Peace of Utrecht

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Utrecht

 

Peace (Treaty) of Utrecht

First edition of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht between Great Britain and Spain in Spanish (left) and a later edition in Latin and English.
Context	End of the War of the Spanish Succession
Signed	1713–1715
Location	Utrecht, Dutch Republic
Signatories	Louis XIV of France Philip V of Spain Anne of Great Britain Emperor Charles VI Frederick William I of Prussia John V of Portugal States General of the Dutch Republic Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia
Languages	Dutch English French German Latin Portuguese Spanish
Full text at Wikisource
Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht between Spain and Great Britain Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht between France and Great Britain

The Peace of Utrecht was a series of peace treaties signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession, in the Dutch city of Utrecht between April 1713 and February 1715. The war involved three contenders for the vacant throne of Spain, and involved much of Europe for over a decade. The main action saw France as the defender of Spain against a multinational coalition. The war was very expensive and bloody and finally stalemated. Essentially, the treaties allowed Philip V (grandson of King Louis XIV of France) to keep the Spanish throne in return for permanently renouncing his claim to the French throne, along with other necessary guarantees that would ensure that France and Spain should not merge, thus preserving the balance of power in Europe.

The treaties between several European states, including Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy and the Dutch Republic, helped end the war. The treaties were concluded between the representatives of Louis XIV of France and of his grandson Philip on one hand, and representatives of Queen Anne of Great Britain, King Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, King John V of Portugal and the United Provinces of the Netherlands on the other. Though the king of France ensured the Spanish crown for his dynasty, the treaties marked the end of French ambitions of hegemony in Europe expressed in the continuous wars of Louis XIV, and paved the way to the European system based on the balance of power. British historian G. M. Trevelyan argued that:

That Treaty, which ushered in the stable and characteristic period of Eighteenth-Century civilization, marked the end of danger to Europe from the old French monarchy, and it marked a change of no less significance to the world at large, — the maritime, commercial and financial supremacy of Great Britain.

Another enduring result was the creation of the Spanish Bourbon dynasty, which still reigns over Spain up to the present day whilst the French branch of the House of Bourbon has long since been dethroned.

Negotiations

Europe in 1701 at the beginning of the War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession was occasioned by the failure of the Habsburg king, Charles II of Spain, to produce an heir. Dispute followed the death of Charles II in 1700, and fourteen years of war were the result.

The pro-French Electorate of Bavaria was knocked out of the war early on by the Battle of Blenheim (13 August 1704), forcing it to sign the Treaty of Ilbesheim (7 November 1704) and accept Austrian occupation until the end of the war.

On 2 January 1710, king Louis XIV of France agreed to commence peace negotiations in Geertruidenberg [es].

France and Great Britain had come to terms in October 1711, when the preliminaries of peace had been signed in London. The preliminaries were based on a tacit acceptance of the partition of Spain's European possessions. Following this, the Congress of Utrecht opened on 29 January 1712, with the British representatives being John Robinson, Bishop of Bristol, and Thomas Wentworth, Lord Strafford. Reluctantly the United Provinces accepted the preliminaries and sent representatives, but Emperor Charles VI refused to do so until he was assured that the preliminaries were not binding. This assurance was given, and so in February the Imperial representatives made their appearance. As Philip was not yet recognized as its king, Spain did not at first send plenipotentiaries, but the Duke of Savoy sent one, and the Kingdom of Portugal was represented by Luís da Cunha. One of the first questions discussed was the nature of the guarantees to be given by France and Spain that their crowns would be kept separate, and little progress was made until 10 July 1712, when Philip signed a renunciation.

With Great Britain, France and Spain having agreed to a "suspension of arms" (armistice) covering Spain on 19 August in Paris, the pace of negotiation quickened. The first treaty signed at Utrecht was the truce between France and Portugal on 7 November, followed by the truce between France and Savoy on 14 March 1714. That same day, Spain, Great Britain, France and the Empire agreed to the evacuation of Catalonia and an armistice in Italy. The main treaties of peace followed on 11 April 1713. These were five separate treaties between France and Great Britain, the Netherlands, Savoy, Prussia and Portugal. Spain under Philip V signed separate peace treaties with Savoy and Great Britain at Utrecht on 13 July. Negotiations at Utrecht dragged on into the next year, for the peace treaty between Spain and the Netherlands was only signed on 26 June 1714 and that between Spain and Portugal on 6 February 1715.

Several other treaties came out of the congress of Utrecht. France signed treaties of commerce and navigation with Great Britain and the Netherlands (11 April 1713). Great Britain signed a like treaty with Spain (9 December 1713).

Treaties

Participants in the War of the Spanish Succession in 1703.

  Grand Alliance

  France and allies

  Neutral states

 

Peace and friendship treaties of Utrecht and elsewhere
Date (New Style / (Old Style))	Treaty name	Anti-French side	French side	Texts
14 March 1713	Convention for the Evacuation of Catalonia and the Armistice in Italy (Utrecht)	Holy Roman Empire Great Britain	France Bourbon Spain	Spanish, French/German
11 April 1713 (31 March 1713)	Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht	Great Britain	France	English, French/German
11 April 1713	Peace Treaty of Utrecht	Dutch Republic	France	Dutch, French, French/German
11 April 1713	Peace Treaty of Utrecht	Portugal	France	French/German,French (Art. 8)
11 April 1713	Peace Treaty of Utrecht	Prussia	France	French/German
11 April 1713	Peace Treaty of Utrecht	Savoy	France	French/German
13 July 1713 (2 July 1713)	Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht	Great Britain	Bourbon Spain	English, Spanish, Spanish/Latin/English, French/German
13 July 1713	Peace, Alliance and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht	Savoy	Bourbon Spain	Spanish, Spanish/German
6 March 1714	Peace Treaty of Rastatt	Habsburg Austria	France	French/German
26 June 1714	Adjusted Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht	Dutch Republic	Bourbon Spain	Spanish
7 September 1714	Peace Treaty of Baden	Holy Roman Empire	France	Latin/German
6 February 1715	Adjusted Peace and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht	Portugal	Bourbon Spain	Portuguese, Spanish

