# Real Pirates - how evil **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [June 9, 2006, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099 "2006-06-09T19:11:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 6:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/21 "2017-07-05T18:44:50Z")
There is another reason pirates may have wished to restrain acting wholly evil towards their prey. Most pirate loot wasn’t in the form of handy pieces of eight or other readily spendable treasure. Unlike in various movie versions, the pirates who hit Drake-like jackpots were rarities. Most pirates stole whatever their victims happened to be carrying as cargo, which meant that the stealing was only half the job - the other half was fencing the (often bulky or perishable or both) loot. That meant having good relations with someone ashore. Pirates needed to have someone willing to look the other way at how it was obtained and buy the swag (at a steep discount of course). Such relations could be imperiled if the pirates made things too hot - by gaining a reputation as committers of atrocities. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/22 "2017-07-05T18:52:05Z")
Henry Morgan tended to be given official cover on occasion and he had little incentive to be so cruel that he was seen as a liability. The raid on Panama was done by him acting as an agent of the English crown; trouble was it was done after the peace treaty was signed but before news reached him in Jamaica (his base). Both the English Government and the Spanish crown eventually accepted he had acted properly. Pirates were in many way contractors. > [@Colibri](#): > > Exquemelin, who wrote an account of the career of l’Ollonais, although a pirate himself clearly thought l’Ollonais’s cruelty was excessive. Like most other groups of robbers, they were more interested in the booty than violence per se. Henry Morgan actually sued Exquemelin for lible and won a judgment for 200 pounds against the publishers and the book was retracted. ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 7:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/23 "2017-07-05T19:17:09Z")
> [@Sage\_Rat](#): > > Most pirating in the Japan/Korea/China area was operated out of the Japanese island, Tsushima. My teacher in college said with some certainty that these pirates were mostly run by the head of the island, the So family daimyo–though the internet isn’t showing anything to back up that claim right now. At times the island operated as its own mini-kingdom, and at others as a sort of vassal-state to either Japan or Korea. Starting in around the 1550s, Japan decided to start practicing serious trade with Korea and using Tsushima as the headquarters for this, so after this point the amount of pirating declined and the So family became the center of trading between the two countries. > > Going from what I recall from what my teacher said (and some speculation), I think that in the most part the pirates would just land, run in and grab stuff and then run away. They did take people prisoners as slaves, to be sold back in Japan. However, these were I think generally to be teachers or to be craftsmen, as they would know the techniques of the mainland–so while there may have been some rape, I wouldn’t imagine there to have been too much. > > Given that Tsushima was almost its own country, I would imagine that to some extent their ships did operate almost as a navy, so probably did fight battles or do whatever needed to keep their position as the head-dogs in that area of the ocean. In afraid this isn’t the case. Although I am sure those Japanese pirates existed and plundered locally. [https://www.thechinastory.org/ritp/chinese-pirates/](https://www.thechinastory.org/ritp/chinese-pirates/) ---
**Author:** ![madsircool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/madsircool/32/3432_2.png) [@madsircool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/madsircool)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/24 "2017-07-05T19:24:43Z")
The most successful pirate in history was a Chinese woman. > **[Zheng Yi Sao](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ching_Shih)** > > Zheng Yi Sao (1775–1844; born Shi Yang, a.k.a. Shi Xianggu), also known as Ching Shih, was a Chinese pirate leader who was active in the South China Sea from 1801 to 1810. > Born as Shi Yang in 1775 to humble origins, she married a pirate named Zheng Yi at age 26 in 1801. She was named Zheng Yi Sao ("wife of Zheng Yi") by the people of Guangdong. After the death of her husband in 1807, she took control of his pirate confederation with the support of his adopted son Zhang Bao, with whom she enter... ---
**Author:** ![Leo\_Bloom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leo_bloom/32/10377_2.png) [@Leo\_Bloom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leo_Bloom)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/25 "2017-07-05T19:47:59Z")
Weren’t pirates a strategic enough threat for President Jefferson that we get the Marine Hymn (Halls of Montezuma/Shores of Tripoli) celebrating those campaigns? ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/26 "2017-07-05T20:23:02Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > There is another reason pirates may have wished to restrain acting wholly evil towards their prey. > > Most pirate loot wasn’t in the form of handy pieces of eight or other readily spendable treasure. Unlike in various movie versions, the pirates who hit Drake-like jackpots were rarities. Most pirates stole whatever their victims happened to be carrying as cargo, which meant that the stealing was only half the job - the other half was fencing the (often bulky or perishable or both) loot. > > That meant having good relations with someone ashore. Pirates needed to have someone willing to look the other way at how it was obtained and buy the swag (at a steep discount of course). > > Such relations could be imperiled if the pirates made things too hot - by gaining a reputation as committers of atrocities. This was my thought too. If pirates were notoriously lethal, then the crew has every incentive to fight to the last man (and woman). However, if they knew it was a matter of “just pull over if you can’t win, they’ll just unload some of your cargo, your valuables, and away you go…” Then only the captain and owners are strongly motivated to fight to the end. A fight to the finish is no good for either side. (“Well, Tonto, it looks like we’re dead.” “What you mean ‘we’, paleface?”) ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/27 "2017-07-05T22:23:09Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If you’re a pirate, and you capture a boat out in the middle of nowhere, aren’t you better off stealing what you want to steal, and then sinking the boat and killing everyone, leaving (a) no witnesses, and (b) no evidence that a crime was ever comitted at all? To the outside world, the boat just vanished without a trace, which in the Olde Dayes, was common enough. > > No one’s going to come after you for murder if no one knows anyone was murdered to begin with. Actually, and as really happened, you’d loot then leave them afloat to loot again. Piracy was a capital crime in of itself. Here’s a interesting website: > **[Too Great a Cruelty: ARCHAEOLOGY's Top Ten Vicious Pirate Acts - Archaeology...](https://archive.archaeology.org/online/reviews/pirates/poll.html)** > > Vote for the one that you think is the most vile and vicious pirate act! ---
**Author:** ![Isilder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/cc9497/32.png) [@Isilder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Isilder)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/28 "2017-07-05T23:05:13Z")
North African pirates used to be a real pest in the mediterranean , and the USA led a war to end the problem there. The North African pirates would capture anyone off boats, and civilians off land to be used,abused as slaves. There were few survivors, the survivors spoke of the death rate in the slave sweatshops. These pirates even went as far as England to raid boats and capture civilians. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/29 "2017-07-05T23:32:22Z")
One interesting piratical practice I read about years ago. When cannonballs were made, there’d be a small “tongue” of metal sticking out from one side that was normally filed down before the cannonball was actually used. Pirates would sometimes leave the tongues there, so they’d scrape along the inside of the cannon when fired and make a horrendous screeching noise. It was probably pretty effective intimidation. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > If you’re a pirate, and you capture a boat out in the middle of nowhere, aren’t you better off stealing what you want to steal, and then sinking the boat and killing everyone, leaving (a) no witnesses, and (b) no evidence that a crime was ever comitted at all? Not if the pirate is farsighted enough; if too many ships vanish, then trade in that area will simply stop and there’s nobody left to pirate. And some pirates were that farsighted, thus the practice of letting the crew & ship go in many cases. If you let them go you see, you can loot them again the next time they come around. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/30 "2017-07-05T23:33:54Z")
> [@Leo\_Bloom](#): > > Weren’t pirates a strategic enough threat for President Jefferson that we get the Marine Hymn (Halls of Montezuma/Shores of Tripoli) celebrating those campaigns? Those were closer to ‘privateers’ – usually operating as ‘authorized’ by the government (Bey of Tripoli or similar), sometimes even official naval vessels of the government. The USA government sent diplomats to negotiate with the government to get their captured & enslaved Americans released. Sometimes, when the diplomacy didn’t work, the US found a younger brother with a claim to the throne, and funded an army to help him overthrow the current ruler. So ‘regime change’ started early in US history, copied from similar activities in European countries. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/31 "2017-07-05T23:47:54Z")
> [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](#): > > To the English, Sir Francis Drake was a great naval commander and explorer. But he was a pirate and a terrorist to the Spanish, who Hispanicized his name to “El Draque”, or “The Dragon”. To be fair, “drake” means dragon in English as well. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/32 "2017-07-05T23:51:51Z")
Rape of high-born women\* captured by pirates was less common, because: 1. they were being held for ransom – if they were raped their value was greatly decreased, and word of that would result in future ransomers declining to pay. 2. a sizable number of pirates were gay. That’s why they ran away from society & became pirates. See “Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century by historian B. R. Burg. \*Note that this is the high-born women. The low-ranking ones, like their servants, or other women were fair game. Though often there weren’t many – sailors didn’t like women on board, and at that time, the rigors of traveling by sea meant most women avoided it if they could. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [July 5, 2017, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/33 "2017-07-05T23:57:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > One interesting piratical practice I read about years ago. When cannonballs were made, there’d be a small “tongue” of metal sticking out from one side that was normally filed down before the cannonball was actually used. Pirates would sometimes leave the tongues there, so they’d scrape along the inside of the cannon when fired and make a horrendous screeching noise. It was probably pretty effective intimidation. Were cannon rifled? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Raguleader](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/258eb7/32.png) [@Raguleader](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Raguleader)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/34 "2017-07-06T03:14:33Z")
