This article is about maritime robbery. For the unauthorized use of published media, seeCopyright infringement. For the unauthorized downloading of online digital media, seeOnline piracy."Pirate" redirects here. For other uses, seePirate (disambiguation)."Pirate ship" redirects here. For the amusement ride, seePirate ship (ride).
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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 valuable goods, or takinghostages. Those who conduct acts of piracy are calledpirates, and vessels used for piracy are calledpirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when theSea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of theAegean andMediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy,[1] as well as forprivateering andcommerce raiding.
Historic examples of such areas include the waters ofGibraltar, theStrait of Malacca,Madagascar, theGulf of Aden, and theEnglish Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks.[2][3] The termpiracy generally refers to maritime piracy, although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land,[4] in the air, oncomputer networks, and (in science fiction) outer space. Piracy usually excludes crimes committed by the perpetrator on their own vessel (e.g. theft), as well asprivateering, which impliesauthorization by a state government.
Piracy or pirating is the name of a specific crime undercustomary international law and also the name of a number of crimes under the municipal law of a number of states.In the 21st century, seaborne piracy against transport vessels remains a significant issue, with estimated worldwide losses of US$25 billion in 2023,[5] increased from US$16 billion in 2004.[6]
The waters between theRed Sea and theIndian Ocean, off theSomali coast and in theStrait of Malacca andSingapore have frequently been targeted by modern pirates armed with automatic firearms and occasionally explosive weaponry. 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. Theinternational community is facing many challenges in bringing modern pirates tojustice, as these attacks often occur ininternational waters.[7] Nations have used theirnaval forces to repel and pursue pirates, and some private vessels use armed security guards, high-pressurewater cannons, orsound cannons to repel boarders, and useradar to avoid potential threats.
Romanticised accounts of piracy during theAge of Sail have long been a part of Westernpop culture. The two-volumeA 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. TheGeneral History inspired and informed many later fictional depictions of piracy, most notably the novelsTreasure Island (1883) andPeter 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 thePirates of the Caribbean film franchise, which began in 2003.
Etymology
The English word "pirate" is derived from theLatinpirata ("pirate, corsair, sea robber"), which comes fromGreek πειρατής (peiratēs), "brigand",[8] from πειράομαι (peiráomai), "I attempt", from πεῖρα (peîra), "attempt, experience".[9] The meaning of the Greek wordpeiratēs 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.[10] The term first appeared in Englishc. 1300.[11] Spelling did not become standardised until the eighteenth century, and spellings such as "pirrot", "pyrate" and "pyrat" occurred until this period.[12][13]
The earliest documented instances of piracy are the exploits of theSea Peoples who threatened the ships sailing in the Aegean and Mediterranean waters in the 14th century BC. Inclassical antiquity, thePhoenicians,Illyrians andTyrrhenians were known as pirates. In the pre-classical era, theancient Greeks condoned piracy as a viable profession; it apparently was widespread and "regarded as an entirely honourable way of making a living".[14] References are made to its perfectly normal occurrence in many texts including in Homer'sIliad andOdyssey, and abduction of women and children to be sold into slavery was common. By the era ofClassical Greece, piracy was looked upon as a "disgrace" to have as a profession.[14][15]
In the 3rd century BC, pirate attacks onOlympus inLycia brought impoverishment. Among some of the most famous ancient pirateering peoples were the Illyrians, a people populating the western Balkan peninsula. Constantly raiding theAdriatic Sea, the Illyrians caused many conflicts with theRoman Republic. It was not until 229 BC when the Romans decisively beat the Illyrian fleets that their threat was ended.[16] During the 1st century BC, there were pirate states along the Anatolian coast, threatening the commerce of theRoman Empire in the eastern Mediterranean. On one voyage across theAegean Sea in 75 BC,[17]Julius Caesar was kidnapped and briefly held byCilician pirates and held prisoner in theDodecanese islet ofPharmacusa.[18] The Senate invested the generalGnaeus Pompeius Magnus with powers to deal with piracy in 67 BC (theLex Gabinia), and Pompey, after three months of naval warfare,managed to suppress the threat.
As early as 258 AD, theGothic-Herulic fleet ravaged towns on the coasts of theBlack Sea andSea of Marmara. The Aegean coast suffered similar attacks a few years later. In 264, the Goths reachedGalatia andCappadocia, and Gothic pirates landed on Cyprus andCrete. 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 theClassis Britannica, and given the responsibility of eliminatingFrankish andSaxon pirates who had been raiding the coasts ofArmorica and BelgicGaul. In the Roman province of Britannia,Saint Patrick was captured and enslaved by Irish pirates.
The most widely recognized and far-reaching pirates in medieval Europe were theVikings,[19] seaborne warriors fromScandinavia who raided and looted mainly between the 8th and 12th centuries, during theViking Age in theEarly Middle Ages. They raided the coasts, rivers and inland cities of all Western Europe as far asSeville, which was attacked by the Norse in 844. Vikings also attacked the coasts of North Africa and Italy and plundered all the coasts of theBaltic Sea. Some Vikings ascended the rivers of Eastern Europe as far as the Black Sea and Persia.
