Brigadier General James Monroe Williams

The Piracy Portal

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Introduction

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 other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, and vessels used for piracy are called pirate ships. The earliest documented instances of piracy were in the 14th century BC, when the Sea Peoples, a group of ocean raiders, attacked the ships of the Aegean and Mediterranean civilisations. Narrow channels which funnel shipping into predictable routes have long created opportunities for piracy, as well as for privateering and commerce raiding.

Historic examples of such areas include the waters of Gibraltar, the Strait of Malacca, Madagascar, the Gulf of Aden, and the English Channel, whose geographic structures facilitated pirate attacks. The term piracy generally refers to maritime piracy, although the term has been generalized to refer to acts committed on land, in the air, on computer networks, and (in science fiction) outer space. Piracy usually excludes crimes committed by the perpetrator on their own vessel (e.g. theft), as well as privateering, which implies authorization by a state government.

Piracy or pirating is the name of a specific crime under customary 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, increased from US$16 billion per year in 2004. (Full article...)

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Kristoffer Throndsen (c. 1500–1565), posthumously also with the family name Rustung, was a squire, admiral, feudal overlord in Norway and Denmark, privateer captain and pirate. Kristoffer served Archbishop Olav Engelbrektsson, the interregnum leader of Norway, in the last years of the Kalmar Union.

Kristoffer is famous for playing a role in the last years before the Reformation in Norway, first as the head of the national fleet, defending Norway from attacking Danish ships; and also as the murderer of Vincent Lunge, a Danish nobleman sent to Bergen in 1536 to enforce the choice the King of Denmark Christian III as king of Norway. This dramatic moment in Norwegian history is memorialized today in an annual "midnight opera" sponsored by the Norwegian Ministry of Culture. Titled Olav Engelbrektsson, it takes place on the premises of the castle, outside Trondheim. (Full article...)

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Pirate studies is an interdisciplinary field of academic study typically using historical and literary techniques to understand piracy and its cultural connotations.

C.R. Pennell in Who Needs Pirate Heroes? documents the evolution of Pirate Studies. He argues that the first academic historians using properly historical techniques such as archival sources began to examine piracy around the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In this context Penell mentions two works: Stanley Lane-Poole's The Barbary Corsairs (1890) and C.H. Haring's Buccaneers in the West Indies in the Seventeenth Century (1910). But the growth and respectability of the academic study was significantly aided by the work of Professor John Bromley, the British maritime historian. A collection of this work was published as J.S. Bromley, Corsairs and Navies, 1660–1760 (1987). By the end of 1990s much of the work in Pirate studies, Pennell notes, could be grouped under three headings: the economics of piracy, the political and ideological importance of piracy, and women pirates. (Full article...)

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Did you know?

... that indigenous Australian artist Daniel Boyd has depicted colonial figures including Captain James Cook and Governor Arthur Phillip as pirates?
... that since 1904 the Gasparilla Pirate Festival in Tampa, Florida, has featured a pirate-themed parade?
... that Saudi Arabian broadcaster beoutQ pirated and resold beIN Sports programmes during the Qatar diplomatic crisis?
... that HMS Redpole, one of the aptly-named coffin brigs, sank in an action with a pirate vessel in August 1828?
... that the developers of Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number suggested that Australian customers pirate their game?
... that the opera The Devil and Daniel Webster features a jury of ghosts made up of famous historical American figures who are now residents of Hell; including the pirate Blackbeard?

... that red Jolly Roger flags were the most feared of all; all prayed they never encountered the "Bloody Red," which boldly declared that no mercy would be shown and all victims would be killed?
... that, while it is unknown if pirates actually kept parrots as pets, it is thought that at least some captains kept cats aboard to keep populations of rats and other vermin down?
... that in the Golden Age of Piracy, the word "pirate" was often spelled "pyrate" or "pyrat"?

Archive

Selected quotations

“

I am sorry to see you here Jack, but if you had fought like a man, you need not be hanged like a dog.

”

