Pirates of the Caribbean
So after twenty years of Pirates of the Caribbean movies and another on the way... I'm sorry... we need to talk about this. Robert Louis Stevenson could get away with it with one pirate book. One Pirates of the Caribbean movie - even two - I can overlook. But now it's what? Eight? We need to talk about pirates. Buccaneers of the Caribbean but we'll touch on the Corsairs of the Barbary Coast.
1500 - 1800 was probably the worst time to be a human being on earth ever. Constantinople had long fallen. Wallachia was gone. Ottomans ruled much of Europe and while they brought with them great advances in science and medicine, they were partial to purchasing the odd load of slaves either from Corsairs or the various Golden Horde remnants scattered across the East. The Habsburg Dynasty fiercely resisted, but warring religious factions in France and Germany - mostly Huguenots and Catholics - switched allegiances now and then and prolonged a state of warfare remembered today as the 100 Years War but it went on longer than that. Plus you had the Inquisition, Barbary Corsairs conducting raids on coastal European villages as far north as Shetland and taking slaves, AND, the gradual adoption of a Roman-style professional military by European powers to replace the old Feudal system of a few mounted lords and their phalanx of peasantry. This blew out military sizes from a few tens of thousand to hundreds of thousands. But there were no railways. Supply lines remained horse and carriage. These armies were hungry, thirsty - water was poisonous by the way - and yes starved of female affection. Napoleon wouldn't come along and make ravaging the women and girls of whatever local village was within walking distance a hanging offence until 1805 so these enormous hosts were quite at liberty to take as they pleased. Food, ale, the mother, the daughter, the son...
So its understandable that virtually anywhere in the world was preferable to Europe. Well, not for the locals. Across the Transatlantic Tradewinds in the Virginia Colonies, the Dutch plantations of Brazil, and the islands of the Caribbean over which French, Spanish, and English navies were - you guessed it - at war with each other, planters were cottoning on to how much cheaper everything is when you have slaves. This rang the dinner bell to a certain Francis Drake - some consider him the OG of the Letter of Marque-appointed privateer in Her Majesty's employ. He conducted raids on Corsair strongholds all along West Africa and Spanish trade hulks along the Trade Winds and, with impunity from his home country, took the loot to the planters - who at this stage were sometimes at war with their own country - and sold the cargo even if that cargo had been bound to their plantation anyway.
What kind of cargo is valuable to a planter in a region with no clearly established currency? It ain't pieces of f'cking 8, people. It's human cargo. The Golden Age of Piracy in Caribbean coincided with the peak of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. And while escaped or emancipated slaves were indeed to be found crewing the odd pirate vessel, they were not well treated. Buccaneering was not an easy life. It was usually short. Very violent. And there are accounts of former slaves being betrayed and sold back to their owners or left behind after raids.
I know they're just movies. And people should not look to cinema to teach them history. But such is culture. Our pop-trends supplant and become our teachers and somehow in two decades Bruckheimer and Disney have not so much as broached the topic of slavery, which was at the heart of Caribbean buccaneering. Not suitable for kids? Neither are those movies, did you notice? There were zombies and shit.
There were pirates who could be called freedom fighters or resistance fighters. Grace O'Malley is a great example. But none of them were in the Caribbean.
1500 - 1800 was probably the worst time to be a human being on earth ever. Constantinople had long fallen. Wallachia was gone. Ottomans ruled much of Europe and while they brought with them great advances in science and medicine, they were partial to purchasing the odd load of slaves either from Corsairs or the various Golden Horde remnants scattered across the East. The Habsburg Dynasty fiercely resisted, but warring religious factions in France and Germany - mostly Huguenots and Catholics - switched allegiances now and then and prolonged a state of warfare remembered today as the 100 Years War but it went on longer than that. Plus you had the Inquisition, Barbary Corsairs conducting raids on coastal European villages as far north as Shetland and taking slaves, AND, the gradual adoption of a Roman-style professional military by European powers to replace the old Feudal system of a few mounted lords and their phalanx of peasantry. This blew out military sizes from a few tens of thousand to hundreds of thousands. But there were no railways. Supply lines remained horse and carriage. These armies were hungry, thirsty - water was poisonous by the way - and yes starved of female affection. Napoleon wouldn't come along and make ravaging the women and girls of whatever local village was within walking distance a hanging offence until 1805 so these enormous hosts were quite at liberty to take as they pleased. Food, ale, the mother, the daughter, the son...
So its understandable that virtually anywhere in the world was preferable to Europe. Well, not for the locals. Across the Transatlantic Tradewinds in the Virginia Colonies, the Dutch plantations of Brazil, and the islands of the Caribbean over which French, Spanish, and English navies were - you guessed it - at war with each other, planters were cottoning on to how much cheaper everything is when you have slaves. This rang the dinner bell to a certain Francis Drake - some consider him the OG of the Letter of Marque-appointed privateer in Her Majesty's employ. He conducted raids on Corsair strongholds all along West Africa and Spanish trade hulks along the Trade Winds and, with impunity from his home country, took the loot to the planters - who at this stage were sometimes at war with their own country - and sold the cargo even if that cargo had been bound to their plantation anyway.
What kind of cargo is valuable to a planter in a region with no clearly established currency? It ain't pieces of f'cking 8, people. It's human cargo. The Golden Age of Piracy in Caribbean coincided with the peak of the Transatlantic Slave Trade. And while escaped or emancipated slaves were indeed to be found crewing the odd pirate vessel, they were not well treated. Buccaneering was not an easy life. It was usually short. Very violent. And there are accounts of former slaves being betrayed and sold back to their owners or left behind after raids.
I know they're just movies. And people should not look to cinema to teach them history. But such is culture. Our pop-trends supplant and become our teachers and somehow in two decades Bruckheimer and Disney have not so much as broached the topic of slavery, which was at the heart of Caribbean buccaneering. Not suitable for kids? Neither are those movies, did you notice? There were zombies and shit.
There were pirates who could be called freedom fighters or resistance fighters. Grace O'Malley is a great example. But none of them were in the Caribbean.
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