Toward the end of the 9th century, Moorish pirate havens were established along the coast of southern France and northern Italy.[20] In 846 Moor raiderssacked theextra muros Basilicas ofSaint Peter andSaint Paul in Rome. In 911, the bishop ofNarbonne was unable to return to France from Rome because the Moors fromFraxinet controlled all the passes in theAlps. Moor pirates operated out of theBalearic Islands in the 10th century. From 824 to 961Arab pirates in theEmirate of Crete raided the entire Mediterranean. In the 14th century, raids by Moor pirates forced the Venetian Duke of Crete to askVenice to keep its fleet on constant guard.[citation needed]
After theSlavic invasions of the formerRoman province of Dalmatia in the 5th and 6th centuries, a tribe called theNarentines 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 outcast 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. All of Venice's military attempts to punish them in 839 and 840 utterly failed.
Later, they raided the Venetians more often, together with theArabs. In 846, the Narentines broke through to Venice itself and raided its lagoon city ofCaorle. This caused a Byzantine military action against them that brought Christianity to them. After theArab raids on theAdriatic 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.
In 937, Irish pirates sided with the Scots, Vikings,Picts, and Welsh in their invasion of England.Athelstan drove them back.
TheSlavic piracy in the Baltic Sea ended with theDanish conquest of theRani stronghold ofArkona in 1168. In the 12th century the coasts of western Scandinavia were plundered byCuronians andOeselians from the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. In the 13th and 14th century, pirates threatened theHanseatic routes and nearly brought sea trade to the brink of extinction. TheVictual Brothers ofGotland were a companionship of privateers who later turned to piracy as theLikedeelers. They were especially noted for their leadersKlaus Störtebeker andGödeke Michels. Until about 1440, maritime trade in both theNorth Sea, the Baltic Sea and theGulf 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 beenhanged, drawn and quartered,[23] which would indicate that the then-ruling KingHenry III took an especially severe view of this crime.
As early asByzantine times, theManiots (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 theOttomans 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 inCossack territory in the remotesteppe of Eastern Europe, it was populated with Ukrainian peasants that had run away from their feudal masters, outlaws, destitute gentry, run-away slaves from Turkishgalleys, etc. The remoteness of the place and the rapids at theDnieper river effectively guarded the place from invasions of vengeful powers.
A French ship under attack by Barbary pirates, ca. 1615
Though less famous and romanticized than Atlantic or Caribbean pirates, corsairs in theMediterranean equaled or outnumbered the former at any given point in history.[25] Mediterranean piracy was conducted almost entirely with galleys until the mid-17th century, when they were gradually replaced with highly maneuverable sailing vessels such asxebecs andbrigantines. They were of a smaller type than battle galleys, often referred to asgaliots orfustas.[26]
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 ofSalé was by using a captured pirate vessel of the same type.[27]
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[28] and by the Spanish in the late 16th century.[29] Specially-built sailing frigates with oar-ports on the lower decks, like theJames Galley andCharles 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.[30]
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-calledBarbary 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 Ottomansuzerainty, 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, orghazis,[31] carrying on the tradition of fighting the incursion of Western Christians that had begun with theFirst Crusade late in the 11th century.[32]
TheBombardment of Algiers by the Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1816 to support the ultimatum to release European slaves
Coastal villages and towns of Italy, Spain andislands 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 theOttoman Empire between the 16th and 19th centuries. The most famous corsairs were the OttomanAlbanianHayreddin and his older brotherOruç Reis (Redbeard),Turgut Reis (known as Dragut in the West),Kurtoglu (known as Curtogoli in the West),Kemal Reis,Salih Reis andKoca Murat Reis. A few Barbary corsairs, such as the DutchJan Janszoon and the EnglishJohn Ward (Muslim name Yusuf Reis), were renegade European privateers who had converted to Islam.[33][34]
The Barbary pirates had a direct Christian counterpart in the military order of theKnights of Saint John that operated first out ofRhodes and after 1530Malta, 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 boughtgalley slaves to man the oars of their ships. The Muslims relied mostly on captured Christians, the Christians used a mix of Muslim slaves, Christian convicts and a small contingency ofbuonavoglie, free men who out of desperation or poverty had taken to rowing.[32]
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".[35] 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",[36] the Christian side of which was not ended until 1798 in the Napoleonic Wars. The Barbary corsairs were quelled as late as the 1830s, effectively ending the last vestiges of counter-crusadingjihad.[37]
Piracy off theBarbary 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. 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.
Albanian piracy, mainly centered in the town ofUlcinj (thus came to be known asDulcignotti), flourished during the 15th to the 19th century.[38]
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 bombardedAlgiers in an effort to stem the piracy. Thesecond time,Admiral Barceló damaged the city so severely that the AlgerianDey asked Spain to negotiate a peace treaty. From then on, Spanish vessels and coasts were safe for several years.[citation needed]
Until the AmericanDeclaration of Independence in 1776,British treaties with theNorth African states protected American ships from theBarbary corsairs.Morocco, which in 1777 wasthe 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,[39] leading to theBarbary Wars that ended the payment of tribute. Algiers broke the 1805 peace treaty after only two years, and refused to implement the 1815 treaty until compelled to do so by Britain in 1816.
