• Privateering: George Friedrich von Martens, a German Jurist and diplomat from the late 18th early 19th century in his book “An Essay on Privateers, Captures, and Particularly on Recaptures: According to the Laws, Treaties, and Usages of the Maritime Powers of Europe” defines privateering as: “the expeditions of private individuals during war, who, being provided with a special permission from one of the belligerent powers, fit out at their own expense, one or more vessels, with the principal design of attacking the enemy, and preventing neutral subjects or friends from carrying on with the enemy a commerce regarded as illicit”
• Privateers were ships that were privately owned and commissioned by a government to make reprisals, gain reparation to the crown for specific offenses in time of peace, or to prey upon the enemy in time time of war. In short, a privateer was a private warship. The officers and crew of such a privateer often could keep a large part or all of the money from the captured vessels, depending upon their license.
• Privateers are not pirates, in a sense that privateers are privately owned merchant/war ship that had a special legal decree to allow the ship to act as a “naval” force for their sovereign or country, although in a general sense there is a fine line between privateers and pirates as the attacked ship would view the offenses as pirates and NOT privateers because they do not adhere to the same sovereign. Pirates, on the other hand, are lawless and follow only their pirate code of conduct and report to no sovereign. Although the act of attacking is the same.
Letter of Marque and Reprisal
• In times of war, the Letter of Marque and Reprisal was issued, giving privateers the license to attack an e...
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...maritime trade and monopoly of state trade and routes, and was used as a means in war.
• Piracy today cannot be related to that of international law consent, because pirates do not act on behalf of their governments, this has long ended and the act of privateering was replaced with the navy.
• The world system has changed a lot since then. However, it could be interpreted from the point of view in relation to gaining of power and money, to modern day pirates however the act is nowadays illegal and violent, as opposed to considered “heroic” back then
• The idea of power has changed since then as well, with power relying on many different aspects and not as a mercantilist view of the 16th 17th 18th and 19th century, and therefore could be weighed with different forms of exertion of power such as the modern day economy, or military, or even soft power politics.
According to Norman Yoffee, individuals and groups in ancient complex societies exploited the transformative nature of power through the manipulation of the three domains of power, political, economic, and ideological power. Economic power refers to the ability to create more specialized production and to organize the production of food and its storage as well as develop trade. Ideological power is found in the use of symbols to create political or cultural unity or congruity. Political power is correlated with a ruler expressing authority through coercion or administrative measures.
The word "privateer" conjures a romantic image in the minds of most Americans. Tales of battle and bounty pervade the folklore of privateering, which has become a cherished, if often overlooked part of our shared heritage. Legends were forged during the battle for American independence, and these men were understandably glorified as part of the formation of our national identity. The fact of the matter is that the vast majority of these men were common opportunists, if noteworthy naval warriors. The profit motive was the driving force behind almost all of their expeditions, and a successful privateer could easily become quite wealthy. In times of peace, these men would be common pirates, pariahs of the maritime community. Commissioned in times of war, they were respected entrepreneurs, serving their purses and their country, if only incidentally the latter. However vulgar their motivation, the system of privateering arose because it provided a valuable service to thecountry, and indeed the American Revolution might not have been won without their involvement. Many scholars agree that all war begins for economic reasons, and the privateers of the war for independence contributed by attacking the commercial livelihood of Great Britain's merchants.
gone by. But in the present day and an era marked by the rise of democracy, power has little to
Throughout the film there are parts of historical piracy that are shown. In the start of the film, pirate Hector Barbossa is shown as a new privateer for the English. It is revealed that Captain Barbossa is not sailing the seas for the King, but instead
Britain and France engaged in decrees and counter-decrees against one another between 1806 and 1807. In May 1806 Britain established a naval blockade on the entire northern coast of Napoleon’s empire. Napoleon’s Berlin Decree in November 1806 declared a state of blockade on the British Isles, and disallowing any commerce with England. Britain retaliated in January and furthermore in November, condemning all ships engaging in trade with France, and to only give warning to those who’s engagement was prior to the Order. Napoleon countered with the Milan decree, stating that any nation’s ship that has traded with, searched by, or in anyway engaged with Britain, is denationalized, and was then considered to be flying the British flag.
At the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Haitian Revolution and the Latin American War of Independence, the 1823 United States Gazette estimated that almost 3,000 attacks had been made on merchant ships by pirates inhabiting the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Piracy in this region not only contributed to financial loss but frequently, murder and torture were seen as well. The 1820s was comprised of a resurge of pirates who had not been seen since the days of Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts in the previous century. This increase led insurance companies to raise their premiums above those charged at the height of the British blockade in 1815 which further hindered the common mariner’s ability to sail and trade.
