The book Under The Black Flag by David Cordingly gives to us a general overview of the historical facts of piracy, as well as the misconceptions and where those notions arose from. This essay will focus on the overview of what a pirate is, who a pirate is, where pirates are located, when pirates occur, and why pirates become pirates, based on the information that Cordingly gives us.
To discuss the subject of pirates, one must first answer the question, “what is a pirate?” In this text, many different types of people who would not have been identified by themselves or by their contemporaries as pirates, fall under the overarching term “pirate” through the usage of the term in the title. Cordingly says, “A pirate was, and is, someone who …show more content…
During the golden age of piracy, the majority of pirates were “mostly young men in their twenties.” that at some point had identified as a seaman- “A sample of seven hundred men indicted for piracy between 1600 and 1640 shows that 73 percent described themselves as mariners or sailors.” However, Cordingly also details those abnormal cases where they did not fall under those categories; for example, he describes Mary Reed and Anne Bonnie, two female pirates who dressed as men and worked aboard the pirate Calico Jack’s ship. Female pirates were not normal, and there are only a handful of other known cases (such as those of Mrs. Cheng, Alwilda, and Grace O’Malley), but they were interesting and well worth noting. He also mentions the blacks on board, though they usually weren’t pirates in the full sense, as they often were still used as tradable goods, or treated as slaves on white european majority ships. Offhandedly, while describing the situation of the black slaves onboard pirate ships, he also mentions a few Spanish Indian pirates, which is interesting. And, while maybe not always multiracial, pirate ships were indeed often multinational. “Of the five hundred men who took part in buccaneer Henry Morgan’s attack on the Spanish Treasure port of Portobello in 1668, forty were Dutchmen, several were French, Italian, Portuguese, mulatto, or black, and the remainder …show more content…
Whether it is lust for profit and adventure or need for survival, the unscrupulous profession of piracy can be lucrative and is understandably attractive to people from all ages. However, we know that at least in the western world, piracy peaked from the 1650s to 1725. This is sometimes called the Golden Age of piracy, but is also known as the great age of piracy. This era of piracy came to an end with an increased effort by government navies that “drove the pirates from their lairs and [with] mass hangings eliminated many of their leaders.” Of course though, as it always has, piracy continues to this