My image of a pirate is a dashing figure, sailing the open sea, stealing golden treasure, finding a beautiful girl, and living a grand life. Of course, besides the handsome pirate captain, at least one of the crew had a patch over one eye, a hook for a hand, one wooden leg, and a parrot that sat on his shoulder. Turns out, that’s just how Hollywood movies saw them. The real pirates were much more interesting, and deadly.
I always thought that piracy was something that happened during the Middle Ages, and in the Caribbean Ocean, and then it stopped. Nope, I was wrong. Historians usually agree that the golden age of piracy was during the late Middle Ages 1500-1800, but it was going on all over the world, and it started long before.
Since the beginning of written history, more than three thousand years ago, pirates have been a problem. According to worldhistory.org, piracy is first mentioned in Egyptian records during the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1336 BCE) and was still going on in the Mediterranean during the early Middle Ages (476-1500 CE.) For the moment, let us look at the pirates, sometimes called “corsairs,” that sailed the Mediterranean, the Sea of Middle Earth. The ancient Greek writer, Homer, called it the Wine Dark Sea.
There were pirates of every nationality, and they preyed on the ships of anyone who was different from them. There were Cilician pirates, who were dominate from the 2nd century BCE until the Roman leader Pompey suppressed them in 67-66 BCE. Other records have Ottoman Muslim pirates attacking Spanish and English Christian ships, and vice versa, each fighting what was to them, a holy war. But they did not want to kill everyone on board. Their goal was to capture the passengers, ransom the wealthy and sell the poor as slaves.
They did not sail in one or two ships, but sometimes in groups of hundreds, attacking ships and moving inland and raiding cities. They carried away every person they found and sold them as slaves. Many nations depended on pirates to supply them with slaves, which to them, were cheap labor. As a terrible, frightening example, it is estimated that between 1580 and 1780, more than two million people were sold as slaves by pirates. The line between holy and unholy was blurred at best.
I did not know until 2009 that piracy still exists. This was the year that the Danish/US cargo ship Maersk Alabama was hijacked by four Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, 240 nautical miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia. It did not turn out well for the pirates. Three were killed by US Navy Seals, and one captured.
As long as humans have existed, and as long as we shall exist, there will be those who will live outside the universal law of love.
I always thought that piracy was something that happened during the Middle Ages, and in the Caribbean Ocean, and then it stopped. Nope, I was wrong. Historians usually agree that the golden age of piracy was during the late Middle Ages 1500-1800, but it was going on all over the world, and it started long before.
Since the beginning of written history, more than three thousand years ago, pirates have been a problem. According to worldhistory.org, piracy is first mentioned in Egyptian records during the reign of the pharaoh Akhenaten (1353-1336 BCE) and was still going on in the Mediterranean during the early Middle Ages (476-1500 CE.) For the moment, let us look at the pirates, sometimes called “corsairs,” that sailed the Mediterranean, the Sea of Middle Earth. The ancient Greek writer, Homer, called it the Wine Dark Sea.
There were pirates of every nationality, and they preyed on the ships of anyone who was different from them. There were Cilician pirates, who were dominate from the 2nd century BCE until the Roman leader Pompey suppressed them in 67-66 BCE. Other records have Ottoman Muslim pirates attacking Spanish and English Christian ships, and vice versa, each fighting what was to them, a holy war. But they did not want to kill everyone on board. Their goal was to capture the passengers, ransom the wealthy and sell the poor as slaves.
They did not sail in one or two ships, but sometimes in groups of hundreds, attacking ships and moving inland and raiding cities. They carried away every person they found and sold them as slaves. Many nations depended on pirates to supply them with slaves, which to them, were cheap labor. As a terrible, frightening example, it is estimated that between 1580 and 1780, more than two million people were sold as slaves by pirates. The line between holy and unholy was blurred at best.
I did not know until 2009 that piracy still exists. This was the year that the Danish/US cargo ship Maersk Alabama was hijacked by four Somali pirates in the Indian Ocean, 240 nautical miles southeast of Eyl, Somalia. It did not turn out well for the pirates. Three were killed by US Navy Seals, and one captured.
As long as humans have existed, and as long as we shall exist, there will be those who will live outside the universal law of love.
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Lonnie McKelvey is a freelance writer from Fort Payne, Alabama, and is a regular contributor to Grandparents Day Magazine. |
