Pirates of Barbary

 "I'll die one of two ways: With a book in my face, or running on the beach. And either way I'll die with a smile on my face." Bob Sulek

Pirates of Barbary

Corsairs, Conquests, and Captivity in the 17th Century Mediterranean

By

Adrian Tinniswood

Mr. Tinniswood’s new book on “piracy” is particularly relevant in light of today’s problems off of the coast of Somalia. While this may seem to be a “new” problem to many, it certainly is not as his book illustrates so well. The book is a collection of very colorful, dramatic and true stories of yesterday’s pirates. They have many similarities to today’s pirates; however, today’s probably will not gain the panache of yesterday’s.

“Pirates of Barbary” starts in the early 1600’s. Those were the days when a small group of men in a small boat with scaling ladders, few weapons and sheer nerve would commandeer a much larger vessel for ransom. These men were part of a sophisticated system of a state sanctioned, state regulated, public-private partnership used to grow the coffers of the pirates and the government. Gosh, that sounds a little familiar, don’t you think?

What do the names John Nutt, Richard Bishop, Peter Eston and Sir Henry Mainwaring have in common? All were Barbary pirates that were offered pardons by King James I, if they promised to come home to England and behave. Oh yes, they were allowed to keep all the booty. Probably the most famous and successful was Sir Henry Mainwaring who not only was pardoned but was also appointed to Vice-Admiral of the Royal Navy by King James. Actually, it makes sense when you realize what a problem piracy was, and the knowledge Sir Henry possessed of other pirates and piracy, in general. It was such a problem that King James ended up offering a blanket pardon to approximately 3,000 British subjects who had participated in piracy at that time.

In 2009, the U.S. Navy established a task force to take care of this problem once and for all. Oh yeh, Thomas Jefferson established a U.S.Navy task force in 1801 to do the same thing (which happened to be the beginning of the U.S. Navy). Both had success, however, have not cured the problem.

What Mr. Tinniswood helps make clear is that the solution was and remains onshore. As long as there are governments and pseudo-governments that support and profit from piracy, it’s going to be around. The ocean is just too darn big to police (even today). We have to deal with the people and organizations that back these efforts in diplomatic and other ways. There have been major successes in the distant past that have been the result of aggressive onshore efforts that are well documented in this book. Recently FBI agents captured Mohammad Shibi, who negotiated the ransom for the 4 American captives who were recently killed by Somali pirates. The agents had the help of Somalian authorities and, actually did this in Somaliland. Hopefully, this is a step in the right direction to resolve our “piracy problems” of the last 500 years.