Flying the Black Flag

A Brief History of Piracy

Alfred S. Bradford

• Publisher: Praeger
• Year: 2007
• Print ISBN:
  9780275977818
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9780275996857
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

Many peoples throughout history have fought pirates, writes Alfred Bradford in Flying the Black Flag. Some have lost and some have won. We should learn from their experience. From Odysseus—the original pirate of literature and lore—through Blackbeard and the feared pirates of the Spanish Main, his book reveals the strategies and methods pirates used to cheat, lie, kill, and rob their way into the historical record, wreaking terror in their bloody wakes.

The story begins with a discussion of Piracy and the Suppression of Piracy in the Ancient World. It details, for example, how the Illyrians used pirate vessels to try to wrest control of the Adriatic Coast from the mighty Romans, as well as how the intrepid Vikings went from pirate raids to the conquest of parts of Western Europe.

Moving into the 17th century and to the New World, Bradford depicts the golden age of the pirates. Here are the Spanish Buccaneers and the fabled Caribbean stronghold of Tortuga. Here are Henry Morgan, Captain Kidd, and their fearsome counterparts. But piracy was hardly just a Western phenomenon. The Barbary Pirates looks East to examine the struggle between Christian and Muslim in the Mediterranean, while To the Shores of Tripoli details the American conflict with the Barbary Pirates. It reveals the lessons of a war conducted across a great distance against a nebulous enemy, a war in which victory was achieved only by going after the pirates' sponsor. On the South China Coast, we meet the first Dragon Lady, leader of Chinese pirates.

As intriguing as these tales of the past are in and of themselves, the stories and their swashbuckling villains hold lessons for us even today. In Conclusions and Reflections, Bradford gathers all of the chords together, discussing the conditions under which piracy arises, the conditions under which pirates organize and become more powerful, and the methods used to suppress piracy. Finally, he examines similarities between pirates and terrorists—and whether the lessons learned from the wars against pirates of the past might also apply to modern day terrorists.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Contents
• Preface
• PART I GREEK PIRACY
• 1 Odysseus: Hero and Pirate
• 2 Greeks and Barbarians
• 3 Greek vs. Greek
• 4 Greek vs. Macedonian
• PART II THE ROMANS
• 5 The Romans Take Decisive Action
• 6 The Pirates of Cilicia
• 7 The Scourge of the Mediterranean
• 8 The End of Mediterranean Piracy
• PART III THE VIKINGS
• 9 “From Merciless Invaders . . .”
• 10 The Rus
• 11 Conversion and Containment
• PART IV THE WORLDWIDE STRUGGLE AGAINST PIRACY
• 12 The Buccaneers
• 13 Tortuga and the Pirate Utopia
• 14 Henry Morgan
• 15 The Raid on Panama
• 16 The Infamous Captain Kidd
• PART V THE BARBARY PIRATES
• 17 Crescent and Cross in the Mediterranean
• 18 War by Other Means
• PART VI PIRATES OF THE SOUTH CHINA COAST
• 19 Out of Poverty and Isolation
• 20 The Dragon Lady
• PART VII TO THE SHORES OF TRIPOLI
• 21 New Nation, New Victim
• 22 “Preble and His Boys”
• 23 The Marines Go Ashore
• 24 The End of Mediterranean Piracy . . .
• PART VIII CONCLUSIONS AND REFLECTIONS
• 25 How Pirates Are Made
• 26 Pirates and Terrorists
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index
• About the Author