This was my thought as well. You obviously aren’t using a bank, and you probably dont trust enough people to keep that on your ship. Not to mention if your ship goes down and you survive, it sure would be nice to get your treasure back. Hence the maps with “tricks.” Theyre only supposed to be Hints for the person know already knows where it is
I don’t think pirates really worried about laundering any booty. What for? They weren’t worried about the IRS, nor would people generally have qualms about where someone’s gold/silverm/wares might have come from, methinks.
If you got a pile of gold, someone somewhere will want to know where it came from. A powerful somebody who will be looking for any excuse to confiscate it. For the public good of course!
If you got a pile of gold, you have something of inherent value, which you could, for instance melt down into bars.
If you have something worth a lot of money, you’ll always find someone to buy it.
You’re really thinking more like someone having stolen the Mona-Lisa in the 21st century than pirates plundering raw wares and possibly some valuables.
Hell a bit more than a hundred years ago a servant could rather easily, if they wanted, just steal all the jewelry and valuables of their mistress and if they actually went further than like 100 miles from where they stole them, the chances of getting caught would be quite small. Or especially if they were actually a professional thief and knew a fence.
But pirated didn’t need to worry about any of that.
They’d just sail into a pirate haven, basically proto-anarchist societies, and they weren’t in short supply either.
Meh, we’re mostly on the same page. I wasn’t thinking so much of legit authorities acting. More like someone will want to steal that gold. Best to keep it on the down low, dole it out slowly, kinda like money laundering. Avoiding the thugs vs. avoiding the authorities? Am I making sense? I have no idea any more.
Sort of but not really. For instance a pirate ship might plunder a. merchant ship full of silk and calico and a tiny bit of gold and silver. They’d share the gold and silver, according to the articles, ie the rules of the ship. (Which were pretty strict at times, like boy’s boarding school strict.)
Then they’d sail into a favourable port, a pirate haven, like Port Royal. Sell the silk and calico, share the profit with the crew, then prolly spend some of it while the boat resupplies and then cast off to find another ship to raid.
Gold was absolutely taxed and controlled In those days. Just because modern taxation didn’t exist, it didn’t mean that people didn’t ask ‘hey where did you get the money from?’
There have been cases as far back as Ancient Egypt where robbers were caught because they suddenly had access to large amounts of money they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think it involved a group of people who robbed a Pharoah’s tomb. It has been decades since I read about it so I could be off.
Gold was absolutely taxed and controlled In those days.
By whom, exactly? The states too weak to invade and take control of pirate havens?
"hey where did you get the money from?’
“fuck off, that’s where”
Uuu so challenging this “monkey laundering” in the 1700’s.
Bank notes didn’t practically exist. Money was actually gold or silver. Moneys laundering as a concept is from the 1920’s from mafia who lived under a states rule.
I imagine that England sending letters to pirated saying “hey guys we need you to pay your taxes and also please come back to England so we can hang you for piracy” would’ve gotten similar responses as what the pirates over at pirate-bay in the modern world gave to a similar power, only in modern parliance.
By whom, exactly? The states too weak to invade and take control of pirate havens?
If they landed in a legitimate port they will ask questions. States were weaker back then, but not that weak. BTW, much gold was brought back not as bullion, but as personal jewelry, because jewelry was not taxes, but stuff like gold nuggets or gold bricks were.
Also they didn’t care to tax pirates. If you were a ‘real’ pirate, as in someone who did not have a letter of marque, you were liable to hanged and everything taken from you. If you were a privateer you paid 10% of your ‘earnings’ to the crown and kept the rest. I should mention that earnings weren’t just precious metals and stones, they were EVERYTHING. If you plundered a ship full of sugar cane and tobacco, the crown got 10% of that.
It does depend on your time period, if you were active in the 1640s to the 1660s, the golden age of piracy, even if you didn’t have a letter of Marque, it was likely that nations did not care if you were a pirate as long as you didn’t rob THEIR ships. Political tensions were super high in Europe at the time and there was a doctrine of ‘no peace beyond the line’ meaning if you went to the West Indies, it was a free for all. So if you were an English or French pirate and robbed only Spanish ships, the French and English didn’t give a fuck and you go back to a French/English port and no one would bother you. But if you tried to do piracy in the 1690s to 1710s, you were going to get hanged. This era of piracy is when navies started to spring up and they didn’t tolerate any form of piracy on the high seas at all, and the concept of no peace beyond the line ceased to exist. Many of the most famous pirates we know, like Black Beard and Calico Jack were active during this time period.
