Privateers and Pirates in the Spanish Atlantic
ENDNOTES
The pirates and privateers who relentlessly preyed upon Spanish colonies and treasure ships during the notoriously cutthroat, revolutionary age of sail have become the stuff of legend. Many people of the modern world imagine the audacious seafarers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as daring, ruthless heroes who were hungry for both the thrilling adventures and the immense wealth that thievery on the ocean could bring. The common depiction of a pirate’s life that persists to the twenty-first century is one of epic sea battles, boundless freedom, drunken nights on white sand beaches, and, of course, unhinged vice in the port cities’ taverns and brothels. While this interpretation of a seafarer’s existence is not entirely inaccurate, it is crucial to consider that pirates and privateers were far from simply mindless, murderous bands of renegades who merely thieved for the sake of thieving and left nothing behind in their wake. Many men—and in some cases women—accused of piracy and privateering were in fact renowned for their advanced military strategy, their acute political awareness, and their ability to shape entire American and Caribbean narratives with the sharpened tips of their blades and the black smoke of their cannons. These sea thieves contributed greatly to how the early Atlantic world unfolded, and one of the undoubtable reasons as to why the hostile relationship between the European colonizers “An action between an English ship and vessels of the Barbary Corsairs” by Willem van de Velde de Jonge. 1633-1707. Wikipedia. Fair use.
