//The Pirate Code – How Order was Kept Among the Lawless

The Pirate Code – How Order was Kept Among the Lawless

Despite the image of reckless and toothless men with peg legs, eye patches, parrots on their shoulders, and the flag of Jolly Roger on their ships, real-life pirates were highly organized criminals.

Mainly thanks to Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson, and everyone else who recreated the “Golden Age of Piracy” in the same fashion, we have a somewhat confused knowledge about who they were.

According to Peter T. Leeson from George Mason University, who studied the law, economics, and organization of pirates, they used democratic constitutions that helped them minimize crew conflicts and maximize practical profit. At the same time, they prevented captain predation through systems of “practical checks and balances crews.”

There was hierarchy on the ship. Piracy was organized crime, and it was a job, so there were rules. Everyone was expected to obey those rules and those who wouldn’t, got punished. Historical evidence suggests there weren’t many punishments, if any at all, that condemned the victim to walk the plank. It seems that the pirates preferred keel-hauling as a punishment.

It is fascinating that pirates prospered outside the state and the law, meaning there was no authority over the pirate ships in the open sea, for good or for bad.

learn more at :: https://www.thevintagenews.com/2018/09/03/pirate-code/

By | 2018-09-06T21:26:28+00:00 September 6th, 2018|Blog :::: KSG Scuba Scoop|0 Comments

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