Emeralds and pearls were the commonest gems from America, providing rich plunder. However, pirates did not only seize precious cargoes like these. They also wanted things they could use, such as food, barrels of wine and brandy, sails, anchors and other spare equipment for their ships. Things as simple as flour and medicine were treasured steals. Often pirates were just trying to find the necessities of life. Pirate ships usually carried far more crew than ordinary ships of a similar size.
This meant they could easily outnumber their victims. Pirates altered their ships so that they could carry far more cannon than merchant ships of the same size. Stories about pirate brutality meant that many of the most famous pirates had a terrifying reputation, and they advertised this by flying various gruesome flags including the 'Jolly Roger' with its picture of skull and crossbones. All these things together meant that victims often surrendered very quickly. Sometimes there was no fighting at all.
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The cut-throat sea robbers of history who plundered richly laden merchant ships are legendary Buy Now. Treasure Island 's popularity spawned a genre of pirate novels, and those novels were made into pirates movies, which gave rise to comic books and Halloween costumes.
Then Disney went and adapted one of their amusement park rides into a movie, and the result was actually good. When I say "it," I mean the romanticizing of pirates. Hollywood and pirate novels would have you believe that pirates were swashbucklers living a life of pleasure on the seas, fighting only when they had to.
They make it easy to see past the fact that they were stealing gold and other valuables by making the people they were stealing it from seem worse than them. Well, I enjoy Talk Like a Pirate Day as much as most other geeks, but I think it's important to add a dose of reality.
So I'm here to dispel some of the more popular myths about pirates, and to confirm a few as well. Pirates only fought as hard as they had to. Jack Sparrow could never have become a captain of a real pirate ship; he'd've been killed by his crewmates for a coward.
Pirates buried their treasure so nobody else could find it. This probably happened occasionally, but was the exception, not the rule. Pirates didn't expect to live very long, considering the business they were in, so planning for the future wasn't high on their list of concerns.
Since pleasure right now was their only real desire, they'd take any treasure they got to a pirate-friendly port and spend it all on liquor and women as quickly as ever they could. Besides, what crew would stand for their captain burying the treasure they'd won together? Pirates made their victims walk the plank. There's no evidence this was done much, if at all. During this time more than pirates were said to be at sea.
Throughout history there have been people willing to rob others transporting goods on the water. These people, known as pirates, mainly targeted ships, though some also launched attacks on coastal towns. Many of the most famous pirates had a terrifying reputation, and they advertised this by flying gruesome flags, including the 'Jolly Roger' with its picture of skull and crossbones. Pirates have existed since ancient times — they threatened the trading routes of ancient Greece, and seized cargoes of grain and olive oil from Roman ships.
The most far-reaching pirates in early medieval Europe were the Vikings. Though this Golden Age came to an end in the 18th century, piracy still exists today in some parts of the world, especially the South China Seas. The explorer Christopher Columbus established contact between Europe and the lands that were later named America at the end of the 15th century.
As he was working for the Spanish monarchy, these 'new lands' were claimed by the Spanish, who soon discovered them to be a rich source of silver, gold and gems. From the 16th century, large Spanish ships, called galleons, began to sail back to Europe, loaded with precious cargoes that pirates found impossible to resist. So many pirate attacks were made that galleons were forced to sail together in fleets with armed vessels for protection.
As Spanish settlers set up new towns on Caribbean islands and the American mainland, these too came under pirate attack. Corsairs were pirates who operated in the Mediterranean Sea between the 15th and 18th centuries.
Both used to swoop down on their targets in oar-powered boats called galleys, to carry off sailors and passengers. Unless these unfortunates were rich enough to pay a ransom, they were sold as slaves. Buccaneers lived on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola and its tiny turtle-shaped neighbour, Tortuga, in the 17th century.
At first they lived as hunters, but later the governors of Caribbean islands paid the buccaneers to attack Spanish treasure ships. Although raids began in this way, with official backing, the buccaneers gradually became out of control, attacking any ship they thought carried valuable cargo, whether it belonged to an enemy country or not.
The buccaneers had become true pirates. Privateers, meanwhile, were privately owned rather than navy ships armed with guns, operating in times of war. The Admiralty issued them with 'letters of marque' that allowed them to capture merchant vessels without being charged with piracy.
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