# Pirates Not of the Caribbean



## sknox (Sep 22, 2017)

There were many kinds of pirates throughout history. In some ways, the Caribbean ones were not even the most interesting. My candidate is Stepan Razin, the Cossack pirate of the Volga.

Once, Razin was surrounded by a Persian fleet in the Black Sea. The Persian commander put his ships in a circle, chained together, to keep Razin from escaping. The pirate ships were smaller and lower, completely vulnerable to the Persian cannon fire. But Razin attacked anyway. A lucky shot set off the powder magazine in the Persian flagship, sinking it almost instantly. When it sank, it dragged the other ships down with it and only three Persian ships survived. Razin sailed away unscathed.

Good stories abound for this guy.
Stepan (Stenka) Razin – Russiapedia History and mythology Prominent Russians
Pirates & Privateers: The History of Maritime Piracy -       Stepan Razin

What is your candidate for memorable pirates?


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## Jo Zebedee (Sep 22, 2017)

Grace O'Malley is pretty well known in these parts. @Kerrybuchanan read a great genre take on her recently at Titancon.


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## HoopyFrood (Sep 22, 2017)

Jeanne de Clission, born 1300.

The French King Philip VI had the audacity to behead her third husband, Olivier, after Charles de Blois said Olivier was a traitor. After taking her two young sons to see their dad's severed head on display, Jeanne sold the de Clission estates, raised a band of loyal men and started attacking French forts in Brittany. Then she moved out into the Channel, and with backing from the English King, she apparently raised a fleet of ships painted black with red flags and spent _thirteen years_ generally being a complete and utter annoyance to the French King, sinking French ships and and helping to supply English forces. She was given the name The Lioness of Brittany. 

Eventually her flagship was sunk and her and her two sons (which she'd taken out to be pirates with her) were set adrift for five days before being rescued. 

Then she married for a forth time, settled down, and died in 1359.


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## Danny McG (Sep 22, 2017)

Some fictional ones were way cooler than the Jack Sparrow mob also.
How about this from 1952 featuring 
 ...Nitroglycerin grenades, multiple cannon tanks, flamethrowers, rapid-fire rifles on revolving drums, and a large inflatable balloon with gondola?

The Crimson Pirate - Wikipedia


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## Mouse (Sep 22, 2017)

The West Country's heaving with pirates. How about Edward Teach? Blackbeard. Isn't he why all pirates in films sound like the Wurzels. He stuck lit fuses in his beard like a nutter.


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## Dave (Sep 22, 2017)

I wrote a history assignment last year about pirates on the river Thames and the formation of the first police force in the world by Patrick Colquhoun and John Harriott, the Thames River Police. Sorry, but they were neither exciting nor romantic and so are largely forgotten. They were much less romantic than highwaymen. Mostly, they were just poor young men supplementing their very poor wages from labouring on ships, in docks and in warehouses, where prejudicial employment practises had made theft a prerequisite to very survival, and where security was so lax, and guards so crooked, that petty crime was endemic.

There are still pirates operating today in the Arabian Gulf and East coast of Africa (2010 book _A Captain's Duty: Somali Pirates, Navy SEALs, and Dangerous Days at Sea_ by Richard Phillips) Once again though, less memorable, and only more extremely desperate men. I expect that just like one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist, then one man's romantic pirate is another man's brutal, bloodthirsty hijacker?


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## Montero (Sep 22, 2017)

@Mouse - is that fuses? Or slowmatch? If he was using matchlock muskets, having spare lit match has merit. Storing it somewhere other than right next to your powder bottle likewise merit. But beard....... I guess if battles were short then be over before beard catches fire.

@Dave - yes, I was thinking that a bit. The Lioness of Brittany is in one way awesome. In another way is picking on a bunch of underlings because very high ups shat on her from a great height. Not sure that people thought that way much back then. (Or sometimes even now.)


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 22, 2017)

Dave said:


> I wrote a history assignment last year about pirates on the river Thames



I'd be interested to find out more - any decent references on that?


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## Dave (Sep 22, 2017)

Brian G Turner said:


> I'd be interested to find out more - any decent references on that?


