Pirates of the Caribbean: How Seafaring Bandits Impacted the World

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Pirates of the Caribbean: How Seafaring Bandits Impacted the World By Tiss Zaitz Pirate: One who robs, plunders and engages in similar acts at sea, not under the jurisdiction of one nation, but for his own splendor and personal gain. This definition gives a simple description of the modern idea of piracy in all its glorified and romanticized hype. In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, however, describing piracy was a more complex task. Perspective played a large role in defining it; for one country’s pirate was another country’s freedom fighter. Other terminology complicates the attempt to define pirate, such as privateer, corsair and buccaneer, because they seem to share the same basic qualities but their origins and allegiances may vary. Whatever one calls them; however they are defined, the consequences of their actions were damaging and widespread. In this paper I will show the important role that pirates played in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, especially Sir Francis Drake and Captain Henry Morgan, and the impact they had throughout land and sea. In 1492 Christopher Columbus sailed for Spain into the Caribbean Sea and discovered a whole new world that would soon after prove to be full of wealth and wonder. Landing on the island of Hispañola, he found little of the wealth he sought in the Caribbean. Yet soon after, Spanish conquistadors like Fernando Cortés and Francisco Pizarro ventured onto the mainland and were elated to discover vast sources of gold, silver and other precious and valuable goods. Back in Spain, the Crown was eager to transport these goods to the Old World in exchange for merchandise and provisions that were needed in the New World. Ships carried gold and silver by the ton through the Caribbean and across the Atlantic into the port city of Cádiz, while others headed west carrying supplies for the new colonies.
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