1 00:00:06,589 --> 00:00:08,258 [ominous music playing] 2 00:00:08,341 --> 00:00:10,677 [keyboard clacking] 3 00:00:20,061 --> 00:00:22,897 [keyboard clacking] 4 00:00:28,570 --> 00:00:31,656 [narrator] When Adolf Eichmann was found guilty for his role in the Holocaust, 5 00:00:31,740 --> 00:00:34,367 the judgment underlying the court’s ruling was that Eichmann was, 6 00:00:34,451 --> 00:00:36,619 for all intents and purposes, 7 00:00:36,703 --> 00:00:37,704 a pirate. 8 00:00:37,787 --> 00:00:43,668 [woman] The attorney underlined piracy and slave tradery. 9 00:00:44,961 --> 00:00:48,214 The attorney general believes that in the case of Eichmann, 10 00:00:48,298 --> 00:00:50,175 this should be the guiding principle. 11 00:00:51,426 --> 00:00:53,887 [narrator] This guiding principle that enemies of mankind 12 00:00:53,970 --> 00:00:57,307 can be captured and tried by any country regardless of nationality 13 00:00:57,390 --> 00:00:59,601 was established by international piracy law. 14 00:01:00,268 --> 00:01:03,480 And that's what justified capturing Adolf Eichmann in Argentina 15 00:01:03,563 --> 00:01:06,399 and prosecuting him in Israel for crimes committed in Europe. 16 00:01:06,483 --> 00:01:09,986 [woman] The enemy of humanity must be taken care of 17 00:01:10,070 --> 00:01:12,489 so that no more harm can be done. 18 00:01:13,114 --> 00:01:16,743 [narrator] On May 31st 1962, he was hanged. 19 00:01:20,622 --> 00:01:23,666 Today, we don’t really think of pirates as enemies of humanity. 20 00:01:23,792 --> 00:01:24,667 [singing] 21 00:01:25,126 --> 00:01:28,254 They're campy villains, like Captain Hook in Peter Pan. 22 00:01:29,172 --> 00:01:31,424 -[singing] -[narrator] Or kind of rock n’ roll, 23 00:01:31,508 --> 00:01:34,052 like Jack Sparrow in Pirates of the Caribbean. 24 00:01:34,969 --> 00:01:38,139 Or rum-lovers marketed by the Captain Morgan brand. 25 00:01:38,223 --> 00:01:40,183 -Captain? -[all] Captain! 26 00:01:41,017 --> 00:01:44,479 [narrator] So, why are pirates the original enemies of humanity? 27 00:01:45,688 --> 00:01:48,274 And why don’t we remember them that way? 28 00:01:50,401 --> 00:01:51,820 Rise up and put down the pirates 29 00:01:51,903 --> 00:01:52,904 [theme song playing] 30 00:01:52,987 --> 00:01:56,866 which have today made ours a lawless world. 31 00:01:56,950 --> 00:01:59,786 [man] Pirates preyed upon America's growing commerce. 32 00:01:59,869 --> 00:02:02,122 [man 2] The demon rum, the staple food of the pirates 33 00:02:02,205 --> 00:02:03,998 who once terrorized the Caribbean. 34 00:02:04,082 --> 00:02:07,085 [woman] Some out-of-work fishermen have turned to piracy, 35 00:02:07,168 --> 00:02:09,796 sometimes resorting to murder. 36 00:02:09,879 --> 00:02:14,259 [man 3] Their business is now very big, around 50 million pounds this year. 37 00:02:14,342 --> 00:02:17,804 The world must come together to end the scourge of piracy. 38 00:02:17,887 --> 00:02:20,974 Pirates franchises entertain hundreds of millions of people around the world. 39 00:02:21,683 --> 00:02:25,937 [man 4] No one knows, if or when the pirates will try to strike. 40 00:02:29,649 --> 00:02:31,484 [uplifting music playing] 41 00:02:35,280 --> 00:02:41,953 I think a pirate is someone that sails on the sea looking for hidden treasure. 42 00:02:42,036 --> 00:02:44,664 Some of them have eye patches. 43 00:02:44,747 --> 00:02:47,917 Some have peg legs. And some have swords. 44 00:02:48,001 --> 00:02:50,545 Some are good guys and some are bad guys. 45 00:02:50,628 --> 00:02:54,924 A bad pirate tries to, like, take stuff. 46 00:02:55,008 --> 00:02:58,011 And a good pirate tries to, like, protect the stuff. 47 00:02:58,511 --> 00:03:02,765 And they like booty that's actually treasure. 