I haven't put it anywhere. I could send it to you. This is worth a visit but by appointment only: Thames Police - The Museum Page
Patrick Colquhoun's book: _The Police of the Metropolis_ is in every police library in the world and has a chapter on pirates - as well as a chapter on prostitutes, etc. (A good reference for authors dealing with that time period.)


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## Brian G Turner (Sep 22, 2017)

Dave said:


> I could send it to you. This is worth a visit but by appointment only



Sounds a bit far for me to visit - feel free to attach it in a PM, if you feel like it.


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## sknox (Sep 22, 2017)

Thanks, guys. Good stuff. There are river pirates all over the place. The U.S. once put gunboats on the Yangtze in part to deal with river pirates there (the excellent book, _The Sand Pebbles_, was about that). There were once pirates in New York harbor.

Those poor guys on the Thames are romantic enough--they just haven't yet found their novelist. 

More examples welcome!


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## Mouse (Sep 22, 2017)

Montero said:


> @Mouse - is that fuses? Or slowmatch? If he was using matchlock muskets, having spare lit match has merit. Storing it somewhere other than right next to your powder bottle likewise merit. But beard....... I guess if battles were short then be over before beard catches fire.



Can't remember so just Googled it and found this:
Before battle, he would dress all in black, strap several pistols to his chest and put on a large black captain’s hat. Then, he would put slow burning fuses in his hair and beard. The fuses constantly sputtered and gave off smoke, which wreathed him in a perpetual greasy fog. He looked like a devil who had stepped right out of hell and onto a pirate ship and most of his victims simply surrendered their cargo rather than fight him.


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## Montero (Sep 22, 2017)

Ah, stage effects. Thanks. No that is burning faster than slow match - it smoulders gradually like a cigarette in an ash tray and nowhere near enough smoke for the effect described.


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 22, 2017)

Surely the most successful pirate of all time. And a lady

Ching Shih

Ching Shih - Wikipedia

Apparently had a fleet of 300 ships at one point (admittedly probably gathered as part of a pirate coalition beforehand...but she became the leader of them and led them successfully) and went to war against all the biggest Empires at the time.

And retired with wealth. How many other pirates could say that?


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## sknox (Sep 23, 2017)

Well this is interesting. I was naturally intrigued by Ching Shih and read the article, then went on to the listing of South China Sea pirates. All of them date to roughly the same period. Which leads me to wonder if piracy there was not akin to piracy in the Caribbean, lasting only for a couple of generations. Something similar was true for the Barbary pirates, and for the pirates that were cleaned up by Pompey in the late Republic.

I don't know Chinese history worth crackers. Was the late 18thc-early 19thc a time of weak central government? I was thinking so simply because it was a period of heavy intrusion by foreign devils.

Another candidate I'll put forward is not an individual but a group: the Victual Brothers, notorious in the late Middle Ages.
Victual Brothers - Wikipedia


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## Abernovo (Sep 23, 2017)

Venusian Broon said:


> And a lady


There were a few female pirates over the years. Obviously, most people know of Anne Bonny, and Mary Read, as well as Grace O'Malley, mentioned by Jo. Lady Mary Killigrew was another.

Sayyida al Hurra was a Mediterranean pirate, allied with (but independent of) Baba Oruç (a notable figure himself). She was also a provincial governor, commander of a pirate fleet, and became Queen of Morocco. Okay, came to a possible sticky end, but...pirate, you know.


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## Danny McG (Sep 23, 2017)

Was there a real life lady pirate named Peggy Babcocks or was that just the tongue twister on Razzmatazz?


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 23, 2017)

sknox said:


> Well this is interesting. Which leads me to wonder if piracy there was not akin to piracy in the Caribbean, lasting only for a couple of generations....I don't know Chinese history worth crackers. Was the late 18thc-early 19thc a time of weak central government? I was thinking so simply because it was a period of heavy intrusion by foreign devils.



I think we are all talking about 'highly publicised' moments in history - the Cilician pirates are notable because of their mention in ancient texts (one wonders that these pirates were identified and wrapped up so quickly that Pompey stretched the truth a bit to claim a triumph?), Caribbean and China sea pirates because they became folk legends in their own times.