In 1815, the sacking of Palma on the island ofSardinia by a Tunisian squadron, which carried off 158 inhabitants, roused widespread indignation. Britain hadby 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 inAfrican slaves did not extend to stopping the enslavement of Europeans and Americans by the Barbary States.
In order to neutralise this objection and further the anti-slavery campaign, in 1816Lord Exmouth was sent to secure new concessions fromTripoli,Tunis, andAlgiers, including a pledge to treat Christian captives in any future conflict asprisoners of war rather than slaves and the imposition of peace between Algiers and the kingdoms ofSardinia andSicily. On his first visit he negotiated satisfactory treaties and sailed for home. While he was negotiating, a number of Sardinian fishermen who had settled atBona on the Tunisian coast were brutally treated without his knowledge. AsSardinians 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.[40] Both Algiers and Tunis made fresh concessions as a result.
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 renewed its slave-raiding, though on a smaller scale. Measures to be taken against the city's government were discussed at theCongress 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 itsconquest by France in 1830.[40]
InthalassocraticAustronesian cultures inIsland 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.[41][42][43][44][45]
With the advent ofIslam and thecolonial era, slaves became a valuable resource for trading with European, Arab, and Chinese slavers, and the volume of piracy and slave raids increased significantly.[45] Numerous native peoples engaged in sea raiding; they include theIranun andBalanguingui slavers ofSulu, theIbanheadhunters ofBorneo, theBugis sailors ofSouth Sulawesi, and theMalays of western Southeast Asia. Piracy was also practiced by foreign seafarers on a smaller scale, including Chinese, Japanese, and European traders, renegades, and outlaws.[43] The volume of piracy and raids were often dependent on the ebb and flow of trade andmonsoons, with pirate season (known colloquially as the "Pirate Wind") starting from August to September.[42]
Slave raids were of high economic importance to the Muslim Sultanates in theSulu Sea: theSultanate of Sulu, theSultanate of Maguindanao, and the Confederation of Sultanates in Lanao (the modernMoro people). It is estimated that from 1770 to 1870, around 200,000 to 300,000 people were enslaved byIranun andBanguingui slavers.[41][42] David P. Forsythe put the estimate much higher, at around 2 million slaves captured within the first two centuries of Spanish rule of thePhilippines after 1565.[46]
Spanish warships bombarding theMoro 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 theMalacca Strait,Java, the southern coast of China and the islands beyond theMakassar Strait. Most of the slaves wereTagalogs,Visayans, and "Malays" (includingBugis,Mandarese,Iban, andMakassar). There were also occasional European and Chinese captives who were usually ransomed off throughTausug intermediaries of theSulu 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 Banguinguislave markets. By the 1850s, slaves constituted 50% or more of the population of the Sulu archipelago.[41][43][42]
The scale was so massive that the word for "pirate" inMalay becamelanun, anexonym 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 asgalley slaves on thelanong andgaray 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 inJolo usually for rice, opium, bolts of cloth, iron bars, brassware, and weapons. The buyers were usually Tausugdatu from theSultanate of Sulu who had preferential treatment, but buyers also included European (Dutch andPortuguese) and Chinese traders as well asVisayan pirates (renegados).[42]
Baluarte Watchtower,La Union. A 400-year-old Spanish-era structure built to guard againstpirates, later used inWorld War II as a communication tower for theUSAFIP-NL airfield.Currimao Watchtower,Ilocos Norte. 'Currimao' comes from theIloco termcumaws (pirates) and the Spanish wordcorrer (to run), reflecting the warnings given by watchmen during pirate attacks.
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. InNorthern Luzon particularly in thePangasinan,Ilocos andCagayan, the coastal villages and towns, were frequently raided by Moro and Chinese pirates, locally known astírong or cumaw (raiders, attackers or pirates). These pirates looted and burned villages (barrios) and captured women and children for enslavement. To counter these threats, Spanish authorities constructed circular adobewatchtowers, orbaluartes, measuring 6 to 7 meters high. These structures, built strategically along the coastline using coral blocks bonded with a mixture of lime and egg whites, served as both lookout points and defensive fortifications to protect villages from pirate attacks.[47][48][49]
A fight between Filipino pirates, Bugis trading ship, and Dutch mariners.
Some provincial capitals were also moved further inland. Major command posts were built inManila,Cavite,Cebu,Iloilo,Zamboanga, andIligan. Defending ships were also built by local communities, especially in theVisayas 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 fastergaray 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 acquiredsteam gunboats (vapor), which could easily overtake and destroy the native Moro warships.[41][50][51]
Several famous pirates, such asIntjeh Cohdja andWassingrana, were hunted by the VOC for hijacking their merchant ships in theEastern salient of Java.[52]
Aside from the Iranun and Banguingui pirates, other polities were also associated with maritime raiding. The Bugis sailors ofSouth 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.[53] TheOrang laut pirates controlled shipping in the Straits of Malacca and the waters around Singapore,[54] and theMalay andSea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven inBorneo.[55]
East Asia
In East Asia by the ninth century, populations centered mostly around merchant activities in coastalShandong andJiangsu. Wealthy benefactors includingChang Pogo establishedSilla Buddhist temples in the region. Chang Pogo 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), Chang Pogo petitioned the Silla king Heungdeok (r. 826–836) to establish a permanent maritime garrison to protect Silla merchant activities in theYellow 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 Chang 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. Chang's force, though nominally bequeathed by the Silla king, was effectively under his own control. Chang became arbiter of Yellow Sea commerce and navigation.[56]
From the 13th century, Wokou based in Japan made their debut in East Asia, initiating invasions that would persist for 300 years. The wokou raidspeaked in the 1550s, but by then the wokou were mostly Chinese smugglers who reacted strongly against theMing dynasty's strict prohibition on private sea trade.