— Anne Bonny

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General images

The following are images from various piracy-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Pirate Anne Bonny (1697–1720). Engraving from Captain Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates (1st Dutch Edition, 1725) (from Piracy)
Image 2Painting from 1772 depicting British and French sailors at battle with Dulcignottes (Ulcinj pirates). These pirates were defeated on 5 September 1772. (from Albanian piracy)
Image 3Slave market in Algiers, Ottoman Algeria, 1684 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 4Map showing the extent of Somali pirate attacks on shipping vessels between 2005 and 2010 (from Piracy)
Image 5A private guard escort on a merchant ship providing security services against piracy in the Indian Ocean (from Piracy)
Image 6Modern reconstruction of skull alleged to have belonged to 14th century pirate Klaus Störtebeker. He was the leader of the privateer guild Victual Brothers, who later turned to piracy and roamed European seas. (from Piracy)
Image 7U.S. naval officer Stephen Decatur boarding a Tripolitan gunboat during the First Barbary War, 1804 (from Piracy)
Image 8A person costumed in the character of captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp's lead role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series (from Piracy)
Image 91890 illustration by Rafael Monleón of a late 18th-century Iranun lanong warship. The Malay word for "pirate", lanun, originates from an exonym of the Iranun people (from Piracy)
Image 10Spanish warships bombarding the Moro Pirates of the southern Philippines in 1848 (from Piracy)
Image 11Hanging of Captain Kidd; illustration from The Pirates Own Book (1837) (from Piracy)
Image 12The Barbary pirates frequently attacked Corsica, resulting in many Genoese towers being erected. (from Barbary pirates)
Image 13Suspected Somali pirates keep their hands in the air (from Piracy)
Image 14Incidents of pipeline vandalism by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea, 2002–2011 (from Piracy)
Image 15Armed pirates in the Indian Ocean near Somalia. After the picture was taken, the vessel's crew members opened fire on U.S. Navy ships and the ship's crew members returned fire. One suspected pirate was killed and 12 were taken into custody (see engaged pirate vessels). (from Piracy off the coast of Somalia)
Image 16British captain witnessing the miseries of Christian slaves in Algiers, 1815 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 17Born to a noble family in Puerto Rico, Roberto Cofresí was the last notably successful pirate in the Caribbean. (from Piracy)
Image 18The crew of the merchant vessel Faina stand on the deck after a U.S. Navy request to check on their health and welfare. The Belize-flagged cargo ship owned and operated by Kaalbye Shipping, Ukraine, was seized by pirates 25 September 2008 and forced to proceed to anchorage off the Somali Coast. The ship is carrying a cargo of Ukrainian T-72 tanks and related military equipment. (from Piracy off the coast of Somalia)
Image 19International Maritime Organization (IMO) conference on capacity-building to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean (from Piracy)
Image 20Ottoman admiral Hayreddin Barbarossa (from Barbary pirates)
Image 21A mosaic of a Roman trireme in Tunisia (from Piracy)
Image 22Iban war prahu in Skerang river (from Piracy)
Image 23Double-barrelled lantaka cannons, kalasag shields, armor, and various swords (including kalis, panabas, and kampilan) used by Moro pirates in the Philippines (c. 1900) (from Piracy)
Image 24A man from the Barbary states (from Barbary pirates)
Image 25French bombardment of Algiers by Admiral Dupperé, 13 June 1830 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 26Map of Shkodër with the Buna river in 1571 by Giovanni Francesco Camocio (from Albanian piracy)
Image 27Photomontage of Somali pirates on the MV Faina (from Piracy off the coast of Somalia)
Image 28Pirates attacking a French ship (from Albanian piracy)
Image 29Sixteenth century Japanese pirate raids (from Piracy)
Image 30A contemporary flyer depicting the public execution of 16th-century pirate Klein Henszlein and his crew in 1573 (from Piracy)
Image 31Somalia's coral reefs, ecological parks and protected areas (from Piracy off the coast of Somalia)
Image 32Conquest of Tunis by Charles V and liberation of Christian galley slaves in 1535 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 33An action between an English ship and vessels of the Barbary Corsairs (from Barbary pirates)
Image 34Map of Ulcinj in 1573 by Simon Pinargenti (from Albanian piracy)
Image 35Bombardment of Algiers by Lord Exmouth in August 1816, Thomas Luny (from Barbary pirates)
Image 36Map of Tripoli in 1561 (from Albanian piracy)
Image 37Battle of a French ship of the line and two galleys of the Barbary corsairs (from Barbary pirates)
Image 38Map of Vlorë in 1573 by Simon Pinargenti (from Albanian piracy)
Image 39Four Chinese pirates who were hanged in Hong Kong in 1863 (from Piracy)
Image 40A French ship under attack by Barbary pirates, ca. 1615 (from Piracy)
Image 41Castle of Ulcinj in the 1890s (from Albanian piracy)
Image 42Views of Ulcinj in 1718 bz H. C. Bröckell (from Albanian piracy)
Image 43A merchant seaman aboard a fleet oil tanker practices target shooting with a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun as part of training to repel pirates in the Strait of Malacca, 1984 (from Piracy)
Image 44"Mic the Scallywag" of the Pirates of Emerson Haunted Adventure Fremont, California (from Piracy)