However I think piracy at sea has been ever present, probably from the moment the person that made the second ever boat...and went after the man in the world's first boat. Just some era's are not as sexy . I mean, was there a time when the Barbary coast did not hold pirates?

For a good example, what about right now - Modern piracy | Maritime-Connector.com

Here's other info: Interactive Image: Piracy Attacks Over Time

Tis a bit dull, but many areas of the world have been fairly constant in pirate attacks since 1996. East Africa stands out with the massive increase at the turn of the century.

I suppose given the right conditions there have and will always be someone willing to attack and loot a ship.


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## svalbard (Sep 23, 2017)

sknox said:


> Thanks, guys. Good stuff. There are river pirates all over the place. The U.S. once put gunboats on the Yangtze in part to deal with river pirates there (the excellent book, _The Sand Pebbles_, was about that). There were once pirates in New York harbor.
> 
> Those poor guys on the Thames are romantic enough--they just haven't yet found their novelist.
> 
> More examples welcome!



The Sand Pepples was one of Steve McQueen's best movies. He was a standout in an excellent cast. Beautifully shot too.


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## sknox (Sep 23, 2017)

svalbard said:


> The Sand Pepples was one of Steve McQueen's best movies. He was a standout in an excellent cast. Beautifully shot too.



The book is really good; recommended to anyone. It's not at all fantasy, but it's a good example of how to evoke another culture. A couple of cultures, really, as the culture on board the boat is its own world.


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 28, 2017)

Oh, other sorts of pirates - the German raiders of WW1 and 2. There are some amazing stories of what they did.

See here about the SMS Move: 




Also look up the SMS Seeadler SMS Seeadler (1888) - Wikipedia

One of the last fighting sailing ships.


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## Danny McG (Sep 28, 2017)

Last fighting sailing ships makes me think of something I read....
WW2 and Royal Navy. Some captain and his crew attacked and boarded a German ship using cutlasses. Anyone heard something like that?


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 28, 2017)

dannymcg said:


> Last fighting sailing ships makes me think of something I read....
> WW2 and Royal Navy. Some captain and his crew attacked and boarded a German ship using cutlasses. Anyone heard something like that?



From memory I believe (hence probably wrong) that the Royal Navy was still getting cutlass drills near the start of WW1 - because some admirals still hadn't quite figured out that 15 inch guns could hit a target at ~30km, and expected that boarding a ship was a viable way of fighting at sea.


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## Cli-Fi (Sep 28, 2017)

sknox said:


> There were many kinds of pirates throughout history. In some ways, the Caribbean ones were not even the most interesting. My candidate is Stepan Razin, the Cossack pirate of the Volga.
> 
> Once, Razin was surrounded by a Persian fleet in the Black Sea. The Persian commander put his ships in a circle, chained together, to keep Razin from escaping. The pirate ships were smaller and lower, completely vulnerable to the Persian cannon fire. But Razin attacked anyway. A lucky shot set off the powder magazine in the Persian flagship, sinking it almost instantly. When it sank, it dragged the other ships down with it and only three Persian ships survived. Razin sailed away unscathed.
> 
> ...



Black Sails is the best TV show about pirates you will ever watch. Trust me on this.


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## Dave (Sep 28, 2017)

Venusian Broon said:


> From memory I believe (hence probably wrong) that the Royal Navy was still getting cutlass drills near the start of WW1 - because some admirals still hadn't quite figured out that 15 inch guns could hit a target at ~30km, and expected that boarding a ship was a viable way of fighting at sea.


What about submersibles? Wikipedia says the Royal Navy had 74 submarines at the start of WW1. Some already were built with torpedoes but the idea was to get close to ships and shoot them with guns. Climbing on board at night with cutlasses would have worked too (in the mind of an old admiral obviously.)


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## Venusian Broon (Sep 28, 2017)

Dave said:


> What about submersibles? Wikipedia says the Royal Navy had 74 submarines at the start of WW1. Some already were built with torpedoes but the idea was to get close to ships and shoot them with guns. Climbing on board at night with cutlasses would have worked too (in the mind of an old admiral obviously.)



I believe so - subs may have wanted to actually pilfer the ship first before sinking her - if her own supplies were low. Certainly a lot of the surface raiders would do that, for example taking fuel from the captured ship (because the Germans lost all their coaling stations more or less at the start.)