During theQing 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 inFujian andGuangdong and was a vital artery of Chinese commerce. Pirate fleets exercisedhegemony over villages on the coast, collecting revenue by exacting tribute and runningextortion rackets. In 1802, the menacingZheng 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 atTy-ho Bay and theTonkin River though piratejunks 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 theSecond Opium War and theTaiping Rebellion, piratical junks were again destroyed in large numbers by British naval forces but ultimately it was not 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.[57][58]
Piracy in the Ming dynasty
Pirates in theMing era tended to come from populations on the geographic periphery of the state.[59] 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.[60][61] 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 aswokou in many government documents.[62] Most pirates were probablyHan Chinese, but Japanese and even Europeans engaged in pirate activities in the region.[63]
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.[64] 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.[64][65][66] 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.[67] 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 thehaijin ban on private international trade in 1567.[66]
Pirates also projected local political authority.[68] 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.[69] These bands also wrote and codified laws that redistributed wealth, punished crimes, and provided protection for the taxed community.[68] These laws were strictly followed by the pirates, as well.[70] The political structures tended to look similar to the Ming structures.[70]
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.[71] Members of these pirate groups did not tend to stay longer than a few months or years at a time.[71]
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.[69] 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.[69] 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.[69]
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.[72] 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.[73] 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.[74]
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.[75] 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.[76] Both the dynasty and foreign colonial projects would employ pirates as mercenaries to establish dominance in the coastal region.[77] 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.[78] Included in this list of possible allies, sea marauders and pirates even found opportunities to bribe military officials as they engaged in illegal trade.[79] 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.[76] Pirates likeZheng Zhilong andZheng Chenggong accrued tremendous local power, eventually even being hired as naval commanders by the Chinese dynasties and foreign maritime powers.[80]
Pirates who accepted the Royal Pardon from theChola Empire would get to serve in theChola Navy as "Kallarani". They would be used as coast guards, or sent on recon missions to deal with Arab piracy in theArabian Sea. Their function is similar to the 18th centuryprivateers, used by the Royal Navy.
Starting in the 14th century, theDeccan (Southern Peninsular region of India) was divided into two entities: on the one side stood the MuslimBahmani Sultanate and on the other stood theHindu kings rallied around theVijayanagara 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 wasTimoji, who operated offAnjadip Island both as a privateer (by seizing horse traders, that he rendered to theraja ofHonavar) and as a pirate who attacked the Kerala merchant fleets that traded pepper withGujarat.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, there was frequent European piracy againstMughal Indian merchants, especially thoseen route to Mecca forHajj. The situation came to a head when the Portuguese attacked and captured the vesselRahimi which belonged toMariam Zamani the Mughal queen, which led to the Mughal seizure of the Portuguese town Daman.[84] In the 18th century, the famousMaratha privateerKanhoji Angre ruled the seas between Mumbai and Goa.[85] The Marathas attacked British shipping and insisted thatEast India Company ships pay taxes if sailing through their waters.[86]
The southern coast of thePersian Gulf was known to the British from the late 18th century as thePirate 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.[87] Early British expeditions to protect the ImperialIndian Ocean trade from competitors, principally the Al Qasimi fromRas Al Khaimah andLingeh, led to campaigns against those headquarters and other harbours along the coast in1809 and then, after a relapse in raiding, again in1819.[88] This led to the signing of the first formal treaty ofmaritime 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 asTrucial States.[87]
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.[89]Île Sainte-Marie was a popular base for pirates throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The most famouspirate utopia is that of the probably fictional Captain Misson and his pirate crew, who allegedly founded the free colony ofLibertatia in northern Madagascar in the late 17th century, until it was destroyed in a surprise attack by the island natives in 1694.[90]
Jacques de Sores looting and burning Havana in 1555Puerto del Príncipe being sacked in 1668 by Henry MorganBook about pirates "De Americaensche Zee-Roovers" was first published in 1678 in Amsterdam
The classic era of piracy in theCaribbean lasted from circa 1650 until the mid-1720s.[91] By 1650, France, England and theUnited 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.