48 00:03:02,849 --> 00:03:07,604 Sometimes the men need help, so the women pirates come in... 49 00:03:07,687 --> 00:03:08,938 so they can help. 50 00:03:09,022 --> 00:03:11,065 -Argh! -Argh! 51 00:03:12,734 --> 00:03:14,777 I think we're drawn to the image 52 00:03:14,861 --> 00:03:17,864 of people who are operating outside of authority. 53 00:03:17,947 --> 00:03:20,158 And that really accounts, I think, 54 00:03:20,241 --> 00:03:24,787 for a great deal of the persistent romanticization of pirate life. 55 00:03:24,871 --> 00:03:28,541 It's unfortunate that it turns out not to be true. 56 00:03:28,625 --> 00:03:31,586 ♪ Comb their hair with catfish bones ♪ 57 00:03:31,669 --> 00:03:32,670 ♪ And we're bound... ♪ 58 00:03:32,754 --> 00:03:36,257 [narrator] This is Queen Elizabeth knighting Sir Francis Drake in 1581 59 00:03:36,341 --> 00:03:38,968 for circumnavigating the globe and bringing back treasure, 60 00:03:39,052 --> 00:03:40,720 treasure he got pirating. 61 00:03:41,679 --> 00:03:43,848 And that’s her again with Sir Walter Raleigh, 62 00:03:43,932 --> 00:03:45,099 another pirate she knighted. 63 00:03:45,183 --> 00:03:49,854 He founded a colony he named Virginia, after her, the virgin queen. 64 00:03:49,938 --> 00:03:52,440 Its purpose? A pirate base camp. 65 00:03:53,316 --> 00:03:56,277 Queen Elizabeth was actually nicknamed the “pirate queen,” 66 00:03:56,361 --> 00:03:57,737 and she venerated pirates. 67 00:03:57,820 --> 00:04:00,740 She called them her “sea dogs” for expanding her empire 68 00:04:00,823 --> 00:04:02,408 and harming her rivals... 69 00:04:02,909 --> 00:04:04,369 by robbing their ships. 70 00:04:05,745 --> 00:04:08,831 At the time, European powers were in constant conflict. 71 00:04:10,041 --> 00:04:12,418 Their empires shifting and expanding. 72 00:04:13,753 --> 00:04:17,340 And they all hired pirates to steal and loot from their enemies. 73 00:04:18,341 --> 00:04:22,262 In Europe, when raiding took place on the seas, 74 00:04:22,345 --> 00:04:24,806 one of the ways that it was made legitimate 75 00:04:24,889 --> 00:04:28,017 was through letters of marque and reprisal. 76 00:04:28,101 --> 00:04:30,395 [narrator] Pirates coveted these letters. 77 00:04:30,478 --> 00:04:34,023 They meant you could rob ships with the blessing of the state. 78 00:04:34,107 --> 00:04:36,943 And there had never been more ships on the seas. 79 00:04:37,026 --> 00:04:39,737 This was the beginning of our globalized economy, 80 00:04:39,821 --> 00:04:41,990 based almost entirely on shipping, 81 00:04:42,073 --> 00:04:44,826 which contributed to much of the conflict. 82 00:04:44,909 --> 00:04:49,372 The European empires were fighting for a bigger piece of global trade, 83 00:04:49,455 --> 00:04:50,790 clamoring for goods 84 00:04:50,873 --> 00:04:52,875 like spices from Indonesia, 85 00:04:52,959 --> 00:04:54,377 cotton from India, 86 00:04:54,460 --> 00:04:56,129 sugar from the Caribbean 87 00:04:56,212 --> 00:04:59,048 and enslaved people from Africa. 88 00:05:00,049 --> 00:05:03,511 Remnants of ships from that era litter the ocean floor today. 89 00:05:03,928 --> 00:05:07,807 And in 1996, a particularly exciting one was discovered 90 00:05:07,890 --> 00:05:09,600 off the coast of North Carolina, 91 00:05:09,684 --> 00:05:12,478 and for years reporters tracked its recovery. 92 00:05:12,562 --> 00:05:15,565 Blackbeard's flagship, the Queen Anne's Revenge, 93 00:05:15,648 --> 00:05:18,484 was pulled from the bottom of the sea off our coast today. 94 00:05:19,068 --> 00:05:21,863 Queen Anne's Revenge, it sank off the North Carolina coast. 95 00:05:21,946 --> 00:05:24,657 [man] Beaufort has become known for Blackbeard, 96 00:05:24,741 --> 00:05:27,368 whose pirate ship lies wrecked just out there. 97 00:05:27,493 --> 00:05:29,412 [narrator] What these news reports didn’t mention 98 00:05:29,495 --> 00:05:32,874 was that this was originally a slave ship named "La Concorde." 99 00:05:33,374 --> 00:05:35,877 When Blackbeard captured it in 1717, 100 00:05:35,960 --> 00:05:39,797 there were 455 enslaved Africans on board. 