Piracy facts for kids

For illegal copying of computer files, see software piracy.

Piracy is a crime that is committed on ships which are at sea. Pirate is the name given to those people. They usually have small and fast boats. They use these boats to attack other ships, which are usually large cargo ships.

The Jolly Roger flag is a well known symbol of Pirates

For as long as ships have sailed the sea, there have been pirates. From the Greeks, to the Romans, to the Middle Ages, to the British Empire, there have always been pirates. Sometimes fighting pirates has been one of the most important jobs of a navy.

Modern times

A lot of piracy still happens nowadays in the Gulf of Aden, mostly by Somali pirates. Modern-day pirates usually climb onto ships to get money. In the process, they may kill the crew, or hold them for ransom. In a very few cases, they may also take over the ship and sell its cargo.

The cargo ships that travel the oceans are huge. They usually have very few crew members working on them. Since the ships are so big, they often carry a lot of money in the ship's safe. This money is used to pay the crew, and to pay for the taxes to stay at a port, or to pass through a channel.

Famous pirates

Images for kids

British sailors boarding an Algerine pirate ship and battling the pirates; colored engraving by John Fairburn (1793–1832)
French pirate Jacques de Sores looting and burning Havana in 1555
Mosaic of a Roman trireme in Tunisia
A fleet of Vikings, painted mid-12th century
"Cossaks of Azov fighting a Turk ship" by Grigory Gagarin
Amaro Pargo was one of the most famous corsairs of the Golden Age of Piracy
U.S. naval officer Stephen Decatur boarding a Tripolitan gunboat during the First Barbary War, 1804
Sixteenth century Japanese pirate raids.
Four Chinese pirates who were hanged in Hong Kong in 1863
Spanish warships bombarding the Moro Pirates of the southern Philippines in 1848
The cemetery of past pirates at Île Ste-Marie (St. Mary's Island).
Puerto del Príncipe being sacked in 1668 by Henry Morgan
Book about pirates They Americaensche Zee-Roovers was first published in 1678 in Amsterdam
Henry Every is shown selling his loot in this engraving by Howard Pyle. Every's capture of the Grand Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695 stands as one of the most profitable pirate raids ever perpetrated.
Born to a noble family in Puerto Rico, Roberto Cofresí was the last notably successful pirate in the Caribbean.
Capture of the Pirate Blackbeard, 1718 depicting the battle between Blackbeard and Robert Maynard in Ocracoke Bay; romanticized depiction by Jean Leon Gerome Ferris from 1920
Dan Seavey was a pirate on the Great Lakes in the early 20th century.
Henry Morgan who sacked and burned the city of Panama in 1671 – the second most important city in the Spanish New World at the time; engraving from 1681 Spanish edition of Alexandre Exquemelin's The Buccaneers of America
Bartholomew Roberts' crew carousing at the Calabar River; illustration from The Pirates Own Book (1837). Roberts is estimated to have captured over 470 vessels.
Pirate treasure looted by Samuel Bellamy and recovered from the wreck of the Whydah; exhibit at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, 2010
HMS Kent battling Confiance, a privateer vessel commanded by French corsair Robert Surcouf in October 1800, as depicted in a painting by Garneray.
Aerial photograph of the Niger Delta, a center of piracy.
A collage of Somali pirates armed with AKM assault rifles, RPG-7 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and semi-automatic pistols.
United States Coast Guard sailors patrolling for pirates on Falcon Lake as part of the Mexican Drug War.
Incidences of pipeline vandalism by pirates in the Gulf of Guinea, 2002–2011
Suspected Somali pirates keep their hands in the air
Private guard escort on a merchant ship providing security services against piracy in the Indian Ocean.
A Merchant seaman aboard a fleet oil tanker practices target shooting with a Remington 870 12 gauge shotgun as part of training to repel pirates in the Strait of Malacca.
International Maritime Organization (IMO) conference on capacity-building to counter piracy in the Indian Ocean.
British Royal Navy Commodore gives a presentation on Piracy at the MAST 2008 conference.
"Mic the Scallywag" of the Pirates of Emerson Haunted Adventure Fremont, California
A person costumed in the character of captain Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp's lead role in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series.
The Vitalienbrüder. Piracy became endemic in the Baltic sea in the Middle Ages.
Pirate Anne Bonny (1697–1720). Engraving from Captain Charles Johnson's General History of the Pyrates (1st Dutch Edition, 1725)