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The World of Pirates, part 1

© Gail Giordano

For decades and even centuries, the human race has been interested in pirates, they are portrayed in movies, in books, and children pretend play that they are pirates and off on spectacular adventures. Yet it all seems surreal, which stems from the fact that although pirates have existed and do exist in various forms today, the way people remember them is the way pirates have evolved through the years. I consider the "pirate phenomena " a prime example of how inter-connected literature and history is, but more importantly how our conception of an idea, or a piece of history, may get construed by the way writers decide to use information on historical events.

IN 1724 a book appeared in a small English Bookshop, it was not a big book, but rather small. Yet it grabbed its audience and held it in suspense with the information inside. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates, written by an author not well known but he is know, Captain Charles Johnson. Mystery surrounds the book, it did in 1724, and it stills remain today, and that mystery lies in who is the author Captain Charles Johnson. Some thought it was Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe but has been disproved through the years. Majorities of the facts in Captain Johnson's book have substantiated from records of the pirates held within its pages. The book talks of the most notorious of pirates, their early lives, their career and their doom. Speculation holds that maybe the author was a pirate, or insider himself, but no proof can be found to hold up that theory. Other maintain that perhaps he got majority of his information by what had been published in the British newspaper, and then informants or observation of some kind backed it up. Whatever the case, revisions and expansions have been made on this book through the years, and is a good in-depth resource to learn about the world of Pirates.

A word study of pirates may help in understanding why I say that pirates exist still today - not in the same form necessarily but in certain form. From Webster's Comprehensive Dictionary, International Edition we find that the word pirate, is a noun and has three definitions, the first one is defines it as "a rover and robber on the high seas." The second definition states that " a vessel engaged in piracy", and the third states it like this: "A person who appropriates without right the work of another." After reading these definitions, I looked up another word - Piracy. Piracy is also a noun, and has 2 definitions. The first simply says, "robbery on the high seas." The second one helps show why it is still around today - "the unauthorized publication, reproduction, or use of another's invention, idea or literary creation." In the age of technology advancements, and software, piracy is a big problem, taking of one person's work and giving it to others when it is not our right to give. By looking at these definitions, you wonder why people are fascinated with the world of pirates if it was not a nice thing to be done. They robbed ships, killed people and created terror on the seas, from the Caribbean to England and all in between.

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