Pirates

Who are pirates? What is piracy?

A piracy is offence against the universal law of society. A pirate is a seaman, robber who attacks, seizes or destroys any ship at high seas and sometimes even harbors at the shore. Besides that, they were involved in many other illegal activates like smuggling and slave trades. The pirates are doing that for personal interest, without any legal rights. And as those attacks were unauthorized acts, they were treated like criminals in all countries. In periods when those sea-robbers were most influential, piracy was punished with death almost everywhere. Legality of their actions is also the main distinction between them and the privateers or buccaneers for whom we can also say that were some kind of pirates, but not treated like criminals.

No matter what type of pirates they were, the piracy was in their blood. They were not doing it just for the money, but because of their spirit, hunger for adventures, danger s and fame! The life on the open sea has never been easy. A pirate ship was no place for the weak ones, but being a pirate gave them a total freedom to do what they pleased, whatever they want and whenever they want.

The pirates have existed and terrorized from the very earliest days of history and they are still active. Some regions like the islands of the Indian Ocean, west coasts of Africa and especially the Caribbean, were being their “hunting grounds” for centuries.

The pirates were also truly woman lovers. Famous Blackbeard had 14 wives! They extremely liked celebrations and when not engaged in robbing, pirates heavily drank rum and liquors while singing their old songs.

A fictional versions of pirates are shown today in many novels and movies. They are romanticized, sometimes shown in a really glamorous way. However, in most cases, they were not like that. Actually, a pirate's life was anything but nice and happy. In fact, it was indeed cruel, violent and generally very short. Their career did not last long, even for the most successful ones. They had usually sailed for 2 or 3 years before they got caught or died in a battle.

Nevertheless their short period of activity, despite they were treated like outlaws and feared throughout the seas, the pirates were enormously famous, and some of their names still live today.