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## hej (Oct 5, 2017)

Venusian Broon said:


> Surely the most successful pirate of all time. And a lady
> 
> Ching Shih
> 
> ...



She is _exactly_ of whom I thought when I saw this thread. Good call!


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## Tulius Hostilius (Oct 6, 2017)

Abernovo said:


> Sayyida al Hurra was a Mediterranean pirate, allied with (but independent of) Baba Oruç (a notable figure himself). She was also a provincial governor, commander of a pirate fleet, and became Queen of Morocco. Okay, came to a possible sticky end, but...pirate, you know.




We must be careful about her, since we don’t have many sources. I don’t know if she even entered in a ship.


But, the piracy was a quite common activity among the sailors since the beginning of time. Sometimes it is difficult to separate that activity from the trade.


At least since the Antiquity the Mediterranean Sea was full of pirates. The Strait of Gibraltar was a dangerous zone in the Medieval and Early Modern Period.


The Portuguese Álvaro Vaz de Almada (Álvaro Vaz de Almada, 1st Count of Avranches - Wikipedia) was identified as a pirate (well… a Corsair) working for England against France, during the Hundred Years' War


Due to the proximity of the Strait of Gibraltar Portugal suffered much with the Piracy in the region, both Muslim and Christian. The Conquest of Ceuta in 1415 allowed the Portuguese to nullify a pirate base and use themselves Ceuta as a base, both in the Atlantic and in the Mediterranean Sea.


But for many years the scream among the coastal population “Há Mouros na costa!”/“There are Moors at the coast” was quite common. The “Moors” were the pirates, and they could be Moors, Castilian, French, English or Duch!


Possibly the first time than Christopher Columbus arrived to Portugal, and according to his son, was in the sequence of a Pirate attack near the Cape São Vicente (in 1476?). The name of the Pirate attacker was Columbus, the Younger; the nick exists so he can be differentiated from another pirate at the time, Columbus, the Older.


Palos was a traditional port of Pirates. The Pinzón brothers (Martín Alonso, Vicente Yáñez, Francisco Martín) were most possible themselves pirates (well… corsairs). Queen Isabel in 1478 gives to Palos a letter to engage in Piracy acts against the Portuguese in the Guinea Coast.


When the Portuguese arrived to the Indian Ocean (1497/8), they soon begun to do what they were already used to do in the Atlantic/Mediterranean, but also there they found the seas quite active in Piracy acts.


The Indian pirate (well… corsair) Timoji helped the Portuguese in the conquest of Goa.


And according to the myth, the Portuguese possession of Macao (China) was established after the Portuguese fight against Chinese Pirates. This myth is unsubstantiated.


At the time (16th century) the Piracy around the Strait of Malacca was already quite intense. By Sea Dayaks. More to North the Chinese Pirates and the Wokou (Japanese) attacked constantly the sea trade and the coast.


After the Caribbean pirates, and eventually the Berber pirates (in the North West Africa), mostly known for their mystified and romanticized histories, the other area quite romanticized was the Malaysia, with Emilio Salgari, and his novels “Sandokan”, the Malaysian Pirate, even if he also wrote about the Caribean with the “Black Corsair” series. Curious for a man that never leaved his country!


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## sknox (Oct 8, 2017)

How did someone capture a ship in those days? Preferably we're talking 16thc or before; 17thc at the latest -- you will see I'm trying to eliminate cannon fire. 

My first guess would be grappling hooks and boarding, probably after disabling either sails or oars in some way, even if just to bring them into the lee. I know about the Roman _corvus_, then there's a huge gap, and I know about 18thc methods. In between is a great unknown.


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## Abernovo (Oct 8, 2017)

Sorry for the brief thread derail.


Tulius Hostilius said:


> Curious for a man that never leaved his country!


Not really, if you consider Jules Verne wrote many of his travel adventures due to a love of maps and a desire to see far-off places he could only read about, and imagine visiting one day. He did leave France to visit Britain, courtesy of a contact in shipping and, later in life, bought a small vessel of his own for travelling around Europe, but  the writing was originally fuelled (in part) by a frustrated hankering to explore the world.