101 00:05:40,214 --> 00:05:44,969 Almost all of them were sold into slavery, while Blackbeard went on pirating. 102 00:05:45,053 --> 00:05:48,806 Very few people have talked about it as a slave ship that we have evidence of. 103 00:05:49,223 --> 00:05:51,517 [narrator] You can’t understand trade at this time 104 00:05:51,601 --> 00:05:55,563 without understanding the slave trade, because slave labor was behind 105 00:05:55,646 --> 00:05:58,775 almost all of the goods produced and shipped across the Atlantic. 106 00:05:58,858 --> 00:06:01,027 I think that really helps for people to rethink 107 00:06:01,110 --> 00:06:02,945 what they know about the transatlantic slave trade. 108 00:06:03,029 --> 00:06:06,282 In many cases, any ship can be considered a slave ship. 109 00:06:06,366 --> 00:06:09,702 [narrator] But pirates also literally traded in slaves. 110 00:06:10,828 --> 00:06:14,290 [Dunnavant] Generally what would happen is when a pirate captured a ship 111 00:06:14,374 --> 00:06:17,543 with enslaved people on it, they would take the enslaved people, 112 00:06:17,627 --> 00:06:20,838 and in many cases, go to an island where they had connections 113 00:06:20,922 --> 00:06:23,633 um, and sell to some local traders there. 114 00:06:23,716 --> 00:06:25,510 And then from there, they would get sold off 115 00:06:25,593 --> 00:06:27,887 into local markets and local plantations, 116 00:06:27,970 --> 00:06:30,848 causing some of these pirates to also be labeled slave traders. 117 00:06:30,932 --> 00:06:33,434 Although that's not the term people normally associate with them. 118 00:06:33,935 --> 00:06:35,770 [narrator] Remember Sir Francis Drake? 119 00:06:35,853 --> 00:06:37,522 Before he was a pirate and knight, 120 00:06:37,605 --> 00:06:40,024 he was one of England's first slave traders. 121 00:06:40,608 --> 00:06:44,112 Pirates were ultimately interested in making as much profit as they could. 122 00:06:44,195 --> 00:06:46,072 And they were doing it 123 00:06:46,155 --> 00:06:50,493 to also eventually use that profit to gain status. 124 00:06:50,952 --> 00:06:53,955 [narrator] Like one of the most famous pirates in pop culture today. 125 00:06:54,038 --> 00:06:55,832 Many people know the more popular drink 126 00:06:55,915 --> 00:06:57,166 of Captain Morgan rum, 127 00:06:57,250 --> 00:07:00,378 but Captain Morgan, in many ways, was not just a pirate, 128 00:07:00,461 --> 00:07:02,672 but also a slave trader and a plantation owner. 129 00:07:02,755 --> 00:07:06,175 [narrator] Morgan made his wealth as a hired pirate for England. 130 00:07:06,259 --> 00:07:08,511 But then he was able to sort of solidify his wealth 131 00:07:08,594 --> 00:07:10,721 by establishing these plantations on Jamaica. 132 00:07:10,805 --> 00:07:14,267 He had over one hundred enslaved Africans sort of under his ownership. 133 00:07:14,350 --> 00:07:17,603 [narrator] Roughly the same number U.S. President Thomas Jefferson had 134 00:07:17,687 --> 00:07:19,105 at any given time. 135 00:07:19,188 --> 00:07:22,233 He became significant and prominent in Jamaican society, 136 00:07:22,316 --> 00:07:25,278 um, and as a result of that, ended up becoming lieutenant governor 137 00:07:25,403 --> 00:07:28,281 and had very close dealings with a lot of the aristocrats. 138 00:07:28,364 --> 00:07:31,576 [narrator] In 1674, he was knighted by King Charles II. 139 00:07:32,118 --> 00:07:34,787 He's a very good example for thinking about pirates 140 00:07:34,871 --> 00:07:38,499 as these people who were not outcasts and rogues 141 00:07:38,583 --> 00:07:41,002 and determined to stay on the edges of society. 142 00:07:41,085 --> 00:07:44,922 What they wanted, in fact, was incorporation in society 143 00:07:45,006 --> 00:07:48,176 and a way to set up households as elites. 