Strong circumstantial evidence supporting piracy as a cause of the Civil War.

[Byrd]

Copied from HistoryNewsNetwork:  (Can it be, despite their conclusions, their work at least partially may support my theory? )Unfortunately, McWhiney's obvious lack of objectivity and tendentiousness (his self interest as a Celt and a southerner is obvious throughout the text) undermines his analysis. Sowell's work is equally slanted but in a different direction. McWhiney’s noble cracker becomes Sowell’s backwards redneck. Sowell strives to create a redneck boogeyman to scare African-Americans away from a culture he believes will hamper their emergence into the middle class.

No, I don't think it does support your idea.

[Solvedit]

No, I don't think it does support your idea.

No, the presence of gangsta culture does not support piracy.  

Recall pirates are said to have been unusually inclusive of people of Sub-Saharan African descent for their time.

[Solvedit]

Yes, they "did quite well"... in the micro sense of it.  Pirates weren't rich, as a rule, and spent heavily (and most had shore lives.)  The "golden age" of piracy was from about 1650 to the 1720's... which is before the US became the United States (Blackbeard died about 1718.)  Many of the 19th century pirates were street gangs in New York (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1...ry_pirates) --and the China Sea was the area that legendarily had major troubles with pirates at this time.

Around our neck of the woods, international waters were patrolled by the navies of various countries, and the US had a decently strong naval force.  That's why thefts (such as they were) were more organized local gangs and not international traders.

Newcomers, my original post referenced old threads on another forum, ATS.  Post #14 of this thread contains a synopsis covering what all this has to do with the war. 


They didn't have families when they "did quite well?"  Where did they go?

You're saying just New York city?  All of them? 

If international navy patrols had mostly suppressed piracy, then why did the US have to fight two wars against the states which hosted the Barbary Pirates? 

Can it be the patrols against the Barbary pirates got much more effective with the invention of shell-firing guns and screw propellers? 

Recall the Ottoman Empire had more European slaves than America had African slaves.  It is possible some residents of Ottoman vassal states like the Barbary states were consigned to piracy because they resembled Europeans and may have been last hired, first fired in ordinary life.  Besides, after the wars, some of their support staff may have needed work as well and may have come to the US.

[Byrd]

No, the presence of gangsta culture does not support piracy.  

Recall pirates are said to have been unusually inclusive of people of Sub-Saharan African descent for their time.

It was Wikipedia (and others) who list the New York gangs as pirates.  See Charlton Street Gang, etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1...ry_pirates

As to pirates being "inclusive" -- that's not necessarily true.  A number of them also were involved in the slave trade and sold Africans to the Americas.  Basically, they were in it for money and adventure and weren't terribly picky about where the money came from.

[Solvedit]

It was Wikipedia (and others) who list the New York gangs as pirates.  See Charlton Street Gang, etc: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:1...ry_pirates

As to pirates being "inclusive" -- that's not necessarily true.  A number of them also were involved in the slave trade and sold Africans to the Americas.  Basically, they were in it for money and adventure and weren't terribly picky about where the money came from.

So they all went to New York City when Hispaniola and Jamaica were turned into sugar plantations?  Nowhere else? 

Where did the Barbary pirates go after the Barbary Wars and the massive advancement in naval power brought about by shell-firing guns and steam power?  

Sub-Saharan Africans were involved in the slave trade.  They used more African slaves than the New World did and sold the slaves to the slave traders selling to the Americas.  If pirates included whites, does that mean they never victimized any other whites?

[Byrd]

Newcomers, my original post referenced old threads on another forum, ATS.  Post #14 of this thread contains a synopsis covering what all this has to do with the war. 


They didn't have families when they "did quite well?"  Where did they go?

You're saying just New York city?  All of them? 

If international navy patrols had mostly suppressed piracy, then why did the US have to fight two wars against the states which hosted the Barbary Pirates? 

Can it be the patrols against the Barbary pirates got much more effective with the invention of shell-firing guns and screw propellers? 

Recall the Ottoman Empire had more European slaves than America had African slaves.  It is possible some residents of Ottoman vassal states like the Barbary states were consigned to piracy because they resembled Europeans and may have been last hired, first fired in ordinary life.  Besides, after the wars, some of their support staff may have needed work as well and may have come to the US.

The Barbary pirates had been a problem for Europe since the Middle Ages (Wikipedia link)

The US wasn't the one who cleaned up the mess -- that was Europe and specifically the French, when they conquered Algeirs and took Tripoli in the latter part of the 1800's.  The US was involved because they had to pay protection monies to the pirates (1700's) and the wars were started by Jefferson, who didn't want to pay the money.  They forced Tripoli to back down off this position, though, in 1805.  The  Second Barbary War took place 10 years later; much too early for the Civil War.

And that's about the time (1800) of the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.

There's no record of the pirates using screw propellers during that time period.  Screw propellers implies a steamship. 

