The Somali Pirates

When a country has a fragile economy and an unprotected coastline (and seamen out of work), the result can be piracy--with the pirates sponsored by powerful leaders in the port cities. Nearly everyone in port will profit from the unregulated black-market profits. The pirates deliver cheap goods and money to the power elite and spend money (like drunken sailors?) in the local hotels, cafes, bars and bordellos. This is, more of less, the story of the Somali pirates, Blackbeard and Captain Kidd.

During the heyday of the Caribbean pirates (1660 to 1725), nearly all of them had close ties to top government officials on land, who, for a fee, commissioned them to plunder. Following the earlier example of Francis Drake, some pirates/privateers achieved knighthoods. The murderous Blackbeard, Edward Teach, was sponsored by Governor Charles Eden of His Majesty's Colony of North Carolina, who kept the "privateer" informed of attempts to capture him. Captain Kidd was the protege (even the creation) of Lord Bellomont, governor of Massachusetts.

My favorite sponsor, though, was Sir John Killigrew, vice admiral of the English navy and holder of Pendennis Castle in Cornwall. "Given his position in local affairs it was only natural that the crown would confer upon him the singular honor of leading the commission to catalog and capture pirates along the English coast. Sir John didn't have to look far: his son earned a living from the pirate trade, his grandfather had been a notorious old pirate in Suffolk, and his own mother was alleged once to have led a boarding party" (see: THE PIRATES PACT by Douglas Burgress, Jr., McGraw Hill).

Captured pirates were usually found innocent by juries made up the tradesmen who serviced the pirate fleets.

I have nothing good to say about pirates, but I do marvel at the misfortune of the single Somali pirate captured by a country that has had no share in his profits.