Pirates were with us from the time of the Greeks, and probably the Egyptians…

Most were Not Nice People in any way, shape or form.

They tended to blossom forth in numbers after political upheavals on land…as people who had boats found a way to get out of Dodge. When whole navies were put in that position by losing a war—they sometimes turned to free enterprise.

The little nation of Cilicia, girt by mountains, having nothing but a major land trade route and some fishing for a resource (it sat where Asia Minor connects to the Syrian/Lebanon area)…declared itself a ‘free port’ in ancient times: no questions asked. So it a) harbored pirates, who could put in there for a re-fit and supplies, and spend their gold ashore, thus encouraging local business b) encouraged land trade, because it didn’t allow banditry on that trade route c) didn’t itself need a navy: it had the pirates.

They were a plague on Roman shipping (witness Caesar getting kidnapped by pirates in his youth) and unstoppable until Sextus Pompey took after them with an organized Roman fleet and denied them Cilicia.

The Pirates of the Spanish Main were yet another variation on the ‘defeated navy.’ In point of fact, they’d succeeded too well as an adjunct navy—Britain had licensed privateers (private ships) to harry the Spanish trade routes during the period when Adm. John Hawkins and family (kin to me, Jane, and apparently some of you guys!) redesigned British warships to be more weatherly and seaworthy—and agile. This was a good thing, since the Spanish, duly annoyed at the action of the privateers, decided to go invade England. Which, as you know, didn’t work, and put a heavy hit on Spain.

This had an adverse effect on the privateers, who began to look for other ways to go on doing what they were doing.

Meanwhile England, Holland, France, the Netherlands…all broke out in religious contentions and the Pope unhelpfully blamed the bad weather (Little Ice Age) on witches, which made the whole continent crazy, created mob mentality, burnings, witch hunts, and political push-pull as the English beheaded their king and had Cromwell attacking the Irish with fanatic intensity—all over religion. Some people fled to the New World either to practice their beliefs or to take over the New World for their particular sect or belief — and the privateers, meanwhile, pursued a lifestyle of democracy, racial and gender tolerance, work-based advancement, and all the virtues we now hold dear: they just had this untidy habit of raiding shipping…

They had their own Cilicia, in Port Royal, but when a great earthquake slid Port Royal into the sea, they were kind of disadvantaged, and when Adm. Hawkins’ redesigned fleet left off fighting the Spanish to go after the pirates who were now being a nuisance to the slave-molasses-rum traffic (the Triangular Trade) — the pirates were running on borrowed time…