Navigation, commerce and other treaties of Utrecht and elsewhere
Date (New Style / (Old Style))	Treaty name	Side	Side	Texts
30 January 1713 (19 January 1713)	Second Barrier Treaty (Utrecht)	Dutch Republic	Great Britain	Latin
2 April 1713	Guelders Treaty of Utrecht	Holy Roman Empire	Prussia	German (p. 91–96)
11 April 1713	Navigation and Commerce Treaty of Utrecht	Dutch Republic	France	French/German
11 April 1713 (31 March 1713)	Navigation and Commerce Treaty of Utrecht	France	Great Britain	French/German
13 July 1713	Preliminary Commerce Treaty of Madrid	Bourbon Spain	Great Britain	Spanish
9 December 1713 (28 November 1713)	Adjusted Commerce and Friendship Treaty of Utrecht	Bourbon Spain	Great Britain	Spanish, Latin/German
15 November 1715	Third Barrier Treaty (Antwerp)	Dutch Republic Great Britain	Holy Roman Empire	French/German
14 December 1715	Explanatory Peace and Commerce Treaty of Madrid	Bourbon Spain	Great Britain	Spanish

Principal provisions

Western Europe in 1714, after the Treaties of Utrecht and Rastatt

The Peace confirmed the Bourbon candidate as Philip V of Spain to remain as king. In return, Philip renounced the French throne, both for himself and his descendants, with reciprocal renunciations by French Bourbons to the Spanish throne, including Louis XIV's nephew Philippe of Orléans. These became increasingly important after a series of deaths between 1712 and 1714 left the five year old Louis XV as his great-grandfather's heir.

Great Britain was the main beneficiary; Utrecht marked the point at which it became the primary European commercial power. In Article X, Spain ceded the strategic ports of Gibraltar and Minorca.

In a major coup for the British delegation, the British government emerged from the treaty with the Asiento de Negros, which referred to the monopoly contract granted by the Spanish government to other European nations to supply slaves to Spain's colonies in the Americas. The Asiento de Negros had come about due to the fact that the Spanish Empire rarely engaged in the transatlantic slave trade itself, preferring to outsource this to foreign merchants. Bourbon France had previously held the Asiento de Negros, allowing French slave traders to supply 5,000 slaves to the Spanish Empire each year; France had gained control over this contract after Philip V had become King of Spain. After the British government gained access to the Asiento de Negros, the economic prominence held by Dutch Sephardic Jewish slaveowners began to fade, while the South Sea Company was established in hopes of gaining exclusive access to the contract. The British government sought to reduce its debt by increasing the volume of trade it had with Spain, which required gaining access to the Asiento de Negros; as historian G.M. Trevelyan noted: "The finances of the country were based in May 1711 on the assumption that the Asiento, or monopoly of the slave trade with Spanish America, would be wrested from France as an integral part of the terms of peace". Following the passage of the treaty, the British government gained a thirty-year access to the Asiento de Negros.

The importance placed by British negotiators on commercial interests was demonstrated by their demand for France to "level the fortifications of Dunkirk, block up the port and demolish the sluices that scour the harbour, [which] shall never be reconstructed". This was because Dunkirk was the primary base for French privateers, as it was possible to reach the North Sea in a single tide and escape British patrols in the English Channel. This ultimately proved unenforceable.

North America c. 1750; some French forts listed here were not built until thirty years after 1713.

Under Article XIII, Spain agreed to a British demand to preserve Catalan historical rights, in return for Catalan support for the Allies during the war. Spanish territories in Italy and Flanders were divided, with Savoy receiving Sicily and parts of the Duchy of Milan. The former Spanish Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, Sardinia, and the bulk of the Duchy of Milan went to Emperor Charles VI. In South America, Spain returned Colónia do Sacramento in modern Uruguay to Portugal and recognised Portuguese sovereignty over the lands between the Amazon and Oyapock rivers, now in Brazil.

In North America, France recognised British suzerainty over the Iroquois, and ceded Nova Scotia and its claims to Newfoundland and territories in Rupert's Land. The French portion of Saint Kitts in the West Indies was also ceded in its entirety to Britain. France retained its other pre-war North American possessions, including Cape Breton Island, where it built the Fortress of Louisbourg, then the most expensive military installation in North America.

The successful French Rhineland campaign of 1713 finally induced Charles to sign the 1714 treaties of Rastatt and Baden, although terms were not agreed with Spain until the 1720 Treaty of The Hague.

Responses to the treaties

North America in 1760, immediately before the Treaty of Paris. Note that New England was at this time depicted as bordering the St. Lawrence River, that the Province of New York occupied the geographic area of Upper Canada or Ontario, that Pennsylvania occupied much of the region to the south of Lake Erie and that Nova Scotia had not yet been divided by New Brunswick.

The treaty's territorial provisions did not go as far as the Whigs in Britain would have liked, considering that the French had made overtures for peace in 1706 and again in 1709. The Whigs considered themselves the heirs of the staunch anti-French policies of William III and the Duke of Marlborough. The now Whigs were now a minority in the house, but still pushing their anti-peace agenda. The whigs opposed peace every step of the way. The Whigs even called the treaty a sellout for letting the duke of Anjou stay on the Spanish throne. However, in the Parliament of 1710 the Tories had gained control of the House of Commons, and they wished for an end to Great Britain's participation in a European war. Queen Anne and her advisors had also come to agree.

The party in the administration of Robert Harley (created Earl of Oxford and Mortimer on 23 May 1711) and the Viscount Bolingbroke proved more flexible at the bargaining table and were characterized by the Whigs as "pro-French"; Oxford and Bolingbroke persuaded the Queen to create twelve new "Tory peers" to ensure ratification of the treaty in the House of Lords. The opponents of the treaty tried to rally support under the slogan of No Peace Without Spain.

Although the fate of the Spanish Netherlands in particular was of interest to the United Provinces, Dutch influence on the outcome of the negotiations was fairly insignificant, even though the talks were held on their territory. The French negotiator Melchior de Polignac taunted the Dutch with the scathing remark de vous, chez vous, sans vous, meaning that negotiations would be held "about you, around you, without you". The fact that Bolingbroke had secretly ordered the British commander, the Duke of Ormonde, to withdraw from the Allied forces before the Battle of Denain (informing the French but not the Allies), and the fact that they secretly arrived at separate peace with France was a fait accompli, made the objections of the Allies pointless. In any case, the Dutch achieved their condominium in the Austrian Netherlands with the Austro-Dutch Barrier Treaty of 1715.

