\u201cDidn\u2019t pirates kill and rape people?\u00a0 Why would you admire them?\u201d<\/p>\n
This question was posed to me by a very astute student when I visited her class.\u00a0 The bell rang and she had to hurry on to her next class before I could answer, which was a shame because it was the most interesting and complex question I\u2019d been asked all day.\u00a0 So I\u2019ll answer it here.<\/p>\n
The answer to the first question is obvious: yes, pirates did some truly horrific things.\u00a0 I don\u2019t just mean that they stole and murdered and raped \u2013 yes, those are all terrible things, but there are reliable reports of pirates who engaged in savage tortures of their victims before killing them.\u00a0 These were men who weren\u2019t merely violent, but brutal and sadistic, inventing atrocities and perpetrating them upon a hapless populace.<\/p>\n
However, there are many reports of pirates who were very civil and good-natured.\u00a0 In one account, a ship that had already been attacked by pirates was allowed to pass \u2013 the second group deciding that the ship had suffered ill fortune enough.\u00a0 In another account, a pirate crew went to great lengths to pretend to kill a taken ship\u2019s crew to get a seaman to confess the location of some hidden gold, only to reveal that none of the crew had been hurt at all.\u00a0 The bottom line for many pirates was that violence was a means to an end, and murder for the sake of bloodlust was rarely profitable.<\/p>\n
It may sound like I\u2019m trying to rationalize the terrible acts of murderers, but I\u2019m really trying to set context.\u00a0 The term \u2018pirate\u2019 is very broad \u2013 compare it to the term \u2018criminal.\u2019\u00a0 Murderers and rapists are criminals, and so are thieves, but so too are speeders and people who download music without paying for it.\u00a0 This may seem a stretch, but the point is that the term \u2018pirate\u2019 was just as unclear a designation as \u2018criminal.\u2019\u00a0 Moreover, compare the actions of most pirates with the actions of most legitimate seamen and marines at the time: attack an enemy ship, kill or subdue the enemy crew, and take whatever was valuable (even the enemy ship itself).\u00a0 The only real difference was that pirates didn\u2019t always worry about the nationality of the ship they were attacking (though sometimes it was very important to them).<\/p>\n
I often point out that pirates are not to be emulated, though I can see why that comes across as a little \u2018do as I say, not as I do,\u2019 when I\u2019m wearing a three-cornered hat.\u00a0 The real connection is found in the answer to the second question, though that question should really be \u2018DO I admire pirates?\u2019<\/p>\n
I admire anyone who\u2019s willing to do what must be done to live free.\u00a0 This is why I generally stick to Caribbean pirates of the Golden Age variety, by the way.\u00a0 At the time, the value of human life was low, especially from a government\u2019s perspective.\u00a0 Sailors and soldiers were paid very little, and when wars ended (and they often did so abruptly), these men had nothing to fall back on.\u00a0 Many people took to piracy because it was a way to earn money, hoping to earn enough quickly enough that they could quit the business and live well.\u00a0 Moreover, many navy sailors were pressed into service \u2013 an aggressive version of the draft \u2013 and were taken onto warships for years without concern for the man\u2019s previous job or family.\u00a0 Many of these forced men became pirates because they were tired of poor conditions, angered by their indentured servitude, and desirous of worthy pay.\u00a0 Since deserting a navy ship is a crime already, why not get rich by doing so?\u00a0 Seen through the overall historical climate, joining a pirate crew was a legitimate business choice and way of life \u2013 it may have been violent and dangerous, but it offered freedom, wealth, and a chance to have a say in one\u2019s own fate.<\/p>\n
In point of fact, for many pirates, that say in their own fate was the strongest draw.\u00a0 This was an age of kings and queens, with elected government just a cloud on the horizon.\u00a0 Navy captains were chosen from an elite group of trained men, not promoted from the rank-and-file sailors.\u00a0 Pirate crews, by contrast, were democratic.\u00a0 They elected their captains and quartermasters, and even then a captain was only in command in combat.\u00a0 The overall courses and plans were voted on.\u00a0 When the money came in, each man had a share.<\/p>\n
Again, I might be accused of romanticizing criminals, but consider the case of Captain George Roberts, whose ship was taken by pirates in 1722.\u00a0 Roberts and his small crew were taken hostage and their ship commandeered.\u00a0 The crew talked with him and discussed his situation, during which time he was given whatever drinks he wished from the pirates\u2019 store.\u00a0 The crew became divided over Roberts\u2019 case \u2013 some felt they should keep the captured ship and others felt they should send Roberts on his way with it.\u00a0 During the debating \u2013 which took more than a week \u2013 Roberts was treated well, except by one of the ranking pirates.\u00a0 This man, named Russel, had taken an intense dislike of Roberts.\u00a0 Russel tried to convince the rest of the crew to take everything of Roberts\u2019 and leave him to die.\u00a0 Most of the crew disagreed, which is why the debate went on so long.\u00a0 Russel, unable to sway the vote, decided to trick Roberts into insulting him at dinner, and tried to shoot him.\u00a0 (It was against the pirates\u2019 rules to shoot a prisoner without a consenting vote, but it would have been acceptable if the prisoner was behaving improperly.) \u00a0Another pirate snatched away Russel\u2019s pistol before he could fire it, at which point the gathered pirates, according to Roberts\u2019 own account of the incident, calmed him and\u2026<\/p>\n
\u2026speaking to Russel they said they would not allow him to be so barbarous: that they had always valued themselves upon this very thing of being civil to their prisoners and not abusing their persons: that, till now, he himself had always been the greatest persuader to clemency, and even to the forgiving of provocations, and permitting them to go from them with as little loss as could be, after they had taken what they had occasion for. (Stephens 181-182)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Captain Roberts later comments in his account that he hoped to never again see any of the pirates unless it was at an execution.\u00a0 This was not a man who had any reason to romanticize these rogues, and yet his account paints, from start to finish, a group of brigands who live by their own laws in an attempt to make a profitable business with as little loss of life as possible.\u00a0 These pirates are not anomalous nor unique \u2013 account after account brings up the notion that the average pirate crew wanted wealth and control over their lives, not bloodshed and horror.\u00a0 Is this not admirable?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Stephens, John Richard. Captured by Pirates: Twenty-two Firsthand Accounts of Murder and Mayhem on the High Seas<\/em>. New York: Barnes & Noble, 2006. Print.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cDidn\u2019t pirates kill and rape people?\u00a0 Why would you admire them?\u201d This question was posed to me by a very astute student when I visited her class.\u00a0 The bell rang and she had to hurry on to her next class before I could answer, which was a shame because it was the most interesting and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[7],"class_list":["post-16","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","tag-why"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.captainmike.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}