144 00:07:49,093 --> 00:07:52,972 [narrator] Scotland-born William Kidd was another pirate hired by the English, 145 00:07:53,055 --> 00:07:55,600 receiving a commission in 1696. 146 00:07:56,434 --> 00:07:59,562 He was given official papers, and he was given a pass, 147 00:07:59,645 --> 00:08:03,524 given a commission by England to, um... to work on their behalf. 148 00:08:04,025 --> 00:08:07,487 And the jobs that Captain Kidd was given was as a pirate hunter. 149 00:08:08,154 --> 00:08:10,656 [narrator] He voyaged from New York, around the Cape of Good Hope, 150 00:08:10,740 --> 00:08:13,826 to Madagascar and into the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, 151 00:08:13,910 --> 00:08:17,163 where pirates were robbing the ships of the British East India Company. 152 00:08:18,581 --> 00:08:22,502 But then Kidd decided he could make more money as an actual pirate, 153 00:08:22,585 --> 00:08:25,505 and he targeted what he thought would make for a profitable raid. 154 00:08:26,881 --> 00:08:30,551 The ship was actually registered to the Mughal Empire, 155 00:08:30,635 --> 00:08:32,428 so today India, 156 00:08:32,512 --> 00:08:36,390 uh, a trading partner of the English, a huge ally of the English at this time. 157 00:08:37,266 --> 00:08:38,851 [narrator] Captain Kidd looted the ships, 158 00:08:38,935 --> 00:08:41,938 scoring silk, cotton, sugar, opium and iron 159 00:08:42,021 --> 00:08:44,899 that today would be worth more than 10 million U.S. dollars. 160 00:08:44,982 --> 00:08:47,193 Not bad for a one-time heist. 161 00:08:47,276 --> 00:08:50,905 [Chadwick] The English are getting a lot of anger from the Mughal Empire. 162 00:08:50,988 --> 00:08:53,533 They're really fed up with all the English pirates in this region, 163 00:08:53,616 --> 00:08:56,994 and they want to see something change. They want to see concrete action 164 00:08:57,078 --> 00:08:58,579 being taken against Captain Kidd. 165 00:08:58,663 --> 00:09:01,666 [narrator] So the English capture him in colonial Massachusetts... 166 00:09:02,625 --> 00:09:05,628 and take him to London to stand trial for piracy. 167 00:09:06,128 --> 00:09:09,882 “...the growing Trouble, Disturbance and Mischief of the Trading World...” 168 00:09:09,966 --> 00:09:13,261 England wanted to make the point that his crime was so serious 169 00:09:13,344 --> 00:09:16,430 that any state could have done the same thing. It’s a heinous offense, 170 00:09:16,514 --> 00:09:19,058 something that was an offense against all mankind. 171 00:09:19,141 --> 00:09:20,810 [narrator] He was found guilty. 172 00:09:21,644 --> 00:09:23,563 And in 1701, the judge sentenced him 173 00:09:23,646 --> 00:09:26,524 to be "hanged by your Necks until you be dead." 174 00:09:27,316 --> 00:09:28,859 Which is exactly what happened. 175 00:09:29,944 --> 00:09:32,989 And this is the case really where we see a huge sea change, 176 00:09:33,072 --> 00:09:34,699 because prior to then, pirates... 177 00:09:35,491 --> 00:09:39,245 they hadn't been condemned in this way. They'd kind of been allowed to thrive, 178 00:09:39,328 --> 00:09:41,455 because they served a purpose in many ways. 179 00:09:41,539 --> 00:09:46,711 Hostis humani generis is Latin for "enemies of all mankind." 180 00:09:46,794 --> 00:09:50,047 And that is what the governments of the legitimate world 181 00:09:50,131 --> 00:09:53,801 in the early 18th century referred to the Pirates of the Caribbean as. 182 00:09:53,884 --> 00:09:56,596 This is an uncontested area of international law. 183 00:09:56,679 --> 00:09:59,807 No state denies the right of any other state to pick up, 184 00:09:59,890 --> 00:10:03,728 capture, prosecute any pirate who they find on the high seas. 185 00:10:03,811 --> 00:10:06,939 So Captain William Kidd is a hugely important figure 186 00:10:07,023 --> 00:10:10,484 in terms of the development of universal jurisdiction. 