BTW, the number of men on any pirate ship was 50 or fewer.  The fleets (mostly during the Golden Age of Piracy) were several hundred men in size -- nothing compared to the pirate fleet (Red Fleet) of Ching Shih, who is probably the most successful pirate of all time.  She had a fleet of 400 ships (larger than the European ships) and at one time she commanded a force of about 40,000 men.  She basically ruled that entire area of the ocean and had enough power that at the end of her reign she negotiated pardons for herself and her men and lived peacefully and comfortably for the rest of her life... unlike most of the other pirates.

[Byrd]

So they all went to New York City when Hispaniola and Jamaica were turned into sugar plantations?  Nowhere else? 

Where did the Barbary pirates go after the Barbary Wars and the massive advancement in naval power brought about by shell-firing guns and steam power?  

Sub-Saharan Africans were involved in the slave trade.  They used more African slaves than the New World did and sold the slaves to the slave traders selling to the Americas.

You're scrambling up several timelines.

Hispaniola and Jamaica were havens during the 1600's-1700's and were rendered useless as pirate bases after the British took over in 1830 (Piracy in the Caribbean).  The Barbary pirates again were Middle Ages to 1820.  They didn't go anywhere; they were killed or imprisoned or decided to follow another trade when the French conquered Algiers in 1830.

Slaves came from a number of places, including Mediterranean islands and Iceland and the Faroe Islands.  They hit Cornwall (England) repeatedly throughout the 1600's (part of what led to the big European Atlantic naval fleets)  Most of the slaves from Africa were sent to the Caribbean (source) and didn't have that much impact on America.  America basically had its own breeding population, bolstered by the "one drop" rule, where anyone who was a descendant (no matter how far back) of an African would be a slave.

[Solvedit]

The Barbary pirates had been a problem for Europe since the Middle Ages 
The US wasn't the one who cleaned up the mess -- 
And that's about the time (1800) of the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.
There's no record of the pirates using screw propellers during that time period.  Screw propellers implies a steamship. 

BTW, the number of men on any pirate ship was 50 or fewer. 

Newcomers: see post 14 for s a synopsis of the point, this thread referenced other threads on another forum.

Who cares who cleaned up the mess?  The point is, where did the former pirates go afterward?

Piracy largely ended in 1800?  'Zactly.  Spot on.  You seem to imply there is something wrong about 1800.  Why couldn't pirates have started to move to the lands just west of the Proclamation Line right around that time?    

The navies had the propellers.  The notion that propeller-driven steamships made piracy less tenable is clearly stated in the OP.  It was a tactic pirates coundn't follow because they lacked heavy industry at the time.

[Solvedit]

You're scrambling up several timelines.

Hispaniola and Jamaica were havens during the 1600's-1700's and were rendered useless as pirate bases after the British took over in 1830 (Piracy in the Caribbean).  The Barbary pirates again were Middle Ages to 1820.  They didn't go anywhere; they were killed or imprisoned or decided to follow another trade when the French conquered Algiers in 1830.

Slaves came from a number of places, including Mediterranean islands and Iceland and the Faroe Islands.  They hit Cornwall (England) repeatedly throughout the 1600's (part of what led to the big European Atlantic naval fleets)  Most of the slaves from Africa were sent to the Caribbean (source) and didn't have that much impact on America.  America basically had its own breeding population, bolstered by the "one drop" rule, where anyone who was a descendant (no matter how far back) of an African would be a slave.

Newcomers: see post 14 for s a synopsis of the point, this thread referenced other threads on another forum.

Why am I garbling up timelines?  What is the reason various waves of pirates couldn't have arrived in various times?   From various places?

Wouldn't the theory speculative hypothesis work better if they had time to build up their numbers?  Especially if they were good at foraging?

[Byrd]

Newcomers: see post 14 for s a synopsis of the point, this thread referenced other threads on another forum.

Why am I garbling up timelines?  What is the reason various waves of pirates couldn't have arrived in various times?   From various places?

Wouldn't the theory speculative hypothesis work better if they had time to build up their numbers?  Especially if they were good at foraging?

You mention this in conjunction with the Civil War (and then swing back to the Proclamation Line, which was 100 years earlier in the newly formed United States.)

The pirate heyday is more than 150 years before the Civil War.  This was before the United States became the USA.  There was no North or South or free states vs slave states.  Whatever they did had not impact on the Civil War.

Their numbers declined sharply about the time the 13 colonies formed the United States and shrank after that, when European navies were specifically sent out to hunt them down and kill them or bring them to justice. 

The ones left raided European ships to sell goods tax free for the early colonies, but this was on an individual basis.  This was nipped in the bud about 50 years before the Civil War, around the time that the Barbary Pirates were defeated and France conquered the area.  Piracy in the Caribbean ended in the 1830's

"Good at foraging" doesn't seem to make any impact on anything.  If they survived and quit piracy, they just melted into the population of whatever place they found themselves in, had a family and kids, and kept out of trouble.  They didn't run off to become "mountain men"; that takes a special set of skills that pirates (who were generally from seaside towns and ports) don't have.

 The big issues of the 1830's were the westward expansion ("manifest destiny") and the Indian Removal Act as well as the question of states rights and whether (and which) states could have slavery.  None of those was impacted by pirates.