Frenchbuccaneers were established on northwestern part ofHispaniola after thedevastations of Osorio as early as 1625,[92] 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 ofTortuga limited their resources and accelerated their piratical raids. According toAlexandre Exquemelin, a buccaneer and historian who remains a major source on this period, the Tortuga buccaneerPierre 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 ofPort 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 shipGanj-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 anearthquake in 1692 further reduced the Caribbean's attractions by destroying the pirates' chief market for fenced plunder.[93] 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,[94] whileRío de la Hacha had been raided five times andTolú eight.[95]
Bartholomew Roberts was the pirate with most captures during the Golden Age of Piracy. He is now known for hanging the governor ofMartinique from the yardarm of his ship.
At the same time, England's less favored colonies, includingBermuda, New York, andRhode Island, had become cash-starved by theNavigation 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."[96] 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;[97] 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 theWar of the Spanish Succession. As a result, thousands of seamen, including Europeanprivateers 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 onboardmerchantmen (includingslave ships) were often enthusiastic to abandon that profession and turn to pirating, giving pirate captains a steady pool of recruits from various coasts across the Atlantic.[98]
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, andEdward 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 atNassau, on the island ofNew Providence in the Bahamas, which had been abandoned during the war. Until the arrival of governorWoodes 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 astriangular 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.[99]
Born to a noble family inPuerto Rico,Roberto Cofresí was the last notably successful pirate in the Caribbean.
As part of the peace settlement of theWar of the Spanish succession, Britain obtained theasiento, a Spanish government contract, tosupply 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 apirate. 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 wereEdward Teach orBlackbeard,John Rackham, andBartholomew Roberts. Most of these pirates were eventually hunted down by the Royal Navy and killed or captured; severalbattles werefought 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 wereJean Lafitte andRoberto Cofresi. Lafitte is considered by many to be the lastbuccaneer due to his army of pirates and fleet of pirate ships which held bases in and around theGulf of Mexico. Lafitte and his men participated in theWar of 1812battle of New Orleans. Cofresi's base was inMona Island, Puerto Rico, from where he disrupted the commerce throughout the region. He became the last major target of the international anti-piracy operations.[100]
Hanging ofCaptain Kidd; illustration fromThe 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. ThePiracy Act 1698 for the "more effectual suppression of Piracy"[101] 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.[102] Being an accessory to piracy was also criminalised under the statute.
Piracy saw a brief resurgence between the end of theWar 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 theTreaty of Utrecht that ended the war gave to Great Britain'sRoyal 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 atCampeche 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 byParliament to suppress piracy, resulted in thePiracy Act 1717 andPiracy Act 1721. These established a seven-yearpenal 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 byroyal pardon. In 1717, apardon 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.[102] 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 fromThe 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 LieutenantRobert Maynard atOcracoke Inlet off the coast ofNorth Carolina on November 22, 1718, and killed. His flagship was a captured French slave ship known originally asLa Concorde, he renamed the frigateQueen Anne's Revenge. CaptainChaloner Ogle of HMSSwallow cornered Bartholomew Roberts in 1722 at Cape Lopez, and a fatal broadside from theSwallow 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.[103] 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'sEl Mosquito was disabled ina 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 theMexican–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 theAge 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 theAmerican Civil War.
Privateering would remain a tool of European states until the mid-19th century'sDeclaration of Paris. Butletters 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.
Due to the strategic situation of this Spanish archipelago as a crossroads of maritime routes and commercial bridge between Europe, Africa andAmerica,[104] this was one of the places on the planet with the greatest pirate presence.
Piracy on the east coast of North America first became common in the early seventeenth century, as English privateers discharged after the end of theAnglo-Spanish War (1585–1604) turned to piracy.[109][110] The most famous and successful of these early pirates wasPeter Easton.
Stack Island was also associated with river pirates andcounterfeiters 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 offlatboatmen raided the island, wiping out the river pirates. From 1790 to 1834,Cave-In-Rock was the principaloutlaw lair and headquarters of river pirate activity in the Ohio River region, from whichSamuel 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 locallaw enforcement andregulator-vigilante groups that uprooted and swept out pockets of outlaw resistance.
Pirates had a system of hierarchy on board their ships determining how captured money was distributed. However, pirates were moreegalitarian than any other area of employment at the time. In fact, piratequartermasters 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.[112]
Henry Morgan who sacked and burned the city ofPanama in 1671 – the second most important city in the Spanish New World at the time; engraving from 1681 Spanish edition ofAlexandre Exquemelin'sThe 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 inPennsylvania and 6s 8d inVirginia. 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.[113][114]
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.[112] One of the larger amounts taken from a single ship was that by captainThomas 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.[112][115]
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 theMerchant 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 ofGreenwich Hospital, with similar amounts deducted for theChatham 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 RNAdmiral Nelson wrote in 1803; he noted that since 1793 more than 42,000 sailors had deserted. Roughly half of all RN crews werepressganged 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.[116]
Although the Royal Navy suffered from many morale issues, it answered the question of prize money via theCruizers and Convoys Act 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 theRevolutionary andNapoleonic Wars.
Bartholomew Roberts' crew carousing at theCalabar River; illustration fromThe 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 theSpanish frigateHermione, 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).[117] The two captains responsible, Evans and Pownall, received £65,000 each ($188.4 million). In January 1807 the frigateCaroline took the SpanishSan 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 frigatesThetis andSanta Brigada, which were loaded with goldspecie. 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.[118]
Comparison chart using the share distribution known for three pirates against the shares for a Privateer and wages as paid by the Royal Navy.