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## Caledfwlch (Oct 8, 2017)

Venusian Broon said:


> From memory I believe (hence probably wrong) that the Royal Navy was still getting cutlass drills near the start of WW1 - because some admirals still hadn't quite figured out that 15 inch guns could hit a target at ~30km, and expected that boarding a ship was a viable way of fighting at sea.



In fairness, just after the turn of the century, naval technology suddenly exploded, its not surprising Admirals were struggling.

IIRC, all the so called experts claimed that a large warship made entirely out of metal was impossible, it would sink, or snap in half etc.
Then the Royal Navy launched HMS Dreadnought, the first "Battleship" and scared the holy crap out of pretty much any nation with a Navy.

HMS Dreadnought (1906) - Wikipedia

It's not an unforgivable error like that made with the Army in WW1 - not even the Machine Gun was new, the Grunts in the British Trenches, their technology was not that far advanced on what a grunt in 1815 had, just a bit better, it was recognisable, but a Captain or Admiral from 1815, HMS Dreadnought would have been utterly alien.


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## Tulius Hostilius (Oct 8, 2017)

sknox said:


> How did someone capture a ship in those days? Preferably we're talking 16thc or before; 17thc at the latest -- you will see I'm trying to eliminate cannon fire.
> 
> 
> My first guess would be grappling hooks and boarding, probably after disabling either sails or oars in some way, even if just to bring them into the lee. I know about the Roman corvus, then there's a huge gap, and I know about 18thc methods. In between is a great unknown.




In Portugal the Cannon fire begun to be used effectively during the reign of D. João II (late of the 15th century), he personally developed a method of naval firing (with ricochet).


But for boarding, we must assume from what we can read from the chronicles that it wouldn’t be much different from the scenes that we see in the Hollywood movies, like you say, with hooks, taking advantage of the pilot skills and the different velocities from the ships. The ships could previously attack and defend with javelins and arrows (from bows and crossbows), or even with liquid or stones if one had a higher parapet.


The warships were usually of the galley type, with oars, not only in the Mediterranean, but also in some parts of the Atlantic, and the merchants were sail ships. The oars allowed greater maneuverability and instant velocity, but allowed them a shorter range (too many mouths to feed).


After the 16th century the boarding would only be made if the defenders were in disadvantage, because the ships would be bombard with different kinds of projectiles.


More on topic:


For those who read in Spanish (or want to try a Google translation), here is an article about Basque corsairs in the Mediterranean Sea, for the centuries 14th and 15th:

http://um.gipuzkoakultura.net/itsasmemoria5/ferrerimallol.pdf


Some more reads about the introduction of the artillery in the ships, a source (avoid this!):

Platica manual de artilleria : en la qual se tracta ... de el arte militar y origen de ella, y de las maquinas con que los antiguos començaron a vsarla, de la inuencion de la poluora y artilleria, de el modo de conduzirla ... fabricar las minas, varios secretos y importantissimos aduertimientos al arte de la artillería y vso de la guerra vtilissimos y muy necessarios. Y à la fin un ... importante examen de artilleros ... | Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes


and an article, more recent and readable:


El artillado de las naves: el diseño de las piezas, su ubicación en los barcos y los centros de producción durante los siglos XVI y XVII. | López Martín | Antropología. Revista Interdisciplinaria del INAH

(sorry, again in Spanish!)




Abernovo said:


> Sorry for the brief thread derail.
> 
> 
> Not really, if you consider Jules Verne wrote many of his travel adventures due to a love of maps and a desire to see far-off places he could only read about, and imagine visiting one day. He did leave France to visit Britain, courtesy of a contact in shipping and, later in life, bought a small vessel of his own for travelling around Europe, but  the writing was originally fuelled (in part) by a frustrated hankering to explore the world.




Yes, Jules Verne is another curious case. I call it curious because it is difficult to have the knowledge only from the books, without never really seeing it in reality, and yet transmitting it to the books with some credibility, at least for those who are even more unfamiliar with those exotic realities.


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## Caledfwlch (Oct 8, 2017)

I would imagine, that apart from the invention of Cannons, muskets & pistols, the actual business of boarding an enemy vessel once it you are alongside wouldn't have changed vastly from the days when Marines of the Imperial Roman Navy boarded vessels.


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