> [@carnivorousplant](#): > > Were cannon rifled? :dubious: Probably after firing one of those cannon balls:D But seriously, rifled cannon on sailing ships didn’t become common until the 19th century, I believe. Combined with explosive shot, they were a nasty surprise to quite a few folks on the receiving end. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 4:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/35 "2017-07-06T04:46:39Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > Henry Morgan tended to be given official cover on occasion and he had little incentive to be so cruel that he was seen as a liability. The raid on Panama was done by him acting as an agent of the English crown; trouble was it was done after the peace treaty was signed but before news reached him in Jamaica (his base). Both the English Government and the Spanish crown eventually accepted he had acted properly. Right. Because communication was so slow, peace treaties in those days sometimes included a clause saying that hostile acts committed within a certain time after the treaty was signed were not considered violations if word of the treaty had not been received. Hearing that a peace treaty between England and Spain was in the offing, the governor of Jamaica sent Morgan to sea (Morgan essentially was the admiral of the Jamaican navy) where he deliberately avoided contact or news so he would be able to act with impunity. Afterward he was called on the carpet in England (in order to appease the Spanish crown) but got off since of course England was actually happy with his action. > [@](#): > > Henry Morgan actually sued Exquemelin for lible and won a judgment for 200 pounds against the publishers and the book was retracted. Exquemelin was the source of the charge that Morgan was the one who ordered Panama City to be burned during the raid. The Spanish chroniclers all say that it was the Spanish governor who ordered the gunpowder magazine to be exploded to prevent the city from being taken intact. The raid actually netted relatively little booty the Spanish had plenty of warning and were able to send much of their valuables to Peru. Exquemelin and the other pirates however were convinced that Morgan had appropriated most of the loot for himself. ---
**Author:** ![Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a8b319/32.png) [@Fuzzy\_wuzzy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fuzzy_wuzzy)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 5:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/36 "2017-07-06T05:06:35Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Actually, and as really happened, you’d loot then leave them afloat to loot again. > > Piracy was a capital crime in of itself. > > Here’s a interesting website: > [Too Great a Cruelty: ARCHAEOLOGY's Top Ten Vicious Pirate Acts - Archaeology Magazine Archive](http://archive.archaeology.org/online/reviews/pirates/poll.html) Plus, sinking a boat during a battle was an extraordinary difficult thing to do. Im going to assume sinking a ship wasn’t the easiest thing to do to a captured vessel either. ---
**Author:** ![AK84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85e7bf/32.png) [@AK84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AK84)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 7:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/37 "2017-07-06T07:00:07Z")
> [@t-bonham@scc.net](#): > > Rape of high-born women\* captured by pirates was less common, because: > > 1. they were being held for ransom – if they were raped their value was greatly decreased, and word of that would result in future ransomers declining to pay. > 2. a sizable number of pirates were gay. That’s why they ran away from society & became pirates. See “Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth-Century by historian B. R. Burg. 1. The main motivation for not raping high born women was not out of concern for “loss of value”, but oweing to the fact that high born women knew powerful people who would then be incentivized to crack down heavily on pirates. 2. Gays did not really exist at the time. Niether of course did straight or Bi-Sexuals, these are concepts that did not really come into being until the late Victorian era. Pirates probably had a number of people who partook in same Sex relations. Out of preference or necessity. Pirates were often more tolerant of sodomy then Navies or merchant ships masters, but I doubt their incidence of propensity was less or more ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 12:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/38 "2017-07-06T12:31:29Z")
The business of piracy and pirates themselves are two different things. The pirates were akin to outlaw motorcycle gangs, dangerous people, living outside the law, with no qualms of raping and killing when they felt like it. But like the biker gangs now they also had leaders with bigger goals than just living the pirates life and had the same concerns of enriching themselves, maintaining power, and avoiding confrontation with naval forces that policed their domain. Then add privateers into the mix, the state sponsored naval mercenaries of their time and you get an even broader environment of piracy. In any way piracy manifested it was outside of some or all of the law and that breeds violence and savagery. ---
**Author:** ![buddha\_david](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ee7513/32.png) [@buddha\_david](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/buddha_david)\ **Post date:** [July 6, 2017, 7:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/39 "2017-07-06T19:45:59Z")
> [@FRDE](#): > > I understand that the Black Skull and Crossbones indicated that they would ‘give quarter’ if one surrendered - and a Red Skull and Crossbones indicated that one had no chance Well, no one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 7, 2017, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099/40 "2017-07-07T00:29:09Z")
> [@AK84](#): > > 1. Gays did not really exist at the time. Niether of course did straight or Bi-Sexuals, these are concepts that did not really come into being until the late Victorian era. Just because the concepts didn’t officially exist doesn’t mean _the things themselves_ didn’t exist; the map is not the territory. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/real-pirates-how-evil/360099.md?page=1)