ARRRRRGGHH!

One Piece is an anime of portraying pirates and their everyday struggles

Everything the modern generation(s) know about pirates are mostly wrong due to fictionalized events and characters. For example, the picture above is an anime on pirates and it shows how they gain super powers from eating a "devil's fruit." All the time, up until this class I knew nothing true about pirates; hopefully I will gain enough knowledge to change that.

During the 1700's there was a group of men named as privateers to carry out maritime warfare missions under a commission. The first pirates to make themselves known in American waters were the Buccaneers (Stockton). The difference between the two is often communicated in the wrong way. Privateers were men who were on a private ship under the commission of the letter of marque who were enabled to carry any form of hostility towards foreign ships in means of war. On the other hand, pirates/buccaneers were a group of men under no jurisdiction, living life and conducting themselves as they saw best fit. Pirates robbed and plundered any ship on sea. Also, they were known for being quite rude and savage-like to their victims.

Buccaneers started of as hunters for beef from the English and France. They were nicknamed "beef-traders" because they would dry the meat and trade with other countries. The act of drying meat was a huge find because several types of meats would spoil on the ship while in travel. When the Spaniards killed off the Native of San Domingo and cut off outside trade completely, the Buccaneers began to arm themselves to fight the Spaniards so that they could continue trading with a major partner. This caused a maritime warfare between West Indies and Spain (Stockton). After fighting with the Spaniards for so long they called themselves "The Brethren of the Coast" while the Spanish called them pirates.

Sources:

Stockton, Frank R. Buccaneers and Pirates. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, 2007. Print.

Pirates, Privateers, Buccaneers, and Corsairs