By Manushag N. Powell, Purdue University
Much attention tended to be given to the intent of the accused at a pirate trial, particularly in the last phase of the Golden Age because pirates were held to be a special class of criminal. They were considered hostis humani generis, a term coined for pirates in ancient Roman times, meaning ‘enemies of the human race’.
Piracy Offensive to Heaven
The pirates were said to have abjured all laws but their own, and to represent the devil, who sometimes appeared on their flags, the common enemy of all humankind. Cotton Mather, who ministered to condemn pirates, and had himself a little niche sermon industry writing about it, opined in The Religious Mariner that,
There are some kinds of passengers, ‘tis a dangerous thing to ship them. There are sinners, of whom, to said evil pursues them, and the vengeance of God will follow them, Let them go where they will. There are bloody murderers, and pirates, and atheists, and those monsters of wickedness, that have a mountain of sin upon them, enough to sink the strongest ship under heaven.
In other words, piracy is so offensive to heaven, that merely to have a former pirate on one’s own ship, may call down the wrath of heaven, and the loss of life for everyone aboard.
Expanding Global Trade Networks
This was one extreme view and the view that was convenient to the legal purposes of 16th through 18th century Europeans, who were busily expanding global trade networks. They wanted to remain unencumbered by opportunists, other than themselves.
The trick of declaring pirates the enemy of all nations meant that a country like England could feel justified in trying and condemning the pirates of other nations. As Judge Hedges, who presided the trial of Every’s pirates explained it, “The King of England hath not only an Empire, and Sovereignty over the British Seas, but also … in concurrency with other Princes, and States, for the punishment of all Piracies, and robberies at Sea, in the most remote parts of the World.”
Or as when Boston prosecutor of pirates urged, a pirate was legally, “a wild and savage beast, which every man may lawfully destroy”.
This article comes directly from content in the video series The Real History of Pirates. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
Robbers at Sea?
Robbery at sea was sometimes charged as piracy, even if it involved only the subterfuge of a single actor, in a political example of the terms use. While most pirates were not Jacobites, though they sometimes like to adopt the pose to troll their captives, it was possible to charge Jacobites with piracy. Sailors who attacked their officers, were sometimes called pirates, even when piracy seemed to have no part of their motivation.
In addition, the connection between mutiny and piracy resonated so powerfully, the one being often a necessary precondition to the other, that mutineers and would be mutineers could be tried as pirates, although many mutineers had no piratical plans at all. Even today, after hundreds of years of jurisprudence, there is no definitive sense in the law of how to know a pirate when you see him, and what to do with him if you catch him.
Somalian Pirates
An example illustrates this pretty clearly. In the early 2000s, the international seafaring community stepped up its enforcement efforts against Somalian pirates, capturing quite a few. But that turned out to be the easy part.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea affirms, just as international law did in the 17th century, that pirates are subject to the justice of anyone who captures them. The problem arises in trying to put this into practice. Many countries simply don’t have specific mechanisms on the books for dealing with pirates anymore and seem to lack the desire to create any.
Kenya and the Seychelles, took the pirates for prosecution at first, but became overwhelmed and irritated by the lack of support they received from other nations for funding the actual trials. And in fact, most captured pirates were simply released to return to the trade. The same problem of the 17th century Caribbean all over again.
In another undesirable alternative, rather than try to prosecute and imprison a group of 10 Somali pirates in 2010, the Russian Navy placed them in an inflatable raft 300 miles from shore with no supplies or navigational equipment. They are presumed to have died at sea.
Prosecuting for Piracy
The problem of Somali piracy was brought home to the US public when four Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama, a cargo ship traveling in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Somalia. After a hostage standoff, US Navy snipers ultimately killed three of the pirates, but one, Abduwali Muse, was captured alive.
He was ultimately tried in the Southern District of New York, as the FBI officer had experienced prosecuting crimes that had happened in Africa. Muse, though, was never convicted of piracy. Prosecutors agreed to drop that charge if Muse pled guilty to hijacking and kidnapping. No one wanted to try to prosecute for piracy per se.
Hence, clearly, the question of how to deal with pirates at trial, has not become smoother or more obvious with the passage of time at all.
Common Questions about How to Prosecute a Pirate
Even today, after hundreds of years of jurisprudence, there is no definitive sense in the law of how to know a pirate when you see him, and what to do with him if you catch him.
The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea affirms, just as international law did in the 17th century, that pirates are subject to the justice of anyone who captures them. The problem arises in trying to put this into practice.
The problem of Somali piracy was brought home to the US public when four Somali pirates hijacked the Maersk Alabama, a cargo ship traveling in the Indian Ocean, off the coast of Somalia. After a hostage standoff, US Navy snipers ultimately killed three of the pirates, but one, Abduwali Muse, was captured alive.
