary witnesses and to do all thing necessary for the hearing and final determination of any case of piracy robbery or felony These new and faster trials provided no legal representation for the pirates and ultimately led in this era to the execution of 600 pirates which represented approximately 10 percent of the pirates active at the time in the Caribbean region 93 Being an accessory to piracy was also criminalised under the statute Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard 1718 depicting the battle between Blackbeard and Robert Maynard in Ocracoke Bay romanticized depiction by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris from 1920 Piracy saw a brief resurgence between the end of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1713 and around 1720 as many unemployed seafarers took to piracy as a way to make ends meet when a surplus of sailors after the war led to a decline in wages and working conditions At the same time one of the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht that ended the war gave to Great Britain s Royal African Company and other British slavers a thirty year asiento or contract to furnish African slaves to the Spanish colonies providing British merchants and smugglers potential inroads into the traditionally closed Spanish markets in America and leading to an economic revival for the whole region This revived Caribbean trade provided rich new pickings for a wave of piracy Also contributing to the increase of Caribbean piracy at this time was Spain s breakup of the English logwood settlement at Campeche and the attractions of a freshly sunken silver fleet off the southern Bahamas in 1715 Fears over the rising levels of crime and piracy political discontent concern over crowd behaviour at public punishments and an increased determination by parliament to suppress piracy resulted in the Piracy Act of 1717 and of 1721 These established a seven year penal transportation to North America as a possible punishment for those convicted of lesser felonies or as a possible sentence that capital punishment might be commuted to by royal pardon In 1717 a pardon was offered to pirates who surrendered to British authorities After 1720 piracy in the classic sense became extremely rare as increasingly effective anti piracy measures were taken by the Royal Navy making it impossible for any pirate to pursue an effective career for long By 1718 the British Royal Navy had approximately 124 vessels and 214 by 1815 a big increase from the two vessels England had possessed in 1670 93 British Royal Navy warships tirelessly hunted down pirate vessels and almost always won these engagements Blackbeard s severed head hanging from Maynard s bowsprit illustration from The Pirates Own Book 1837 Many pirates did not surrender and were killed at the point of capture notorious pirate Edward Teach or Blackbeard was hunted down by Lieutenant Robert Maynard at Ocracoke Inlet off the coast of North Carolina on November 22 1718 and killed His flagship was a captured French slave ship known originally as La Concorde he renamed the frigate Queen Anne s Revenge Captain Chaloner Ogle of HMS Swallow cornered Bartholomew Roberts in 1722 at Cape Lopez and a fatal broadside from the Swallow killed the pirate captain instantly Roberts death shocked the pirate world as well as the Royal Navy The local merchants and civilians had thought him invincible and some considered him a hero 94 Roberts death was seen by many historians as the end of the Golden Age of Piracy Also crucial to the end of this era of piracy was the loss of the pirates last Caribbean safe haven at Nassau In the early 19th century piracy along the East and Gulf Coasts of North America as well as in the Caribbean increased again Jean Lafitte was just one of hundreds of pirates operating in American and Caribbean waters between the years of 1820 and 1835 The United States Navy repeatedly engaged pirates in the Caribbean Gulf of Mexico and in the Mediterranean Cofresi s El Mosquito was disabled in a collaboration between Spain and the United States After fleeing for hours he was ambushed and captured inland The United States landed shore parties on several islands in the Caribbean in pursuit of pirates Cuba was a major haven By the 1830s piracy had died out again and the navies of the region focused on the slave trade About the time of the Mexican American War in 1846 the United States Navy had grown strong and numerous enough to eliminate the pirate threat in the West Indies By the 1830s ships had begun to convert to steam propulsion so the Age of Sail and the classical idea of pirates in the Caribbean ended Privateering similar to piracy continued as an asset in war for a few more decades and proved to be of some importance during the naval campaigns of the American Civil War Privateering would remain a tool of European states until the mid 19th century s Declaration of Paris But letters of marque were given out much more sparingly by governments and were terminated as soon as conflicts ended The idea of no peace beyond the Line was a relic that had no meaning by the more settled late 18th and early 19th centuries Canary Islands Mural representing the attack of Charles Windon to San Sebastian de La Gomera 1743 Due to the strategic situation of this Spanish archipelago as a crossroads of maritime routes and commercial bridge between Europe Africa and America 95 this was one of the places on the planet with the greatest pirate presence In the Canary Islands the following stand out the attacks and continuous looting of Berber English French and Dutch corsairs sometimes successful and often a failure 95 and on the other hand the presence of pirates and corsairs from this archipelago who made their incursions into the Caribbean Pirates and corsairs such as Francois Le Clerc Jacques de Sores Francis Drake defeat in Gran Canaria 96 Pieter van der Does Murat Reis and Horacio Nelson attacked the islands and was defeated in the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1797 97 Among those born in the archipelago stands out above all Amaro Pargo whom the monarch Felipe V of Spain frequently benefited in his commercial incursions and corsairs 98 99 North America Dan Seavey was a pirate on the Great Lakes in the early 20th century Piracy on the east coast of North America first became common in the early seventeenth century as English privateers discharged after the end of the Anglo Spanish War 1585 1604 turned to piracy 100 101 The most famous and successful of these early pirates was Peter Easton River piracy in late 18th mid 19th century America was primarily concentrated along the Ohio River and Mississippi River valleys In 1803 at Tower Rock the U S Army dragoons possibly from the frontier army post up river at Fort Kaskaskia on the Illinois side opposite St Louis raided and drove out the river pirates Stack Island was also associated with river pirates and counterfeiters in the late 1790s In 1809 the last major river pirate activity took place on the Upper Mississippi River and river piracy in this area came to an abrupt end when a group of flatboatmen raided the island wiping out the river pirates From 1790 to 1834 Cave In Rock was the principal outlaw lair and headquarters of river pirate activity in the Ohio River region from which Samuel Mason led a gang of river pirates on the Ohio River River piracy continued on the lower Mississippi River from the early 1800s to the mid 1830s declining as a result of direct military action and local law enforcement and regulator vigilante groups that uprooted and swept out pockets of outlaw resistance Roaring Dan Seavey was a pirate active in the early 1900s in the Great Lakes region Culture and social structureRewards See also No prey no pay Pirates had a system of hierarchy on board their ships determining how captured money was distributed However pirates were more egalitarian than any other area of employment at the time In fact pirate quartermasters were a counterbalance to the captain and had the power to veto his orders The majority of plunder was in the form of cargo and ship s equipment with medicines the most highly prized A vessel s doctor s chest would be worth anywhere from 300 to 400 or around 470 000 in today s values Jewels were common plunder but not popular as they were hard to sell and pirates unlike the public of today had little concept of their value There is one case recorded where a pirate was given a large diamond worth a great deal more than the value of the handful of small diamonds given to his crewmates as a share He felt cheated and had it broken up to match what they received 102 Henry Morgan who sacked and burned the city of Panama in 1671 the second most important city in the Spanish New World at the time engraving from 1681 Spanish edition of Alexandre Exquemelin s The Buccaneers of America Spanish pieces of eight minted in Mexico or Seville were the standard trade currency in the American colonies However every colony still used the monetary units of pounds shillings and pence for bookkeeping while Spanish German French and Portuguese money were all standard mediums of exchange as British law prohibited the export of British silver coinage Until the exchange rates were standardised in the late 18th century each colony legislated its own different exchange rates In England 1 piece of eight was worth 4s 3d while it was worth 8s in New York 7s 6d in Pennsylvania and 6s 8d in Virginia One 18th century English shilling was worth around 58 in modern currency so a piece of eight could be worth anywhere from 246 to 465 As such the value of pirate plunder could vary considerably depending on who recorded it and where 103 104 Ordinary seamen received a part of the plunder at the captain s discretion but usually a single share On average a pirate could expect the equivalent of a year s wages as his share from each ship captured while the crew of the most successful pirates would often each receive a share valued at around 1 000 1 17 million at least once in their career 102 One of the larger amounts taken from a single ship was that by captain Thomas Tew from an Indian merchantman in 1692 Each ordinary seaman on his ship received a share worth 3 000 3 5 million with officers receiving proportionally larger amounts as per the agreed shares with Tew himself receiving 2 shares It is known there were actions with multiple ships captured where a single share was worth almost double this 102 105 By contrast an ordinary seamen in the Royal Navy received 19s per month to be paid in a lump sum at the end of a tour of duty which was around half the rate paid in the Merchant Navy However corrupt officers would often tax their crews wage to supplement their own and the Royal Navy of the day was infamous for its reluctance to pay From this wage 6d per month was deducted for the maintenance of Greenwich Hospital with similar amounts deducted for the Chatham Chest the chaplain and surgeon Six months pay was withheld to discourage desertion That this was insufficient incentive is revealed in a report on proposed changes to