The most successful ‘pure’ pirate (someone who did not operate with a letter of marque) was Henry Every, and he wasn’t in the Caribbean, he robbed a huge ass treasure ship belonging to the Mughal Empire in the Indian ocean and he and his crew stole a ton of treasure. The thing which is just as fascinating is that Henry absolutely got away with it. He fucking disappeared into thin air and was never found with his share of the loot. I know finding someone was harder in those days, but even back then being a fugitive was difficult, and a super high profile fugitive like him (his pirate action caused a huge diplomatic crisis between England and the Mughal Empire) would not have been allowed to stay on the run for long.
To give you an example of how that is different, Piet Hein, a Dutch pirate, also robbed a Spanish treasure ship, but due to the fact that it happened nearly 100 years prior to Henry’s action, he had the backing of the Dutch state (which was at war with Spain at the time) and he was richly rewarded for it instead of being hunted.
would not have been allowed to stay on the run for long.
You severely overestimate their capabilities. First off, they couldn’t reach the pirate havens. Too weak, as discussed. Secondly, unless the pirate wanted to continued with their infamy, it would be beyond trivial to change your appearance and say you have a different name.
Who’s to say against it? An interpol agent with a photograph of you, demanding you are such and such? Oh, wait…
They weren’t worried about the tax man, but only a fool would believe there were zero authorities that would question someone suddenly coming upon wealth.
It’s not paying taxes but producing plausibility that laundering provides. The more believable someones’ wealth is, the more secure their social status is. A social status that anyone with a clue would question is much less valuable than one anyone would accept without a second thought.
They weren’t worried about the tax man, but only a fool would believe there were zero authorities that would question someone suddenly coming upon wealth
And what sort of a fool would live under some state’s power while actively practicing piracy?
You’re just gonna get the crew to drop you off after four to see your wife and kids? Take the weekend off, park the pirate sloop in the harbor?
Pirates didn’t participate in high society. Or any state-sponsored society for that matter. They had their own societies.
They still needed to interact with society. Do you think most ports weren’t controlled by some kind of authority that you’d have to get some kind of either favor or believability with? I’m not saying they had to establish a provable paper trail like today, but merely divert poignant questions.
Pirates weren’t pirates just to pirate things… not the successful ones, anyways. To think they’d have no need to enage with normal society is … just silly.
To think they’d have no need to enage with normal society is … just silly.
Honestly, it’s now been a few decades and gonna have to say, even if I feel like an old man yelling at the skies, it does feel like people on the internet just used to be smarter and humbler.
I just linked you two articles which detail almost a century of the golden age of piracy, during which private havens, aka complete societies which were either under weak states which tolerated/allowed or even sponsored piracy, or completely self governing communities. Either way, they were complete communities. There are people who lived their entire lived in cities like Port Royal and Tortuga.
Tortuga is 183 square kilometres. These weren’t tiny outposts in which pirates hid from the authorities. They were prosperous and wild, but complete societies.
To not even glimpse at the basic material when it’s literally shoved in your face, yet still have the gall to argue as if you knew the subject? The internet was better 25-20 years ago without the normies.
My point was they’d still have some need to launder money. Or do you think it was just a walk in the park to get tons of gold and avoid all the people you’ve just robbed?
Even if laundering money was just as easy for some as going to the right port and melting it down DOES NOT erase the long history of laundering and subterfuge.
A single time period with single instances where pirates were the police does not magically remove the MUCH larger history of civilization.
They had their own islands and cities which they could defend.
Yes, they absolutely could avoid anyone they just robbed. That’s why they did it.
Honestly you still haven’t even glimpsed at the articles yet, have you?
“much larger history of civilization”
Pirates are still a thing. Less so, but they are.
It was just the golden age of piracy because of just how far spread it was and how little any state could oppose them. Lots of states allowed and supported it, as per common knowledge and me now reiterating it for the second time.
Captain Kidd did claim he buried treasure, but he did it as a stalling tactic to delay his inevitable hanging. There are no confirmed cases of pirates burying their treasure.
The myth largely sprung up from the novel Treasure Island. Which birth a ton of adventure tropes.
I know of one instance. Pirate plundered a ship ruining a false flag. It was actually from a nation he was friendly with. Buried the treasurer in the hope they wouldn’t find out.
Yea pirates burying treasure is largely a myth imo
Like yeah there’s documented instances, but it wasn’t common practice.
