Kind of like Piracy in the Honorverse

https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/win ... -not-known

One colleague working on Atlantic families had noticed that locals in South Carolina seemed strangely unsurprised when pirates came ashore in the 1680s. Another colleague came upon a pirate who arrived in Newport in the 1690s, bought land, settled down, and became a customs official. This more-than-passing interest in pirates, as opposed to fathers, left me quite concerned. I had already taken my qualifying exams. I knew nothing about piracy. And since few scholars had written about piracy, I assumed it was not an important topic. Yet there it was, boarding the ship of my research agenda without permission.

Distraught, I cut a deal with my adviser that I would spend a month in the archives, examining government records and official correspondences to find out more. Sure enough, pirates were everywhere. But they were not who we thought they were. They were not anarchistic, antisocial maniacs. At least not in the seventeenth century. Like Moses Butterworth, many were welcome in colonial communities. They married local women, and bought land and livestock. Pirate James Brown even married the daughter of the governor of Pennsylvania and was appointed to the Pennsylvania House of Assembly.

...It was the higher reaches of colonial society, from governors to merchants, who supported global piracy, not some underclass or proto proletariat.

kzt wrote:https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/winter/feature/lot-what-known-about-pirates-not-true-and-lot-what-true-not-known

One colleague working on Atlantic families had noticed that locals in South Carolina seemed strangely unsurprised when pirates came ashore in the 1680s. Another colleague came upon a pirate who arrived in Newport in the 1690s, bought land, settled down, and became a customs official. This more-than-passing interest in pirates, as opposed to fathers, left me quite concerned. I had already taken my qualifying exams. I knew nothing about piracy. And since few scholars had written about piracy, I assumed it was not an important topic. Yet there it was, boarding the ship of my research agenda without permission.

Distraught, I cut a deal with my adviser that I would spend a month in the archives, examining government records and official correspondences to find out more. Sure enough, pirates were everywhere. But they were not who we thought they were. They were not anarchistic, antisocial maniacs. At least not in the seventeenth century. Like Moses Butterworth, many were welcome in colonial communities. They married local women, and bought land and livestock. Pirate James Brown even married the daughter of the governor of Pennsylvania and was appointed to the Pennsylvania House of Assembly.

...It was the higher reaches of colonial society, from governors to merchants, who supported global piracy, not some underclass or proto proletariat.

Only one I'm familiar with is Jean Laffite. Much later, but a folk hero. And why not. Importing luxury goods at cut rate prices. Then he strips the cannons off his ships to help defend New Orleans from the British.

WeirdlyWired wrote:

kzt wrote:https://www.neh.gov/humanities/2017/winter/feature/lot-what-known-about-pirates-not-true-and-lot-what-true-not-known

SNIP

...It was the higher reaches of colonial society, from governors to merchants, who supported global piracy, not some underclass or proto proletariat.

Only one I'm familiar with is Jean Laffite. Much later, but a folk hero. And why not. Importing luxury goods at cut rate prices. Then he strips the cannons off his ships to help defend New Orleans from the British.

was he a pirate or a smuggler?

isaac_newton wrote:

WeirdlyWired wrote:Only one I'm familiar with is Jean Laffite. Much later, but a folk hero. And why not. Importing luxury goods at cut rate prices. Then he strips the cannons off his ships to help defend New Orleans from the British.

was he a pirate or a smuggler?

Yes.

isaac_newton wrote:

WeirdlyWired wrote:
Only one I'm familiar with is Jean Laffite. Much later, but a folk hero. And why not. Importing luxury goods at cut rate prices. Then he strips the cannons off his ships to help defend New Orleans from the British.

was he a pirate or a smuggler?

At the particular point in space and time, not much difference, pretty much interchangeable.

isaac_newton wrote:
SNIP



Only one I'm familiar with is Jean Laffite. Much later, but a folk hero. And why not. Importing luxury goods at cut rate prices. Then he strips the cannons off his ships to help defend New Orleans from the British.

was he a pirate or a smuggler?[/quote]

Pirate/privateer both, and smuggler too. He smuggled his ill gotten goods into New Orleans to avoid paying the import duty on them. He and his brother Pierre started as pirates,but got Letters of Marque at the start of the War of 1812. Smuggled their booty from Grand Isle through Bay Barrataria and Bayou Seignette. IIRC

The tendency is to think of Pirates as people who go out and raid everybody- or at least anybody they think they can take.

A lot of what was called piracy was more on the order of either Letters of Mark or ships operating under orders of a colonial governor or with the approval and support of the home country. They were supposed to go after the ships of the other guys, not thier own country and (usually) not "neutral" shipping. If there was no actual state of war, the ships were "pirates" to the people they attached but could be disavowed by the home country or it's local representatives. Like Henry Morgan- untill he just started taking shipping of English companies or their allied partners.