the RN Admiral Nelson wrote in 1803 he noted that since 1793 more than 42 000 sailors had deserted Roughly half of all RN crews were pressganged and these not only received lower wages than volunteers but were shackled while the vessel was docked and were never permitted to go ashore until released from service 106 Although the Royal Navy suffered from many morale issues it answered the question of prize money via the Cruizers and Convoys Act of 1708 which handed over the share previously gained by the Crown to the captors of the ship Technically it was still possible for the Crown to get the money or a portion of it but this rarely happened The process of condemnation of a captured vessel and its cargo and men was given to the High Court of the Admiralty and this was the process which remained in force with minor changes throughout the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars Ship prize shares Rank Pre 1808 Post 1808Captain 3 8 2 8Admiral of fleet 1 8 1 8Sailing Master amp Lieutenants amp Captain of Marines 1 8 1 8Warrant Officers 1 8 1 8Wardroom Warrant officers amp Petty Officers 1 8 1 8Gunners Sailors 1 8 2 8 Bartholomew Roberts crew carousing at the Calabar River illustration from The Pirates Own Book 1837 Roberts is estimated to have captured over 470 vessels Even the flag officer s share was not quite straightforward he would only get the full one eighth if he had no junior flag officer beneath him If this was the case then he would get a third share If he had more than one then he would take one half while the rest was shared out equally There was a great deal of money to be made in this way The record breaker was the capture of the Spanish frigate Hermione which was carrying treasure in 1762 The value of this was so great that each individual seaman netted 485 1 4 million in 2008 dollars 107 The two captains responsible Evans and Pownall received 65 000 each 188 4 million In January 1807 the frigate Caroline took the Spanish San Rafael which brought in 52 000 for her captain Peter Rainier who had been only a midshipman some thirteen months before All through the wars there are examples of this kind of luck falling on captains Another famous capture was that of the Spanish frigates Thetis and Santa Brigada which were loaded with gold specie They were taken by four British frigates who shared the money each captain receiving 40 730 Each lieutenant got 5 091 the Warrant Officer group 2 468 the midshipmen 791 and the individual seamen 182 It should also be noted that it was usually only the frigates which took prizes the ships of the line were far too ponderous to be able to chase and capture the smaller ships which generally carried treasure Nelson always bemoaned that he had done badly out of prize money and even as a flag officer received little This was not that he had a bad command of captains but rather that British mastery of the seas was so complete that few enemy ships dared to sail 108 Comparison chart using the share distribution known for three pirates against the shares for a Privateer and wages as paid by the Royal Navy Rank Bartholomew Roberts George Lowther William Phillips Privateer Sir William Monson Royal Navy per month Captain 2 shares 2 shares 1 5 shares 10 shares 8 8sMaster 1 5 shares 1 5 shares 1 25 shares 7 or 8 shares 4Boatswain 1 5 shares 1 25 shares 1 25 shares 5 shares 2Gunner 1 5 shares 1 25 shares 1 25 shares 5 shares 2Quartermaster 2 shares 4 shares 1 6sCarpenter 1 25 shares 5 shares 2Mate 1 25 shares 5 shares 2 2sDoctor 1 25 shares 5 shares 5 2d per man aboard Other Officers 1 25 shares various rates various ratesAble Seamen 2 yrs experience Ordinary Seamen some exp Landsmen pressganged 1 share 1 share 1 share 22s19s11sLoot Pirate treasure looted by Samuel Bellamy and recovered from the wreck of the Whydah exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science 2010 Even though pirates raided many ships few if any buried their treasure Often the treasure that was stolen was food water alcohol weapons or clothing Other things they stole were household items like bits of soap and gear like rope and anchors or sometimes they would keep the ship they captured either to sell off or keep because it was better than their ship Such items were likely to be needed immediately rather than saved for future trade For this reason there was no need for the pirates to bury these goods Pirates tended to kill few people aboard the ships they captured usually they would kill no one if the ship surrendered because if it became known that pirates took no prisoners their victims would fight to the last breath and make victory both very difficult and costly in lives In contrast ships would quickly surrender if they knew they would be spared In one well documented case 300 heavily armed soldiers on a ship attacked by Thomas Tew surrendered after a brief battle with none of Tew s 40 man crew being injured 109 Punishment A contemporary flyer depicting the public execution of 16th century pirate Klein Henszlein and his crew in 1573 During the 17th and 18th centuries once pirates were caught justice was meted out in a summary fashion and many ended their lives by dancing the hempen jig a euphemism for hanging Public execution was a form of entertainment at the time and people came out to watch them as they would to a sporting event today Newspapers reported details such as condemned men s last words the prayers said by the priests and descriptions of their final moments in the gallows In England most of these executions took place at Execution Dock on the River Thames in London In the cases of more famous prisoners usually captains their punishments extended beyond death Their bodies were enclosed in iron cages gibbet for which they were measured before their execution and left to swing in the air until the flesh rotted off them a process that could take as long as two years The bodies of captains such as William Captain Kidd Charles Vane William Fly and Jack Rackham Calico Jack were all treated this manner 110 Role of women Main article Women in piracy Pirate Anne Bonny 1697 1720 Engraving from Captain Charles Johnson s General History of the Pyrates 1st Dutch Edition 1725 While piracy was predominantly a male occupation throughout history a minority of pirates were female 111 Pirates did not allow women onto their ships very often Additionally women were often regarded as bad luck among pirates It was feared that the male members of the crew would argue and fight over the women On many ships women as well as young boys were prohibited by the ship s contract which all crew members were required to sign 112 303 Because of the resistance to allowing women on board many female pirates did not identify themselves as such Anne Bonny for example dressed and acted as a man while on Captain Calico Jack s ship 112 285 She and Mary Read another female pirate are often identified as being unique in this regard 113 However it is possible many women dressed as men during the Golden Age of Piracy in an effort to take advantage of the many rights privileges and freedoms that were exclusive to men Democracy among Caribbean pirates See also Pirate code and distribution of justice Unlike traditional Western societies of the time many Caribbean pirate crews of European descent operated as limited democracies Pirate communities were some of the first to instate a system of checks and balances similar to the one used by the present day democracies The first record of such a government aboard a pirate sloop dates to the 17th century 114 Pirate Code As recorded by Captain Charles Johnson regarding the articles of Bartholomew Roberts Every man shall have an equal vote in affairs of moment He shall have an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized and shall use them at pleasure unless a scarcity may make it necessary for the common good that a retrenchment may be voted Every man shall be called fairly in turn by the list on board of prizes because over and above their proper share they are allowed a shift of clothes But if they defraud the company to the value of even one dollar in plate jewels or money they shall be marooned If any man rob another he shall have his nose and ears slit and be put ashore where he shall be sure to encounter hardships None shall game for money either with dice or cards The lights and candles should be put out at eight at night and if any of the crew desire to drink after that hour they shall sit upon the open deck without lights Each man shall keep his piece cutlass and pistols at all times clean and ready for action No boy or woman to be allowed amongst them If any man shall be found seducing any of the latter sex and carrying her to sea in disguise he shall suffer death He that shall desert the ship or his quarters in time of battle shall be punished by death or marooning None shall strike another on board the ship but every man s quarrel shall be ended on shore by sword or pistol in this manner At the word of command from the quartermaster each man being previously placed back to back shall turn and fire immediately If any man do not the quartermaster shall knock the piece out of his hand If both miss their aim they shall take to their cutlasses and he that draw the first blood shall be declared the victor No man shall talk of breaking up their way of living till each has a share of 1 000 Every man who shall become a cripple or lose a limb in the service shall have 800 pieces of eight from the common stock and for lesser hurts proportionately The captain and the quartermaster shall each receive two shares of a prize the master gunner and boatswain one and one half shares all other officers one and one quarter and private gentlemen of fortune one share each The musicians shall have rest on the Sabbath Day only by right On all other days by favor only 115 Known pirate shipwrecksTo date the following identifiable pirate shipwrecks have been discovered Whydah Gally discovered in 1984 a former slave ship seized on its maiden voyage from Africa by the pirate captain Black Sam Bellamy The wreck was found off the coast of Cape Cod Massachusetts buried under 10 ft 3 m to 50 ft 15 m feet of sand in depths ranging from 16 ft 5 m to 30 ft 9 m feet deep spread for four miles parallel to the Cape s easternmost coast With the discovery of the ship s bell in 1985 and a small brass placard in 2013 both inscribed with the ship s name and maiden voyage date the Whydah is the only fully authenticated Golden Age pirate shipwreck ever discovered 116 Since 2007 the Wydah collection has been touring as part of the exhibit Real Pirates sponsored by National Geographic 117 Queen Anne s Revenge discovered in 1996 the flagship of the infamous pirate Blackbeard He used the ship for less than a year but it was an effective tool in his prize taking In June 1718 Blackbeard ran the ship aground at Topsail Inlet now known as Beaufort Inlet North Carolina Intersal 118 a private firm working under a permit with the state of North Carolina discovered the remains of the vessel 119 in 28 feet 8 5m of water about one mile 1 6 km