Introduction to Pirates and Privateers

Ahoy, hello and welcome to my new blog, Pirate Wednesdays. Every week I will post some cool facts on various pirate topics. I am currently reading Daniel Defoe's A General History of the Pyrates among other works, and will distil my findings for you, the public. I will cover famous places, people, ships, weapons and general information on how pirates really were. To get us started, here is an introduction to pirates.

Who were pirates?

The pirate population of the West Indies were a far cry from the daring swashbucklers portrayed in today's media, such as Jack Sparrow or Edward Kenway. They were desperate men, rogues, fugitives, refugees from the religious wars in Europe, and a general by-product of continental hostility. There were very few career pirates, and even fewer, if any, had deliberately set out to be pirates from the start. The vast majority were once bona-fide fleet personnel who, for one reason or another, found themselves out of the Naval service. In the State Papers, a UK government archive, an entry from 1665 describes the Caribbean pirates as:

"Convict gaol-birds or riotous persons, roten before they are sent forth, and at best idel and only fit for the mines." [sic]

'But Captain,' I hear you cry, 'of course the government would say that, they hated pirates!' Well, you're right, they did. But only the ones they couldn't control. During (but not limited to) a period which would later become known as the Golden Age of Piracy, (1650 - 1722) the English, French and Spanish crowns all had their own fleet of 'privateers'. Privateers were essentially pirates who worked for the king, and in England this meant they turned over one fifth of their captured treasure to the Crown in order to continue roving with the government's blessing. In 1708, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Parliament noticed that their privateers weren't having much effect at disrupting their enemies' ships, so they passed an Act which entitled privateers to keep their entire spoils, to encourage more damage to the shipping of the Crown's enemies. 

Some privateers were Royal Navy crews who were tasked with raiding enemy fleets, others were just pirate crews that had made a deal with the government. Between pirates and the privateer fleets of England, France and Spain, the Caribbean was a dangerous place to be in the 17th century (although piracy wasn't confined to that region by any means).

One of the most famous privateers was Sir Francis Drake, who in 1579 captained the Golden Hind, and pulled off the single greatest bit of pirating the world ever saw.

The Golden Hind, By James McConnell

Drake and his crew captured a Spanish galleon by the name of Nuestra Señora de la Concepción (Our Lady of Conception). When they took the ship, they found she was carrying six tons of Spanish gold, over 360,000 pesos, the single largest amount of gold ever captured at sea. It took them six whole days to transship the treasure. And you know what the best part is? The taking of the Spanish vessel involved no physical violence whatsoever.

Thanks for reading folks! Come back next Wednesday for more pirate fact fun!

-Captain