The era of piracy in the Caribbean began in the 16th century and died out in the 1830s after the navies of the nations of Western Europe and North America with colonies in the Caribbean began combating pirates. The period during which pirates were most successful was from the 1690s until the 1720s. Piracy flourished in the Caribbean because of the existence of relatively lawless British seaports such as Port Royal in Jamaica and the
French settlement at Tortuga..
Piracy in the Caribbean resulted from the groups of Europeans, mostly English, Dutch and French, who were marooned or shipwrecked. They were called buccaneers, from the French "boucanier" (to smoke meat) on a "boucan" (wooden frame set over a fire.)[1] By setting up smokey fires and boucans with prepared meat of marooned cattle, these castaways could get a ship to draw near for trading, at which time the buccaneers could seize the ship. The buccaneers were later chased off the island by colonial powers and had to seek a life at sea..
There they created lucrative but illegitimate opportunities for common seamen to attack European merchant ships (especially Spanish fleets sailing from the Caribbean to Europe) and seize their valuable cargo, a practice that began in the 16th century. Piracy was sometimes given "legal" status by colonial powers, especially France under King Francis I (r.1515–1547), in the hope of weakening the sea trade of their rivals who established amare clausum policy in the Atlantic and Indian oceans. This "legal" form of piracy is known as privateering.
SHOCKING FACTS ABOUT MODERN-DAY PIRATES:
*** Anchored ships vs. high seas kidnapping.. 
Pirates boarding ships at sea and kidnapping the crew have been making the news but an older report suggests that 72% of pirate attacks occur on anchored ships where the pirates either steal the ships or take cargo and crew members’ belongings. Recent trends show that kidnapping the crew in order to get ransom money is on the rise, as pirates cannot only profit from the ransom but stolen goods as well..
Pirates boarding ships at sea and kidnapping the crew have been making the news but an older report suggests that 72% of pirate attacks occur on anchored ships where the pirates either steal the ships or take cargo and crew members’ belongings. Recent trends show that kidnapping the crew in order to get ransom money is on the rise, as pirates cannot only profit from the ransom but stolen goods as well..
"Dead Man's Chest" (also known as Fifteen Men On The Dead Man's Chest or Derelict) is a fictional sea-song originally fromRobert Louis Stevenson's novel Treasure Island (1883). It was expanded in a poem, titled Derelict by Young E. Allison, published in theLouisville Courier-Journal in 1891. It has since been used in many later works of art in various forms..
In Treasure Island Stevenson only wrote the chorus, leaving the remainder of the song unwritten, and to the reader's imagination:
| “ | "Fifteen men on the dead man's chest--
...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!
Drink and the devil had done for the rest-- ...Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!"” |
Fifteen Men (Bottle of Rum) - Original Version
Aloha Oe - Goombay Dance Band
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iyZIP_gFezs
"Art Spy" ~ aloha oe*.gif)