offshore of Fort Macon State Park Atlantic Beach North Carolina Thirty one cannons have been identified to date and more than 250 000 artifacts have been recovered 120 The cannons are of different origins such as English Swedish and possibly French and different sizes as would be expected with a colonial pirate crew 119 121 Golden Fleece discovered in 2009 the ship of the notorious English pirate Joseph Bannister which was found by the American shipwreck hunters John Chatterton and John Mattera in the Dominican Republic at Samana Bay The discovery is recounted in Robert Kurson s book Pirate Hunters 2015 122 123 124 125 PrivateersMain article Privateer Modern reconstruction of skull alleged to have belonged to 14th century pirate Klaus Stortebeker He was the leader of the privateer guild Victual Brothers who later turned to piracy and roamed European seas A privateer or corsair used similar methods to a pirate but acted under orders of the state while in possession of a commission or letter of marque and reprisal from a government or monarch authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation For example the United States Constitution of 1787 specifically authorized Congress to issue letters of marque and reprisal The letter of marque and reprisal was recognized by international convention and meant that a privateer could not technically be charged with piracy while attacking the targets named in his commission This nicety of law did not always save the individuals concerned however since whether one was considered a pirate or a legally operating privateer often depended on whose custody the individual found himself in that of the country that had issued the commission or that of the object of attack Spanish authorities were known to execute foreign privateers with their letters of marque hung around their necks to emphasize Spain s rejection of such defenses Furthermore many privateers exceeded the bounds of their letters of marque by attacking nations with which their sovereign was at peace Thomas Tew and William Kidd are notable alleged examples and thus made themselves liable to conviction for piracy However a letter of marque did provide some cover for such pirates as plunder seized from neutral or friendly shipping could be passed off later as taken from enemy merchants Kent battling Confiance a privateer vessel commanded by French corsair Robert Surcouf in October 1800 as depicted in a painting by Garneray The famous Barbary corsairs of the Mediterranean authorized by the Ottoman Empire were privateers as were the Maltese corsairs who were authorized by the Knights of St John and the Dunkirkers in the service of the Spanish Empire In the years 1626 1634 alone the Dunkirk privateers captured 1 499 ships and sank another 336 126 From 1609 to 1616 England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates and 160 British ships were captured by Algerians between 1677 and 1680 127 One famous privateer was Sir Francis Drake His patron was Queen Elizabeth I and their relationship ultimately proved to be quite profitable for England 128 Privateers constituted a large proportion of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries During the Nine Years War the French adopted a policy of strongly encouraging privateers French corsairs including the famous Jean Bart to attack English and Dutch shipping England lost roughly 4 000 merchant ships during the war 129 In the following War of Spanish Succession privateer attacks continued Britain losing 3 250 merchant ships 130 During the War of Austrian Succession Britain lost 3 238 merchant ships and France lost 3 434 merchant ships to the British 129 During King George s War approximately 36 000 Americans served aboard privateers at one time or another 129 During the American Revolution about 55 000 American seamen served aboard the privateers 131 The American privateers had almost 1 700 ships and they captured 2 283 enemy ships 132 Between the end of the Revolutionary War and 1812 less than 30 years Britain France Naples the Barbary states Spain and the Netherlands seized approximately 2 500 American ships 133 Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20 of United States government annual revenues in 1800 134 Throughout the American Civil War Confederate privateers successfully harassed Union merchant ships 135 Privateering lost international sanction under the Declaration of Paris in 1856 Commerce raidersSee also Ruse de guerre A wartime activity similar to piracy involves disguised warships called commerce raiders or merchant raiders which attack enemy shipping commerce approaching by stealth and then opening fire Commerce raiders operated successfully during the American Revolution citation needed During the American Civil War the Confederacy sent out several commerce raiders the most famous of which was the CSS Alabama citation needed During World War I and World War II Germany also made use of these tactics both in the Atlantic and Indian Oceans Since commissioned naval vessels were openly used these commerce raiders should not be considered even privateers much less pirates although the opposing combatants were vocal in denouncing them as such 1990s 2020sFurther information Piracy in the 21st century See also Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea Piracy in Somalia Piracy in the Strait of Malacca Piracy on Falcon Lake and List of ships attacked by Somali pirates Seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue with estimated worldwide losses of US 16 billion per year 5 particularly in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean off the Somali coast and also in the Strait of Malacca and Singapore which are used by over 50 000 commercial ships a year In the Gulf of Guinea maritime piracy has also led to pressure on offshore oil and gas production providing security for offshore installations and supply vessels is often paid for by oil companies rather than the respective governments 136 In the late 2000s 137 the emergence of piracy off the coast of Somalia spurred a multi national effort led by the United States to patrol the waters near the Horn of Africa In 2011 Brazil also created an anti piracy unit on the Amazon River 138 Sir Peter Blake a New Zealand world champion yachtsman was killed by pirates on the Amazon river in 2001 139 River piracy happens in Europe with vessels suffering from pirate attacks on the Serbian and Romanian stretches of the international Danube river i e inside the European Union s territory 140 141 142 Map showing the extent of Somali pirate attacks on shipping vessels between 2005 and 2010 Modern pirates favor small boats and taking advantage of the small number of crew members on modern cargo vessels They also use large vessels to supply the smaller attack boarding vessels Modern pirates can be successful because a large amount of international commerce occurs via shipping Major shipping routes take cargo ships through narrow bodies of water such as the Gulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca making them vulnerable to be overtaken and boarded by small motorboats 143 144 Other active areas include the South China Sea and the Niger Delta As usage increases many of these ships have to lower cruising speeds to allow for navigation and traffic control making them prime targets for piracy Also pirates often operate in regions of poor developing or struggling countries with small or nonexistent navies and large trade routes Pirates sometimes evade capture by sailing into waters controlled by their pursuer s enemies With the end of the Cold War navies have decreased in size and patrol less frequently while trade has increased making organized piracy far easier Modern pirates are sometimes linked with organized crime syndicates but often are small individual groups The International Maritime Bureau IMB maintains statistics regarding pirate attacks dating back to 1995 Their records indicate hostage taking overwhelmingly dominates the types of violence against seafarers For example in 2006 there were 239 attacks 77 crew members were kidnapped and 188 taken hostage but only 15 of the pirate attacks resulted in murder 145 In 2007 the attacks rose by 10 percent to 263 attacks There was a 35 percent increase on reported attacks involving guns Crew members that were injured numbered 64 compared to just 17 in 2006 146 That number does not include instances of hostage taking and kidnapping where the victims were not injured Aerial photograph of the Niger Delta a center of piracy The number of attacks from January to September 2009 had surpassed the previous year s total due to the increased pirate attacks in the Gulf of Aden and off Somalia Between January and September the number of attacks rose to 306 from 293 Pirates boarded the vessels in 114 cases and hijacked 34 of them Gun use in pirate attacks increased to 176 cases from 76 in 2008 147 Rather than cargo modern pirates have targeted the personal belongings of the crew and the contents of the ship s safe which potentially contains large amounts of cash needed for payroll and port fees In other cases the pirates force the crew off the ship and then sail it to a port to be repainted and given a new identity through false papers purchased from corrupt or complicit officials 148 Modern piracy can take place in conditions of political unrest For example following the U S withdrawal from Vietnam Thai piracy was aimed at the many Vietnamese who took to boats to escape Further following the disintegration of the government of Somalia warlords in the region have attacked ships delivering UN food aid 149 A collage of Somali pirates armed with AKM assault rifles RPG 7 rocket propelled grenade launchers and semi automatic pistols in 2008 The attack against the German built cruise ship the Seabourn Spirit offshore of Somalia in November 2005 is an example of the sophisticated pirates mariners face The pirates carried out their attack more than 100 miles 160 km offshore with speedboats launched from a larger mother ship The attackers were armed with automatic firearms and an RPG 150 Since 2008 Somali pirates centered in the Gulf of Aden made about 120 million annually reportedly costing the shipping industry between 900 million and 3 3 billion per year 151 By September 2012 the heyday of piracy in the Indian Ocean was reportedly over Backers were now reportedly reluctant to finance pirate expeditions due to the low rate of success and pirates were no longer able to reimburse their creditors 152 According to the International Maritime Bureau pirate attacks had by October 2012 dropped to a six year low 153 Only five ships were captured by the end of the year representing a decrease from 25 in 2011 and 27 in 2010 154 with only one ship attacked in the third quarter compared to 36 during the same period in 2011 153 However pirate incidents off on the West African seaboard increased to 34 from 30 the previous year and attacks off the coast of Indonesia rose from 2011 s total of 46 to 51 153 Many nations forbid ships to enter their territorial waters or ports if the