Total derail here:
The "just violent murderers" thing is overdone a bit with regards to history, at least with specific regards to "the golden ages of piracy" (late 17th/early 18th century, in the Caribbean) which is the basis for most pirate fantasy.
It's complicated. A lot of piracy could be legitimately described as murderers, etc, but this was at a time when privateers were a legitimate thing. Prize money for military victories was still accepted and normal.
There was a pattern during this time where impressed men who'd been literally kidnapped into service were simply abandoned once the wars were over. So you have roaming gangs of well-trained sailors who were now out of work and who were pretty unhappy about their lot to begin with. There were a lot of crucial naval struggles between the Spanish, Engish, and French (especially in and around the lucrative Caribbean colonies) during the period, so this happened frequently.
In many cases mercenaries who'd been turned out of work declared personal war on their former paymasters (sometimes winning!). At other times, rowdy semi-legitimate settlements that recognized no foreign master arose, only to face a crackdown because they were havens for smuggling and other less-violent crimes (but also wound up as bases for piracy, I mean, let's not kid ourselves here), so the residents fought back.
There are a few legitimate cases of "gentleman" pirates, though that usually just meant individuals who stuck to only one target because they claimed a legitimate legal grievance with that party or government. Violently taking the law into your own hands was in some cases still sort-of acceptable at the time, so a crew or captain seeking revenge on say, the local Engish governor, might actually be pardoned and pensioned off if they agreed to stop "pressing their case" (haha).
And yes, others really were just maruding bands of theives who'd hit anything that moved. But there was a whole mishmash stew of things. And some of the worst acts were often embellished by both the perpetrator (to scare victims into giving up more easily) and by the governments at the time (so the local governors could beg for funding or troops to quiet things down, increase their power, or to embezzle).
The best way I can put it is that the Wild West and the Golden Age of Piracy are very similar; not just because they're classic childrens' playgrounds, but also because the two eras were also born and perpetuated in very similar ways.
You have large number of out of work soldiers some of whom decided to become mercenaries, theives, hired hands, whatever work they could get. In a few cases they could be called noble, in others despicable, but mostly it was just out-of-work fighting men grasping at whatever opportunity presented itself for survival. You also have a frontier territory with some well-kept settlements, but with large areas under no effective control, many grievances against officialdom (both legitimate and imagined), problems with brutal or corrupt local officials who had total autonomy from higher authority back east, concentrated riches which were easy to steal and divide, etc. etc.
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As for race, most pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy would have been former Europeans, so yes, white would be sort of accurate, though there were many local blacks or Spanish half-breeds who were involved as well. I can't think of any prominent black pirate captains from that era offhand (which doesn't mean there weren't any), but I can think of a couple who rose to first mate or co-commander.
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Topic: White Kids Talk About Race (Read 9905 times)