Aftermath

Main article: Balance of power (international relations)

 

Allegory of the Peace of Utrecht by Antoine Rivalz

The Treaty stipulated that "because of the great danger which threatened the liberty and safety of all Europe, from the too close conjunction of the kingdoms of Spain and France, ... one and the same person should never become King of both kingdoms". Some historians argue this makes it a significant milestone in the evolution of the modern nation state and concept of a balance of power.

First mentioned in 1701 by Charles Davenant in his Essays on the Balance of Power, it was widely publicised in Britain by author and Tory satirist Daniel Defoe in his 1709 article A Review of the Affairs of France. The idea was reflected in the wording of the treaties and resurfaced after the defeat of Napoleon in the 1815 Concert of Europe that dominated Europe in the 19th century.

For the individual signatories, Britain established naval superiority over its competitors, commercial access to Spain and America, and control of Menorca and Gibraltar; it retains the latter territory to this day. France accepted the Protestant succession on the British throne, ensuring a smooth transition when Anne died in August 1714, and ended its support for the Stuarts under the 1716 Anglo-French Treaty. While the war left all participants with unprecedented levels of government debt, only Great Britain successfully financed it.

Ensuring the succession of Maria Theresa reduced Austria's gains from the war, and ultimately led to the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740

Spain retained the majority of its Empire and recovered remarkably quickly; the recapture of Naples and Sicily in 1718 was only prevented by British naval power and a second attempt was successful in 1734. The 1707, 1715 and 1716 Nueva Planta decrees abolished regional political structures in the kingdoms of Aragon, Valencia, Majorca and the Principality of Catalonia, although Catalonia and Aragon retained some of these rights until 1767.

Despite failure in Spain, Austria secured its position in Italy and Hungary, allowing it to continue expansion into areas of South-East Europe previously held by the Ottoman Empire. Even after paying expenses associated with the Dutch Barrier, increased tax revenues from the Austrian Netherlands funded a significant upgrade of the Austrian military. However, these gains were diminished by various factors, chiefly the disruption of the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713 caused by Charles disinheriting his nieces in favour of his daughter Maria Theresa.

Attempts to ensure its succession involved Austria in wars of little strategic value; much of the fighting in the 1733–1735 War of the Polish Succession taking place in its maritime provinces in Italy. Austria had traditionally relied on naval support from the Dutch, whose own capability had been severely degraded; Britain prevented the loss of Sicily and Naples in 1718 but refused to do so again in 1734. The dispute continued to loosen Habsburg control over the Empire; Bavaria, Hanover, Prussia and Saxony increasingly acted as independent powers and in 1742, Charles of Bavaria became the first non-Habsburg Emperor in over 300 years.

The Dutch Republic ended the war effectively bankrupt, while the damage suffered by the Dutch merchant navy permanently affected their commercial and political strength and it was superseded by Britain as the pre-eminent European mercantile power. The acquisition of the Barrier Fortresses however became an important asset of Dutch foreign policy and enlarged their sphere of influence. Although judged favourably by contemporaries, it was later argued that the barrier proved to be largely illusory when put to the test during the War of Austrian Succession. The Dutch had in any case successfully defended their positions in the Southern Netherlands and their troops were central in the alliance which halted French territorial expansion in Europe until a new cycle began in 1792.

While the final settlement at Utrecht was far more favourable to France than the Allied offer of 1709 had been, it gained little that had not already been achieved through diplomacy by February 1701. Though France remained a great power, concern at its relative decline in military and economic terms compared to Britain was an underlying cause of the War of the Austrian Succession in 1740.

Wars of national liberation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wars_of_national_liberation 

Flag of Mozambique; independent from Portugal since 1975, after the Carnation Revolution in Lisbon, with the Kalashnikov as symbol of the armed struggle against the Portuguese empire, the book as symbol of instruction and a farming implement as symbol of economic growth.

Wars of national liberation, also called wars of independence, are conflicts fought by nations to gain independence. The term is used in conjunction with wars against foreign powers (or at least those perceived as foreign) to establish separate sovereign states for the rebelling nationality. From a different point of view, such wars are called insurgencies, rebellions. Guerrilla warfare or asymmetric warfare is often utilized by groups labeled as national liberation movements, often with support from other states.

The term "wars of national liberation" is most commonly used for those fought during the decolonization movement. Since these were primarily in the third world against Western powers and their economic influence and a major aspect of the Cold War, the phrase itself has often been viewed as biased or pejorative. Some of these wars were either vocally or materially supported by the Soviet Union, which stated itself to be an anti-imperialist power, supporting the replacement of western-backed governments with local communist or other non pro-western parties. However, this did not always guarantee Soviet influence in those countries. In addition to and increasingly in competition to the Soviet Union, the People's Republic of China presented themselves as models of independent nationalist development outside of Western influence, particularly as such posturing and other longterm hostility meant they were regarded as a threat to Western power and regarded themselves as such, using their resources to politically, economically and militarily assist movements such as in Vietnam. In January 1961 Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev pledged support for "wars of national liberation" throughout the world.

When the nation is defined in ethnic terms, wars fought to liberate it have often entailed ethnic cleansing or genocide in order to rid the claimed territory of other population groups.

Legal issues

International law generally holds that a people with a legal right to self-determination are entitled to wage wars of national liberation. While Western states tend to view these wars as civil wars, Third World and communist states tend to view them as international wars. This difference in classification leads to varying perceptions of which laws of war apply in such situations. However, there is general agreement among all states today in principle that the use of force to frustrate a people's legal right to self-determination is unlawful.

Strategies and tactics

Wars of national liberation are usually fought using guerrilla warfare. The main purpose of these tactics is to increase the cost of the anti-guerrilla forces past the point where such forces are willing to bear. Wars of national liberation generally depend on widespread public support, with ordinary civilians providing crucial support. Finally, wars of national liberation are often embedded in a larger context of great power politics and are often proxy wars.

These strategies explain why they are quite successful against foreign regimes and quite unsuccessful against indigenous regimes. Foreign regimes usually have a threshold beyond which they would prefer to go home rather than to fight the war. By contrast, an indigenous regime has no place to which they can retreat, and will fight much harder because of the lack of alternatives. Moreover, foreign regimes usually have fewer active supporters in the theater, and those that exist can often be easily identified, making it possible for guerrilla armies to identify their targets. By contrast, indigenous regimes often have much more popular support, and their supporters are often not easily recognized as such, making it much harder to conduct operations against them without also causing harm to neutral parties.

