Talk:Piracy in the Caribbean

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment
This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 1 September 2020 and 18 December 2020. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Talvaro993, JoHdez, FalkenCSUCI. Peer reviewers: Arianasainz72.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 06:41, 17 January 2022 (UTC)

WikiProject Piracy
A WikiProject has been proposed on List of proposed projects to improve coverage of and focus on both historic and modern periods in Piracy. MadMax 22:30, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Pictures
I think this article could benefeit from more pictures — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.96.102.166 (talk) 17:52, July 13, 2006

Comparisions between 17th century buccaneers and modern pirates
I believe that there is a distinction between modern age and 1600-style piracy. The legitimacy of the counterparts of the ancient outlaws appears less clear than in the case of modern "terrorists", freedom fighters or whatever you call them. 80.134.121.106

Possible copyright violation ?
Is this a copyright violation from http://www.metaweb.com/wiki/wiki.phtml?title=Pirates&oldid=4086, or did they copy from us without attribution? RickK 04:58, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The section on the 1600's looks like it's been plagiarised from the manual of the computer game "Pirates" by Microprose 193.130.144.125 11:04, 8 September 2006 (UTC)


 * If you have a source text in hand that you can cite, please remove the offending material from the article and provide the citation here so everyone knows why. TCC (talk) (contribs) 21:10, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

Because of potential copyright violations the previous article was removed and replaced with a rewritten version. Someone should note that the section Early Causes is not actually about the Early Causes of piracy and should just be deleted unless someone adds an article there, because the text seems to be a duplication of the first portion of the lower section on the Golden Age of Piracy. If there are still problems I would suggest the entire article on the Golden Age be deleted.


 * The simple fact that the "writer" failed to enter in a single link or reference to another wiki article is evidence that it's probably copied. the whole Golde Age section need overhauling, possibly with it bieng short and a whole other article on the full Golden Age of Piracy because it is such a famous let alone important era in piracy. I'll try to work on it some myself but I don't have all the time and epertise to do it.---Norton112200 00:38, 13 September 2006 (UTC)

The period 1560-1720 IS the full Golden Age of Piracy. The article simply does not go into the exploits of a few earlier privateers like Sir Francis Drake. THe Early Causes Section makes no sense and is not about the Early Causes. It should be deleted.


 * Let us not forget http://www.magicaljourneys.com/Caribbean/caribbean-interest-piracy.html - I'm assuming this article stole all of the content from it directly. 82.32.68.215 15:16, 4 May 2006 (UTC)


 * That's a mirror of this article. They're the ones probably committing copyvio.......under the GFDL, you must attribute work, which they do in one word at the bottom of the page in tiny print.--The ikiroid (talk·desk·Advise me) 01:47, 23 July 2006 (UTC)

I think the wording is identical in the Early Causes and The Early Years, 1560-1600 sections. Could these sections be combined or made substantually different? 150.134.67.33 09:59, 8 November 2006 (UTC)


 * OK, I've checked the content and deleted one of these sections. Fayenatic london 09:17, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

Wording
"There was a strong esprit de corps among pirates. This allowed them to win sea battles: they typically outmanned trade vessels by a large ratio." This makes no sense to me - surely the morale would help if the pirates were outnumbered, not the trade vessels? --Air 12:20, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * "great" era? --80.203.27.221 06:49, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Historical Inaccuracy
The following quote is not true:

"Though Spain remained a weak power for the rest of the colonial period, pirates in large numbers generally disappeared after 1720,"

Spain did not remain "weak" during the rest of the colonial era. Spanish naval and land forces dealt the British many defeats(too many to keep this discussion brief) during the remainder of the colonial ear which is why her empire survived until it broke its self apart during the early 1800s. An example was the War of Jenkin's Ear, when Spain single handily defeated the British in most of the battles, thus inducing the downfall of Britain's Walpole government due to her own frustration in the unsuccessful pursuit of war against Spain. Spain's successes in defending her own empire against British attempts to conquer it are not hallmarks of weakness. --Charles A 03:20, 26 July 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scipio-62 (talk • contribs)

NPOV ?
How many Spanish people think this article is written from NPOV? --66.81.122.251 06:32, 21 July 2005 (UTC)


 * Nice, sanitized article, with no mention of what piracy was: the murder, looting and rape of civilians. Cute though. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Bistor92 (talk • contribs)


 * Well as far as I know no Spaniard ever took a shovel and went into the earth looking for silver or gold. Why would the Spaniards dirt their hands with a hard job?, for they were noblemen, were they not? Spaniards actually used slavering labor in order to get the silver and gold, so why do they complain? The pirates took the silver and gold from the Spaniards, exactly in the same way that the Spaniards took the silver and gold from the natives. Being that said in good spanish: Ladrón que roba a ladrón, tiene cien años de perdón.--189.217.232.172 (talk) 23:48, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
 * Which makes the Spaniards pirates as well. Starting with some Italian guy. 68.37.254.48 (talk) 05:04, 14 October 2013 (UTC)

