The ghosts of the old pirate ships are again looming on the horizon of the Gulf of Aden. Piracy off the Somali coast has been a threat to international shipping since the beginning of Somalia’s civil war in the early 1990s, but has taken ominous proportions during 2008 and 2009. In August 2008, Combined Task Force 150, a multinational coalition task force, took on the role of fighting Somali piracy by establishing a Maritime Security Patrol Area (MSPA) within the Gulf of Aden.
Watani takes its readers on a trip through the history of piracy.
Captain Kidd
Long ago piracy— for those not directly affected by it— was the fascinating stuff of fiction and legend. Tales often dealt with the quest for finding hidden treasure. The historian Plutarch was the first known to have written about a crime of piracy, when pirates succeeded in capturing Julius Caesar and holding him for ransom. Caesar was insulted by the ransom demand, which was insultingly low, and vowed to crucify the pirates after he was freed. After his freedom was purchased, he assembled a small force which captured the pirates and carried out the threat.
One of the most famous pirates of all was William Kidd (born 1645), a Scottish sailor whose main call to fame was hiding a treasure which no one has found to this day. The government had chosen him for his courage to head a crew to hunt down pirates who were attacking English vessels. There is also mention that Kidd attacked a southern Japanese island named Takarajima, which translates literally as ‘Treasure Island’. Legend says that the pirates requested food and cattle from the inhabitants of the island but were refused, so 23 of the pirates landed and burnt the inhabitants alive in a lime cave. Afterwards, Kidd hid his treasure in one of the caves, but never returned for it because he was arrested for committing piracy. He was executed in England in 1701.
Most feared
The golden age of piracy, however, is said to have begun with Bartholomew Roberts (1682 –1722). Also known as Black Bart (Bart Ddu in Welsh), he was perhaps the most feared pirate of all time. Roberts was born in Wales in 1682 and became a merchant. His pirate career began when the ship he was on was ambushed by pirates and he and the crew were taken prisoner. When the pirate captain and several of the crew were killed in an ambush, Roberts led the pirates to safety. The crew elected to replace their dead captain with Roberts.
Roberts seems to have been the most successful pirate of all. Between 1719 and 1722 he captured more than 470 ships off the coast of West Africa, Canada and the Caribbean. Roberts was a religious man and banned his crew from gambling, and was known as “the gentleman”.
Piracy was not restricted to men. The legendary duo Anne Read and Mary Bonney both built a reputation among pirates in the early 18th century for their violent tempers, bloodthirsty natures and fierce fighting abilities in attacking ships in the Caribbean Sea.
Piracy reached its climax in the 17th and 18th centuries. However, under the rule of the Tokugawa Ieyasu dynasty (1603 – 1867) Japan succeeded in putting an end to most of the pirating in the Asian region.
A private realm
An enigmatic character in American history was Jean Lafitte. Born in 1780 in Bayonne, France, he was a pirate and privateer in the Gulf of Mexico in the early 19th century. In 1805 he was operating a warehouse in New Orleans to help disperse the goods smuggled by his brother Pierre. As a pirate, Lafitte’s territory stretched from the Gulf of Mexico to the town of New Orleans. After the United States government passed the Embargo Act of 1807, the Lafittes moved their operations to an island in Barataria Bay. By 1810, their new port was very successful. Lafitte formed an army and lived at Barataria, the fiefdom he created at Barataria Bay, a group of three islands where the Mississippi River meets the Gulf of Mexico. There, Lafitte and his soldiers stood guard over the gulf, waiting to strike any ships thought to hold valuables. Lafitte sold the goods at local markets, keeping supplies moving through an area largely ignored by the federal government. He then sold the goods at discount prices in local markets, helping the troubled area to survive. The citizens were grateful, and Lafitte often mixed with the local aristocracy and high society.
Buried at sea
Jean Lafitte built another kingdom, Campeche, and served as a privateer for Mexico. For a while he enjoyed a life similar to that in New Orleans, until President Madison ordered him off the island. Lafitte’s piracy had again caught up with him. Most historians believe Lafitte left the island in 1821 or 1822 and did not return. In February 1823, Lafitte attempted to take what appeared to be two Spanish merchant vessels. The ships were actually Spanish privateers or warships and returned fire. Lafitte was wounded in the battle and died shortly after dawn on February 5. He was buried at sea in the Gulf of Honduras.
In the popular modern imagination, the stereotypical pirates are depicted wearing a blue Royal Navy jacket and a bicorn hat adorned with a skull, not forgetting an eye patch. Today, pirates rely a great deal on technology. It has been reported that crimes of piracy have involved the use of mobile phones, modern speedboats, assault rifles, shotguns, pistols, mounted machine guns, and even RPGs and grenade launchers .They may start out in life as poor, but some can become fabulously wealthy.