History

Decolonization period

Further information: Decolonization and Colonialism

The Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) can be considered to be one of the first wars of national liberation. It pitted self-liberated slaves against Imperial France, coming about during a period in history where interconnected movements such as the American and French Revolutions had caused a rise of national consciousness in the Atlantic world. At the same time during the Spanish American wars of independence (1808-1833), the patriots launched a series of complex wars of independence against the royalists, which resulted in the formation of new Latin American states. The Siege of Patras (1821) led to the Greek War of Independence, ending Ottoman domination in the establishment of the Kingdom of Greece. The Easter Rising (1916) in Dublin eventually led to the Irish War of Independence (1919-1921), ending in the establishment of the Irish Free State. In the aftermath of World War I and the 1917 Russian Revolution the Bolsheviks unsuccessfully fought a number of independence movements until Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and Poland gained independence. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, the Turkish National Movement fought a series of campaigns in the war of independence (1919-1922), which resulted in the subsequent withdrawal of Allied forces and establishment of the Republic of Turkey. The Indonesian War of Independence (1945-1949) followed with the Liberation of Irian Jaya (1960-1962), the First Indochina War (1946–54), Vietnam War (1959–75), Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) and the Algerian War (1954–62) were all considered national liberation wars by the rebelling sides of the conflicts. The African National Congress (ANC)'s struggle against the apartheid regime is also another example. Most of these rebellions were in part supported by the Soviet Union, which was an anti-imperialist power. Since the 1917 October Revolution and the subsequent Russian Civil War, the revolutionary objectives of communism were shared by many anticolonialist leaders, thus explaining the objective alliance between anticolonialist forces and Marxism. The concept of "imperialism" itself had been which had theorized in Lenin's 1916 book, Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism. For example, Ho Chi Minh — who founded the Viet-Minh in 1941 and declared the independence of Vietnam on September 2, 1945, following the 1945 August Revolution — was a founding member of the French Communist Party (PCF) in 1921. In January 1961, over three years before the Gulf of Tonkin incident which would mark the United States government's increased involvement in the Vietnam War, Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev would pledge support for "wars of national liberation" throughout the world. In the same decade, Cuba, led by Fidel Castro, would support national liberation movements in Angola and Mozambique. The Portuguese colonial wars finally led to the recognition of Angola, Mozambique and Guinea-Bissau as independent states in 1975, following the April Carnation Revolution. The breakup of Yugoslavia led to fewer wars of independence in part of the Yugoslav Wars, including the Ten-Day War and the Croatian War of Independence.

Ongoing wars defined as national liberation conflicts

The Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) is a national liberation movement, meaning that it holds official recognition of its legal status as such. Other national liberation movements in the OAU at that time included the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress of Azania (PAC). It is the only non-African national liberation movement to hold observer status in the OAU, and was one of the first national liberation movements granted permanent observer status by the United Nations General Assembly pursuant to a 1974 resolution. The PLO also participates in UN Security Council debates; since 1988, it has represented the Palestinian people at the UN under the name "Palestine".

The following current conflicts have sometimes also been characterized as wars or struggles of national liberation (such a designation is often subject to controversy):

• Many Chechens and foreign observers consider the First and Second Chechen Wars to be wars of national liberation against Russia.
• Some Iraqi insurgent groups, and certain political groups believe that the Iraq War was a war of national liberation against the US-led coalition.
• Many Kurds believe the Kurdish–Turkish conflict to be a war of national liberation of Kurdish people in Turkey.
• The Polisario Front has sought the independence of Western Sahara since 1975 and considered its guerrilla war against Morocco as national liberation war (like many foreign observers, countries and the African Union), while Morocco considered it a secessionist movement. Polisario had been recognized by many countries, the African Union and the United Nations as the legitimate representative of the Sahrawi people. The hostilities are frozen since the 1991 cease-fire following the settlement plan agreement.
• The Chiapas conflict by the Zapatista Army of National Liberation against Mexico has been considered a national liberation movement.

Conflicts

Estonian artillery preparing for a battle during the 1918–1920 Estonian War of Independence

Conflicts which have been described as national liberation struggles:

• The Swedish War of Liberation (1521–23)
• The Eighty Years' War
• The Khmelnytsky Uprising
• The American Revolutionary War
• The Irish Rebellion of 1798
• The Irish Rebellion of 1803
• The Peninsular War against Napoleon's occupation of Spain and Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars
• The Haitian Revolution
• The German Wars of Liberation against Napoleon's occupation of German lands during the Napoleonic Wars
• The Spanish American wars of independence
• The Greek War of Independence (1821)
• The Serbian Revolution
• The Serbian–Turkish Wars (1876–1878)
• Explicit wars of decolonization:
  • The Philippine Revolution
  • The August Revolution, Vietminh against Japanese invasion of Vietnam
  • The First Indochina War, Vietminh against French occupation of Vietnam
  • The Indonesian National Revolution
  • The Tamil resistance to Sri Lankan colonization in Tamil-speaking territories and discrimination against the Tamil people.
  • The Zionist armed insurrection in the Palestine Mandate, involving the Lehi and Irgun, and later the Haganah. Also the Israeli Independence War against various Arab states.
  • The Madagascar revolt against the French in 1947
  • The Algerian War against France (1954–1962).
  • In Angola (People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), National Liberation Front of Angola (FNLA), National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA)), Mozambique (FRELIMO), Guinea-Bissau (PAIGC, FLING), and Cape Verde (PAIGC) against Portugal
  • In Cameroon, by the UPC against France
  • In South Yemen by the National Liberation Front (NLF) and the Front for the Liberation of Occupied South Yemen (FLOSY)
  • The Mau Mau Rebellion
  • The Rhodesian Bush War in white-ruled Rhodesia (Zimbabwe), led by ZANU and ZAPU
  • In Western Sahara, by the Moroccan Army of Liberation against Spain & France, and by the Polisario Front against Morocco & Mauritania occupation.
  • In Namibia, by the South West Africa People's Organization (SWAPO) and SWANU against apartheid South Africa
  • The Dhofar Rebellion in Muscat and Oman
  • The Dervish War in Somalia
  • The Brunei Revolt
• The Turkish War of Independence
• The National Liberation War of Yugoslavia within World War II, by the Yugoslav Partisans (National Liberation Army) against Axis occupators and their collaborators
• In China, the Chinese Civil War (1945–1949).
• The Vietnam War, with the Vietcong in South Vietnam against the military forces of South Vietnam and the United States.
• The Eritrean War of Independence against Ethiopia
• The Bangladesh Liberation War against West Pakistan.
• In Afghanistan, against the occupying Soviet Army.
• In Ireland, the Irish War of Independence and The Troubles in Northern Ireland; also, the Provisional IRA insurgency against the United Kingdom, aimed at creating a socialist republic within a united Ireland, from 1969 until 1998.
• In Cambodia, against the occupying Vietnamese Army and People's Republic of Kampuchea.
• The Ogaden War of 1977 against Ethiopia
• In Nicaragua, by Augusto Sandino's forces against the occupying U.S. Marines.
• In Chad, by FROLINAT against the Tombalbaye dictatorship
• In South Africa, against apartheid by Umkhonto we Sizwe and Poqo.
• The First and Second Chechen Wars, by the Chechen peoples against Russia
• In Bougainville, by the Bougainville Revolutionary Army against Papua New Guinea

