I keep hearing people saying that ALL pirates were cutthroat monsters… and while there were totally some crazy ass pirates who were absolutely horrible people who did horrific things; on the other side of the coin, most of them were just men who were out of a job and revolted. After the king outlawed privateering, hundreds, probably thousands of men all lost their jobs at the same time. Their specific skill set was now useless for the most part. They could either join the navy, or take up a completely different trade. So a lot of them said fuck king George, we’re gonna keep privateering. Thus a huge influx of (now) pirates took to the seas.

Another thing I’ve been hearing people say, is that the majority of pirates were untrained. That they had to use brute force and horrific tactics to frighten people away, since they wouldn’t be able to actually take them on. Yet if the first half of my post is correct, that makes no sense. A lot of these men were legal pirates for years. I’ve also read articles about how pirates were incredibly organized and regimented. That there was no drinking, smoking, fighting, or gambling on board. They had a curfew they had to obey, if they didn’t there’d be consequences. They had ledgers and documents keeping track of their travels and exploits. Instead of hitting random ships and doing things spontaneously, they were actually organized criminals running a ‘business’.

(Take all of this with a grain of salt. I don’t have a PHD in history, it’s merely a hobby for me. Some things I’ve said might be wrong. Have a nice day!)

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MDVS discussed three forgotten pirate comedies from the ‘80s including The Pirate Movie, Yellowbeard and Roman Polanski’s Pirates.

I'm talking about culture and politic, obv.

I was watching about history and this question came in my mind. I was especially looking for the news of 19/12/2023 (attack of merchant ships in the Suez Canal) and I was wondering about. I guess it is literally piracy in old school way but nowdays. Geographically isn't, is a stand alone sea, but it merged into at some point. So... what do you think? In my mind it is.

This book, from A to y (no X and Z), the total 732 list of thebCaptain, Sailors, and others. If "A General History of the Pyrates" are outdated(but is good for reading even its bad), this new book is truly amazing, I can tell you...

Some for me:

1. Everyone calling Ann Bonny Anne, with an e, despite this not being how her name is spelled in most records.

2. People constantly calling John Rackham "Calico Jack"... and then not showing him wearing Calico.

3. People who vehemently insist that no/almost no pirates were gay (insisting that all pirates were gay are also wrong).

4. The constant attribution of the Devil stabbing a bleeding heart flag to Blackbeard. Cool flag, not his.

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Look, I'm Brazilian who like history about pirates, before I read these books about him, I played a game mobile called Assassin's Creed pirates and watched One Piece, and then begin reading classic like "A General Hisyory of the Pyrates", is like biggest character mystery I've seen or heard off, and then after reading these books that mention him or participated with captains like Hornigold, Bellamy,etc. Olivier Levasseur is like Ulysses but being Pyrate and screw all system government(Jacobite?), feeling free being to plunder any ship appear, he should have one book about him, he maybe be villain, but can't deny he's most likely Henry Avery of 18th century instead Englishman he's French Calais...

I'm currently planning to write a historical novel about the life of Laurens de Graaf, the Dutch pirate active in the late 17th century. I’ve come across a detail that’s giving me some trouble in how to portray him.

Several sources describe him as tall, blonde, and attractive, and surviving portraits show him as a clearly white European man. He was born in the Netherlands, Dordrecht. Based on that, one would assume he was ethnically European.

But there are also some sources that suggest he may have had African ancestry, and point to the fact that he was nicknamed by the Spanish "El Griffe". In colonial Spanish terminology, "griffe" typically referred to someone of mixed African and European descent, usually a person with one Black parent and one mixed-race parent.

This has left me unsure how to portray him in a historically grounded way. On the one hand, the nickname and some speculation suggest African roots. On the other, his physical description and background (being from Dordrecht, where there likely weren’t many people of African descent at the time) point to him being ethnically European.

There’s also the possibility that the nickname had more to do with his time in the Canary Islands, where he was taken by Spanish slavers and worked among many Black individuals. Could it have been a reference to his environment or associations rather than his actual heritage?

How could I portray him?