Most of the trick is someone has to catch said pirate first. If they do things like sail into ports controled by the mother country, they are probably going to get away with this (and receive thanks and keep the profit) but if the political situation shifts without their knowlege they could find theselves as either scapegoats or convient object lessons- and the Crown or local governor gets to keep the confiscated items (back to that whole profit thing).

Brigade XO wrote:The tendency is to think of Pirates as people who go out and raid everybody- or at least anybody they think they can take.

A lot of what was called piracy was more on the order of either Letters of Mark or ships operating under orders of a colonial governor or with the approval and support of the home country. They were supposed to go after the ships of the other guys, not thier own country and (usually) not "neutral" shipping. If there was no actual state of war, the ships were "pirates" to the people they attached but could be disavowed by the home country or it's local representatives. Like Henry Morgan- untill he just started taking shipping of English companies or their allied partners.

Most of the trick is someone has to catch said pirate first. If they do things like sail into ports controled by the mother country, they are probably going to get away with this (and receive thanks and keep the profit) but if the political situation shifts without their knowlege they could find theselves as either scapegoats or convient object lessons- and the Crown or local governor gets to keep the confiscated items (back to that whole profit thing).

If I remember the history of Piracy correctly, Britain used Letters of Marquee against Spain in the Caribbean for several decades, encouraging shiploads of men to move to the west indies to intradict the Spanish gold fleets. Along with them, an entire economy of pirate friendly towns cropped up, whose economy depended on supporting the pirates. When the British rescinded the practice, they had a culture of 10s of thousands of men in the Caribbean and other colonies who had been making their livelihood in the Piracy business for years, along with the communities around them. So, when Britain rescinded the letters, the entire mechanism just continued, but now British ships were fair game also.

Theemile wrote:

Brigade XO wrote:The tendency is to think of Pirates as people who go out and raid everybody- or at least anybody they think they can take.

A lot of what was called piracy was more on the order of either Letters of Mark or ships operating under orders of a colonial governor or with the approval and support of the home country. They were supposed to go after the ships of the other guys, not thier own country and (usually) not "neutral" shipping. If there was no actual state of war, the ships were "pirates" to the people they attached but could be disavowed by the home country or it's local representatives. Like Henry Morgan- untill he just started taking shipping of English companies or their allied partners.

Most of the trick is someone has to catch said pirate first. If they do things like sail into ports controled by the mother country, they are probably going to get away with this (and receive thanks and keep the profit) but if the political situation shifts without their knowlege they could find theselves as either scapegoats or convient object lessons- and the Crown or local governor gets to keep the confiscated items (back to that whole profit thing).

If I remember the history of Piracy correctly, Britain used Letters of Marquee against Spain in the Caribbean for several decades, encouraging shiploads of men to move to the west indies to intradict the Spanish gold fleets. Along with them, an entire economy of pirate friendly towns cropped up, whose economy depended on supporting the pirates. When the British rescinded the practice, they had a culture of 10s of thousands of men in the Caribbean and other colonies who had been making their livelihood in the Piracy business for years, along with the communities around them. So, when Britain rescinded the letters, the entire mechanism just continued, but now British ships were fair game also.

"One man's Letter of Marque is another man's Pirate."

One thing to remember about ships operating far from "home" under Letters of Marque is (as noted quite correctly) the political situation under which the Letter was issued could change in a heartbeat but notification might take months to reach the far reaches where the "Letter" might be operating, as far away as the Indian or Pacific Oceans.

Also it's worth noting that often if a Letter of Marque ship is taken by the Navy of the opposing side, unless that Letter is Produced promptly and is in the correct and proper form (and very often not even then) the Skipper and his surviving officers were hanged as pirates, hence my "One man's Letter" note.

The Brits did it, the French did it, hell, everybody did it with captured privateers or Letters of Marque. A piece of parchment or paper is an awfully flimsy thing to literally risk one's neck on.

The following is a good book on Piracy that went on.

Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire, 1570-1740 by Mark G Hanna



Analyzing the rise and subsequent fall of international piracy from the perspective of colonial hinterlands, Mark G. Hanna explores the often overt support of sea marauders in maritime communities from the inception of England's burgeoning empire in the 1570s to its administrative consolidation by the 1740s. Although traditionally depicted as swashbuckling adventurers on the high seas, pirates played a crucial role on land. Far from a hindrance to trade, their enterprises contributed to commercial development and to the economic infrastructure of port towns.

English piracy and unregulated privateering flourished in the Pacific, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean because of merchant elites' active support in the North American colonies. Sea marauders represented a real as well as a symbolic challenge to legal and commercial policies formulated by distant and ineffectual administrative bodies that undermined the financial prosperity and defense of the colonies. Departing from previous understandings of deep-sea marauding, this study reveals the full scope of pirates' activities in relation to the landed communities that they serviced and their impact on patterns of development that formed early America and the British Empire.



This book really destroys a lot of Hollywood/snowflake land/movie industry myths in MHO. A good read!!!