Power is what the government wants, with the power it can caused conflict. Like how one of the reasons the Roman empire fell due to overexpanded their empire, which lead that there was too much power for the Roman government
A major aspect of the Dutch Republic's security woes was it's coastal location and proximity to England and France. The English and Dutch engaged in many battles on the coasts of the North Sea between 1652 and 1674 (Doc 1). In this time period, the Dutch seized 500 English ships, while the English seized over 2,000 Dutch ships (Doc 3). This wide margin suggests that the Dutch had a weak military and navy who were unable to compete with England. Their weak military and navy, coupled with their coastal border with England and land border with France left them vulnerable to attacks. England and France, economic competitors with the
Drake made several voyages to the Caribbean with English seaman John Hawkins in the 1560’s, which were the early years of Drake’s career. They were not privateering voyages, but attempts to smuggle Spanish goods into the colonies. On the third voyage Hawkins’ fleet of six ships, one commanded by Sir Francis Drake, were driven into the Gulf of Mexico by a hurricane. The ships were led into the Vera Cruz port and demanded supplies. The Spanish however had a different plan of assaulting and killing many men and destroying four ships. Drake and Hawkins returned to England safely but, this incident led to Drake’s desire for revenge on the Spaniards.
Since the 15th century, the world has been through three major power shifts, as Fareed Zakaria describes in his book “The Post-American World”. Zakaria analyzes that the first power shifting began in the 15th century and took place in most European countries, this was the era of the development of modern science and technology, it has also produced such a long history of political dominance of the nations of the west. . The second shift was the rise of the United States. In the late 19th century, right after it industrialized, the United States emerged as the most developed and strongest country in the world, and for the last century the United States has dominated the global economics, politics, sciences and cultures.
At this point, with an understanding of what power is, what it means, how it is created and the various means through which it is expressed, one can begin to conceptualise how it is that power functions within a given society. Symbolic, cultural, social and economic capital distribute and perpetuate power within a society, through a cycle of transformation whereby these capital resources can be interchanged and manipulated to the advantage of individuals who have
While the definition of power is a point of contention among scholars such as Morgenthau and Waltz, there is a general agreeance that power in an international sense is the ability to coerce a decision based on the political, military or economic clout a nation is able to exert onto another. By this definition the Cold War era of human history is one of the most prevalent examples of both economic and political power (referred too as “Hard” power) as well as cultural influence as a form of power (known instead as “soft” power). In the post-World War 2 era the balance of power theory played a major role in the international relations between the two superpowers, being the United States of America and The USSR through constant volleying of
The Golden Age of Piracy began around 1650, and ended around 1730. Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence at sea, but can include acts committed on land, in the air, or in other major bodies of water or on a shore. It does not normally include crimes committed against persons traveling on the same vessel as the criminal. The term has been used throughout history to refer to raids across land borders by non-state agents. A pirate is one who commits robberies at sea, usually without being allotted to do so by any particular nation. The usual crime for piracy can include being hung, or publically executed. Some of the most famous pirates who were killed either because of piracy, or because of natural causes, are Barbarossa, Stede Bonnet, Anne Bonney, Sir Francis Drake, Captain Greaves, William Kidd, Jean Laffite, Sir Henry Morgan, Mary Read, and Giovanni da Verrazano.
Some theorists believe that ‘power is everywhere: not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere… power is not an institution, nor a structure, nor possession. It is the name we give to a complex strategic situation in a particular society. (Foucault, 1990: 93) This is because power is present in each individual and in every relationship. It is defined as the ability of a group to get another group to take some form of desired action, usually by consensual power and sometimes by force. (Holmes, Hughes &Julian, 2007) There have been a number of differing views on ‘power over’ the many years in which it has been studied. Theorist such as Anthony Gidden in his works on structuration theory attempts to integrate basic structural analyses and agency-centred traditions. According to this, people are free to act, but they must also use and replicate fundamental structures of power by and through their own actions. Power is wielded and maintained by how one ‘makes a difference’ and based on their decisions and actions, if one fails to exercise power, that is to ‘make a difference’ then power is lost. (Giddens: 1984: 14) However, more recent theorists have revisited older conceptions including the power one has over another and within the decision-making processes, and power, as the ability to set specific, wanted agendas. To put it simply, power is the ability to get others to do something they wouldn’t otherwise do. In the political arena, therefore, power is the ability to make or influence decisions that other people are bound by.
Although Britain cannot be blamed though for lack of trying, piracy still exists today. Yet, because the act continues at sea often far from land, it gains little media attention, and therefore less action from governments. China, despite being a number one producer of pirates, continues to deny that there is a problem while at the same time often pardoning those who are caught. Countries such as Indonesia and Philippines, which have been hardest hit in the past few years by pirates, are looking for international assistance. The West is, of course, looked to for solutions yet choose seemingly chooses to turn a blind eye, perhaps in the name of diplomacy. When the world is ready to combat the perpetual problem of piracy, it may discover that by intertwining tougher policies aimed at dealing with piracy with current or future trade negotiations, productive steps can be taken to initiate plans to curtail modern day sea wolves who prey on the helpless. The suggestion of ‘Piracy Charters’ will be discussed further as the means of which to add the topic of to multilateral agreements.