Golden Age of Piracy

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Piracy 

 

Golden Age of Piracy
1650s–1730s
A 1920 painting of Blackbeard's final battle against Robert Maynard in 1718
Location	North Atlantic Indian Ocean Pacific Ocean

The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation for the period between the 1650s and the 1730s, when maritime piracy was a significant factor in the histories of the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

Histories of piracy often subdivide the Golden Age of Piracy into three periods:

1. The buccaneering period (approximately 1650 to 1680), characterized by Anglo-French seamen based in Jamaica and Tortuga attacking Spanish colonies, and shipping in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific.
2. The Pirate Round (1690s), associated with long-distance voyages from the Americas to rob Muslim and East India Company targets in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.
3. The post-Spanish Succession period (1715 to 1726), when Anglo-American sailors and privateers left unemployed by the end of the War of the Spanish Succession turned en masse to piracy in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, the North American eastern seaboard, and the West African coast.

Narrower definitions of the Golden Age sometimes exclude the first or second periods, but most include at least some portion of the third. The modern conception of pirates as depicted in popular culture is derived largely, although not always accurately, from the Golden Age of Piracy.

Factors contributing to piracy during the Golden Age included the rise in quantities of valuable cargoes being shipped to Europe over vast ocean areas, reduced European navies in certain regions, the training and experience that many sailors had gained in European navies (particularly the British Royal Navy), and corrupt and ineffective government in European overseas colonies. Colonial powers at the time constantly fought with pirates and engaged in several notable battles and other related events.

Name of the Golden Age

Origin

Amaro Pargo, one of the most famous corsairs of the Golden Age of Piracy

The oldest known literary mention of a "Golden Age" of piracy is from 1894, when the English journalist George Powell wrote about "What appears to have been the golden age of piracy up to the last decade of the 17th century." Powell uses the phrase while reviewing Charles Leslie's A New and Exact History of Jamaica, then over 150 years old. Powell uses the phrase only once.

In 1897, a more systematic use of the phrase "Golden Age of Piracy" was introduced by historian John Fiske, who wrote, "At no other time in the world's history has the business of piracy thriven so greatly as in the seventeenth century and the first part of the eighteenth. Its golden age may be said to have extended from about 1650 to about 1720." Fiske included the activities of the Barbary corsairs and East Asian pirates in this "Golden Age," noting that "as these Mussulman pirates and those of Eastern Asia were as busily at work in the seventeenth century as at any other time, their case does not impair my statement that the age of the buccaneers was the Golden Age of piracy."

Pirate historians of the first half of the 20th century occasionally adopted Fiske's term "Golden Age," without necessarily following his beginning and ending dates for it. The most expansive definition of an age of piracy was that of Patrick Pringle, who wrote in 1951 that "the most flourishing era in the history of piracy ... began in the reign of Queen Elizabeth I and ended in the second decade of the eighteenth century." This idea starkly contradicted Fiske, who had hotly denied that such Elizabethan figures as Drake were pirates.

Trend toward narrow definitions

Of recent definitions, that given by Pringle appears to have the widest range, an exception to an overall trend among historians from 1909 until the 1990s, toward narrowing the Golden Age. As early as 1924, Philip Gosse described piracy as being at its height "from 1680 until 1730." In his highly popular 1978 book The Pirates for TimeLife's The Seafarers series, Douglas Botting defined the Golden Age as lasting "barely 30 years, starting at the close of the 17th Century and ending in the first quarter of the 18th." Botting's definition was closely followed by Frank Sherry in 1986. In a 1989 academic article, Professor Marcus Rediker defined the Golden Age as lasting only from 1716 to 1726. Angus Konstam in 1998, reckoned the era as lasting from 1700 until 1730.

Perhaps the ultimate step in restricting the Golden Age was in Konstam's 2005 The History of Pirates, in which he retreated from his own earlier definition, called a 1690–1730 definition of the Golden Age "generous," and concluded that "The worst of these pirate excesses was limited to an eight-year period, from 1714 until 1722, so the true Golden Age cannot even be called a 'golden decade.'"

Recent countertrend toward broader meaning

David Cordingly, in his influential 1994 work Under the Black Flag, defined the "great age of piracy" as lasting from the 1650s to around 1725, very close to Fiske's definition of the Golden Age.

Rediker, in 2004, described the most complex definition of the Golden Age to date. He proposes a "golden age of piracy, which spanned the period from roughly 1650 to 1730," which he subdivides into three distinct "generations": the buccaneers of 1650–1680, the Indian Ocean pirates of the 1690s, and the pirates of the years 1716–1726.

