Throughout history there are incidences of pirates and privateering, but the correct definition or interpretation of the role of pirate is somewhat ambiguous. Over time the representations of piracy have changed, names such as pirate, privateer, corsair and rover are often used to set an atmosphere of intrigue around the naval warfare of the time. Piracy is often viewed from a romantic perspective of free traders fighting against the ever growing control of global trading, stealing from the idea that Marcus Tullius Cicero supposedly quoted “hostis humani generis” that pirates were the enemy of all mankind, the terrorists of their day. This quote is attributed to the result of medieval paraphrasing by Edward Coke, Cicero actually said: …show more content…
This is where the influence of the community is vital to the success of piracy. It is important to look at the ways that the community impacted the pirates and vice versa, a network of support that benefitted many people involved in the venture, pirates certainly were not loan criminals working in isolation. Piracy depended on safe havens, and an access to the traders market to distribute and sell their goods. The women of the community, often wives and daughters of the pirates, were instigated in the relocation of goods, this was vital to the success of trading, as the women were generally less conspicuous and therefore less suspicious. There is evidence that pirates and their women were co-dependent, with the women taking care of things at home while the husband was off at sea, and receiving the stolen goods when they were brought to shore. The value of the goods were generally kept modest as this form of pilfering fitted in with the pawn broking activities that were common for women to engage in at the time. It is obvious that pirates maintained homes and families on shore. Bonds of friendships and family ties were important to pirates in recruitment, becoming almost like a family business with their own social set up. This enabled the pirates to function successfully between lives at sea and a settlement on land, they could manage the acquisition of the plunder and also insure its distribution on land. This control enabled them to supervise the goods, men and the ships justifying their claims to being part of the social network of the