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.[119]
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 forhanging. 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 atExecution Dock on theRiver Thames in London.
In the cases of more famous prisoners, usually captains, their punishments extended beyond death. Their bodies were enclosed iniron 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, andJohn Rackham, were all treated this manner.[120]
While piracy was predominantly a male occupation throughout history, a minority of pirates were female.[121] 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 theship's contract, which all crew members were required to sign.[122]: 303
Only four female pirates are known to have been active during the Golden Age of Piracy. They wereAnne Bonny andMary Read, women who served underJohn Rackham in 1720,Mary Critchett an escaped prisoner in 1729, andMartha Farley the wife of a minor pirate in 1727.
Unlike traditional Western societies of the time, many Caribbean pirate crews of European descent operated as limiteddemocracies. 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.[123]
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 bemarooned. 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 andboatswain, 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.[124]
Known pirate shipwrecks
To date, the following identifiable pirateshipwrecks have been discovered:
Whydah Gally (discovered in 1984), a formerslave ship seized on its maiden voyage from Africa by the pirate captainSamuel Bellamy. The wreck was found off the coast ofCape 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, theWhydah is the only fully authenticated Golden Age pirate shipwreck ever discovered.[125] Since 2007, theWydah collection has been touring as part of the exhibit "Real Pirates" sponsored byNational Geographic.[126]
Queen Anne's Revenge (discovered in 1996), the flagship of the infamous pirateBlackbeard. 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 atTopsail Inlet, now known as Beaufort Inlet, North Carolina. Intersal,[127] a private firm working under a permit with the state of North Carolina, discovered the remains of the vessel[128] in 28 feet (8.5m) of water about one mile (1.6 km) offshore ofFort Macon State Park,Atlantic Beach, North Carolina. Thirty-one cannons have been identified to date, and more than 250,000 artifacts have been recovered.[129] 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.[128][130]
Modern reconstruction of skull alleged to have belonged to 14th century pirateKlaus Störtebeker. He was the leader of the privateer guildVictual Brothers, who later turned to piracy and roamed European seas.
Aprivateer orcorsair used similar methods to a pirate, but acted under orders of the state while in possession of a commission orletter of marque and reprisal from a government or monarch authorizing the capture of merchant ships belonging to an enemy nation. For example, theUnited States Constitution of 1787 specifically authorizedCongress 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.
The famousBarbary corsairs of the Mediterranean, authorized by theOttoman Empire, were privateers, as were the Maltese corsairs, who were authorized by theKnights of St. John, and theDunkirkers in the service of theSpanish Empire. In the years 1626–1634 alone, the Dunkirk privateers captured 1,499 ships, and sank another 336.[135] From 1609 to 1616, England lost 466 merchant ships to Barbary pirates, and 160 British ships were captured by Algerians between 1677 and 1680.[136] One famous privateer wasSir Francis Drake. His patron wasQueen Elizabeth I, and their relationship ultimately proved to be quite profitable for England.[137]
Privateers constituted a large proportion of the total military force at sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. During theNine Years War, the French adopted a policy of strongly encouraging privateers (French corsairs), including the famousJean Bart, to attack English and Dutch shipping. England lost roughly 4,000 merchant ships during the war.[138] In the followingWar of Spanish Succession, privateer attacks continued, Britain losing 3,250 merchant ships.[139] During theWar of Austrian Succession, Britain lost 3,238 merchant ships and France lost 3,434 merchant ships to the British.[138]
DuringKing George's War, approximately 36,000 Americans served aboard privateers at one time or another.[138] During theAmerican Revolution, about 55,000 American seamen served aboard the privateers.[140] The American privateers had almost 1,700 ships, and they captured 2,283 enemy ships.[citation needed] Between the end of the Revolutionary War and 1812, less than 30 years, Britain, France, Naples, theBarbary states, Spain, and the Netherlands seized approximately 2,500 American ships.[141] Payments in ransom and tribute to the Barbary states amounted to 20% of United States government annual revenues in 1800.[142] Throughout the American Civil War,Confederate privateers successfully harassed Union merchant ships.[143]
A wartime activity similar to piracy involves disguisedwarships calledcommerce raiders[144] ormerchant 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, theConfederacy sent out several commerce raiders, the most famous of which was theCSSAlabama.[citation needed] During World War I and World War II, Germany also made use of these tactics, both in theAtlantic 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.
Seaborne piracy against transport vessels is a significant issue, with estimated worldwide losses of US$16 billion per year in 2004,[6] increased to US$25 billion over the next 20 years.[5] Waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and also in theStrait 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.[145] In the late 2000s,[146] the emergence of piracy off the coast of Somalia spurred a multi-national effort led by the United States to patrol the waters near theHorn of Africa. In 2011, Brazil also created an anti-piracy unit on theAmazon River.[147] SirPeter Blake, a New Zealand world champion yachtsman, was killed by pirates on the Amazon river in 2001.[148]
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 theGulf of Aden and the Strait of Malacca making them vulnerable to be overtaken and boarded by smallmotorboats.[152][153] Other active areas include theSouth China Sea and theNiger 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 largetrade routes. Pirates sometimes evade capture by sailing into waters controlled by their pursuer's enemies. With the end of theCold 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.