187 00:10:10,610 --> 00:10:12,987 [narrator] Which means that any state can try an individual, 188 00:10:13,070 --> 00:10:14,989 “without regard to where the crime was committed, 189 00:10:15,072 --> 00:10:17,658 the nationality of the alleged or convicted perpetrator, 190 00:10:17,742 --> 00:10:19,535 or the nationality of the victim..." 191 00:10:19,619 --> 00:10:23,581 For centuries, this only applied to the original enemies of mankind, 192 00:10:23,664 --> 00:10:24,498 pirates... 193 00:10:25,124 --> 00:10:27,918 which is why piracy law was the precedent used 194 00:10:28,002 --> 00:10:31,255 to capture, prosecute, and execute Adolf Eichmann. 195 00:10:31,339 --> 00:10:33,424 He is someone who has committed an offense 196 00:10:33,507 --> 00:10:36,260 against the entirety of mankind, against the entire human race. 197 00:10:36,344 --> 00:10:39,263 [narrator] It wasn’t just Captain Kidd who was served a bitter end. 198 00:10:39,764 --> 00:10:43,893 In the following decades, a rash of pirates faced similar fates... 199 00:10:44,518 --> 00:10:48,564 because, in 1713, European powers briefly reached a peace, 200 00:10:48,648 --> 00:10:51,901 and governments stopped hiring pirates to raid enemy ships. 201 00:10:51,984 --> 00:10:55,821 [Benton] Suddenly, a lot of mariners found themselves in the Atlantic 202 00:10:55,905 --> 00:10:58,115 without a legal way to continue raiding, 203 00:10:58,199 --> 00:11:00,785 and some of them continued to raid illegally. 204 00:11:00,868 --> 00:11:02,828 [narrator] A lot of merchant sailors at this time 205 00:11:02,912 --> 00:11:06,666 decided to take up a pirate life, too, for simple reasons. 206 00:11:07,124 --> 00:11:08,751 First, the booty. 207 00:11:10,211 --> 00:11:14,465 An average, able seaman earned about twenty five pounds per year. 208 00:11:14,548 --> 00:11:18,719 Pirates could in a single successful take earn 40 times that amount. 209 00:11:18,803 --> 00:11:20,888 In fact, some of them earn even more than that. 210 00:11:20,971 --> 00:11:23,516 [narrator] And then there was the issue of workplace culture. 211 00:11:24,016 --> 00:11:27,978 Merchant ships were known as very unpleasant work environments. 212 00:11:28,562 --> 00:11:33,651 Their captains had, essentially, kind of autocratic authority over their crews, 213 00:11:33,734 --> 00:11:37,113 and as you might expect, sometimes they abused that authority. 214 00:11:37,196 --> 00:11:40,157 [narrator] While pirates elected their leaders and wrote constitutions, 215 00:11:40,241 --> 00:11:42,660 with some pretty progressive worker protections. 216 00:11:43,202 --> 00:11:46,288 One ship promised if “any Man should lose a Limb, 217 00:11:46,372 --> 00:11:48,958 he was to have $800 dollars” in compensation. 218 00:11:49,834 --> 00:11:52,670 For about a decade, illegal piracy surged. 219 00:11:53,295 --> 00:11:56,090 This was the peak of the "Golden Age of Piracy." 220 00:11:56,173 --> 00:11:58,843 And governments weren't too happy about it. 221 00:11:58,926 --> 00:12:03,139 [Chadwick] Pirates really threatened the mercantile order of European states. 222 00:12:03,222 --> 00:12:05,057 Without being able to trade with each other, 223 00:12:05,141 --> 00:12:07,852 the European states, as we knew them then and know them today, 224 00:12:07,935 --> 00:12:09,228 wouldn't have been able to survive. 225 00:12:09,311 --> 00:12:12,648 [narrator] So, governments cracked down on pirates like never before, 226 00:12:12,732 --> 00:12:15,151 ramping up laws and propaganda against them. 227 00:12:16,026 --> 00:12:18,821 In 1717, a British newspaper published 228 00:12:18,904 --> 00:12:22,533 “A proclamation for suppressing of pirates" by the king, 229 00:12:23,033 --> 00:12:25,077 saying the military would seize any pirate 230 00:12:25,161 --> 00:12:28,080 that would “refuse or neglect to surrender.” 231 00:12:28,164 --> 00:12:32,168 And all of this amped up public intrigue around pirates. 