[HN Gopher] A lot of what is known about pirates is not true (2017) ___________________________________________________________________ A lot of what is known about pirates is not true (2017) Author : Thevet Score : 83 points Date : 2022-10-18 17:54 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.neh.gov) (TXT) w3m dump (www.neh.gov) | jtbayly wrote: | You mean they don't laugh and jump off of things? | [deleted] | vlunkr wrote: | It makes sense that pirates like Blackbeard dominate our view of | pirates and probably distort it significantly. They were | intentionally going for shock value and it obviously worked. | | Much like dinosaurs and knights, this brand of pirates is very | appealing to kids, so we're kind of stuck with them. | [deleted] | handedness wrote: | The same could also be said for the Wild West, and even the | greater Old West period in general. | jasonwatkinspdx wrote: | It's interesting how genre fads have come and gone in the | Hollywood era. For a while there swashbucklers with Errol | Flynn et all were the biggest thing ever. Now that along with | westerns are nearly a dead genre. | DonHopkins wrote: | Expected the article to be about BitTorrent users. | ankaAr wrote: | I remember reading an history book about pirates when I was very | young, from ancient history to modern days. How I loved it.. | | I will try to remember the name of the German author. | realce wrote: | https://piratehistorypodcast.com/ | Andrew_nenakhov wrote: | Ok, I'll say it: contrary to popular belief, people who engage in | unauthorized copying of files _are not pirates._ | WalterBright wrote: | Words change meaning all the time. For example, to "dime" | someone these days means call them on the phone. | yamazakiwi wrote: | I've been using the 2010's dime slang and didn't know about | this one. | jjk166 wrote: | I have never heard the word dime used that way, nor do I see | anything in the first few google results about it being used | that way. | | There was a 60s slang term "drop a dime" which meant to call | someone, and nowadays that phrase means to call the cops or | to snitch. | WalterBright wrote: | It's used in the miniseries "Power". | Retric wrote: | Which doesn't make the above statement false. | oever wrote: | And people who engage in unauthorized wiretapping for | governments are not privateers. | brightball wrote: | But you have heard of them... | | EDIT: I know, I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. | [deleted] | dragontamer wrote: | I wouldn't say I'm very well studied in Pirates, but I've played | "Sid Meyer's Pirates" and loved it. | | A common theme in the game is that there are 4 great powers of | the Caribbean sea: the British, the French, the Dutch, and the | Spanish. Different cities have different allegiances (and as the | Navies of the respective powers move, those cities could change | sides). There's also trade winds to account for, the value of | plunder (wheat, guns, and other goods you capture). There's also | different statistics for different ships... and those statistics | depend on the direction on of the wind (the canoe being the | fastest against the wind for example). | | ---------- | | Anyway, where I'm going with this is that you're a Pirate in the | game. However, your first goal is almost always to obtain a | Letter of Marque from one of the great powers. The game even | allows you to obtain a letter of marque from all 4 great powers | (though unrealistic, its kinda funny to think you're a Privateer | authorized to plunder all other powers) | | This is a bit of a sarcastic wink that the difference between a | "Pirate" and a "Privateer" really isn't much. You go off on your | sea vessel, you attack trade ships and plunder them. The | Privateer just has a piece of paper (the Letter of Marque) that | shows that you're doing it on behalf of a power. | | ------ | | John Paul Jones is perhaps the most famous American Privateer. In | 1776, when the Revolutionary War started, John Paul Jones and his | ship was off in Europe on other business. Hearing that war has | been declared, he began to attack the British Isles on behalf of | the USA. | | John Paul Jones was captured however and charged for Piracy. | Fortunately, he had an American Flag flying on his ship, so he | was "legitimate". | | Alas: the American Flag was described to him through letters. So | he really didn't know what it looked like. He just... kinda drew | the flag as best he could: | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serapis_flag (13 stripes of red- | white-and blue, with 13 stars on the top left? Gotcha. Totally | the American flag, right?). At least, the Dutch thought it was an | American flag (probably a political statement on behalf of the | Dutch against the British, but hey, politics always existed). | | Anyway, my point is that a Letter of Marque was a big deal, | making these "piracy" events legitimate. If you're just randomly | attacking the British and stealing stuff, you're a Pirate. But if | you're doing that because of the 1776 Revolutionary war (and you | have a "flag", albeit a poorly drawn incorrect one + the piece of | paper / signature from the US Congress stating the Letter of | Marque), you're a lawful combatant and treated as such. | | Piracy probably never really died off. It just became legalized | in the weirdest way possible. | | ------ | | Age of Sail, in English-speaking countries, is romanticized with | Spanish enemies (see Capt. Hook, who is clearly wearing Spanish | Garb + a Spanish Galleon). Because the Spanish ruled the seas in | the 1400s, while the British were the upstarts. Fighting "dirty" | by using Pirates (and later privateers) is just the natural | result of the politics of that age. We can reverse-engineer the | age of sail somewhat through our legends and stories that we've | passed down over the centuries. | | From an American perspective: we romanticize the British/Dutch | trading company as the enemy somewhat. (See Pirates of the | Caribbean), because "our" privateers/pirates attacked British | ships. | | ------- | | Given that the difference between a "Pirate" and a "Privateer" | was simply political pieces of paper, I would not be surprised | that Pirates were all over the US Colonies from the 1600s. The 13 | colonies issued over 1700 letters of Marque during the | Revolutionary War IIRC, suggesting a significant number of | "skilled sea plunderers" in the colonies, so to speak, of varying | sizes. No, the USA never had a good enough Navy to really fight | the British on equal terms during the Revolutionary war, but | these Privateers were pivotal in harassing / annoying those trade | routes / supply routes. | | Those skills didn't just magically appear in 1776 during the war. | Those people "were already" pirates, and just chose to support | the Revolutionary War and begin to organize into the USA's | nascent Navy. There's no documentation of this beforehand because | those people were likely illegal pirates, so its a "purposeful" | forgetting of those old crimes in order to bootstrap the early | Navy. IMO anyway. | | But yeah, not much may be known about "Pirates". But the legal | "Privateer" is extremely well documented and well studied. And | you can definitely see and feel the "wink-wink and nod" towards | Piracy if you go through the historical records. | exalted1ne wrote: | I do not have a lot of expertise into the above nor Sid Meyers, | but man, I just want to say that I appreciate the | insight/opinion. Thank you for the well written response. | twic wrote: | English wikipedia: | | > Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540 - 28 January 1596)[3] was an | English explorer, sea captain, privateer, slave | trader,[4][5][6] naval officer, and politician. | | Spanish wikipedia: | | > Francis Drake (Tavistock, Inglaterra, 1540-Portobelo, Panama, | 28 de enero de 1596) fue un corsario, explorador, comerciante | de esclavos, politico y vicealmirante ingles. | | The two languages understandably place different relative | emphasis on Drake's various occupations. | dragontamer wrote: | > corsario | | Good grief. The word "Corsair" in English means Pirate (or at | least: Pirate Ship), but the word "corsario" in Spanish | apparently means privateer. | | Apparently this "Pirate vs Privateer" issue turns into a | fundamental linguistic issue depending on what side you were | on in the 1500s age of sail. | | ------ | | > vicealmirante | | I'm amused that Captain translates into Vice Admiral. | svachalek wrote: | Interesting, capitan is definitely a word (yo no soy | marinero, as they say in La Bamba) | jjk166 wrote: | > I'm amused that Captain translates into Vice Admiral. | | Francis Drake actually was an English Vice Admiral. The | Spanish wikipedia is just more precise than the English one | which merely calls him a naval officer. | bombcar wrote: | There was (is?) a strong suspicion on the part of the British | that the whole 1776 kerfuffle was likely caused by the colony | being infested with pirates and smugglers, and not liking being | cracked down upon. | tomrod wrote: | I'm going to channel my inner thoughts right now: | | wut-literal taxation without representation | adastra22 wrote: | I mean, that's kinda the opinion on the American side as | well, no? The Sons of Liberty were a loose association of | smugglers, undoubtably with some pirate connections. The | Boston tea party was about lowering the tax on tea, not | raising it, which impacted the black market these guys were | selling in. | jjk166 wrote: | > John Paul Jones is perhaps the most famous American | Privateer. In 1776, when the Revolutionary War started, John | Paul Jones and his ship was off in Europe on other business. | Hearing that war has been declared, he began to attack the | British Isles on behalf of the USA. | | John Paul Jones had been living in the american colonies for a | few years before the war broke out. He was a member of the | American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia in 1774, and | personally knew Richard Henry Lee. When the war broke out in | 1775 he joined the American navy and was a lieutenant serving | on the USS Alfred, the first ship to be commissioned by the | Continental Navy. While many of the missions he commanded | involved commerce raiding, he was never a privateer and never | carried Letters of Marque. | | > Alas: the American Flag was described to him through letters. | So he really didn't know what it looked like. | | John Paul Jones was actually the very first person to hoist | America's official naval ensign, one of his duties on the | maiden voyage of the Alfred. It was actually Ben Franklin who | didn't know what an American flag looked like, and told the | dutch it had blue stripes. | | > John Paul Jones was captured however and charged for Piracy. | Fortunately, he had an American Flag flying on his ship, so he | was "legitimate". | | He was not captured and charged with Piracy, he was in a Dutch | port and the Brtish asked he be handed over as a pirate, | instead of as a commander of an American vessel. He knew | perfectly well what an American naval ensign looked like, and | had been flying one, but it was shot away in battle. In fact | the whole ship had been sunk and he transferred over to a | British ship captured in the same battle. Further, this event | occurred in 1779, more than 3 years after Jones had joined the | American Navy, and was actually the last American ship that he | would command. | kilolima wrote: | https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend_(Spain) | | Related to your comment on Captain Hook. | | Thanks for the very informative post! | cafard wrote: | Did the Spanish rule the sea in the 1400s? They didn't have | full control of the peninsula until 1492. | | The US frigates had a good record against British frigates in | the War of 1812, but they couldn't have fought a major | engagement with the Royal Navy. The privateers were | tremendously effective then. | dec0dedab0de wrote: | I don't know how accurate it is but the lost pirate kingdom on | netflix was pretty entertaining, and included quite a bit of | information I was not aware of. | jghn wrote: | I very much enjoyed "The Republic Of Pirates: Being the True and | Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought | Them Down" by Colin Woodward. I'm pretty sure I originally came | across it in a thread here on HN. | | Not that I'm expert enough to know, but it felt well researched. | On the assumption that what he said was as true as possible given | the circumstances, I thought it was pretty enlightening. | kedean wrote: | For anyone fiction-inclined, The Silver Oar by Howard Breslin | is the first thing that the opening part of this article | reminded me of. It focuses on an accused pirate on the run in | the New England colonies, and his ongoing relationship with | various colonial characters. A fun swashbuckling read if one | wants to branch away from prestige literature. | Apocryphon wrote: | _Black Sails_ was a fun fictionalization of that history, | crossed over with the prehistory of _Treasure Island_. It 's | opening sequence is unbeatable. | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XFTcA4QLHw0 | jghn wrote: | Huge fan of this show. It started off a bit weak but really | took off over time. | samvher wrote: | Since we're doing book recommendations :) I thought "The | Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates" [1] was a fun | read as well. | | [1] https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Hook-Hidden-Economics- | Pirat... | dang wrote: | Discussed at the time: | | _A lot we know about pirates is not true, and a lot of what is | true is not known_ - | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14287212 - May 2017 (90 | comments) | Schroedingersat wrote: | This article keeps describing anarchists and then following up | with 'but they're not anarchists'. | | You keep using that word, I do not think it means what you think | it means. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-10-19 23:00 UTC)