TheInternational 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.[154] 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.[155] That number does not include instances of hostage taking and kidnapping where the victims were not injured.
Aerial photograph of theNiger 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.[156]
Rather than cargo, modern pirates have targeted the personal belongings of the crew and the contents of theship'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.[157]
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 whotook to boats to escape. Further, following the disintegration of the government of Somalia,warlords in the region have attacked ships delivering UN food aid.[158]
The attack against the German-built cruise ship theSeabourn 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 anRPG.[159]
Since 2008, Somali pirates centered in theGulf of Aden made about $120 million annually, reportedly costing the shipping industry between $900 million and $3.3 billion per year.[160] 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.[161] According to the International Maritime Bureau, pirate attacks had by October 2012 dropped to a six-year low.[162] Only five ships were captured by the end of the year, representing a decrease from 25 in 2011 and 27 in 2010,[163] with only one ship attacked in the third quarter compared to 36 during the same period in 2011.[162] However, pirate incidents off on the West African seaboard increased to 34 from 30 the previous year, andattacks off the coast of Indonesia rose from 2011's total of 46 to 51.[162]
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.[164] Shipping companies sometimes hire private armed security guards.
Modern definitions of piracy include the following acts:
In modern times, ships and airplanes arehijacked for political reasons as well. The perpetrators of these acts could be described as pirates (for instance, the French term forplane hijacker ispirate de l'air, literallyair pirate), but in English are usually termedhijackers. An example is the hijacking of the Italian civilian passenger shipAchille Lauro by thePalestine Liberation Organization in 1985, which is regarded as an act of piracy. A 2009 book entitledInternational Legal Dimension of Terrorism called the attackers "terrorists".[167]
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 theInternational 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.[168]
IMB Piracy Reporting Centre keeps a live piracy map to help keep track of all recent piracy and armed robbery incidents.[169]
Anti-piracy measures
Incidents of pipeline vandalism by pirates in theGulf 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."[170] 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.[171] 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.[172]
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",[173] 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.[174]
The Dutch are using a 17th-century law againstsea robbery to prosecute.[175] 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.[176]
Since the 2010s, the U.S. Navy and others have been developingartificial intelligence (AI)-based systems that generate piracy alerts based on surveillance data.[178][179]
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)[180] is the current authoritative guide for merchant ships on self-defense against pirates. The guide is issued and updated byOil Companies International Marine Forum (OCIMF), a consortium of interested international shipping and trading organizations including the EU, NATO and the International Maritime Bureau.[181] It is distributed primarily by theMaritime Security Centre – Horn of Africa (MSCHOA), the planning and coordination authority for EU naval forces (EUNAVFOR).[181]
The 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). The BMP4 contains a chapter entitled "Self-Protective Measures" which lays out a list of steps a merchant vessel can take 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 withrazor 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 if pirates get on board.[181] 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.[182]
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 forU.S.-flagged vessels to embark a team of armed private security guards. TheUS Coastguard leaves it to ship owners' discretion to determine if those guards will be armed.[183][184] 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.[185]
This has given birth to a new breed ofprivate security companies that provide training for crew members and operatefloating armouries for protection of crew and cargo. This has proved effective in countering pirate attacks.[186][187] 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.[188]
With safety trials complete in the late 2000s,laser dazzlers have been developed for defensive purposes on super-yachts.[189] They can be effective up to 4 kilometres (2.5 mi) with the effects going from mild disorientation toflash blindness at closer range.[190]
In February 2012,Italian Marines based on the tankerEnrica Lexieallegedly fired on an Indian fishing trawler offKerala, 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 intoKochi where her crew were questioned byofficers of the Indian Police.[191] The fact is stillsub 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 whetherfunctional immunity is ultimately granted or denied to the Italians.[192]
Another similar incident has been reported to have happened in theRed 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.[193][194]
Despite VPD deployment being controversial because of these incidents, according to theAssociated Press,[195] during aUnited Nations Security Council conference about piracy "U.S. AmbassadorSusan Rice told the council that no ship carrying armed guards has been successfully attacked by pirates" and "French AmbassadorGerard 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".
The best protection against pirates is to avoid encountering them. This can be accomplished by using tools such asradar,[196] 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.[197]
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.[183][198] The guards are usually supplied from ships intended specifically for training and supplying such armed personnel.[199] The crew can be given weapons training,[200] 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,[201] implementing a high freewall[202] and vessel boarding protection systems (e.g., hot water wall, electricity-charged water wall, automated fire monitor, slippery foam).[203] Ships can also attempt to protect themselves using their Automatic Identification Systems (AIS).[204] 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, rendering single ships vulnerable. 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.
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 orremote-controlledUSVs are also sometimes used.[205] Shore- and vessel-launchedUAVs are used by the U.S. Navy.[206][207] A British formerBritish 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 littledhow withRPGs [rocket-propelled grenade launchers] costing US$50, with an outboard motor [costing] $100".
