Anyone who hears the word piracy comes to mind in the 18th century. This period is important for the history of piracy. This period is known as the Golden Age of piracy. In this era, we know the stories of pirates who terrified innocent people on the Caribbean Island through black-flagged ships. In popular culture, bandits also created the image of the pirate. Where did the pirates use as a settlement before sheltering in the Caribbean Sea? In this article, we talk about the importance of the Mediterranean for the history of piracy. The activities of pirates in the Mediterranean are explained. 

The pirates, who showed important activities in the Mediterranean, ended in the Mediterranean again. Piracy activities have been continuing since the shipping started. The history of piracy activities is as old as the history of maritime. BC On the shores of the Persian Gulf. It is known that there was a place known as the pirate coast in the 5000s. Many sailors, who looted coastal cities and commercial ships on the Mediterranean in ancient times, lived. Illyrians engaged in piracy activities in the Adriatic Sea. Also, the Tyrns have become a community named after the Tyrrhenian Sea and known in the field of piracy.

The oldest name known as a pirate in history coincides with the time of Alexander the Great. The name of this pirate has managed to take its place in history as Dionides. After long activities, this pirate was caught and brought to the presence of Alexander the Great. Alexander the Great sentenced this pirate to death. Dionides did not remain silent and said that Alexander the Great should be punished with the same punishment. He said that he was a rogue to meet his needs with a ship and five or ten men, while Alexander the Great plundered the world with hundreds of ships and hundreds of thousands of soldiers. The famous commander, who was amazed by this boldness, was happy with his reply and donated the life of the pirate. After a pirate-like Dionides, many pirates continued to wreak havoc on the Mediterranean border. Along with the fleets of hundreds of ships, they attacked a lot of ships on behalf of piracy. B.C. In the first century, we see that many pirates established small states. These pirate states started to endanger the Eastern Mediterranean trade over time. Cilician pirates have gone much further. They captured a Roman ship in which Julius Ceasar was in and kidnapped the famous commander. They kept the famous commander they had kidnapped as a hostage on the island of Farmakos. The Roman Senate has also adopted the law of the sea under the name Lex Gabinia, seeing that the danger has reached very serious levels. The large fleet of 500 ships commanded by General Pompeius defeated the pirates near Alanya after three years of war.

After this defeat, the danger of pirate disappeared in the Mediterranean for a long time. In the 3rd century, this silence continued until the Got squadron attacked the Anatolian shores, looting those shores and gaining hundreds of captives and gaining a great amount of loot. In the centuries after the Roman State, pirates belonging to many states made a cruise in the Mediterranean. Until the 12th century, Vikings, Vandals, Arabs, and Moories looted the shores of Southern Europe and North Africa. Narentins, on the other hand, organized many raids on the Adriatic coast in the 7th century. Until the 11th century, they fought with Venetians on the Dalmatian coast. Another community that flocked to the Mediterranean towards the end of the 9th century was the Moorish. These plundered many Italian cities. We see that bandits operating as a pirate during the middle ages were in government affairs. At these times, we come across two different concepts. These concepts are Marine Bandits and Marine Raiders. Considering their activities, there was not much difference between them. As a difference, an important difference is that raider pirates were given the authority to lubricate enemy ships by the state. The pirates' task was to shoot down the ships of the enemy states, while also taking over the ship without damaging the ship is attacked. A pirate, who was declared guilty by any country, could move to the hostile country and buy a piracy warrant from there. As an example of this situation, the Dutch pirate Jan Janszoon took the name of Küçük Murat Reis, while British national Jack Ward changed the religion under the name of Yusuf Reis and came under the patronage of the Ottoman State.

The captured pirates were given many penalties. The punishment imposed on piracy at sea was the same everywhere. The punishment of a pirate captured in this way was death. The pirates were immediately hung as they were caught. The corpses of the pirates that were hanged were also exhibited in the port for days. If the pirate served within a state and was caught in this way, he was considered a war criminal. Pirates caught in this way were sentenced to rowing. Pirates who were not sentenced to rowing were also imprisoned in the dungeon. It was also found that pirates who were caught in this way were released in exchange for ransom at certain times. Pirates operated every year until October, when the storms started intensely, starting in April.

By the autumn, the pirates were drawn to the harbors. The ships would either be pulled to ports or anchored to the shore. When the ships sailed, they stored their one-month food supplies. Water barrels, rusks and dried meat were stored on the deck. It was important for the pirates that the ships had high maneuverability. For this reason, lightships called pullers were preferred. These ships, which sailed using oars, could move independently from the sail. Suddenly they were able to move in this way by turning in the opposite direction. The fact that these ships could easily approach shallow areas made it easier for the pirates to ambush in sandy areas. The trailers called Quality were the most preferred type by pirates. Other pull variants differed in different sizes and features. They were referred to by names such as captain, Bosphorus galley, and fate. Lightships such as the boiler have evolved and have been replaced by ships called galleys.