crew of the ships are armed in an effort to restrict possible piracy 155 Shipping companies sometimes hire private armed security guards Modern definitions of piracy include the following acts Boarding without permission Extortion Hostage taking Kidnapping of people for ransom Murder Cargo theft Robbery and seizure of items or the ship Sabotage resulting in the ship subsequently sinking Shipwrecking done intentionally to a shipFor the United States piracy is one of the offenses against which Congress is delegated power to enact penal legislation by the Constitution of the United States along with treason and offenses against the law of nations citation needed Treason is generally making war against one s own countrymen and violations of the law of nations can include unjust war among other nationals or by governments against their own people In modern times ships and airplanes are hijacked for political reasons as well The perpetrators of these acts could be described as pirates for instance the French term for plane hijacker is pirate de l air literally air pirate but in English are usually termed hijackers An example is the hijacking of the Italian civilian passenger ship Achille Lauro by the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1985 which is regarded as an act of piracy A 2009 book entitled International Legal Dimension of Terrorism called the attackers terrorists 156 Modern pirates also use a great deal of technology It has been reported that crimes of piracy have involved the use of mobile phones satellite phones GPS machetes AK74 rifles sonar systems modern speedboats shotguns pistols mounted machine guns and even RPGs and grenade launchers citation needed In 2020 the amount of piracy increased by 24 after being at its lowest 21st century level in 2019 The Americas and Africa have been identified by the International Chamber of Commerce as the most vulnerable to piracy as a result of less wealthy governments in the regions being unable to adequately combat piracy 157 IMB Piracy Reporting Centre keeps a live piracy map to help keep track of all recent piracy and armed robbery incidents 158 Anti piracy measuresThis article s tone or style may not reflect the encyclopedic tone used on Wikipedia See Wikipedia s guide to writing better articles for suggestions June 2013 Learn how and when to remove this template message The neutrality of this article is disputed Relevant discussion may be found on the talk page Please do not remove this message until conditions to do so are met June 2013 Learn how and when to remove this template message Incidents of pipeline vandalism by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea 2002 2011 Under a principle of international law known as the universality principle a government may exercise jurisdiction over conduct outside its territory if that conduct is universally dangerous to states and their nationals 159 The rationale behind the universality principle is that states will punish certain acts wherever they may occur as a means of protecting the global community as a whole even absent a link between the state and the parties or the acts in question Under this principle the concept of universal jurisdiction applies to the crime of piracy 160 For example the United States has a statute section 1651 of title 18 of the United States Code imposing a sentence of life in prison for piracy as defined by the law of nations committed anywhere on the high seas regardless of the nationality of the pirates or the victims 161 The goal of maritime security operations is actively to deter disrupt and suppress piracy in order to protect global maritime security and secure freedom of navigation for the benefit of all nations 162 and pirates are often detained interrogated disarmed and released With millions of dollars at stake pirates have little incentive to stop In Finland one case involved pirates who had been captured and whose boat was sunk As the pirates attacked a vessel of Singapore not Finland and are not themselves EU or Finnish citizens they were not prosecuted A further complication in many cases including this one is that many countries do not allow extradition of people to jurisdictions where they may be sentenced to death or torture 163 The Dutch are using a 17th century law against sea robbery to prosecute 164 Warships that capture pirates have no jurisdiction to try them and NATO does not have a detention policy in place Prosecutors have a hard time assembling witnesses and finding translators and countries are reluctant to imprison pirates because the countries would be saddled with the pirates upon their release 165 Suspected Somali pirates keep their hands in the air George Mason University professor Peter Leeson has suggested that the international community appropriate Somali territorial waters and sell them together with the international portion of the Gulf of Aden to a private company which would then provide security from piracy in exchange for charging tolls to world shipping through the Gulf 166 167 Self defense The fourth volume of the handbook Best Management Practices to Deter Piracy off the Coast of Somalia and in the Arabian Sea Area known as BMP4 168 is the current authoritative guide for merchant ships on self defense against pirates The guide is issued and updated by Oil Companies International Marine Forum OCIMF a consortium of interested international shipping and trading organizations including the EU NATO and the International Maritime Bureau 169 It is distributed primarily by the Maritime Security Centre Horn of Africa MSCHOA the planning and coordination authority for EU naval forces EUNAVFOR BMP4 encourages vessels to register their voyages through the region with MSCHOA as this registration is a key component of the operation of the International Recommended Transit Corridor IRTC the navy patrolled route through the Gulf of Aden BMP4 contains a chapter entitled Self Protective Measures which lays out a list of steps a merchant vessel can take on its own to make itself less of a target to pirates and make it better able to repel an attack if one occurs This list includes rigging the deck of the ship with razor wire rigging fire hoses to spray sea water over the side of the ship to hinder boardings having a distinctive pirate alarm hardening the bridge against gunfire and creating a citadel where the crew can retreat in the event pirates get on board Other unofficial self defense measures that can be found on merchant vessels include the setting up of mannequins posing as armed guards or firing flares at the pirates 170 Though it varies by country generally peacetime law in the 20th and 21st centuries has not allowed merchant vessels to carry weapons As a response to the rise in modern piracy however the U S government changed its rules so that it is now possible for U S flagged vessels to embark a team of armed private security guards The US Coastguard leaves it to ship owners discretion to determine if those guards will be armed 171 172 The International Chamber of Shipping ICS in 2011 changed its stance on private armed guards accepting that operators must be able to defend their ships against pirate attacks 173 This has given birth to a new breed of private security companies that provide training for crew members and operate floating armouries for protection of crew and cargo this has proved effective in countering pirate attacks 174 175 The use of floating armouries in international waters allows ships to carry weapons in international waters without being in possession of arms within coastal waters where they would be illegal Seychelles has become a central location for international anti piracy operations hosting the Anti Piracy Operation Center for the Indian Ocean In 2008 VSOS became the first authorized armed maritime security company to operate in the Indian Ocean region 176 With safety trials complete in the late 2000s laser dazzlers have been developed for defensive purposes on super yachts 177 They can be effective up to 4 kilometres 2 5 mi with the effects going from mild disorientation to flash blindness at closer range 178 In February 2012 Italian Marines based on the tanker Enrica Lexie allegedly fired on an Indian fishing trawler off Kerala killing two of her eleven crew The Marines allegedly mistook the fishing vessel as a pirate vessel The incident sparked a diplomatic row between India and Italy Enrica Lexie was ordered into Kochi where her crew were questioned by officers of the Indian Police 179 The fact is still sub juris and its legal eventual outcome could influence future deployment of VPDs since states will be either encouraged or discouraged to provide them depending on whether functional immunity is ultimately granted or denied to the Italians 180 Another similar incident has been reported to have happened in the Red Sea between the coasts of Somalia and Yemen involving the death of a Yemeni fisherman allegedly at the hands of a Russian Vessel Protection Detachment VPD on board a Norwegian flagged vessel 181 182 However despite VPD deployment being controversial because of these incidents according to the Associated Press 183 during a United Nations Security Council conference about piracy U S Ambassador Susan Rice told the council that no ship carrying armed guards has been successfully attacked by pirates and French Ambassador Gerard Araud stressed that private guards do not have the deterrent effect that government posted marine and sailors and naval patrols have in warding off attacks Self protection measures Private guard escort on a merchant ship providing security services against piracy in the Indian Ocean An LRAD sound cannon mounted on RMS Queen Mary 2 The best protection against pirates is to avoid encountering them This can be accomplished by using tools such as radar 184 or by using specialised systems that use shorter wavelengths as small boats are not always picked up by radar An example of a specialised system is WatchStander 185 In addition while the non wartime 20th century tradition has been for merchant vessels not to be armed the U S Government has recently changed the rules so that it is now best practice for vessels to embark a team of armed private security guards 171 186 The guards are usually supplied from ships intended specifically for training and supplying such armed personnel 187 The crew can be given weapons training 188 and warning shots can be fired legally in international waters Other measures vessels can take to protect themselves against piracy are air pressurised boat stopping systems which can fire a variety of vessel disabling projectiles 189 implementing a high freewall 190 and vessel boarding protection systems e g hot water wall electricity charged water wall automated fire monitor slippery foam 191 Ships can also attempt to protect themselves using their Automatic Identification Systems AIS 192 Every ship over 300 tons carries a transponder supplying both information about the ship itself and its movements Any unexpected change in this information can attract attention Previously this