By Manushag N. Powell, Purdue University
Not only do pirates create uncertainty about the reach of governmental power, about law and order, about the distinction between commerce and thievery, but they also birth their own legends. They thrive on the ability to create uncertainty between truth and fiction. Even in their defeat, pirates make for great stories. Let’s delve into some.
The Victual Brothers
In the late 14th century, Queen Margaret of Denmark was battling with King Albert of Sweden and besieging Stockholm. Albert’s side hired a group to get supplies to the Swedish capital, and these folks, basically a privateer in the guild, called themselves The Victual Brothers.
The Victual Brothers quickly transformed themselves from scrappy blockade runners to the force to be reckoned with in the Baltic and started making incursions into Swedish, Finnish, and other coastal towns.
When Margaret finally managed to expel them, they rebranded themselves as the Likedeelers and harassed the continental coastline until well into the 15th century. The Victual Brothers, forerunners of the buccaneers, stayed ahead of their enemies for a long time by making allegiances with some coastal settlements and sharing their plunder with them, even while they were attacking other coastal communities; because generally speaking, piracy only works if it’s good for somebody back on land.
This article comes directly from content in the video series The Real History of Pirates. Watch it now, on Wondrium.
The Sea Dogs of Queen Elizabeth
The Sea Dogs of Queen Elizabeth—Francis Drake, Walter Raleigh, and John Hawkins—were all knighted for the great services they did to the English nation in their ferocious harassment of the Spanish. The famous invincible armada of Spain that English and American children learn about in their history classes was raised not to combat the regular English navy so much as the Sea Dogs, particularly Drake, whom the Spaniards considered a pirate and called El Draque, the dragon.
But in 1604, when England and Spain made peace for a little while, the Sea Dogs continued their attacks on the outskirts of the Empire. One of them, Walter Raleigh, was controversially executed by James I, who lacked his cousin Elizabeth’s friendly attitude towards piracy. Raleigh was buried peacefully except for his head, which was thoughtfully given as a remembrance to his wife, coincidentally also named Elizabeth.
The Pirate Who Terrified the Colonial Powers
The quarrel over who is and who is not a pirate is not limited to European and American actors.
Kanhoji Angre, a mariner from the Indian subcontinent, was so successful at harassing the shipping of the British East India company that he terrified the colonial powers and was promoted to admiral of Maratha Navy, which was a major force in the 18th century.
One of Angre’s masterful strokes was to hire Europeans, like the pirate who went by the colorful name John Plantain, to command some of his ships, using their colonists’ skills against his colonial enemies. The British press labeled him the ‘Pirate Angria”. He was considered the common enemy of all local shipping, as opposed to an effective military leader working under his government’s commands.
The Barbary Corsairs
A much broader example of the kind of regional tensions over privateering versus piracy that Angre represents, is the Barbary Corsairs. The term corsair originally meant privateer. It’s through its association with the privateers of the Barbary Coast that the term came to be synonymous with pirate.
Barbary Corsairs were privateers, commissioned by their governments to make war against Christians but not against Muslims.
The Barbary Coast, also called the Maghreb, runs along the north of Africa. It includes what we now call Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria, and Libya. Much of it was nominally but not really very firmly under the control of the Ottomans into the early 19th century.
The so-called Barbary pirates could be Ottoman, Berber, independent, or occasionally European renegades; and while their depredations were not united under any particular flag, they have regulated businesses answerable to local governments. Their operations menaced Mediterranean shipping and coastal settlements, and sometimes menaced areas quite far away from the Mediterranean on and off from the 16th to the 19th centuries.
The Barbary Corsair’s primary function was taking captives rather than other forms of loot. Barbary captives were essentially held hostage, and while waiting for the ransoms to be paid, which could take many years, they were usually sold and forced to live as slaves.
Common Questions about Some Legendary Pirates and Their Stories
In the late 14th century, Queen Margaret of Denmark was battling with King Albert of Sweden. Albert’s side hired a group to get supplies to the Swedish capital, and this group called themselves the Victual Brothers. The Victual Brothers quickly switched from privateering to piracy and began raiding coastal cities.
The Sea Dogs were hired by Queen Elizabeth during the war between Spain and England. However, even when there was temporary peace between the two countries, the Sea Dogs kept on their attacks. One of the pirates and members of the Sea Dogs, Walter Raleigh, was executed by James I, who, unlike Queen Elizabeth, did not have a friendly attitude towards piracy. Walter Raleigh’s head was given to his wife as a remembrance.
The Barbary Corsair’s primary function was taking captives rather than other forms of loot. Barbary captives were essentially held hostage, and while waiting for the ransoms to be paid, which could take many years, they were usually sold and forced to live as slaves.
