The Panther Bay
Pirate Blog

Robert Fowke, a columnist at the Gaurdian newspaper in the U.K., has an article comparing modern Somali pirates to their 18th century forerunners (18 November 2010). Fowke writes:

The sufferings of Paul and Rachel Chandler and others have demonstrated that the Somali pirates are remarkably similar to their classic forebears, despite being of a different religion. The ransoms, the feasts, the anarchic style of living are all from the same stable.

Their victims can perhaps be mildly grateful that their captors are Muslims rather than rum-swilling Christians. Back in their pirate nests, Somali pirates appear to carouse on spaghetti and camel meat washed down with water rather than rum and gunpowder. A sober pirate must surely be preferable to a drunken pirate (though not quite always: in 1677 John Coxon captured the bishop and governor of Santa Marta but was too drunk to demand a ransom).

In addition, the Somalis try to avoid killing their victims because they know it could lead to savage reprisals. This compares favourably with the behaviour of such as L'Olonnais who would hack his victims to death with a cutlass and then lick the blood.

Unfortunately, I think Mr. Fowke has bought more into the myth of the pirates of the Golden years than the reality. As Peter Leeson points out in his book The Invisible Hook, pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries tended to embellish their reputations for a vareity of reasons. We need to be careful in ascribing more brutality than necessary. This is particularly important if the result ends up creating a greater moral justification for current piratical activity, as I think Fowke's column does.

Thus, what I really object to is a tone that tends to ratioanlize Somali piratatic activity based on a general belief that pirates were simply common men, down on their luck, trying to make it in a world rigged against them, a sort of Robin Hood on water justification. As Fowke writes:

Absence of rum notwithstanding, the anarchic Somali pirates are far closer to the Christian prototypes than they are to the Muslim Barbary corsairs, and they have similar opportunities to garner public support – from a Muslim perspective. After all, their victims are mainly infidel sailors (substitute Catholic/Spanish) and the Somali pirates, like the buccaneers, are certainly common men making good. Many are fishermen who took to piracy after foreign fishing fleets began to destroy their livelihood. The heroic narrative could serve them well.


On the one hand, I agree that modern Somali pirating tends to be less ruthless than the 18th century kind. But that is a matter of degree. Their use of rifle grenades, automatic rifles, and other weapons are certainly intended to do more than intimidate. They are willing to kill on site or coerce ransom under a very real threat of killing people and destroying or selling other people's property.

Humble backgrounds do not justify their acts, nor their callousness toward human life. Mr. Fowke may think humble economic circumstances justify leniency in a court of law, but I do not. Bad behavior is bad behavior. Murder is murder. Assault is assult. And piratical activities are unprovoked, violent, and a direct threat to innocent life and property. Pirates should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

Of course, these ethical dimensions to pirating activity are important to the key themes in the Pirate of Panther Bay.