Caribbean Piracy

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Piracy in the Caribbean began in the 1560 and slowly started to stop in the 1830s. During 1640s until 1680s pirates were the most successful. Piracy in the caribbean came out of the interplay of larger national trends. The caribbean is a region that consists of the Caribbean Sea, islands and close by coasts. It is surrounded by Colombia, Jamaica, Venezuela and Mexico and is a large sea area. It was the centre of European trade and settlement from the late 15th Century.
A pirate are people or groups who attack ships to steal money or goods. Not only do they steal money and goods but to steal they would need to use violence. There is an act of violence on the high seas, this is all committed by the captain or crew of the ship and without authority from any government piracy is illegal. They would only work in seas, not land and they would operate in gangs to get on to passing ships. Pirates also kidnap people on ships and they would bribe (ransom) for their release. They are people who show no mercy to their victims and use violence to get what they want. …show more content…

These people were called privateers. Privateers were given an authorization letter from the government or a company to complete tasks such as getting slaves, objects or treasures from sea. This letter was called Marquee THAT WAS VAGUELY WORDED THAT ALLOWED PRIVERTEES TO DO AS THEY PLEASED. If there was a war between two governments they would use privateers to attack and destroy their ships on sea. They are different from pirates because they are assigned by the government to go to sea and accomplish tasks while pirates go out to sea to steal goods and money, causing this to be