data could only be picked up if there was a nearby ship thus rendering single ships vulnerable However special satellites have been launched recently that are now able to detect and retransmit this data Large ships cannot therefore be hijacked without being detected This can act as a deterrent to attempts to either hijack the entire ship or steal large portions of cargo with another ship since an escort can be sent more quickly than might otherwise have been the case Patrol In an emergency warships can be called upon In some areas such as near Somalia patrolling naval vessels from different nations are available to intercept vessels attacking merchant vessels For patrolling dangerous coastal waters or keeping cost down robotic or remote controlled USVs are also sometimes used 193 Shore and vessel launched UAVs are used by the U S Navy 194 195 A British former British chief of defence staff David Richards questioned the value of expensive kit procured by successive governments saying We have 1bn destroyers trying to sort out pirates in a little dhow with RPGs rocket propelled grenade launchers costing US 50 with an outboard motor costing 100 Legal aspectsUnited Kingdom laws A merchant seaman aboard a fleet oil tanker practices target shooting with a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun as part of training to repel pirates in the Strait of Malacca Section 2 of the Piracy Act 1837 creates a statutory offence of aggravated piracy See also the Piracy Act 1850 In 2008 the British Foreign Office advised the Royal Navy not to detain pirates of certain nationalities as they might be able to claim asylum in Britain under British human rights legislation if their national laws included execution or mutilation as a judicial punishment for crimes committed as pirates 196 Definition of piracy jure gentium See section 26 of and Schedule 5 to the Merchant Shipping and Maritime Security Act 1997 These provisions replace the Schedule to the Tokyo Convention Act 1967 In Cameron v HM Advocate 1971 SLT 333 the High Court of Justiciary said that that Schedule supplemented the existing law and did not seek to restrict the scope of the offence of piracy jure gentium See also Re Piracy Jure Gentium 1934 AC 586 PC Attorney General of Hong Kong v Kwok a Sing 1873 LR 5 PC 179Jurisdiction See section 46 2 of the Senior Courts Act 1981 and section 6 of the Territorial Waters Jurisdiction Act 1878 See also R v Kohn 1864 4 F amp F 68 Piracy committed by or against aircraft See section 5 of the Aviation Security Act 1982 Sentence The book Archbold says that in a case that does not fall within section 2 of the Piracy Act 1837 the penalty appears to be determined by the Offences at Sea Act 1799 which provides that offences committed at sea are liable to the same penalty as if they had been committed upon the shore 197 History William Hawkins said that under common law piracy by a subject was esteemed to be petty treason The Treason Act 1351 provided that this was not petty treason 198 In English admiralty law piracy was classified as petty treason during the medieval period and offenders were accordingly liable to be hanged drawn and quartered on conviction Piracy was redefined as a felony during the reign of Henry VIII In either case piracy cases were cognizable in the courts of the Lord High Admiral English judges in admiralty courts and vice admiralty courts emphasized that neither Faith nor Oath is to be kept with pirates i e contracts with pirates and oaths sworn to them were not legally binding Pirates were legally subject to summary execution by their captors if captured in battle In practice instances of summary justice and annulment of oaths and contracts involving pirates do not appear to have been common citation needed United States laws In the United States criminal prosecution of piracy is authorized in the U S Constitution Art I Sec 8 cl 10 To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas and Offences against the Law of Nations Title 18 U S C 1651 states Whoever on the high seas commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States shall be imprisoned for life Citing the United States Supreme Court decision in the 1820 case of United States v Smith 199 a U S District Court ruled in 2010 in the case of United States v Said that the definition of piracy under section 1651 is confined to robbery at sea The piracy charges but not other serious federal charges against the defendants in the Said case were dismissed by the Court 200 The U S District Court for the E D Va has since been overturned On May 23 2012 the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued an opinion vacating the Court s dismissal of the piracy count United States v Said 680 F 3d 374 4th Cir 2012 See also United States v Dire 680 F 3d 446 465 4th Cir 2012 upholding an instruction to the jury that the crime of piracy includes any of the three following actions A any illegal acts of violence or detention or any act of depredation committed for private ends on the high seas or a place outside the jurisdiction of any state by the crew or the passengers of a private ship and directed against another ship or against persons or property on board such ship or B any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or C any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in A or B above The case was remanded to E D Va see US v Said 3 F Supp 3d 515 Dist Court ED Virginia 2014 International law Main article International piracy law Effects on international boundaries During the 18th century the British and the Dutch controlled opposite sides of the Straits of Malacca The British and the Dutch drew a line separating the Straits into two halves The agreement was that each party would be responsible for combating piracy in their respective half Eventually this line became the border between Malaysia and Indonesia in the Straits Law of nations International Maritime Organization IMO conference on capacity building to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean Piracy is of note in international law as it is commonly held to represent the earliest invocation of the concept of universal jurisdiction The crime of piracy is considered a breach of jus cogens a conventional peremptory international norm that states must uphold Those committing thefts on the high seas inhibiting trade and endangering maritime communication are considered by sovereign states to be hostis humani generis enemies of humankind 201 Because of universal jurisdiction action can be taken against pirates without objection from the flag state of the pirate vessel This represents an exception to the principle extra territorium jus dicenti impune non paretur One who exercises jurisdiction out of his territory is disobeyed with impunity 202 International conventions Articles 101 to 103 of UNCLOS British Royal Navy Commodore gives a presentation on piracy at the MAST 2008 conference Articles 101 to 103 of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea UNCLOS 1982 contain a definition of piracy iure gentium i e according to international law 203 They read Article 101 Definition of piracyPiracy consists of any of the following acts a any illegal acts of violence or detention or any act of depredation committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft and directed i on the high seas against another ship or aircraft or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft ii against a ship aircraft persons or property in a place outside the jurisdiction of any State b any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft c any act of inciting or of intentionally facilitating an act described in subparagraph a or b Article 102 Piracy by a warship government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutiniedThe acts of piracy as defined in article 101 committed by a warship government ship or government aircraft whose crew has mutinied and taken control of the ship or aircraft are assimilated to acts committed by a private ship or aircraft Article 103 Definition of a pirate ship or aircraftA ship or aircraft is considered a pirate ship or aircraft if it is intended by the persons in dominant control to be used for the purpose of committing one of the acts referred to in article 101 The same applies if the ship or aircraft has been used to commit any such act so long as it remains under the control of the persons guilty of that act 204 This definition was formerly contained in articles 15 to 17 of the Convention on the High Seas signed at Geneva on April 29 1958 205 It was drafted 206 by the International Law Commission 203 A limitation of article 101 above is that it confines piracy to the High Seas As the majority of piratical acts occur within territorial waters some pirates are able to go free as certain jurisdictions lack the resources to monitor their borders adequately citation needed IMB definition The International Maritime Bureau IMB defines piracy as the act of boarding any vessel with an intent to commit theft or any other crime and with an intent or capacity to use force in furtherance of that act 207 Uniformity in maritime piracy law Given the diverging definitions of piracy in international and municipal legal systems some authors argue that greater uniformity in the law is required in order to strengthen anti piracy legal instruments 208 Cultural perceptionsMain articles List of fictional pirates and Pirates in popular culture Mic the Scallywag of the Pirates of Emerson Haunted Adventure Fremont California Pirates are a frequent topic in fiction and in their Caribbean incarnation are associated with certain stereotypical manners of speaking and dress some of them wholly fictional nearly all our notions of their behavior come from the golden age of fictional piracy which reached its zenith in 1881 with the appearance of Robert Louis Stevenson s Treasure Island 209 Hugely influential in shaping the popular conception of pirates Captain Charles Johnson s A General History of the Pyrates published in London in 1724 is the prime source for the biographies of many well known pirates of the Golden Age 210 The book gives an almost mythical status to pirates with naval historian David Cordingly writing it has been said and there seems no reason to question this that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates 210 A person costumed in the character of captain Jack Sparrow Johnny Depp s lead role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series Some inventions of pirate culture such as walking the plank in which a bound captive is forced to walk off a board extending over the sea were popularized by J M Barrie s 1911 novel Peter Pan where the fictional pirate Captain Hook and his crew helped define the fictional pirate archetype 211 English actor Robert Newton s portrayal of Long John Silver in Disney s 1950 film adaptation also helped define the modern rendition of a pirate including the stereotypical West Country pirate accent 212 213 Other influences include Sinbad the Sailor and the recent Pirates of the Caribbean films have helped