Pirates of the Caribbean is saga of movies inspired in the Disneyland’ s fairground ride, which also becam a saga of successful movies starred by Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, Penélope Cruz, Orlando Bloom…among others.
Piracy is joined to navigation, because since there is maritime commerce there have been people who have tried to steal the transported merchandise. Piracy has existed since Ancient Greece and Roman Empire, though it became a famous and despictable practice during XVIth and XVIIth centuries, after America´s discovery.
We can see several types of pirates: Buccaneers, corsairs and freebooters.
Freebooter came from Caribbean Sea, and they usually attacked near the shores.
Buccaneers were mainly french, they established themselves in La Española (Haiti and Dominican Republic) after spanish inhabitants left. They used to hunt pigs and cows to provide boats which sailed for the zone, but also for punishing spanish sailors who didn’ t pay taxes. They decided to emigrate Turtle Island for sacking from there, they were known for attacking both boats and cities.
Corsairs were those who had the authorisation of a country to attack boats from an enemy nation, obviously they shared arnings with the country which hired them. They were considered Knights and Pirates so, if they got arrested they became war prisoners. The most famous one was Francis Drake, he achieved to be named Sir by Queen Elizabeth from England.
Their favourite weapons were sabres, axes and muskets. But we are going to talk only about sabres, which were curved swords designed to cut or wound the enemy. Its shape gave speed to the combat because the weapon stabbed but it didn’t stay into the rival’ s body.
Sabres are thought to come from Asia, but thay have belonged to the european culture for ages. During the pirates times it was a very useful weapon, due to the necessity of fighting in reduced spaces like ships. If we compare them with infantry sabres, we will see that they have less curvature because pirates needed to defend theirselves blocking hits from the enemy.
Pirates could also have a hand to hand combat if they lose their sabres, that´s why they carried a hidden dagger with a blade of 30 cms, which was as dangerous as the sabre.
Those daggers had a right shape though with a curved point, to hurt the enemy really bad. Those two weapons combined turned them into incredibly hard to beat enemies, due to their handle and fierce in combat.
Piracy became so common thanks to the Papal Bull of Pope Alexander the IVth in the year 1493, which divided the land discovered by Christopher Columbus among only two countries, Spain and Portugal.
This decision wasn’t very well received by France and England, which after trying to convince Spain, of letting them a maritime way of commerce with America. They decided to encourage piracy to prevent Spain from getting all the wealth in America.
Among the notorius pirates of all times we can find: : Henry Morgan, Drake, Lorencillo, Blackbeard…
If we had to choose the best one, he should be (without any doubt) Sir Francis Drake, who setting sail in December 1577 with a fleet of five boats direction to Brazil, he achieved to sack the cities of Valparaíso, Coquimbo and Arica with only one ship left.
Spanish defenders thought that Drake would take the most logic route to come back to England, this was Magallanes Strait but he chose the hardest one, through Good Hope Cape. After that he started to be named as “The Hawk of the Seas”, he was also the second sailor in circumnavigating the Earth and obtained the title of Sir by Queen Elizabeth.
Piracy was practised until XVIth century, when Spanish Empire achieved to improve their fleet and shore fortifications, so, the most of pirates were dead or in prison.
Nowadays, piracy is still practised Almost every week in the Horn of Africa or in Singapur kidnappings and attacks take place. It has become a difficult soultion problem given that it happens in International Waters and a strong and global army is needed to put an end to it.