There has always been better ways to launder money than simply sitting on it.
I was under the impression it was just storage under-the-mattress style. No one’s bringing a treasure chest to buy eggs.
Pippi Longstocking would like a word…
This was my thought as well. You obviously aren’t using a bank, and you probably dont trust enough people to keep that on your ship. Not to mention if your ship goes down and you survive, it sure would be nice to get your treasure back. Hence the maps with “tricks.” Theyre only supposed to be Hints for the person know already knows where it is
I don’t think pirates really worried about laundering any booty. What for? They weren’t worried about the IRS, nor would people generally have qualms about where someone’s gold/silverm/wares might have come from, methinks.
If you got a pile of gold, someone somewhere will want to know where it came from. A powerful somebody who will be looking for any excuse to confiscate it. For the public good of course!
If you got a pile of gold, you have something of inherent value, which you could, for instance melt down into bars.
If you have something worth a lot of money, you’ll always find someone to buy it.
You’re really thinking more like someone having stolen the Mona-Lisa in the 21st century than pirates plundering raw wares and possibly some valuables.
Hell a bit more than a hundred years ago a servant could rather easily, if they wanted, just steal all the jewelry and valuables of their mistress and if they actually went further than like 100 miles from where they stole them, the chances of getting caught would be quite small. Or especially if they were actually a professional thief and knew a fence.
But pirated didn’t need to worry about any of that.
They’d just sail into a pirate haven, basically proto-anarchist societies, and they weren’t in short supply either.
Meh, we’re mostly on the same page. I wasn’t thinking so much of legit authorities acting. More like someone will want to steal that gold. Best to keep it on the down low, dole it out slowly, kinda like money laundering. Avoiding the thugs vs. avoiding the authorities? Am I making sense? I have no idea any more.
Sort of but not really. For instance a pirate ship might plunder a. merchant ship full of silk and calico and a tiny bit of gold and silver. They’d share the gold and silver, according to the articles, ie the rules of the ship. (Which were pretty strict at times, like boy’s boarding school strict.)
Then they’d sail into a favourable port, a pirate haven, like Port Royal. Sell the silk and calico, share the profit with the crew, then prolly spend some of it while the boat resupplies and then cast off to find another ship to raid.
Gold was absolutely taxed and controlled In those days. Just because modern taxation didn’t exist, it didn’t mean that people didn’t ask ‘hey where did you get the money from?’
There have been cases as far back as Ancient Egypt where robbers were caught because they suddenly had access to large amounts of money they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think it involved a group of people who robbed a Pharoah’s tomb. It has been decades since I read about it so I could be off.
By whom, exactly? The states too weak to invade and take control of pirate havens?
“fuck off, that’s where”
Uuu so challenging this “monkey laundering” in the 1700’s.
Bank notes didn’t practically exist. Money was actually gold or silver. Moneys laundering as a concept is from the 1920’s from mafia who lived under a states rule.
I imagine that England sending letters to pirated saying “hey guys we need you to pay your taxes and also please come back to England so we can hang you for piracy” would’ve gotten similar responses as what the pirates over at pirate-bay in the modern world gave to a similar power, only in modern parliance.
If they landed in a legitimate port they will ask questions. States were weaker back then, but not that weak. BTW, much gold was brought back not as bullion, but as personal jewelry, because jewelry was not taxes, but stuff like gold nuggets or gold bricks were.
Also they didn’t care to tax pirates. If you were a ‘real’ pirate, as in someone who did not have a letter of marque, you were liable to hanged and everything taken from you. If you were a privateer you paid 10% of your ‘earnings’ to the crown and kept the rest. I should mention that earnings weren’t just precious metals and stones, they were EVERYTHING. If you plundered a ship full of sugar cane and tobacco, the crown got 10% of that.
It does depend on your time period, if you were active in the 1640s to the 1660s, the golden age of piracy, even if you didn’t have a letter of Marque, it was likely that nations did not care if you were a pirate as long as you didn’t rob THEIR ships. Political tensions were super high in Europe at the time and there was a doctrine of ‘no peace beyond the line’ meaning if you went to the West Indies, it was a free for all. So if you were an English or French pirate and robbed only Spanish ships, the French and English didn’t give a fuck and you go back to a French/English port and no one would bother you. But if you tried to do piracy in the 1690s to 1710s, you were going to get hanged. This era of piracy is when navies started to spring up and they didn’t tolerate any form of piracy on the high seas at all, and the concept of no peace beyond the line ceased to exist. Many of the most famous pirates we know, like Black Beard and Calico Jack were active during this time period.