rekindle modern interest in piracy and have performed well at the box office The video game Assassin s Creed IV Black Flag also revolves around pirates during the Golden Age of Piracy The classic 1879 Gilbert and Sullivan comic opera The Pirates of Penzance focuses on The Pirate King and his hapless band of pirates 214 Many sports teams use pirate or a related term such as raider or buccaneer as their nickname based on the popular stereotypes of pirates The earliest such example was probably the Pittsburgh Pirates of Major League Baseball that acquired their nickname in 1891 after allegedly pirating a player from another team 215 Many amateur and school based sports programs along with several professional sports franchises have also adopted pirate related names including the Las Vegas Raiders and Tampa Bay Buccaneers of the National Football League In turn the Buccaneer s name was inspired by the Gasparilla Pirate Festival a large community parade and related events in Tampa Florida centered around the legend of Jose Gaspar a mythical pirate who supposedly operated in the area Economics of piracySources on the economics of piracy include Cyrus Karraker s 1953 study Piracy was a Business 216 in which the author discusses pirates in terms of contemporary racketeering Patrick Crowhurst researched French piracy and David Starkey focused on British 18th century piracy Note also the 1998 book The Invisible Hook The Hidden Economics of Pirates by Peter T Leeson 217 Piracy and entrepreneurship Some 2014 research examines the links between piracy and entrepreneurship In this context researchers take a nonmoral approach to piracy as a source of inspiration for 2010s era entrepreneurship education 218 and to research in entrepreneurship 219 and in business model generation 220 In this respect analysis of piracy operations may distinguish between planned organised and opportunistic piracy 221 See also Piracy portal Oceans portalA General History of the Pyrates an historical book on pirates Air pirate Aircraft hijacking a k a air piracy Captain Phillips a film about the Maersk Alabama hijacking Carjacking a k a car piracy Copyright infringement International Talk Like a Pirate Day List of pirates Piracy in the Atlantic World Pirate code Pirate game Pirate Parties International Pirate Party Pirate Round Pirate studies Pirate utopia Pirates World Pop up Pirate a children s game featuring an embarreled pirate Space pirate Spanish treasure fleet The Successful Pyrate an historical play Train robbery a k a railroad piracy Treasure voyages Women in piracy Raid military ReferencesNotes Pennell C R 2001 The Geography of Piracy Northern Morocco in the Mod Nineteenth Century In Pennell C R ed Bandits at Sea A Pirates Reader NYU Press p 56 ISBN 978 0 8147 6678 1 Sea raiders were most active where the maritime environment gave them most opportunity Narrow straits which funneled shipping into places where ambush was easy and escape less chancy called the pirates into certain areas Heeboll Holm Thomas 2013 Ports Piracy and Maritime War Piracy in the English Channel and the Atlantic c 1280 c 1330 Medieval Law and Its Practice Leiden Brill p 67 ISBN 978 9004248168 through their extensive piracies the Portsmen of the Cinque Ports were experts in predatory actions at sea Furthermore the geostrategic location of the Cinque Ports on the English coast closest to the Continent meant that the Ports could effectively control the Narrow Seas TEDx Talk What is Piracy Retrieved October 23 2014 Arquilla John 2011 Insurgents Raiders and Bandits How Masters of Irregular Warfare Have Shaped Our World Ivan R Dee p 242 ISBN 978 1 56663 908 8 From ancient high seas pirates to road agents and a host of other bush and mountain pass brigands bandits have been with us for ages a b Terrorism Goes to Sea Foreign Affairs Archived from the original on December 14 2007 Retrieved December 8 2007 D Archibugi M Chiarugi April 9 2009 Piracy challenges global governance openDemocracy Archived from the original on April 12 2009 Retrieved April 9 2009 Peirates Henry George Liddell Robert Scott A Greek English Lexicon at Perseus Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine Peira Henry George Liddell Robert Scott A Greek English Lexicon at Perseus Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine Janice J Gabbert Piracy in the Early Hellenistic Period A Career Open to Talents Archived August 11 2022 at the Wayback Machine Greece amp Rome October 1986 Vol 33 No 2 pp 156 163 p 157 Online Etymology Dictionary Etymonline com Retrieved December 18 2008 pirate Oxford English Dictionary Online ed Oxford University Press Subscription or participating institution membership required Online Etymology Dictionary Etymonline com Retrieved July 12 2014 a b Moller Bjorn Piracy Maritime Terrorism and Naval Strategy Copenhagen Danish Institute for International Studies November 16 2008 10 Thucydides wrote For in early times the Hellenes and the barbarians of the coast and islands as communication by sea became more common were tempted to turn pirate indeed this came to be the main source of their livelihood no disgrace being yet attached to such an achievement but even some glory Allen M Ward Fritz M Heichelheim Cedric A Yeo 2016 History of the Roman People Routledge p 100 ISBN 978 1 315 51120 7 Again according to Suetonius s chronology Julius 4 Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine Plutarch Caesar 1 8 2 Archived February 13 2018 at the Library of Congress Web Archives says this happened earlier on his return from Nicomedes s court Velleius Paterculus Roman History 2 41 3 42 Archived July 31 2022 at the Wayback Machine says merely that it happened when he was a young man Plutarch Caesar 1 2 The Golden Age of Piracy www rmg co uk Retrieved October 13 2021 The Pirates of St Tropez Vedran Duancic 2008 Hrvatska između Bizanta i Franacke in Croatian p 17 1 Archived November 13 2020 at the Wayback Machine Maddalena Betti 2013 The Making of Christian Moravia 858 882 Papal Power and Political Reality p 129 Brill Academic Publishers ISBN 900421187X H Thomas Milhorn Crime Computer Viruses to Twin Towers Universal Publishers 2004 ISBN 1 58112 489 9 Stepan Razin Pirates amp Privateers The History of Maritime Piracy www cindyvallar com Archived from the original on August 5 2007 Retrieved August 28 2007 Earle 2003 p 89 Guilmartin 1974 pp 217 219 Earle 2003 p 45 Earle 2003 p 137 Glete 2000 p 151 Earle 2003 p 139 Guilmartin 1974 p 120 a b Earle 2003 pp 39 52 When Europeans were slaves Research suggests white slavery was much more common than previously believed Archived from the original on July 25 2011 Christian Slaves Muslim Masters White Slavery in the Mediterranean the Barbary Coast and Italy 1500 1800 Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine Robert Davis 2004 ISBN 1 4039 4551 9 Earle 2003 pp 51 52 Earle 2003 p 83 Earle 2003 p 85 Oren Michael B November 3 2005 The Middle East and the Making of the United States 1776 to 1815 Retrieved February 18 2007 a b One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Chisholm Hugh ed 1911 Barbary Pirates Encyclopaedia Britannica 11th ed Cambridge University Press a b c d James Francis Warren 2007 The Sulu Zone 1768 1898 The Dynamics of External Trade Slavery and Ethnicity in the Transformation of a Southeast Asian Maritime State NUS Press pp 257 258 ISBN 9789971693862 a b c d e James Francis Warren 2002 Iranun and Balangingi Globalization Maritime Raiding and the Birth of Ethnicity NUS Press pp 53 56 ISBN 9789971692421 a b c Antony Robert J February 2013 Turbulent Waters Sea Raiding in Early Modern South East Asia The Mariner s Mirror 99 1 23 38 doi 10 1080 00253359 2013 766996 S2CID 162926825 Sim Y H Teddy ed 2014 Piracy and surreptitious activities in the Malay Archipelago and adjacent seas 1600 1840 Springer ISBN 9789812870858 a b Junker Laura Lee 1999 Raiding Trading and Feasting The Political Economy of Philippine Chiefdoms University of Hawaii Press ISBN 9780824820350 David P Forsythe 2009 Encyclopedia of Human Rights Volume 1 Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine Oxford University Press p 464 ISBN 0195334027 Domingo M Non 1993 Moro Piracy during the Spanish Period and its Impact PDF Southeast Asian Studies 30 4 401 419 doi 10 20495 tak 30 4 401 David P Barrows 1905 A History of the Philippines American Book Company The Buginese of Sulawesi Archived from the original on September 27 2007 Pirates of the East ThingsAsian thingsasian com Wanderings Among South Sea Savages And in Borneo and the Philippines by H Wilfrid Walker Archived from the original on June 9 2008 Alt URL Archived September 24 2015 at the Wayback Machine Chong Sun Kim Slavery in Silla and its Sociological and Economic Implications in Andrew C Nahm ed Traditional Korea Theory and Practice Kalamazoo MI Center for Korean Studies 1974 John Kleinen Manon Osseweijer 2010 Pirates Ports and Coasts in Asia Historical and Contemporary Perspectives Institute of Southeast Asian Studies p 60 ISBN 978 981 4279 07 9 New Peterson magazine 1896 p 578 MacKay Joseph Pirate Nations Maritime Pirates as Escape Societies in Late Imperial China Social Science History 37 no 4 2013 551 g573 doi 10 1017 S0145553200011962 p 554 MacKay 2013 p 553 MacKay 2013 p 555 Higgins Roland L Pirates in Gowns and Caps Gentry Law Breaking in the Mid Ming Ming Studies Volume 1980 Issue 1 pp 30 37 31 Robinson David M Banditry and the Subversion of State Authority in China The Capital Region During the Middle Ming Period 1450 1525 Journal of Social History 33 no 3 2000 527 563 https muse jhu edu Archived July 8 2011 at the Wayback Machine accessed February 20 2019 p 547 a b Higgins 1980 p 31 Von Glahn Richard The Economic History of China From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century Cambridge UK ISBN 9781107030565 OCLC 919452147 p 307 a b Von Glahn 2016 p 308 Higgins 1980 p 32 a b MacKay 2013 p 558 a b c d MacKay 2013 p 557 a b MacKay 2013 p 567 a b MacKay 2013 pp 564 568 Higgins 1980 p 30 Higgins 1980 p 34 Robinson 2000 p 547 MacKay 2013 pp 552 557 a b MacKay 2013 p 559 MacKay 2013 p 551 Szonyi Michael The Art of Being Governed Everyday Politics in Late Imperial China Princeton ISBN 9781400888887 OCLC 1007291604 pp 101 102 Szonyi 2017 pp 101 102 MacKay 2013 pp 559 561 Findly Elison B April June 1988 The Capture of Maryam uz Zamani s Ship Mughal Women and European Traders Journal of the American Oriental Society 108 2 227 238 Cross Cultural Perceptions of Piracy Maritime Violence in the Western Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf Region during a Long Eighteenth Century Soldiers Seahawks and Smugglers Archived from the original on September 6 2008 Retrieved July 20 2008 a b Heard Bey Frauke 1996 From Trucial States to United Arab Emirates UK Longman pp 282 284 ISBN 0582277280 From Pirate Coast To Trucial Archived from the original on August 29 2008 Retrieved July 20 2008 Gemma Pitcher Patricia C Wright Madagascar amp Comoros Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine p 178 Libertatia everything2 com Lucie Smith Edward 1978 Outcasts of the Sea Pirates