There was a rowing crew on the lower deck of the pirate ship. These were often taken as captives. Shifts were supervised at the beginning of each group. All of them would lie there, wherever their mission was close. Someone responsible for the firing of the balls, who was involved in any activity related to the ball, lay at the top of the balls, right next to the helm cupboard, which took the role of the helmsman, under the masts. All the remaining seafarers were stuck in the middle of the deck or on both sides of the deck. The captain and his deputies were housed in a private area called the tent at the stern. The tools used by pirates in naval battles during the Middle Ages; Turkish pirates were using machetes called `` Yatağan '' while weapons such as guns, guns, arrows, crossbows, and swords were used.

An important thing that emerged in the Mediterranean was the pirate flags bearing symbols such as arms, skull, human head, an hourglass that hold a machete. These flags were also adopted by pirates in the following periods. In the Ottoman period, sea raids were accepted as gas. In the Ottoman Empire, pirate power was the most important attacking force of the empire at sea. Raiders were called levent. These levels were looted by capturing enemy ships in line with the orders of their heads. By attacking coastal cities in Europe, they were getting many prisoners. During the war, these heads joined the Ottoman navy. They were also responsible for the security of the North African coast during times of peace.

If any sailor in the Ottoman State was not caught up in piracy, this sailor was not considered a complete sailor. For this reason, there are many compliments in the old Ottoman texts that the great heads were the pirate. The most important of these great and skillful pirates are Hızır and Oruç Reisler, Turgut Reis, Kara Hoca, Müslihüddin Reis, Şolok Mehmet, Koca Murat Reis, Aydın Reis, Piri Reis, Kemal Reis, Mezomorto Hüseyin Paşa, Burak Reis, Salih Reis, Sinan Reis, Seydi Ali Reis is Uluç Ali Reis. As a result of the Protestant Reform, which was born against Catholic Europe in the 16th century, a very different alliance emerged. Turks and British pirates attacked Spanish, French and Portuguese ships. After a while, the Dutch joined this partnership. Dutch and British pirates attacked Catholic ships and looted them. Turkish forsaş, who were captured on ships, brought their freedom. They took Catholic prisoners captured during these attacks on Turkish ports. At that time, this alliance was called Turco Calvinism. This alliance annoys the king of France. In a 1607 letter to the Sultan, King Louis 13 criticized the British and Dutch pirates attacking French ships in North Africa using Turkish ports. Jack Ward, Yusuf Reis, Henry Mainwaring, Peter Easton, and Robert Walsingham have visited Turkish ports many times at that time. These operated as British pirates. Among the famous Dutch pirates of this period are Simon Reis, Süleyman Reis, and Küçük Murat Reis. Piracy in the Mediterranean lived the Golden Age from the 16th century to the 19th century. Algerian pirates attacked the southern European coast by raids from the ports of Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli. With these attacks, they became fearless in the West Mediterranean and reached the position of hesitant rulers, and many people from Europe joined these pirates with the hope of being rich.

The indigenous people in the coastal cities also had to leave their settlements due to the attacks of these pirates. Because people who were forcibly abducted from these settlements were sold as slaves or they were employed on the ships as galley slaves. As the slave trade became so widespread, the most important income of the pirates became the prisoner trade. It is estimated that more than 1 million people were kidnapped and sold as slaves at this time. The biggest rival to the Turkish pirates operating in the Mediterranean was the pirates serving the St. Jean knights. During the 16th century, as a result of the bloody wars between these two groups, the Mediterranean came under Turkish domination. Thus, Algerian pirates actively operated in the region until the beginning of the 19th century. Due to the activities of Turkish pirates, the American government had to pay high taxes to the Algerian Beylerbeyli for many years. He paid 60,000 dollars a year in tribute in 1796 just for the right of America's free passage to cross the Western Mediterranean. To put an end to piracy activities, the American government forced warships to Libya in 1801. This event is the first overseas military operation organized by the United States. The American Navy captured Libya in 1805. But the pirates continued to attack the American government's ships and loot them by establishing a base in Algeria.

In 1815, 10 years later, a second military expedition was organized to Algeria. There were stronger and more defensive ships in front of the pirates than the ships they owned. The pirates could not win against these ships. The pirates could not resist these ships for a long time. After this defeat, the rulership on the North African coast ended. The piracy of history occurred after these events. The pirates, who could not fight against powerful navies, lost their strong dominance in the Mediterranean and remained the spectator of piracy. Piracy activities that continued for many years did not continue after that. Its old significance and influence are gone.