I don’t think pirates really worried about laundering any booty. What for? They weren’t worried about the IRS, nor would people generally have qualms about where someone’s gold/silverm/wares might have come from, methinks.
Comment on Makes sense
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 2 months agoThere has always been better ways to launder money than simply sitting on it.
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If you got a pile of gold, someone somewhere will want to know where it came from. A powerful somebody who will be looking for any excuse to confiscate it. For the public good of course!
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
If you got a pile of gold, you have something of inherent value, which you could, for instance melt down into bars.
If you have something worth a lot of money, you’ll always find someone to buy it.
You’re really thinking more like someone having stolen the Mona-Lisa in the 21st century than pirates plundering raw wares and possibly some valuables.
Hell a bit more than a hundred years ago a servant could rather easily, if they wanted, just steal all the jewelry and valuables of their mistress and if they actually went further than like 100 miles from where they stole them, the chances of getting caught would be quite small. Or especially if they were actually a professional thief and knew a fence.
But pirated didn’t need to worry about any of that.
They’d just sail into a pirate haven, basically proto-anarchist societies, and they weren’t in short supply either.
shalafi@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Meh, we’re mostly on the same page. I wasn’t thinking so much of legit authorities acting. More like someone will want to steal that gold. Best to keep it on the down low, dole it out slowly, kinda like money laundering. Avoiding the thugs vs. avoiding the authorities? Am I making sense? I have no idea any more.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They weren’t worried about the tax man, but only a fool would believe there were zero authorities that would question someone suddenly coming upon wealth.
It’s not paying taxes but producing plausibility that laundering provides.
Dasus@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They weren’t worried about the tax man, but only a fool would believe there were zero authorities that would question someone suddenly coming upon wealth
And what sort of a fool would live under some state’s power while actively practicing piracy?
You’re just gonna get the crew to drop you off after four to see your wife and kids? Take the weekend off, park the sloop harbor?
Pirates didn’t participate in high society. Or any state-sponsored society for that matter. They had their own societies.
MotoAsh@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They still needed to interact with society. Do you think most ports weren’t controlled by some kind of authority that you’d have to get some kind of either favor or believability with?
Pirates weren’t pirates just to pirate things… not the successful ones, anyways.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 1 month ago
Gold was absolutely taxed and controlled In those days. Just because modern taxation didn’t exist, it didn’t mean that people didn’t ask ‘hey where did you get the money from?’
There have been cases as far back as Ancient Egypt where robbers were caught because they suddenly had access to large amounts of money they wouldn’t have had otherwise. I think it involved a group of people who robbed a Pharoah’s tomb. It has been decades since I read about it so I could be off.
Dasus@lemmy.world 1 month ago
Gold was absolutely taxed and controlled In those days.
By whom, exactly? The states too weak to invade and take control of pirate havens?
"hey where did you get the money from?’
“fuck off, that’s where”
Uuu so challenging this “monkey laundering” in the 1700’s.
Bank notes didn’t practically exist. Money was actually gold or silver. Moneys laundering as a concept is from the 1920’s from mafia who lived under a states rule.
I imagine that England sending letters to pirated saying “hey guys we need you to pay your taxes and also please come back to England so we can hang you for piracy” would’ve gotten similar responses as what the pirates over at pirate-bay in the modern world gave to a similar power, only in modern parliance.
ArmchairAce1944@discuss.online 1 month ago
By whom, exactly? The states too weak to invade and take control of pirate havens?
If they landed in a legitimate port they will ask questions. States were weaker back then, but not that weak. BTW, much gold was brought back not as bullion, but as personal jewelry, because jewelry was not taxes, but stuff like gold nuggets or gold bricks were.
Also they didn’t care to tax pirates. If you were a ‘real’ pirate, as in someone who did not have a letter of marque, you were liable to hanged and everything taken from you. If you were a privateer you paid 10% of your ‘earnings’ to the crown and kept the rest. I should mention that earnings weren’t just precious metals and stones, they were EVERYTHING. If you plundered a ship full of sugar cane and tobacco, the crown got 10% of that.
It does depend on your time period, if you were active in the 1640s to the 1660s, the golden age of piracy, even if you didn’t have a letter of Marque, it was likely that nations did not care if you were a pirate as long as you didn’t rob THEIR ships. Political tensions were super high in Europe at the time and there was a doctrine of ‘no peace beyond the line’ meaning if you went to the West Indies, it was a free for all. So if you were an English or French pirate and robbed only Spanish ships, the French and English didn’t give a fuck and you go back to a French/English port and no one would bother you. But if you tried to do piracy in the 1690s to 1710s, you were going to get hanged. This era of piracy is when navies started to spring up and they didn’t tolerate any form of piracy on the high seas at all, and the concept of no peace beyond the line ceased to exist. Many of the most famous pirates we know, like Black Beard and Calico Jack were active during this time period.
The most successful ‘pure’ pirate (someone who did not operate with a letter of marque) was Henry Every, and he wasn’t in the Caribbean, he robbed a huge ass treasure ship belonging to the Mughal Empire in the Indian ocean and he and his crew stole a ton of treasure. The thing which is just as fascinating is that Henry absolutely got away with it. He fucking disappeared into thin air and was never found with his share of the loot. I know finding someone was harder in those days, but even back then being a fugitive was difficult, and a super high profile fugitive like him (his pirate action caused a huge diplomatic crisis between England and the Mughal Empire) would not have been allowed to stay on the run for long.
To give you an example of how that is different, Piet Hein, a Dutch pirate, also robbed a Spanish treasure ship, but due to the fact that it happened nearly 100 years prior to Henry’s action, he had the backing of the Dutch state (which was at war with Spain at the time) and he was richly rewarded for it instead of being hunted.
sidelove@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I was under the impression it was just storage under-the-mattress style. No one’s bringing a treasure chest to buy eggs.
TheWordBotcher@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Pippi Longstocking would like a word…
Sc00ter@lemmy.zip 1 month ago
This was my thought as well. You obviously aren’t using a bank, and you probably dont trust enough people to keep that on your ship. Not to mention if your ship goes down and you survive, it sure would be nice to get your treasure back. Hence the maps with “tricks.” Theyre only supposed to be Hints for the person know already knows where it is