Piracy Blog

25 February 2017

By: AnFei Neal

Cutting Off Ties and Accountability to End Piracy

Pirates gained wealth due to colonies and were not held accountable for their terror in courts for their use of violent tactics towards non-combatants to strike fear in them to achieve their economic and political.  This terror of piracy needed to end by holding pirates accountable for their actions and cutting off their wealth.  Even before pirates fellow crewmembers were hung they had practiced terror; Pirates “used terror to accomplish their aims: to protect property, to punish, those who resisted its law, to take vengeance against those they considered their enemies, and to instill fear” (Rediker 5).  Through terror, pirates would obtain money, punish anyone who opposed them, took vengeance against their enemies, and instilled fear to all who resisted them no matter if they were merchants, other sailors, or officials (Rediker 5).  In the 1700s piracy continued once the Spanish Succession ended but was no longer in the name of the King (Rediker 6).  Matters soon escalated and pirates began to wreak havoc under no name even though they were no longer employed (Rediker 6).  To stop pirates, England gave pardons, but many pirates did not honor them and took them as jokes and ripped them up.  Extreme measures were taken and violence escalated by both sides as England began to retaliate with violence and hangings.  This vicious cycle needed to cease.  The problem was that “Terror bred counterterror – tit for tat” (Rediker 13). Terror causes a vicious cycle amongst both sides and this cycle needed to end but could only be ended by stopping piracy.

To end the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1730) several measures needed to be taken such as holding pirates accountability for their actions in courts and gaining direct control over the colonies.  Before the English courts were able to put pirates on trial, pirates would only be tried in the colonial courts.  The problem with this was that the jury members would have an underlying motive of wanting to not holding pirates accountable because they had economic trade ties with them.  As English courts were established pirates were charged more than acquitted like in local colonial courts that had friendly juries (Shirk 14).  This establishment of English courts “reflects a deeper change to control colonial policy toward pirates” (Shirk 14).  Juries began to become more unbiased in favoring those who they did trade with once pirates could be held on trial in English courts instead of colonial courts. With the ability for England to hold pirates on trial the trials became fair in the sense that the juries no longer had an economic tie.  England began to have more control over how the colonies viewed and handled piracy as “Governors were appointed who complied with British policy on piracy, and those who did not were replaced” (Shirk 14).  These governors were to hold pirates accountable, and the control that England had over colonies became more direct (Shirk 15).  This shift allowed England to gain more direct control over piracy and hold pirates accountable for their actions.

The wealth of pirates flourished with the triangular trade, which allowed piracy to grow rapidly.   The triangular trade was between African slaves being shipped to North America to do manual labor of picking sugar and tobacco which would then be shipped to Europe and from there textiles, rum, and other manufactured foods would be returned to Africa. The amount of wealth present within the triangular trade made it a desired area for pirates to loot.  Pirates were only successful due to the wealth they received from the goods to the new world’s colonies and “defeating piracy meant more than applying force and a stern judicial hand.  It meant giving the pirate[s] nowhere to go (Shirk15).  The key to stopping the money pirates gained was to cut off trade routes and ports to the colonies.  These terrorists needed to be punished through the courts and held accountable for their actions as well as losing their wealth from colonies by closing ports for trade to end piracy.

Bibliography

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of all nations: Atlantic pirates in the golden age. Verso, 2004.

Shirk, Mark. "“Bringing the State Back In” to the Empire Turn: Piracy and the Layered

Sovereignty of the Eighteenth Century Atlantic." International Studies Review (2016): viw029.