Image 45Battle of Preveza, 1538 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 46Mural representing the attack of Charles Windon to San Sebastián de La Gomera (1743) (from Piracy)
Image 47Anti piracy operations by Indian Navy's INS Tabar, in the Gulf of Aden on 18 November 2008 (from Piracy off the coast of Somalia)
Image 48Henry Every is shown selling his loot in this engraving by Howard Pyle. Every's capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695 stands as one of the most profitable pirate raids ever perpetrated. (from Piracy)
Image 49Lieve Pietersz Verschuier, Dutch ships bomb Tripoli in a punitive expedition against the Barbary pirates, c. 1670 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 50British Royal Navy Commodore gives a presentation on piracy at the MAST 2008 conference (from Piracy)
Image 51The work of the Mercedarians was in ransoming Christian slaves held in Muslim hands, Histoire de Barbarie et de ses Corsaires, 1637 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 52Captain William Bainbridge paying tribute to the Dey of Algiers, c. 1800 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 53A Sea Fight with Barbary Corsairs by Laureys a Castro, c. 1681 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 54The Prisoner by Jean Lecomte du Nouÿ after Jean-Léon Gérôme, c.1871 (from Albanian piracy)
Image 55The Quattro Mori ("Four Moors") by Pietro Tacca; Livorno, Italy (from Barbary pirates)
Image 56A pirate skiff in Baltiysk, Russia — captured by the Russian Navy (from Piracy off the coast of Somalia)
Image 57Henry Morgan who sacked and burned the city of Panama in 1671 – the second most important city in the Spanish New World at the time; engraving from 1681 Spanish edition of Alexandre Exquemelin's The Buccaneers of America (from Piracy)
Image 58A Barbary pirate, Pier Francesco Mola, 1650 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 59The cemetery of past pirates at Île Ste-Marie (St. Mary's Island) (from Piracy)
Image 60Map of Durrës in 1573 by Simon Pinargenti (from Albanian piracy)
Image 61The traditional "Jolly Roger" flag of piracy (from Piracy)
Image 62A fleet of Vikings, painted mid-12th century (from Piracy)
Image 63Kent battling Confiance, a privateer vessel commanded by French corsair Robert Surcouf in October 1800, as depicted in a painting by Garneray (from Piracy)
Image 64The Vitalienbrüder. Piracy became endemic in the Baltic sea in the Middle Ages because of the Victual Brothers. (from Piracy)
Image 65Map of Dalmatia in 1715 by Guillaume Delisle (from Albanian piracy)
Image 66The Bombardment of Algiers by the Anglo-Dutch fleet in 1816 to support the ultimatum to release European slaves (from Piracy)
Image 67Pirate treasure looted by Samuel Bellamy and recovered from the wreck of the Whydah; exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, 2010 (from Piracy)
Image 68Jacques de Sores looting and burning Havana in 1555 (from Piracy)
Image 69Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard, 1718 depicting the battle between Blackbeard and Robert Maynard in Ocracoke Bay; romanticized depiction by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris from 1920 (from Piracy)
Image 70A fight between Filipino pirates, Bugis trading ship, and Dutch mariners. (from Piracy)
Image 71Bartholomew Roberts' crew carousing at the Calabar River; illustration from The Pirates Own Book (1837). Roberts is estimated to have captured over 470 vessels. (from Piracy)
Image 72A 19th-century illustration of an Iranun pirate (from Piracy)
Image 73An LRAD sound cannon mounted on RMS Queen Mary 2 (from Piracy)
Image 74Barbaria by Jan Janssonius, shows the coast of North Africa, an area known in the 17th century as Barbaria, c. 1650 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 75Aerial photograph of the Niger Delta, a center of piracy (from Piracy)
Image 76A collage of Somali pirates armed with AKM assault rifles, RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and semi-automatic pistols in 2008 (from Piracy)
Image 77Amaro Pargo was one of the most famous corsairs of the Golden Age of Piracy (from Piracy)
Image 78"Cossacks of Azov fighting a Turk ship" by Grigory Gagarin (from Piracy)
Image 79Puerto del Príncipe being sacked in 1668 by Henry Morgan (from Piracy)
Image 80Coat of arms of the town of Almuñécar, granted by King Charles V in 1526, showing the turbaned heads of three Barbary pirates floating in the sea (from Barbary pirates)
Image 81Bartholomew Roberts was the pirate with most captures during the Golden Age of Piracy. He is now known for hanging the governor of Martinique from the yardarm of his ship. (from Piracy)
Image 82An Algerine pirate ship (from Barbary pirates)
Image 83Dan Seavey was a pirate on the Great Lakes in the early 20th century. (from Piracy)
Image 84Time series of maritime traffic crossing the Indian Ocean showing the effect of piracy and its progressive decline in re-routing ships. Each sub-plot shows 6-month colour-coded trips, red southbound and green northbound, using Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) historical data. Operational authorities requested an increase of LRIT reporting frequency from ships in 2009 and 2010 in order to better track them remotely in the High Risk Area. The increase of tracking points can be erroneously perceived as an apparently higher volume of traffic with respect to other periods. (from Piracy off the coast of Somalia)
Image 85A French Ship and Barbary Pirates by Aert Anthonisz, c. 1615 (from Barbary pirates)
Image 86Blackbeard's severed head hanging from Maynard's bowsprit; illustration from The Pirates Own Book (1837) (from Piracy)