In 2008 the BritishForeign Office advised the Royal Navy not to detain pirates of certain nationalities as they might be able to claim asylum in Britain underBritish human rights legislation, if their national laws included execution, or mutilation as a judicial punishment for crimes committed as pirates.[208]
The bookArchbold says that in a case that does not fall within section 2 of the Piracy Act 1837, the penalty appears to be determined by theOffences 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.[209]
In Englishadmiralty law, piracy was classified as petty treason during the medieval period, and offenders were accordingly liable to behanged, drawn and quartered on conviction. Piracy was redefined as afelony during the reign ofHenry VIII. In either case, piracy cases were cognizable in the courts of the Lord High Admiral. English judges inadmiralty courts andvice 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 tosummary 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]
To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;
The founding fathers were at loggerheads over piracy.[211] and theMarshall Court (1801-1835) dealt with many cases of piracy.[212][213] In 1820 the penalty for piracy was death.[214] By 1909 the penalty was life imprisonment.[215] Title18 U.S.C.§ 1651 now 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 ofUnited States v. Smith (1820),[214] a U.S. District Court ruled in 2010 in the case ofUnited 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 theSaid case were dismissed by the Court.[216]
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 alsoUnited 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., seeUS v. Said, 3 F. Supp. 3d 515 – Dist. Court, ED Virginia (2014).
During the 18th century, the British and the Dutch controlled opposite sides of theStraits 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.
Piracy is of note ininternational law as it is commonly held to represent the earliest invocation of the concept ofuniversal jurisdiction. The crime of piracy is considered a breach ofjus 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 hold the status ofhostis humani generis (an enemy of humankind).[217]
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 principleextra territorium jus dicenti impune non paretur ("One who exercises jurisdiction out of his territory is disobeyed with impunity").[218]
(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 thehigh 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.[221]
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.[224]
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.[225]
"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 certainstereotypical 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 ofRobert Louis Stevenson'sTreasure Island."[226] Hugely influential in shaping the popular conception of pirates,Captain Charles Johnson'sA 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.[227] The book gives an almost mythical status to pirates, with naval historianDavid Cordingly writing: "it has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates."[227]
In the 1830s,Letitia Elizabeth Landon received material relating to piracy for an annual for which she was responsible and she produced two Pirate Songs, the first in 1831,The Pirate's Song off Tiger Island. and the second,Bona. The Pirate's Song. in 1837. This last was reproduced many times as 'The Pirate's Song', often uncredited. Bona is now the city of Annaba in Algeria.
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 thePittsburgh Pirates ofMajor League Baseball that acquired their nickname in 1891 after allegedly "pirating" a player from another team.[232] Many amateur and school-based sports programs along with several professional sports franchises have also adopted pirate-related names, including theLas Vegas Raiders andTampa Bay Buccaneers of theNational Football League. In turn, the Buccaneer's name was inspired by theGasparilla Pirate Festival, a large community parade and related events inTampa, Florida centered around the legend ofJosé Gaspar, a mythical pirate who supposedly operated in the area.
Economics of piracy
Sources on the economics of piracy include Cyrus Karraker's 1953 studyPiracy was a Business,[233]in which the author discusses pirates in terms of contemporaryracketeering. Patrick Crowhurst researched French piracy andDavid Starkey focused on British 18th-century piracy. Note also the 1998 bookThe Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates byPeter T. Leeson.[234]
Piracy and entrepreneurship
Some 2014 research examines the links between piracy andentrepreneurship. In this context, researchers take a nonmoral approach to piracy as a source of inspiration for 2010s-eraentrepreneurship education[235] and to research in entrepreneurship[236] and inbusiness-model generation.[237]
In this respect, analysis of piracy operations may distinguish between planned (organised) andopportunistic piracy.[238]
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^Rubin, Alfred P. (January 1, 1988). "The Law of Piracy. By Alfred P. Rubin. Newport, R.I.: Naval War College Press, 1988. Pp. xiv, 444. Indexes. $22".American Journal of International Law.84 (2):620–622.doi:10.2307/2203491.ISSN0002-9300.JSTOR2203491.S2CID246010971 – via Digital Commons.
^Benjamin Munn Ziegler. International Law of John Marshall; a Study of First Principles (1939)
^G. Edward White, The Marshall Court and International Law: The Piracy Cases, 83 AM. J. INT'l L. 727 (October 1989)
^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.).
^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.ISBN978-87-91114-37-3. RetrievedJuly 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 [...].
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.ISBN0-521-37983-0.
Kimball, Steve (2006).The Pyrates Way Magazine. The Pyrates Way, LLC. p. 64. Archived fromthe original on March 9, 2021. RetrievedJune 26, 2021.
Heller-Roazen, Daniel (2009).The Enemy of All: Piracy and the Law of Nations. Zone Books.ISBN978-1-890951-94-8.
Earle, Peter (2003)The Pirate Wars Methuen, London.ISBN0-413-75880-X
Guilmartin, John Francis,Gunpowder and Galleys: Changing Technology and Mediterranean Warfare at Sea in the Sixteenth Century. Cambridge University Press, London. 1974.ISBN0-521-20272-8
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