Who Were the Real Pirates?

Real pirates were of all nationalities, though the most common were Spanish, Portuguese and English. The Corsairs came from France, and the Barbary pirates were generally Turkish. The North African coast also provided their fair share. They are popularly associated more with the Caribbean that anywhere else, though there were no boundaries.

They tended not to fire on ships with cannon for two reasons. One was that balls were not easy to come by for a pirate, and they used them sparingly. The other, and most important, is that they did not want to damage the ships they were attacking. They wanted to take them undamaged so that they could either re-use them or sell them. They would follow a ship until they decided to attack, and then approach it with a friendly flag. A pirate ship would have a stock of flags of all nationalities. Once they were close enough they would drop the flag and raise their own pirate flag – not always a skull and crossbones! They would fire a shot across the bows of their victim, force them to cede and then board them.

They could fight if forced to, and a pirate’s life was not a long one. It was common for them to punish their own that failed to fight properly, disobeyed their captain or even played bad music!

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