05-07-2025, 05:03 PM
(05-06-2025, 09:07 PM)Solvedit Wrote: Is BeyondKnowledge wrong that they moved to Hispaniola and did quite well? Where did they go when France turned the place into a sugar plantation? Did their numbers stay fixed?
On ATS another member opined that many fishermen were and probably are occasional pirates. I am sure the number of dedicated full-time pirates was almost as low as you both imply but as you said yourself, they had a legitimate day business. It doesn't rule out piracy as a side hustle. Can it be the appearance of their impact was minimized because they learned to only take a little from captured ships, so as to "skim a little cream off the milk without breaking the bottle?"
Can it be that, being slavery supporters, some of the people onshore appreciated as well as aided and abetted the pirates, perhaps with regard to human trafficking?
Did you know that "Utman" is Arabic for "Ottoman?" I have read somewhere on the highly reliable internet that people actually in Scotland never say "Utman." Please consider reading the Wikipedia page on Ottoman slavery.
Some of them may have come not from Ireland or Scotland but the Barbary States. It is said the Ottoman Empire had more European slaves than America had African slaves. Your theory regarding pirate numbers may not account for the effect of modern warships on Barbary pirates. They surely had some West European looks among them, for descendants of Ottoman slaves in North Africa may have been consigned to pirating if no one in North Africa wanted to give them a job.
And don't forget about the collards. Traditional Southern recipes for greens have been found to bear almost no resemblance to West African recipes but some are nearly identical to recipes found in a 10th century cookbook from Baghdad. Google it, it's been in the news.
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.