Martin Mares, drawing on both Cordingly and Rediker, took their arguments about the periodization of the Golden Age of Piracy even further in his seminal work The British Contribution to the Development of Piracy in the Golden Age of Piracy, proposing that the longer periodization can be also understood as an uninterrupted and continuous process with its points of peaks and regressions. Besides, Mares argued that such interpretation allows us to fully understand how the golden age of piracy helped the British to develop the understanding of their imperial policy as one single domain with interconnected interests rather than separate Western and Eastern spheres of influence. This argument was later reinforced from the economical perspective by Nicolás Rodríguez Arosemena. Arosemena, using the analysis of Jamaica's development from the work of Martin Mares, proposes that empirical data collected by Mares has wider implications–most notably – legal ones such as the recognition of ius cogens even before the Industrial Revolution in terms of unfair enrichment, since "it is perfectly possible to have islands of prosperity within a sea of misery. And of course, if we just sample the islands, the world will look like a paradise."

History

Main article: Piracy in the Caribbean

Piracy arose out of, and mirrored on a smaller scale, conflicts over trade and colonization among the rival European powers of the time, including the empires of Britain, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, and France. Most pirates in this era were of Welsh, English, Dutch, Irish, and French origin. Many pirates came from poorer urban areas in search of a way to make money and reprieve. London in particular was known for high unemployment, crowding, and poverty which drove people to piracy. Piracy also offered power and quick riches.

Buccaneering period, c. 1650–1710

Main article: Buccaneer

Historians such as John Fiske mark the beginning of the Golden Age of Piracy at around 1650, when the end of the Wars of Religion allowed European countries to resume the development of their colonial empires. This involved considerable seaborne trade and a general economic improvement: there was money to be made – or stolen – and much of it traveled by ship.

French buccaneers had established themselves on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, but lived at first mostly as hunters of pigs and cattle rather than robbers; their transition to full-time piracy was gradual and motivated in part by Spanish efforts to wipe out both the buccaneers and the prey animals on which they depended. The buccaneers' migration from Hispaniola's mainland to the more defensible offshore island of Tortuga limited their resources and accelerated their piratical raids. According to Alexandre Exquemelin, a buccaneer and historian who remains a major source on this period, the Tortuga buccaneer Pierre Le Grand pioneered the settlers' attacks on galleons making the return voyage to Spain.

The growth of buccaneering on Tortuga was augmented by the English capture of Jamaica from Spain in 1655. The early English governors of Jamaica freely granted letters of marque to Tortuga buccaneers and to their own countrymen, while the growth of Port Royal provided these raiders with a far more profitable and enjoyable place to sell their booty. In the 1660s, the new French governor of Tortuga, Bertrand d'Ogeron, similarly provided privateering commissions both to his own colonists and to English cutthroats from Port Royal. These conditions brought Caribbean buccaneering to its zenith.

Pirate Round, c. 1693–1700

Main article: Pirate Round

 

Henry Every is shown selling his loot in this engraving by Howard Pyle. Every's capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695 stands as one of the most profitable pirate raids ever perpetrated.

A number of factors caused Anglo-American pirates, some of whom had been introduced to piracy during the buccaneering period, to look beyond the Caribbean for treasure as the 1690s began. The end of Britain's Stuart period had restored the traditional enmity between Britain and France, thus ending the profitable collaboration between English Jamaica and French Tortuga. The devastation of Port Royal by an earthquake in 1692 further reduced the Caribbean's attractions by destroying the pirates' chief market for fenced plunder. Caribbean colonial governors began to discard the traditional policy of "no peace beyond the Line," under which it was understood that war would continue (and thus letters of marque would be granted) in the Caribbean regardless of peace treaties signed in Europe; henceforth, commissions would be granted only in wartime, and their limitations would be strictly enforced. Furthermore, much of the Spanish Main had simply been exhausted; Maracaibo alone had been sacked three times between 1667 and 1678, while Río de la Hacha had been raided five times and Tolú eight.

At the same time, England's less-favored colonies, including Bermuda, New York, and Rhode Island, had become cash-starved by the Navigation Acts. Merchants and governors eager for coin were willing to overlook and even underwrite pirate voyages; one colonial official defended a pirate because he thought it "very harsh to hang people that brings in gold to these provinces." Although some of these pirates operating out of New England and the Middle Colonies targeted Spain's more remote Pacific coast colonies well into the 1690s and beyond, the Indian Ocean was a richer and more tempting target. India's economic output dwarfed Europe's during this time, especially in high-value luxury goods such as silk and calico, which made ideal pirate booty; at the same time, no powerful navies plied the Indian Ocean, leaving both local shipping and the various East India companies' vessels vulnerable to attack. This set the stage for the famous piracies of Thomas Tew, Henry Every, Robert Culliford, and (although his guilt remains controversial) William Kidd.

Post–Spanish Succession period, c. 1715–1726

In 1713 and 1714, a series of peace treaties ended the War of the Spanish Succession. As a result, thousands of seamen, including European privateers who had operated in the West Indies, were relieved of military duty, at a time when cross-Atlantic colonial shipping trade was beginning to boom. In addition, European sailors who had been pushed by unemployment to work onboard merchantmen (including slave ships) were often enthusiastic to abandon that profession and turn to pirating, giving pirate captains a steady pool of recruits on various coasts across the Atlantic.

In 1715, pirates launched a major raid on Spanish divers trying to recover gold from the sunken treasure galleon Urca de Lima near Florida. The nucleus of the pirate force was a group of English ex-privateers, all of whom were soon be enshrined in infamy: Henry Jennings, Charles Vane, Samuel Bellamy of Whydah Gally fame, Benjamin Hornigold, and Edward England. The attack was successful, but contrary to their expectations, the governor of Jamaica refused to allow Jennings and his cohorts to spend their loot on his island. With Kingston and the declining Port Royal closed to them, Hornigold, Jennings, and their comrades based themselves at Nassau, on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas. Nassau was home for these pirates and their many recruits until the arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers in 1718, which signalled the end of the Republic of Pirates. Rogers and other British governors had the authority to pardon pirates under the King's Act of Grace: while Hornigold accepted this pardon to become a privateer, others such as Blackbeard returned to piracy following their pardon.

Transatlantic shipping traffic between Africa, the Caribbean, and Europe began to soar in the 18th century, a model known as the triangular trade, and became a rich target for piracy. Trade ships sailed from Europe to the African coast, trading manufactured goods and weapons for slaves. The traders then sailed to the Caribbean to sell the slaves, and return to Europe with goods such as sugar, tobacco, and cocoa. In another triangular trade route, ships carried raw materials, preserved cod, and rum to Europe, where a portion of the cargo was sold for manufactured goods, which (along with the remainder of the original load) were then transported to the Caribbean, where they were exchanged for sugar and molasses, which (with some manufactured articles) were then borne to New England. Ships in the Triangular Trade often made money at each stop.

