Piracy in the Caribbean
Piracy in the Caribbean Most of us today think of pirates as something that exists only in movies and literature, but 300 years ago this was a very different story. Much unlike what you may see in today’s pop culture piracy was a very fair and democratic system where crew members could elect their own captains and where Africans were considered equal to whites, a truly revolutionary concept for its time, considering that the use of slaves was a common practice at the time. Piracy in the Caribbean carried with it a glorified adventure full of romanticized villains and tales of treasure. Piracy in the Caribbean should be covered in the World Studies curriculum because the romanticized life of the pirates and their boundless freedoms still appeal to people today.
The best way to see how large of an impact piracy made is to look at how prevalent it is in today’s society. Although “Three centuries have passed since they disappeared from the seas, but the Golden Age pirates remain folk heroes and their fans are legion. They have been the models for some of fiction’s greatest characters—Captain Hook and Long John Silver, Captain Blood and Jack Sparrow—conjuring images of sword fights, plank walking, treasure maps, and chests of gold and jewels”(1 Woodard). There have been countless movies made concerning pirates and their legends. I remember one time that my family and I went down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for vacation and there were so many pirate flags and other pirate merchandise around. It was a town still obsessed with the idea of pirates because of an old legend suggesting that the famous captain Blackbeard had buried some of his treasure there.
One of the reason why piracy had such a large impact is because it appealed to so many people. To those that pirates stole from, they were thought of as common thieves, but “To their admirers, pirates are romantic villains: fearsome men willing to forge a life beyond the reach of law and government,
The best way to see how large of an impact piracy made is to look at how prevalent it is in today’s society. Although “Three centuries have passed since they disappeared from the seas, but the Golden Age pirates remain folk heroes and their fans are legion. They have been the models for some of fiction’s greatest characters—Captain Hook and Long John Silver, Captain Blood and Jack Sparrow—conjuring images of sword fights, plank walking, treasure maps, and chests of gold and jewels”(1 Woodard). There have been countless movies made concerning pirates and their legends. I remember one time that my family and I went down to the Outer Banks in North Carolina for vacation and there were so many pirate flags and other pirate merchandise around. It was a town still obsessed with the idea of pirates because of an old legend suggesting that the famous captain Blackbeard had buried some of his treasure there.
One of the reason why piracy had such a large impact is because it appealed to so many people. To those that pirates stole from, they were thought of as common thieves, but “To their admirers, pirates are romantic villains: fearsome men willing to forge a life beyond the reach of law and government,
Bibliography: O 'Neill, Stephen C., and Jerry E. Jessee. "Piracy during the Colonial Period."Encyclopedia of American History: Colonization and Settlement, 1608 to 1760. Comp. Billy G. Smith and Gary B. Nash. Revised ed. Vol. 2. 2012. Facts on File. Web. 21 Feb. 2013. Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates. Orlando: Harcourt, 2007. Google Books. 21 Feb. 2013. Barbour, Violet. "Privateers and Pirates of the West Indies." The American Historical Review. No 3 ed. 1911. JSTOR. Web. 1 Mar. 2013.