232 00:12:32,251 --> 00:12:34,378 So when the book A General History of the Pyrates 233 00:12:34,462 --> 00:12:38,299 came out in 1724, it was an instant bestseller. 234 00:12:38,382 --> 00:12:41,260 But while it advertised itself as a history book, 235 00:12:41,343 --> 00:12:43,095 a lot of it was made up. 236 00:12:43,179 --> 00:12:45,014 The book tells a tale of Blackbeard, 237 00:12:45,097 --> 00:12:47,057 on the eve of his death, answering a question 238 00:12:47,141 --> 00:12:50,394 about “whether his wife knew where he had buried his money." 239 00:12:50,478 --> 00:12:54,273 He answered “that nobody but himself and the Devil knew where it was.” 240 00:12:55,191 --> 00:12:58,152 But pirates almost never buried their money. 241 00:12:58,235 --> 00:12:59,904 Why would they do that? 242 00:13:00,404 --> 00:13:05,034 They spent it, often in the bars and brothels of port cities. 243 00:13:05,117 --> 00:13:06,911 One hundred and sixty years later, 244 00:13:06,994 --> 00:13:09,830 these stories inspired another book, Treasure Island. 245 00:13:10,414 --> 00:13:12,124 And the author, Robert Louis Stevenson, 246 00:13:12,208 --> 00:13:13,959 added his own embellishments, 247 00:13:14,043 --> 00:13:17,546 like pirates singing, “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum,” 248 00:13:18,130 --> 00:13:20,090 or making people walk the plank, 249 00:13:21,133 --> 00:13:22,468 and treasure maps. 250 00:13:23,219 --> 00:13:25,221 Treasure Island so gripped generations 251 00:13:25,304 --> 00:13:27,807 that Disney adapted it into a movie in 1950, 252 00:13:27,890 --> 00:13:29,892 advertising it as a landmark event. 253 00:13:30,726 --> 00:13:36,065 [man] Walt Disney now sets a new milestone with his first all-live action feature, 254 00:13:36,148 --> 00:13:37,024 Treasure Island. 255 00:13:37,107 --> 00:13:39,068 [narrator] And actor Robert Newton decided 256 00:13:39,151 --> 00:13:41,904 to exaggerate a particular letter of the alphabet... 257 00:13:41,987 --> 00:13:42,947 -Argh. -Argh. 258 00:13:43,030 --> 00:13:43,948 Argh. 259 00:13:44,406 --> 00:13:46,242 [narrator] More pirate movies followed, 260 00:13:46,325 --> 00:13:49,119 largely inspired by the flamboyant style of Treasure Island. 261 00:13:51,205 --> 00:13:52,957 I've waited years for this. 262 00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:56,168 [chanting] Hook! 263 00:13:56,252 --> 00:13:58,712 [Dunnavant] There's this Disneyfication of piracy that happens, 264 00:13:58,796 --> 00:14:02,591 where they're seen as sort of the Captain Hook 265 00:14:02,675 --> 00:14:07,638 in Peter Pan where they're the mean guy, but they're not really dealing in killing, 266 00:14:07,721 --> 00:14:10,266 or harming, or harassing, or torturing individuals. 267 00:14:10,683 --> 00:14:13,018 [narrator] And the original source material for all of this 268 00:14:13,102 --> 00:14:15,980 only chronicled that so-called "Golden Age of Piracy." 269 00:14:16,647 --> 00:14:20,943 And that’s where our image of pirates has been frozen in time, 270 00:14:21,026 --> 00:14:25,030 even though pirates have existed for as long as ships have been at sea, 271 00:14:25,114 --> 00:14:27,575 like Ancient Mediterranean pirates, 272 00:14:27,658 --> 00:14:28,909 Viking pirates, 273 00:14:28,993 --> 00:14:30,327 Barbary pirates, 274 00:14:31,036 --> 00:14:33,998 and one of the world’s most powerful pirates, 275 00:14:34,081 --> 00:14:35,499 Cheng I Sao. 276 00:14:35,583 --> 00:14:38,711 She strictly enforced her own pirate constitution. 277 00:14:38,794 --> 00:14:42,339 For raping a female captive, the penalty was death. 278 00:14:42,423 --> 00:14:45,009 For 15 years, at the turn of the 19th century, 279 00:14:45,092 --> 00:14:47,344 pirates dominated the South China coast, 280 00:14:47,428 --> 00:14:51,348 and Cheng I Sao commanded the largest pirate fleet ever recorded, 281 00:14:51,432 --> 00:14:54,685 more than 1,200 ships and up to 70,000 men. 282 00:14:55,603 --> 00:14:58,022 She controlled most of China’s salt trade 283 00:14:58,105 --> 00:15:01,859 and destroyed government ships that tried to stop her, 284 00:15:01,942 --> 00:15:06,363 disabling the Chinese navy and threatening the country’s ability to trade. 