As part of the settlement of the War of the Spanish Succession, the British South Sea Company obtained the asiento, a Spanish government contract to supply slaves to Spain's New World colonies, which provided British traders and smugglers more access to formerly closed Spanish markets in America. This arrangement also contributed heavily to the spread of piracy across the western Atlantic. Shipping to the colonies boomed along with the flood of skilled mariners after the war. Merchant shippers used the surplus of labor to drive wages down, cut corners to maximize profits, and create unsavory conditions aboard their vessels. Merchant sailors suffered from mortality rates as high or higher than the slaves being transported. Living conditions were so poor that many sailors began to prefer a freer existence as pirates. The increased volume of shipping traffic also could sustain a large body of brigands preying upon it.

During this time, many of the pirates had originally been either sailors for the Royal Navy, privateersmen, or merchant seamen. Most pirates had experience living on the sea, and knew how harsh the conditions could be. Sailors for the king often had very little to eat while out on the sea, and ended up sick, starving, and dying. That resulted in some sailors deserting the king and becoming pirates instead. This also allowed for pirates to better fight the navy. Unlike other seamen, pirates had strict rules for how they were to be treated on the ship. Contrary to popular belief, pirate captains did not have a dictatorship over the rest of the pirates on their ship. Captains had to be voted in, and there were strict rules for them to follow as well. The captain was not treated better (with more food, better living conditions, etc.) than the other members of the crew, and was expected to treat the crew with respect. This was in deliberate contrast to merchant captains, who often treated their crews terribly. Many pirates had formerly served on these merchant ships and knew how horrid some captains could be. Because of this, ships often implemented councils composed of all of the crew members on the ship. Some councils were used daily to make ordinary decisions, while others were used as a court system only when criminal incidents or legal matters necessitated it. Whatever the case, crewmembers on pirate vessels often had as much power as the captain outside of battle. The captain only had full authority in times of battle and could be removed from this position if he showed cowardice in the face of the enemy. He was also to be bold in battle. The pirates did not want things to end up the same way as on a navy ship.

Return of the Pirate Round

Between the years 1719 and 1721, Edward England, John Taylor, Olivier Levasseur, and Christopher Condent operated from Madagascar. Taylor and Levasseur reaped the greatest prize in the history of the Golden Age of Piracy, the plunder of the Portuguese East Indiaman Nossa Senhora Do Cabo at Réunion in 1721, stealing diamonds and other treasures worth a total of £800,000.

Condent was also a successful pirate, but England was not. He was marooned on Comoros by Taylor and Levasseur in 1721, and died not long afterward. Despite the success of Taylor and Levasseur, the Pirate Round quickly declined again. Edward Teach, the notorious "Blackbeard", died in battle in a fight with Lieutenant Robert Maynard's navy ship. He was allegedly stabbed twenty times and shot five times before death.

Pirates of the era

Blackbeard's severed head hanging from Maynard's bowsprit

Many of the best-known pirates in historical lore originate from this Golden Age of Piracy:

• "Black Sam" Bellamy, captain of the Whydah Gally, was lost in a storm off Cape Cod in 1717. Bellamy was popularly known as the "Robin Hood of pirates" and prided himself on his ideological justifications for piracy.
• Stede Bonnet, a rich Barbadian land owner turned pirate solely in search of adventure. Bonnet captained a 10-gun sloop named the Revenge and raided ships off the Virginia coast in 1717. He was caught and hanged in 1718.
• Henry Every, one of the few major pirate captains to retire with his loot without being arrested nor killed in battle. He is famous for capturing the fabulously wealthy Mogul ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695.
• Olivier Levasseur, aka La Buse, the only major French pirate in Nassau who was often associated with Hornigold, Bellamy, Kennedy, and Taylor.
• William Fly, whose execution in 1726 is used by historian Marcus Rediker to mark the end of the Golden Age of Pirates.
• William "Captain" Kidd, executed for piracy at Execution Dock, London, in 1701, is famous for the "buried treasure" he supposedly left behind.
• Edward Low, born in Westminster, was active 1721–1724, was never captured, and was notorious for torturing his victims before killing them; he cut off ears, lips, and noses.
• Henry Morgan, a buccaneer who raided the Spaniards and took Panama City before burning it to the ground. He was to be executed in England, but was instead knighted and made governor of Jamaica. He died a natural death in 1688.
• John "Calico Jack" Rackham, famous for his partnership with female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, was captured, then hanged and gibbeted outside Port Royal, Jamaica, in 1720.
• Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts, is considered by many to be the most successful Western pirate of all time with over 400 ship captures.
• Edward "Blackbeard" Teach (Thatch), active from 1716 to 1718, is perhaps the most notorious pirate among English-speaking nations. Blackbeard's most famous ship was the Queen Anne's Revenge, named in response to the end of Queen Anne's War. He was killed by one of Lieutenant Robert Maynard's crewmen in 1718.
• Charles Vane, a particularly violent and unrepentant pirate, who served under Henry Jennings before striking out on his own. Harsh and unpopular with his crew, Vane was marooned before being captured and hanged in 1721.
• Benjamin Hornigold, an English pirate who helped found the Republic of Pirates and mentored Blackbeard before taking a royal pardon and becoming a pirate hunter
• Amaro Pargo, a prominent Spanish corsair who dominated the route between Cádiz and the Caribbean. His figure has been wrapped in a halo of romanticism and legend that have linked him to piracy, hidden treasures, and illicit romances. In the marble headstone of his tomb in San Cristóbal de La Laguna is engraved a skull winking his right eye with two crossbones.

Female pirates

The best-known female pirates were Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Rachel Wall.

Anne Bonny (1697–1721) developed a notorious reputation in Nassau. When she was unable to leave an earlier marriage, she eloped with her lover, Calico Jack Rackham.

Mary Read had been dressed as a boy all her life by her mother and had spent time in the British military. She came to the West Indies (Caribbean) after leaving her husband and joined Calico Jack's crew after he attacked a ship she had been aboard. She divulged her gender only to Bonny at first, but revealed herself openly when accused by Rackham of having an affair with Bonny.