I like this article on Caribbean Piracy, but it is written from an almost exclusively Anglo-centric point of view. Omitted are the large amount of French and Spanish pirates that are known to have existed and the large number of Spanish privateers that are a known to have participated in attacking British shipping during the War of Jenkin's Ear.--Charles A 01:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Scipio-62 (talk • contribs)

Bosyie Singh
This paragraph was in See also: Boysie Singh was not the uncle of Thelma Haynes, he was hired by Boland Ramkissoon to kill his common law wife- Thelma they were both hanged in Trinidad. Since it contradicts some text, can we have a citation for this or can someone absorb it into the text in a way that doesn't entirely discount the more common account? Julia Rossi 01:33, 21 August 2007 (UTC)

Is the reference to Felix Fritsch serious? &mdash;151.198.251.162 (talk) 02:18, 21 September 2009 (UTC)

Piracy in the Caribbean?
Piracy in the Caribbean without any mention of Hispanic Caribbean pirates such as Miguel Henríquez and Roberto Cofresi? Give me a break, someone needs to do thier homework. Tony the Marine (talk) 06:24, 30 January 2008 (UTC)
 * Well then, you add it in. You don't have to rely on us, even if we DO make a few mistakes here and there. Geez. BlackPearl14 Pirate Lord-ess 20:25, 30 January 2008 (UTC)

LENGTHY.
The section on the late 17th century is WAY TOO LONG. It needs to be divided up into subsections to be more comprehensive. AshleyScripter {talkback} 00:38, 6 February 2008 (UTC)

Hacked
The article about piracy has been hacked. What George Bush has to do with 18th century piracy? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.170.106.225 (talk) 05:31, 18 April 2008 (UTC)

Runescape
What has this game got to do with piracy? 92.18.88.58 (talk) 21:16, 5 September 2008 (UTC)

Causes
The entire "Causes of Piracy" section has been removed by another user with a legitimate reason. However, I am adding it back to the article because it is a notable topic in the category, and entire sections can not be deleted because of citation issues. If that was the way this article was handled, eight out of the eleven remaining sections, including the introduction should be deleted. One, that's what templates are for, and two, notable articles aren't deleted because of a lack of sources, and entire sections generally shouldn't be either. It's tagged for having no citations and that's the best we can do, short of blanking the article. There's no reason to discriminate against a certain unsourced section out of many.--Abusing (talk) 02:30, 11 December 2008 (UTC)

Pirate earrings
There is no evidence that any large number of pirates wore earrings. The debris field of the pirate ship Whydah, where over a hundred pirates died, has not yielded a single earring. No contemporary pirate portraits show earrings. In descriptions given of Anglo-American pirates, only one early 17th century pirate is mentioned wearing an earring. Thus, while a few pirates may have worn earrings, there is not enough evidence to back up the idea that they wore them routinely as a promise of hidden loot. Pirate Dan (talk) 21:08, 13 February 2009 (UTC)

Causes of 19th century Caribbean piracy
I rewrote the section on the 1820 to 1835 outbreak to remove the role of naval power and instead emphasize the importance of the Latin American wars of independence. If you read the first-hand accounts of 19th century piracy in John R. Stephens' Captured by Pirates you'll find that nearly all the 19th century Caribbean pirates were either ex-privateers for the new Latin American governments or else had Spanish letters of marque and were operating out of Cuba. The American navy was small, yes, but it had been small ever since the Revolutionary War began in 1775; piracy in the Caribbean didn't explode until 45 years later. Furthermore, it's not like the American Revolution left the great European powers without naval bases in the Caribbean: Great Britain still had Jamaica, Trinidad and Tobago, Belize, the Bahamas and almost all the Lesser Antilles; Spain still had Cuba and Puerto Rico; and France still had Guadeloupe, Martinique and French Guiana. Those islands were important for their sugar trade, and therefore they were closely guarded by European navies. That's why I think the wars, not America's feeble navy, were the main cause of the 1820-1835 piracy outbreak. Pirate Dan (talk) 13:57, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"No peace beyond the line"
The phrase "No peace beyond the line(s)" refers to the Tropic of Cancer and the meridian of Ferro, Canaries, not the line of the Treat of Tordesillas. See Garrett Mattingly, 1963, "No Peace beyond what Line?", Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, 13:145-162:


 * This inquiry began with some sentences in James A. Williamson's magnificent study Hawkins of Plymouth: ‘In peace or war in Europe', says Williamson, ‘there was no peace beyond the line. The phrase is often quoted by people who do not explain what line they mean. The Tropic of Cancer will not by itself answer the question, neither will the lines of demarcation. “Line” is in fact a misquotation which should be “lines”. The “lines of amity” were verbally agreed upon by the French and Spanish negotiators of the Peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. They were to be the Tropic of Cancer and the prime meridian passing through Ferro in the Canaries. On the European side of both lines the treaty was to be binding; west and south of them it was to be disregarded. The agreement was a belated recognition of what had long been the practice. article abstract MayerG (talk) 06:14, 18 August 2009 (UTC)

Title Change
I would like to change the title of this page to "Piracy in the Atlantic" to accurately describe the area in which these pirates were active. Michelledavison (talk) 00:40, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Here is a help page on how to move pages, but I think this is of more use in this case. jonkerz♠ 01:06, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Requested move

 * The following discussion is an archived discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section. 

No consensus to move. Vegaswikian (talk) 02:35, 2 October 2011 (UTC)

Piracy in the Caribbean → Piracy in the Atlantic – Relisted. Vegaswikian (talk) 05:37, 26 September 2011 (UTC) The pirates discussed in this article were not only active in the Caribbean, but also off the coasts of Africa and North America. Many also frequented the Bahamas, which is not in the Caribbean. Michelledavison (talk) 15:53, 19 September 2011 (UTC)
 * Oppose. Piracy in the Atlantic is much to broad. This article is mainly about pirates based in the Caribbean; where it strays from that it can be trimmed. An article on Piracy in the Atlantic would cover very much more than is covered here. If you want an article on Piracy in the Atlantic, it would be more sensible to start from scratch, than to try to edit this one into it.--Toddy1 (talk) 07:59, 27 September 2011 (UTC)


 * User:Toddy1 has good points. The current article is really a History of piracy in the Caribbean (which would be a better title if no contemporary information is added). Piracy in the Atlantic doesn't reflect the vast majority of the article's contents and would overlap with Piracy in the Gulf of Guinea. —  AjaxSmack  01:09, 29 September 2011 (UTC)
 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

validity concerns
While reading the Wikipedia article, Piracy in the Caribbean, I noticed – by the duration it took me to review the article – that there is an abundance of information as well as enough visuals to be able to assist the reader in understanding the topic. Although the information provided is diverse and plentiful, there is an evident lack of cited sources through the categories and subcategories: 1 – 4 (including all subcategories of each category). I came to the conclusion of the lack of cited sources through Wikipedia providing notes that throughout the categories (listed above) there is only 4 cited sources through the entire, rather large article. Another area of concern I have is that some of the diction in the article can cause confusion; an example of this is seen in the quote from the article, Piracy in the Caribbean, “...with African or Indian slaves to serve them...” The confusion associated with this quote can arise because of the word “Indian”; in which there is debate on if the author is referring to Native Americans or those with a geographical link to India. This particular article is incredibly well organized and information through each category is written in an order relevant to the period of time it occurred in a respondent manner to the other information; even still it is hard to draw away from the lack of validity and possible lack accuracy associated with the lack of cited sources. Although the article is lacking in this particular, very important area the way the article has a grand amount of links that will take the reader to other articles and related topics is remarkable and the amount of effort put into the writing of the article, Piracy in the Caribbean is more than evident. StAnMc18 (talk) 22:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Hist 208 Review
The additions that were made really added to the thoroughness of the article. Several times there was extra information added to what was there to either explain more, or to give more information (such as adding the pirate ports). One critique I could give is that in the beginning of the changes, when talking about Britain’s ports, there were several times that the tenses changed. This disrupted the flow somewhat and if these are changed, it would help the flow of the information. It just makes it easier to read. A little smoother wording would help with the Dutch pirate and the “Golden Age of Piracy” section, just to make things a little clearer. Some more punctuation would help to show your emphasis. There are a few changes that should be made to the Privateers sections, little changes in the wordings. Lead should be led, stuff like that. Nothing major and easy little fixes.

The article is very interesting and the article really benefited the changes made and information added. The references look good and there is a variety of information to make the whole article more thorough and interesting. The changes also seemed objective and were neutral, as was one of the goals. The information was also relevant to the topic.

Krcountrygirl (talk) 03:29, 23 November 2012 (UTC)

WikiProject Review
I feel that the added and more specific dates give readers a better sense of the time period. I find that the edit is good for giving more specifics in the broader parts of the article. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JessicaAshG (talk • contribs) 21:09, 27 November 2012 (UTC)

Christopher Columbus
C'mon, folks, let's face it, Christopher Columbus was the first known pirate of the Caribbean. He stole plenty of gold from the natives and he aided in general piracy of the Caribbean islands.68.37.254.48 (talk) 05:03, 14 October 2013 (UTC)