285 00:15:06,447 --> 00:15:08,657 [Chadwick] There's no obvious bright line that distinguishes 286 00:15:08,741 --> 00:15:12,161 when you're dealing with pirates as someone who's a petty robber, 287 00:15:12,244 --> 00:15:14,830 like a small band of thieves on the high seas, 288 00:15:14,914 --> 00:15:18,959 and pirates as controlling kind of empires, as controlling vast armies. 289 00:15:19,043 --> 00:15:22,421 And it is quite difficult to actually say, you know, where does your pirate end 290 00:15:22,504 --> 00:15:26,383 and where does your organized political community begin. 291 00:15:26,467 --> 00:15:29,094 [narrator] When Cheng I Sao decided to finally surrender, 292 00:15:29,178 --> 00:15:32,056 the Chinese government essentially treated her like a nation. 293 00:15:33,140 --> 00:15:35,726 They negotiated a deal that allowed most of her pirates 294 00:15:35,809 --> 00:15:39,146 to either become military officials or be resettled on land. 295 00:15:39,855 --> 00:15:42,983 And Cheng I Sao received no punishment. 296 00:15:43,484 --> 00:15:47,029 A pirate receiving that kind of treatment would be absurd today. 297 00:15:48,864 --> 00:15:51,200 The world has changed since then. 298 00:15:51,992 --> 00:15:53,327 Borders are mostly fixed 299 00:15:53,410 --> 00:15:57,373 and international order is held together by laws, treaties, and trade. 300 00:15:57,915 --> 00:16:01,001 Shipping is still the backbone of our globalized economy. 301 00:16:01,085 --> 00:16:03,337 Ninety percent of internationally traded goods 302 00:16:03,420 --> 00:16:04,713 are transported by sea. 303 00:16:04,797 --> 00:16:06,382 The total value of those goods 304 00:16:06,465 --> 00:16:08,717 is just more than 2,000 times higher 305 00:16:08,801 --> 00:16:10,803 than in the time of Cheng I Sao. 306 00:16:10,886 --> 00:16:14,181 And they’re no longer transported in the hulls of wooden sailboats, 307 00:16:14,264 --> 00:16:17,017 but in containers stacked on massive cargo ships, 308 00:16:17,601 --> 00:16:20,062 which are a whole lot harder to pirate. 309 00:16:20,813 --> 00:16:24,441 And the most sought after booty these days isn’t gold, silver or spices, 310 00:16:24,942 --> 00:16:25,818 but oil... 311 00:16:26,360 --> 00:16:28,278 If the price is high enough. 312 00:16:29,154 --> 00:16:31,240 In 2013, pirates hijacked 313 00:16:31,323 --> 00:16:32,992 13 oil ships in West Africa. 314 00:16:33,575 --> 00:16:35,786 But when the price of oil plummeted the following year, 315 00:16:35,869 --> 00:16:37,955 they shifted to a different strategy. 316 00:16:38,038 --> 00:16:41,291 Instead of targeting a ship’s cargo, targeting a ship’s crew. 317 00:16:41,834 --> 00:16:45,087 We take kidnap for ransom quite a bit more seriously 318 00:16:45,170 --> 00:16:46,338 because of the human impact. 319 00:16:46,755 --> 00:16:50,551 [narrator] Just like pirates of the past, these pirates have victims. 320 00:16:50,634 --> 00:16:54,471 Only today, we can hear those first-hand accounts directly. 321 00:16:54,555 --> 00:16:58,225 Please from the bottom of your heart, open your heart to help us. 322 00:16:58,308 --> 00:16:59,309 We need your help. 323 00:16:59,727 --> 00:17:01,979 [man] They thought maybe I am from a very rich family, 324 00:17:02,062 --> 00:17:04,148 and they beat. They hit... 325 00:17:04,231 --> 00:17:07,026 They tie my hands from behind. 326 00:17:07,109 --> 00:17:08,944 What we have experienced... 327 00:17:09,028 --> 00:17:10,988 I think nobody can even imagine. 328 00:17:11,405 --> 00:17:14,241 [narrator] This is what piracy looks like now around the world. 