The nature of the relationships between Bonny, Read, and Rackham have been speculated to be romantic and/or sexual in various combinations, though there is no definitive proof. In David Cordingly's 2001 book Women Sailors and Sailors’ Women: An Untold Maritime History, Cordingly suggests that Bonny and Read were sexually involved.

When their ship was attacked in 1720, Bonny, Read, and an unknown man were the only ones to defend it; the other crew members were too drunk to fight. In the end they were captured and arrested. After their capture, both women were convicted of piracy and sentenced to death, but they stalled their executions by claiming to be pregnant. Read died in jail months later, many believe of a fever or complications of childbirth. Bonny disappeared from historical documents, and no record of her execution nor a childbirth exist.

Barbary pirates or privateers

Main article: Barbary pirates

 

Cornelis Hendricksz Vroom, Spanish Men-of-War Engaging Barbary Corsairs, 1615.

The Barbary pirates were pirates and privateers that operated from the North African (the "Barbary coast") ports of Algiers, Morocco, Salé, Tripoli, and Tunis, preying on shipping in the western Mediterranean Sea from the time of the Crusades as well as on ships on their way to Asia around Africa until the early 19th century. The coastal villages and towns of Italy, Spain and Mediterranean islands were frequently attacked by them, and long stretches of the Italian and Spanish coasts were almost completely abandoned by their inhabitants; since the 17th century, Barbary pirates occasionally entered the Atlantic and struck as far north as Iceland. According to Robert Davis, between 1 million and 1.25 million Europeans were captured by Barbary pirates and sold as slaves in Northern Africa between the 16th and 19th centuries.

Barbary pirates flourished in the early 17th century as new sailing rigs by Simon de Danser enabled North African raiders, for the first time, to brave the Atlantic as well as Mediterranean waters. More than 20,000 captives were said to be imprisoned in Algiers alone. The rich were allowed to redeem themselves, but the poor were condemned to slavery. Their masters on occasion allowed them to secure freedom by professing Islam. Many people of good social position–Germans, Italians, Spaniards, and English travelers in the south–were captives for a time.

In 1627, Iceland was subject to raids known as the Turkish Abductions. Murat Reis is said to have taken 400 prisoners; 242 of the captives were later sold into slavery on the Barbary Coast. The pirates took only young people and those in good physical condition. All those offering resistance were killed, and the old people were gathered into a church, which was set on fire. Among those captured was Ólafur Egilsson, who was ransomed the next year and, upon returning to Iceland, wrote a slave narrative about his experience. Another famous captive from that raid was Guðríður Símonardóttir. The sack of Vestmannaeyjar is known in the history of Iceland as Tyrkjaránið.

While pirates are commonly depicted with eyepatches, this is largely a myth originating in nineteenth century novels and tales of buccaneers that included payment for a lost eye. Few historical pirates wore patches over their eyes, although some, like the 18th century Arab pirate Rahmah ibn Jabir al-Jalahimah, did.

Whilst the Golden Age of European and American pirates is generally considered to have ended between 1710 and 1730, the prosperity of the Barbary pirates continued until the early 19th century. Unlike the European powers, the young United States refused to pay tribute to the Barbary states and responded with the First Barbary War and the Second Barbary War against North Africa, when the Barbary pirates captured and enslaved American sailors.

Buccaneers

Buccaneers operated mainly in the Caribbean. They originated in Tortuga around the 17th century as hunters, but became "pirates" when government officials paid groups of men to attack and loot Spanish ships. These buccaneers later began attacking any ship worth of value, enemy or not.

Privateers

Privateers were private persons who engaged in maritime warfare under a commission of war. The commissions were known as "letters of marque", which gave them the authority to raid enemy ships and exemption from piracy charges. Privateers have existed from as far back as the middle ages, where "Letters of reprisal" were issued to ship owners who were wishing to seek revenge for a loss of their own ship.

Decline

By the early 18th century, tolerance for privateers was wearing thin in all nations. After the Treaty of Utrecht was signed, the excess of trained sailors without employment was both a blessing and a curse for all pirates. Initially, the surplus of men had caused the number of pirates to multiply significantly. This inevitably led to the pillaging of more ships, which put a greater strain on trade for all European nations. In response, European nations bolstered their own navies to offer greater protection for merchants and to hunt down pirates. The excess of skilled sailors meant there was a large pool that could be recruited into national navies as well.

Piracy was clearly on a strong decline by 1720. The Golden Age of Piracy did not last the decade.

The events of the latter half of 1718 (including the arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers in Nassau) represent a turning point in the history of piracy in the New World. Without a safe base and with growing pressure from naval forces, the rovers lost their momentum. The lure of the Spanish treasures had faded, and the hunters gradually became the hunted. By early 1719, the remaining pirates were on the run. Most of them headed for West Africa, seizing poorly defended slavers.

Effect on popular culture

Main article: Pirates in the arts and popular culture

Stories and histories from the Golden Age form the foundation for many modern depictions of pirates and piracy. A General History of the Pirates (1724) by Captain Charles Johnson is the prime source for the biographies of many well known pirates of the Golden Age, providing an extensive account of the period. In giving an almost mythical status to the more colorful characters such as the notorious English pirates Blackbeard and Calico Jack, it is likely that the author used considerable license in his accounts of pirate conversations. In 2002, English naval historian David Cordingly wrote an introduction to Johnson's 1724 book, stating: "it has been said, and there seems no reason to question this, that Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates." Johnson's book influenced the pirate literature of Robert Louis Stevenson and J. M. Barrie. Such literary works as Stevenson's Treasure Island and Barrie's Peter Pan, while romanticized, drew heavily on pirates and piracy for their plots.

Various claims and speculation about their overall image, attire, fashion, dress code, etc. have been made and contributed to their fanciful mystery and lore. For example, men wore earrings as the value of the gold or silver earring was meant to pay for their burial if they were lost at sea and their body washed ashore. They were also worn for superstitious reasons, believing the precious metals had magical healing powers.

More recently, even less accurate depictions of historical-era pirates (e.g., Talk Like a Pirate Day) have advanced to the forefront. However, these phenomena have only served to advance the romantic image of piracy and its treasure-burying swashbucklers in popular culture.