and Piracy Paddington Press ISBN 9780448226170 Tortuga Pirate History The Way Of The Pirates Retrieved October 23 2014 Nigel Cawthorne 2005 Pirates An Illustrated History Arturus Publishing Ltd 2005 p 65 Cawthorne pp 34 36 58 Peter Earle 2003 The Pirate Wars ISBN 0 312 33579 2 p 94 Earle p 148 Geoffrey Parker ed 1986 The World An Illustrated History Times Books Ltd p 317 Kuhn Gabriel 2010 Life Under the Jolly Roger Reflections on Golden Age Piracy PM Press Mark Kurlansky Cod A Biography of the Fish That Changed the World Penguin 1998 Wombwell A James 2010 The Long War Against Piracy Historical Trends Fort Leavenworth Kansas Combat Studies Institute Press p 204 ISBN 978 0 9823283 6 1 William III 1698 99 An Act for the more effectual suppression of Piracy Archived June 23 2020 at the Wayback Machine Chapter VII Rot Parl 11 Gul III p 2 n 5 Statutes of the Realm volume 7 1695 1701 1820 pp 590 594 Date accessed February 16 2007 a b Boot Max 2009 Pirates Then and Now Foreign Affairs 88 4 94 107 Pike Luke Owen 1876 A History of Crime in England From the accession of Henry VII to the present time Smith Elder amp Company p 266 ISBN 9780875850191 a b La pirateria Historia GEVIC Gran Enciclopedia Virtual Islas Canarias www gevic net The Gran Canaria Mistake That Cost Sir Francis Drake His Life Gran Canaria Info com Retrieved June 23 2021 Allan Peter The Defeat of Nelson at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife 1797 etenerifeholidays co uk Farina Gonzalez Manuel La evolucion de una fortuna indiana D Amaro Rodriguez Felipe Amaro Pargo Retrieved June 10 2016 Amaro Pargo documentos de una vida I Heroe y forrajido Ediciones Idea 2017 p 520 ISBN 978 8416759811 Retrieved March 20 2018 Clive Malcolm Senior An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates 1603 40 Archived May 31 2022 at the Wayback Machine University of Bristol PhD thesis 1973 Clive Senior A Nation of Pirates English Piracy in its Heyday Newton Abbot 1976 a b c Treasure Retrieved April 21 2009 The Hudson River Valley Institute Archived from the original on March 2 2009 Retrieved April 20 2009 University of Notre Dame Retrieved October 23 2014 Gosse Philip 2007 The Pirates Who s Who BiblioBazaar LLC ISBN 978 1 4346 3302 6 p 251 Hill J R 2002 The Oxford Illustrated History of the Royal Navy Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 860527 7 p 157 Current value Archived December 18 2017 at the Wayback Machine is based on the average annual income for the respective years Nelson and His Navy Prize Money Archived June 21 2008 at the Wayback Machine Historical Maritime Society Piratesofamerica com Archived from the original on September 27 2013 Pirates by John Matthews Were there really women pirates www pantherbay com Archived from the original on April 28 2015 Retrieved November 26 2018 a b Pennell C R 2001 Bandits at sea A pirates reader New York New York University Press Stock Jennifer ed 2011 Life Aboard Ship in the Golden Age of Piracy Pirates Through the Ages Reference Library 2 117 135 permanent dead link Leeson Peter T An arrghchy The Law and Economics of Pirate Organization Journal of Political Economy 115 no 6 2007 1049 1094 p 1066 University of Chicago Archived February 9 2016 at the Wayback Machine Fox E T ed March 15 2016 In the show Black Sails the pirates have laws they quote every now and then when there are disputes redditt Retrieved March 18 2016 Commonwealth of Massachusetts v Maritime Underwater Surveys Inc 403 Mass 501 Massachusetts Supreme Court 1988 Burlingame Liz August 23 2013 Sunken Treasures The World s Most Valuable Shipwreck Discoveries weather com The Weather Channel Archived from the original on August 26 2013 Retrieved December 13 2013 Intersal Intersal Inc a b Moore D 1997 A General History of Blackbeard the Pirate the Queen Anne s Revenge and the Adventure Tributaries North Carolina Maritime History Council VII 31 35 Killough III Willard H ed 250 000 Pieces of Blackbeard from Shipwreck Island Gazette Archived from the original on July 9 2015 Blackbeard s Ship Confirmed off North Carolina National Geographic News Kurson Robert 2015 Pirate Hunters New York Random House ISBN 978 1 4000 6336 9 Calendar of State Papers America and West Indies British National Archives Buisseret David 2000 Port Royal Jamaica Kingston University of the West Indies Press ISBN 9766400989 Buisseret David 2009 Jamaica in 1687 Kingston University of the West Indies Press ISBN 978 9766402365 The New Cambridge Modern History Volume 4 The Decline of Spain and the Thirty Years War 1609 48 49 Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine J P Cooper 1979 p 229 ISBN 0 521 29713 3 Rees Davies British Slaves on the Barbary Coast Archived April 25 2011 at the Wayback Machine BBC July 1 2003 Kelsey Harry Sir Francis Drake The Queen s Pirate Yale University Press New Haven 1998 ISBN 0 300 07182 5 a b c Privateering and the Private Production of Naval Power Archived December 11 2003 at the Wayback Machine Gary M Anderson and Adam Gifford Jr Brewer John The Sinews of Power War Money and the English State 1688 1783 New York Alfred A Knopf 1989 p 197 Privateers or Merchant Mariners help win the Revolutionary War Archived June 4 2019 at the Wayback Machine Privateers Archived November 13 2008 at the Wayback Machine US Navy Fleet List War of 1812 Archived January 9 2009 at the Wayback Machine Oren Michael B November 3 2005 The Middle East and the Making of the United States 1776 to 1815 Retrieved February 18 2007 The Confederate Privateers Archived December 6 2008 at the Wayback Machine Siebels Dirk November 1 2014 Nigeria Angola and beyond unlocking offshore potential requires a safe environment Ship amp Offshore Retrieved September 27 2015 Krane Jim March 19 2006 U S Navy warships exchange gunfire with suspected pirates off Somali coast The Seattle Times Retrieved January 18 2007 Phillips Tom June 17 2011 Brazil creating anti pirate force after spate of attacks on Amazon riverboats The Guardian Retrieved June 23 2021 Romero Simon November 18 2016 There s No Law on the Amazon River Pirates Terrorize Ships by Night The New York Times ISSN 0362 4331 Retrieved November 20 2016 Rijecni gusari u Srbiji pljackaju hrvatske brodove Sa Sloge ukrali opremu vrijednu 60 tisuca eura Jutarnji List www jutarnji hr October 12 2011 Ukrainian Danube Shipping Company Says Its Ships Are Being Attacked Frequently In Romanian Part of River Danube Ukrainian News Agency Archived from the original on January 14 2012 Retrieved October 23 2014 Ukrayinski korabli vse chastishe stayut zhertvami rumunskih pirativ Gazeta ua January 20 2012 Pirates Part Two BBC Radio World Service Retrieved June 23 2021 Coffen Smout Scott Pirates Warlords and Rogue Fishing Vessels in Somalia s Unruly Seas chebucto ns Retrieved June 23 2021 Piracy on the high seas Security Management Archived from the original on January 3 2008 Retrieved October 23 2007 IBM Piracy Report 2007 ICC Commercial Crime Services Archived from the original on March 25 2008 Retrieved January 22 2008 World pirate attacks surge in 2009 due to Somalia Anarchy at Sea Atlantic Monthly September 2003 Pirates Open Fire on Cruise Ship off Somalia The Washington Post Reuters November 5 2005 Retrieved November 14 2005 Piracy is still troubling the shipping industry report Industry fears revival of attacks though current situation has improved The Business Times Singapore August 14 2006 Plumer Brad March 3 2013 The economics of Somali piracy The Washington Post Retrieved June 23 2021 Guled Abdi Straziuso Jason September 25 2012 Party seems over for Somali pirates AP Impact Archived from the original on July 29 2013 Retrieved October 3 2012 a b c Nightingale Alaric Bockmann Michelle Wiese October 22 2012 Somalia Piracy Falls to Six Year Low as Guards Defend Ships Bloomberg News Archived from the original on June 2 2013 Retrieved October 25 2012 Apps Peter February 10 2013 Have hired guns finally scuppered Somali pirates Reuters Archived from the original on February 23 2013 Retrieved March 16 2013 via Yahoo News Guns On Board Maritimesecurity com Sanchez Pablo Antonio Fernandez International Legal Dimension of Terrorism Brill 2009 p 231 Prins Brandon Global sea piracy ticks upward and the coronavirus may make it worse The Conversation Retrieved May 30 2020 Live piracy map Commercial Crime Services Retrieved June 23 2021 Thomas Buergenthal amp Sean D Murphy Public International Law in a Nutshell p 211 West Group 3d ed 2002 Thomas Buergenthal amp Sean D Murphy Public International Law in a Nutshell pp 211 212 West Group 3d ed 2002 citing generally K Randall Universal Jurisdiction Under International Law 66 Tex L Rev 785 1988 Whoever on the high seas commits the crime of piracy as defined by the law of nations and is afterwards brought into or found in the United States shall be imprisoned for life See 18 U S C 1651 2010 to 2015 government policy piracy off the coast of Somalia UK Government May 8 2015 Retrieved June 8 2016 Stephens Bret November 25 2008 Why Don t We Hang Pirates Anymore The Wall Street Journal Verzameling Nederlandse Wetgeving 539a WvSv p 105 NATO frees 20 hostages pirates seize Belgian ship Associated Press April 18 2009 Archived from the original on April 22 2009 Leeson Peter T April 13 2009 Want to Prevent Piracy Privatize the Ocean National Review Archived from the original on April 22 2009 Retrieved March 3 2010 Stossel John amp Kirell Andrew May 8 2009 Could Profit Motive Put an End to Piracy ABC News Publications www ocimf org Consortium of International Organizations 2011 Best Management Practices for Protection against Somalia Based Piracy PDF Livingston Witherby Seamanship International London ISBN 978 1 85609 505 1 Archived from the original PDF on September 9 2016 Retrieved September 10 2016 CNN s Zain Verjee reports on modern day piracy 22 February 2011 Edition cnn com July 16 2010 Retrieved March 27 2011 a b John W Miller January 6 2010 Loaded Freighters Ready to Shoot Across Pirate Bow WSJ Maersk Alabama Followed Best Practice Maritime Accident Casebook maritimeaccident org Archived from the original on July 9 2012 Shippers back private armed guards to beat pirates Af reuters com February 15 2011 Archived from the original on February 20 2011 Retrieved June 8 2016 Spanish fishing boat repels pirate attack Edition cnn com November 29 2009 Retrieved March 27 2011 Pirate dies as ship s guards repel attack off Somalia BBC News March 24 2010 Retrieved March 27 2011 VSOS Securing Indian Ocean Shipping Yachts amp Offshore Operations vsos sc Archived from the original on December 8 2013 Retrieved December 8 2014 DiSalvo David December 6 2010 How Lasers Can Protect You From Pirates mental floss Archived from the original on January 19 2012 Retrieved September 5 2011 SeaLase Offers Shipping Companies Effective Counter to Pirates Handy Shipping Guide Retrieved January 19 2010 India police open murder case against Italian ship crew BBC News February 17 2012 Retrieved February 21 2012 Phillips Roger L March 9 2012 The Enrica Lexie Incident Private Security Counterpoint piracy Law Retrieved January 3 2013 Phillips Roger L November 25 2012 