329 00:17:14,783 --> 00:17:16,493 It tends to flare up in spots 330 00:17:16,577 --> 00:17:19,038 where national or international order breaks down. 331 00:17:19,830 --> 00:17:22,291 Like in Somalia, a country that was in anarchy 332 00:17:22,374 --> 00:17:25,502 when piracy surged from 2007 to 2012. 333 00:17:25,586 --> 00:17:28,380 Or in Venezuela today, where there’s been an uptick in piracy 334 00:17:28,464 --> 00:17:31,467 since its economy began collapsing in 2014. 335 00:17:31,550 --> 00:17:36,263 A state has less capacity to govern its maritime space 336 00:17:36,346 --> 00:17:40,517 when it is focused on a crisis within its borders. 337 00:17:40,601 --> 00:17:42,686 Pirates don't just emerge out of nowhere. 338 00:17:42,770 --> 00:17:46,857 There are certain structures in place that, in some cases, facilitate 339 00:17:46,940 --> 00:17:49,985 or, in some cases, necessitate the idea of individuals 340 00:17:50,069 --> 00:17:54,740 working outside of existing structures to sort of proliferate illegal activity. 341 00:17:55,115 --> 00:17:56,909 [narrator] Just like pirates centuries ago, 342 00:17:56,992 --> 00:17:59,620 people are driven to piracy today for simple reasons. 343 00:18:00,329 --> 00:18:04,583 An absence of viable economic alternatives for would-be pirates 344 00:18:04,666 --> 00:18:07,878 and access to vessels to attack. 345 00:18:08,253 --> 00:18:10,255 [narrator] But today’s pirates aren’t portrayed 346 00:18:10,339 --> 00:18:12,549 as romanticized rogues by Hollywood. 347 00:18:13,884 --> 00:18:15,427 They're desperate criminals. 348 00:18:16,220 --> 00:18:18,222 Like in this Oscar-nominated film... 349 00:18:19,056 --> 00:18:21,016 based on the true story of Somali pirates 350 00:18:21,100 --> 00:18:24,603 taking an American ship captain hostage in 2009. 351 00:18:26,355 --> 00:18:29,650 Pirates today also no longer slip in and out of high society. 352 00:18:30,484 --> 00:18:33,195 [Chadwick] So in terms of why are we here and pirates are there? 353 00:18:33,278 --> 00:18:35,322 They are on the wrong side of history essentially. 354 00:18:35,739 --> 00:18:40,911 Politically, the civilized states that form the world today came out on top. 355 00:18:41,286 --> 00:18:42,871 [narrator] In large part because those states 356 00:18:42,955 --> 00:18:45,082 were so successful at something barbaric: 357 00:18:45,833 --> 00:18:47,000 trading slaves. 358 00:18:48,085 --> 00:18:50,712 Into the 1700s, pirates just couldn’t compete 359 00:18:50,796 --> 00:18:53,298 as the slave trade became more industrial in scale, 360 00:18:53,382 --> 00:18:56,552 transporting millions of Africans to Europe's colonies in the Americas, 361 00:18:56,635 --> 00:18:58,846 where their labor generated enormous wealth, 362 00:18:59,346 --> 00:19:02,683 solidifying the global dominance of the European powers and, ultimately... 363 00:19:03,183 --> 00:19:04,560 the United States. 364 00:19:05,811 --> 00:19:08,480 When the U.S. finally banned the slave trade in the early 1800s, 365 00:19:08,564 --> 00:19:11,358 it passed a law saying any citizen "engaged in the slave trade 366 00:19:11,441 --> 00:19:14,111 shall be adjudged a pirate and shall suffer death." 367 00:19:15,154 --> 00:19:18,574 But only one slave trader was ever executed by a Western state: 368 00:19:19,408 --> 00:19:23,495 Nathanial Gordon, convicted in 1862 of piracy. 369 00:19:24,496 --> 00:19:27,499 [Benton] Pirates is a label that, throughout history, 370 00:19:27,583 --> 00:19:31,378 you assigned to your rivals or enemies 371 00:19:31,461 --> 00:19:35,424 to suggest that what they were doing was illegitimate, 372 00:19:35,507 --> 00:19:38,552 whereas what you were doing was entirely legitimate. 373 00:19:39,386 --> 00:19:41,847 Pirates were an important part of history. 374 00:19:41,930 --> 00:19:45,267 They just aren't the part of history that we tend to think they are. 375 00:19:45,893 --> 00:19:47,895 [theme music playing]