The most successful ‘pure’ pirate (someone who did not operate with a letter of marque) was Henry Every, and he wasn’t in the Caribbean, he robbed a huge ass treasure ship belonging to the Mughal Empire in the Indian ocean and he and his crew stole a ton of treasure. The thing which is just as fascinating is that Henry absolutely got away with it. He fucking disappeared into thin air and was never found with his share of the loot. I know finding someone was harder in those days, but even back then being a fugitive was difficult, and a super high profile fugitive like him (his pirate action caused a huge diplomatic crisis between England and the Mughal Empire) would not have been allowed to stay on the run for long.
To give you an example of how that is different, Piet Hein, a Dutch pirate, also robbed a Spanish treasure ship, but due to the fact that it happened nearly 100 years prior to Henry’s action, he had the backing of the Dutch state (which was at war with Spain at the time) and he was richly rewarded for it instead of being hunted.
Yes, they were, that’s why piracy flourished.
You severely overestimate their capabilities. First off, they couldn’t reach the pirate havens. Too weak, as discussed. Secondly, unless the pirate wanted to continued with their infamy, it would be beyond trivial to change your appearance and say you have a different name.
Who’s to say against it? An interpol agent with a photograph of you, demanding you are such and such? Oh, wait…
They weren’t worried about the tax man, but only a fool would believe there were zero authorities that would question someone suddenly coming upon wealth.
It’s not paying taxes but producing plausibility that laundering provides. The more believable someones’ wealth is, the more secure their social status is. A social status that anyone with a clue would question is much less valuable than one anyone would accept without a second thought.
And what sort of a fool would live under some state’s power while actively practicing piracy?
You’re just gonna get the crew to drop you off after four to see your wife and kids? Take the weekend off, park the pirate sloop in the harbor?
Pirates didn’t participate in high society. Or any state-sponsored society for that matter. They had their own societies.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_haven
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Piracy
They still needed to interact with society. Do you think most ports weren’t controlled by some kind of authority that you’d have to get some kind of either favor or believability with? I’m not saying they had to establish a provable paper trail like today, but merely divert poignant questions.
Pirates weren’t pirates just to pirate things… not the successful ones, anyways. To think they’d have no need to enage with normal society is … just silly.
Honestly, it’s now been a few decades and gonna have to say, even if I feel like an old man yelling at the skies, it does feel like people on the internet just used to be smarter and humbler.
I just linked you two articles which detail almost a century of the golden age of piracy, during which private havens, aka complete societies which were either under weak states which tolerated/allowed or even sponsored piracy, or completely self governing communities. Either way, they were complete communities. There are people who lived their entire lived in cities like Port Royal and Tortuga.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_Age_of_Piracy
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_haven
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tortuga_(Haiti)
Tortuga is 183 square kilometres. These weren’t tiny outposts in which pirates hid from the authorities. They were prosperous and wild, but complete societies.
To not even glimpse at the basic material when it’s literally shoved in your face, yet still have the gall to argue as if you knew the subject? The internet was better 25-20 years ago without the normies.
My point was they’d still have some need to launder money. Or do you think it was just a walk in the park to get tons of gold and avoid all the people you’ve just robbed?
Even if laundering money was just as easy for some as going to the right port and melting it down DOES NOT erase the long history of laundering and subterfuge.
A single time period with single instances where pirates were the police does not magically remove the MUCH larger history of civilization.
They had their own islands and cities which they could defend.
Yes, they absolutely could avoid anyone they just robbed. That’s why they did it.
Honestly you still haven’t even glimpsed at the articles yet, have you?
“much larger history of civilization”
Pirates are still a thing. Less so, but they are.
It was just the golden age of piracy because of just how far spread it was and how little any state could oppose them. Lots of states allowed and supported it, as per common knowledge and me now reiterating it for the second time.
Tldr, my point is that you’re wrong.
Captain Kidd did claim he buried treasure, but he did it as a stalling tactic to delay his inevitable hanging. There are no confirmed cases of pirates burying their treasure.
The myth largely sprung up from the novel Treasure Island. Which birth a ton of adventure tropes.
I know of one instance. Pirate plundered a ship ruining a false flag. It was actually from a nation he was friendly with. Buried the treasurer in the hope they wouldn’t find out.
I just spent way too long reading this as a result: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buried_treasure