by Richard Max Detrano

Created on: April 13, 2009   Last Updated: April 14, 2009

Piracy has been around since men took to the sea.

The United States has a long and messy history with piracy. Faced with fighting the Revolutionary War without a navy, the newly formed US Government hired nearly 800 vessels, called privateers, some of them pirates, to wreak havoc on British merchant shipping.

Some, like John Paul Jones, became national heroes. Once the war was over these pirates became a problem. With the introduction of steam power in the beginning of the nineteenth century, it became easy to chase them down in U.S. waters. By 1850, few remained.

But the United States had a bigger problem, the Barbary Pirates in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1778, no longer under the protection of the British as a colony, or the French by treaty, the United States became responsible for protecting its own ships and citizens.

By 1800, our government was paying 20% of U.S. annual revenue in ransom and tribute to the Barbary Pirates, openly sponsored by Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. In 1801, determined to stop the bleeding, President Thomas Jefferson dispatched six frigates to the "the shores of Tripoli." Among them The Philadelphia, commanded by one Commodore William Bainbridge.

Bainbridge's frigate ran aground in Tripoli Harbor and was captured. Commodore Bainbridge and his crew were held hostage for 19 months.

During the war of 1812, the British approached the pirate Jean Lafitte for help in fighting the U.S. in that war. He declined and joined Andrew Jackson in the battle of New Orleans.

The Confederate States of America enlisted pirates during the Civil War to counter blockades by the Union navy.

More recently, perhaps coincidentally, the destroyer USS Bainbridge, named for Commodore Bainbridge, successfully rescued Richard Phillips, Captain of the Maersk Alabama, after being captured by pirates demanding ransom off the coast of Somalia.

The hotbeds of piracy today are the Strait of Malacca near Singapore, and the Gulf of Aden, which links Europe to Asia and the eastern Indian Ocean through the Suez Canal.

Piracy is still a fact of life, and perhaps on the rise in Southeast Asia and parts of the Caribbean. The tactics and weapons are increasingly sophisticated; the prizes now run into the millions of dollars. Ransoms and hostage taking remain at the center of the game. Violence is increasingly common.

Most agree the solution to piracy is more than military. Piracy challenges the rule of governments, civilization, and humanity.

The causes remain remarkably the same: increased commercial traffic, poor economic conditions, a regional breakdown in the social fabric of life, and as a tool to battle colonialism.

It seems likely that piracy in one form or another will follow us into the future. I am sure precocious pirates are already dreaming of hijacks in outer space.

Learn more about this author, Richard Max Detrano.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.