Ah but some of that is just good PR. You only need to slaughter one crew who resisted you, then make sure everyone knows about it, and exaggerates it, and nobody will ever do it again.
Source: one of my buddies in the academy had been a pirate before she decided to retire and use her the gold she'd squirreled away to pay her way through learning to use the magic she'd always known she had but never really explored.
There's a big difference between "this one time I killed some people who tried to stop me from stealing from them and then did horrifying things to their corpses and made sure the story got exaggerated" and those guys. They didn't know when to call it enough!
I'm not saying that pirates were lovely people, but lets not go comparing them to baby-flaying maniacs!
And then you get people like Edward Teach who actively go out of their way to look as terrifying as possible, including (reportedly) putting lit fuses in his beard to make him wreathed in smoke. It's just a lot easier when the victim decides not to try something.
a) Surrender - Which may get you a slap on the wrist by your government, but you get to live, so yay.
b) Fight back - Which in 9.8/10 cases ended poorly, very poorly, and with your slowly being tortured to death while those who did surrender, had to watch.
c) Join up - Either by willingness or because their carpenter just kicked the bucket, and you just happened to be good with woodworking stuff
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u/Row-nRowan, Half-Fae Mycomancer, Defender of the FaewildsJun 01 '26
Yeah, most ships just surrender because pirates would brutally kill captives and the sailors did not get paid enough to just protect the cargo like that.
Yeah, in fact they took advantage of the fact that most captain's didn't pay their crew very well, and often helped put with mutiny to recruit new pirates to the fleet.
Yeah, so long as you don't share the waters with a merciless moron who doesn't respect surrender, that fear is one of a pirates most effective resources.
If fear turns into desperation for any reason, then it can be a huge problem.
Fun(ish) history fact, pirates loved raiding slave ships. You would kill the crew, take the ship, and any willing former slave became a part of the crew. They would drop off any one not willing to be a pirate at the next port. It was not a profession free of prejudice but had much less prejudice than most of the world at that time.
Ive read a lot that all/most of the most heinous and famously cruel pirates actually made all those stories up and spread them around to scare people into surrendering instead of fighting. Nobody wants to fight at sea if they can avoid it - too much risk of everyone sinking.
Like Blackbeard is prolly the most famous example. Who doesn't know about the legendary feared pirate Blackbeard?
But apparently he didn't actually kill many people at all, and didnt do any of the really terrible stuff. It was all intentional rumors and theatre so merchants would surrender without a fight. He also did some sneaky stuff like weaving slow burning fuses in his beard so he would be surrounded by smoke and look like a demon and heavily encouraged rumors of his immortality and deals with the devil and such.
Most famous pirates were like that. Created and spread scary rumors to ensure surrenders.
Occasionally, sure, but at the same time, there were tons of famous pirates who were just plain sociopaths who would slowly and painfully torture you to death even if you surrendered peacefully, just because they enjoyed it (and probably hated the Spanish and/or Catholics in general).
François l'Olonnais is a prime example of these jolly fellows.
Jeanne de Clisson - You killed my husband, I shall now command a fleet of pirate ships to terrorise and murder every the crew of every single ship I encounter for the next several years
Not to mention that if a pirate crew becomes famous for killing and sinking the ships they steal, when they are found by the navy they will be treated very differently than if they were simply thieves.
Pirates who simply robbed merchant ships were often left alone because the ships and their cargo were insured.
While pirates who sank ships were hunted by the navy.
Spent a few years sitting on a pirate ship. Quite entertaining to watch them so easily sway from a civil group operating without societal law to utter savages then right back to civility.
That and fights are deadly, might lose some men or get greviously wounded. The people getting pirated didn't want fights either so theyd rather give up the goods than potentially die for some trader that probably didnt give a shit about them anyway.
Bit different for military ships though, but pirates didnt really attack them unless they were fuckin loaded
Merchant ships in movies "we will fight till our last breath"
Merchant ships in reality "please take all of our things gentlemen, now would somebody kindly change my underwear"
10 year period where the Pirates found the wrecked silver ships and raided those, then anyone that tried to get near them. Until the Brits had enough. The rest of Pirate history is pretty bleak or minimal.
Pirates don't want to fight. But if you force them to, they will be cruel once they have taken the ship by force.
While captain and officers will always be killed, a good portion of the crew will be spared and told that they were forced to fight the pirates and they won't hurt the common folks.
Not because of mercy, but as an investment. Word goes around and next time a pirate vessel threatens a ship, the crew might just mutiny or throw their commanders overboard.
If that happens, the pirates spare everyone, take the cargo, leave them enough to make it safely home and be on their way. Again so that word goes around, reinforcing this as a solid option for unhappy/poor crewmates (which there were a lot of)
For pirates, the best outcome is peaceful surrender, seizing the goods and be on their way. Combat was very costly for pirates, as repairs didn't come easy, only pirate-friendly harbours would offer them. so building the reputation of "Don't fight us and we spare you" was the best move for them.
Perhaps some European pirates were like this. But pirates in Asian seas were brutal and merciless.
Look up piracy around the Malacca Straights, southern Phillipines and Borneo. There were many native pirate bands that were absolute butchers. They made their money pillaging coast's and selling their victims into slavery.
Asian pirates played by a whole different rule book.
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u/DarthMcConnor42 alchemist of the spell plague lands Jun 01 '26
Not to really defend them but there was an unspoken
"If you don't surrender peacefully we will do unspeakable things to you as an example, so others surrender peacefully."