Private Security Liability under the Alien Tort Statute piracy law com Retrieved December 22 2012 Alan Katz September 17 2012 Fighting Piracy Goes Awry With Killings of Fishermen Bloomberg Retrieved December 22 2012 Spielmann Peter James November 19 2012 UN Security Council debates piracy for first time Associated Press Retrieved December 9 2012 Anti piracy radar Archived from the original on August 12 2014 Retrieved October 23 2014 Hodson Hal May 28 2014 Pirates incoming Ship radar keeps watch and hits back New Scientist Retrieved June 23 2021 Maersk Alabama Followed Best Practice by Bob Couttie November 20 2009 Maritime Accident Casebook Archived from the original on July 9 2012 Retrieved October 23 2014 VICE on HBO Ep 408 Afghan Women s Rights and Floating Armories VICE on HBO HBO Archived from the original on August 17 2016 Retrieved August 17 2016 Weapons training for crew on YouTube Belton Padraig September 9 2016 Do you have an AK 47 and can you swim BBC News Retrieved June 23 2021 Shipping company head wants to arm vessels against pirates CNN May 5 2009 Retrieved October 23 2014 Secure Waters PDF secure marine com Archived from the original PDF on March 11 2010 Retrieved January 7 2010 Amos Jonathon July 20 2012 Ahoy Your ship is being tracked from orbit BBC News Retrieved June 23 2021 Robotic remote controlled USVs Popular Mechanics Archived from the original on January 30 2010 Retrieved October 23 2014 The Tortoise in the Air naval technology com August 27 2009 Retrieved October 23 2014 Shore launched UAVs Stars and Stripes Archived from the original on September 2 2009 Retrieved October 23 2014 Woolf Marie April 13 2008 Pirates can claim UK asylum The Sunday Times London Retrieved February 26 2021 Archbold Criminal Pleading Evidence and Practice 1999 para 25 46 at p 1979 William Hawkins Treatise of Pleas of the Crown 1824 ed vol 1 chapter XIV See also 40 Ass 35 18 U S 153 1820 Memorandum Opinion and Order August 17 2010 docket entry 94 United States v Said 2 10 cr 00057 RAJ FBS U S District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia Norfolk Div Kissinger Henry July August 2001 The Pitfalls of Universal Jurisdiction Foreign Affairs Archived from the original on January 14 2009 Black s Law Dictionary p 528 5th ed 1979 a b Archbold Criminal Pleading Evidence and Practice 1999 Paragraph 25 39 at p 1976 Preamble to the United Nations Convention on the Law of the sea www un org Archbold Criminal Pleading Evidence and Practice 1999 Paragraph 25 39 at p 1976 refers to the Schedule to the Tokyo Convention Act 1967 That Schedule and section 4 of that Act refer to the said articles of Convention on the High Seas Yearbook of the ILC 1956 Vol 2 282 Modern High Seas Piracy cargolaw com Bento Lucas 2011 Toward An International Law of Piracy Sui Generis How the Dual Nature of Maritime Piracy Law Enables Piracy to Flourish Berkeley Journal of International Law 29 2 SSRN 1682624 Adams C The Straight Dope October 12 2007 The Straight Dope Fighting Ignorance Since 1973 Archived December 26 2007 at the Wayback Machine a b A general history of the robberies amp murders of the most notorious pirates Charles Johnson Archived December 26 2022 at the Wayback Machine Introduction and commentary to A General History of the Pyrates by David Cordingly p viii Conway Maritime Press 2002 Bonanos Christopher June 5 2007 Did pirates really say arrrr Slate com Retrieved December 18 2008 Angus Konstam 2008 Piracy The Complete History P 313 Osprey Publishing Retrieved October 11 2011 Dan Parry 2006 Blackbeard The Real Pirate of the Caribbean p 174 National Maritime Museum Libretto of The Pirates of Penzance Archived September 29 2012 at the Wayback Machine 1879 the Gilbert and Sullivan Archive accessed May 1 2014 History of the Pittsburgh Pirates Early Years MLB com Pittsburgh Pirates Karraker Cyrus Harreld 1953 Piracy was a Business Rindge New Hampshire Richard R Smith Publisher Inc ISBN 9780598227775 Retrieved August 29 2022 Pennell C R 1998 Who Needs Pirate Heroes PDF The Northern Mariner Canadian Nautical Research Society 8 2 61 79 doi 10 25071 2561 5467 660 Lawrence Daina November 5 2014 Disruptors are just pirates on the high seas of capitalism The Globe and Mail Retrieved June 23 2021 Roth S 2014 Booties bounties business models a map to the next red oceans International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 22 4 439 448 doi 10 1504 IJESB 2014 064272 S2CID 53140269 Archived from the original on August 26 2014 Roth S 2014 The eye patch of the beholder International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Small Business 22 4 399 407 doi 10 1504 IJESB 2014 064271 Archived from the original on August 26 2014 For example Eklof Stefan 2006 Opportunistic Piracy Pirates in Paradise A Modern History of Southeast Asia s Maritime Marauders Nias Monographs Studies in contemporary Asian history Vol 101 Copenhagen Nordic Institute of Asian Studies NIAS p 35 ISBN 978 8791114373 Retrieved July 13 2018 it is useful to distinguish between organised and non organised or opportunistic piracy with the latter type being by far the most common in South east Asia today and over the past decades Opportunistic piracy is mostly perpetrated by quite small groups The attacks require little detailed information or planning ahead Bibliography bonaventure org uk Pirate Ranks Retrieved April 24 2008 Beal Clifford 2007 Quelch s Gold Piracy Greed and Betrayal in Colonial New England Praeger p 243 ISBN 978 0 275 99407 5 Burnett John 2002 Dangerous Waters Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas Plume p 346 ISBN 0 452 28413 9 Cordingly David 1997 Under the Black Flag The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates Harvest Books ISBN 0 15 600549 2 Hanna Mark G Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire 1570 1740 University of North Carolina Press 2015 xvi 448 pp Menefee Samuel 1996 Trends in Maritime Violence Jane s Information Group ISBN 0 7106 1403 9 Girard Geoffrey 2006 Tales of the Atlantic Pirates Middle Atlantic Press ISBN 0 9754419 5 7 Langewiesche William 2004 The Outlaw Sea A World of Freedom Chaos and Crime North Point Press ISBN 0 86547 581 4 Rediker Marcus Outlaws of the Atlantic Sailors Pirates and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail Boston Beacon 2014 xii 241 pp Rediker Marcus 1987 Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Merchant Seamen Pirates and the Anglo American Maritime World 1700 1750 Cambridge University Press ISBN 0 521 37983 0 Kimball Steve 2006 The Pyrates Way Magazine The Pyrates Way LLC p 64 Archived from the original on March 9 2021 Retrieved June 26 2021 Heller Roazen Daniel 2009 The Enemy of All Piracy and the Law of Nations Zone Books ISBN 978 1890951948 Lucie Smith Edward 1978 Outcasts of the Sea Pirates and Piracy Paddington Press ISBN 978 0448226170 Earle Peter 2003 The Pirate Wars Methuen London ISBN 0 413 75880 X Guilmartin John Francis Gunpowder and Galleys Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century Cambridge University Press London 1974 ISBN 0 521 20272 8Further readingAmirell Stefan Bruce Buchan and Hans Hagerdal eds 2021 Piracy in World History Amsterdam Amsterdam University Press Open Access Piracy in World History Tackling piracy on the high seas Slideshow Reuters April 30 2009 Retrieved June 9 2021 Bradford John December 2004 Japanese Anti Piracy Initiatives in Southeast Asia Contemporary Southeast Asia Vol 26 no 3 pp 480 505 26pp AN 15709264 Bueger Christian 2011 Stockbruegger Jan amp Werthes Sascha eds Pirates Fishermen and Peacebuilding Options for Counter Piracy in Somalia Contemporary Security Policy Vol 32 no 2 Burnett John S 2003 Dangerous Waters Modern Piracy and Terror on the High Seas New York Dutton ISBN 0 452 28413 9 Caninas Commander Osvaldo Pecanha Rogue Wave Modern Maritime Piracy and International Law The Culture amp Conflict Review Monterey CA United States Naval Postgraduate School Chalk Peter January March 1998 Contemporary Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia Studies in Conflict amp Terrorism Vol 21 no 1 pp 87 26p 1 chart AN 286864 Exquemelin Alexandre Olivier 1891 The buccaneers and marooners of America being an account of the famous adventures and daring deeds of certain notorious freebooters of the Spanish main London T Fisher Unwin Gerhard Peter 2003 Pirates of New Spain 1575 1742 Dover Books ISBN 978 0486426112 Gerhard Peter 1990 Pirates of the Pacific 1575 1742 University of Nebraska Press ISBN 978 0803270305 Goodman Timothy H Winter 1999 Leaving the Corsair s name to other times How to enforce the law of sea piracy in the 21st century through regional international agreements Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law Vol 31 no 1 pp 139 168 Goorangai August 2006 Piracy Out of Sight Out of Mind PDF RANR Occasional Papers Royal Australian Navy Archived from the original PDF on August 4 2008 Herrmann Wilfried 2004 Maritime Piracy and Anti Piracy Measures Naval Forces Vol 25 no 2 pp 18 25 6p AN 13193917 Johnson Captain Charles 1724 A General History of the Pyrates Koknar Ali June 2004 Terror on the High Seas Security Management Vol 48 no 6 pp 75 81 6p AN 13443749 Lane Kris 1967 Blood and Silver The history of piracy in the Caribbean and Central America O Shaughnessy Hugh foreword Oxford 1967 Lilius Aleko October 17 1991 I Sailed With Chinese Pirates US Oxford University Press ISBN 0 19 585297 4 Liss Carolin 2003 Maritime Piracy in Southeast Asia Southeast Asian Affairs pp 52 17p AN 10637324 Mason R Chuck December 13 2010 Piracy A Legal Definition PDF Congressional Research Service Modern Piracy Naval Forces Vol 26 no 5 2005 pp 20 31 7p AN 18506590 Patton Robert H 2008 Patriot Pirates the privateer war for freedom and fortune in the American Revolution New York Pantheon Books ISBN 978 0375422843 Clive Malcolm Senior An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates 1603 40 University of Bristol PhD thesis 1973 Clive M Senior A Nation of Pirates English Piracy in its Heyday Newton Abbot 1976 Shearer Ivan Piracy Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law Last updated October 2010 External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to Piracy Wikisource has original works on the topic Pirates European Union Naval Force Somalia Official website Live Piracy amp Armed Robbery Report International Chamber of Commerce Commercial Crime Services Archived from the original on October 11 2007 Maritime Security and Piracy International Maritime Organization Operation Atalanta EU NAVFOR Somalia the ongoing EU military operation to combat piracy in the Gulf of Aden Piracy Studies org academic research portal on modern day piracy and maritime security N C Supreme Court revives lawsuit over Blackbeard s ship and lost Spanish treasure ship Fayetteville Observer Episode 955 Pirate Videos Planet Money NPR Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Piracy amp oldid 1134976035, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

article

, read, download, free, free download, mp3, video, mp4, 3gp, jpg, jpeg, gif, png, picture, music, song, movie, book, game, games.