The various princes as you say , were considered bonafide soveriegns - at least to some extent- by other nations.They also hade the mantle of privateers and thus some sort of legitimacy. (Abolished in the 1850s I think)
I was thinking more of the whole pirates capturing ship and crews and demanding ransom aspect.
I would be surprised if there isnt already secret dealings taking place between pirate lords and shipping reps about tribute/protection as we speak...
As for the fine line between a crime boss and a prince .. I think the local powers that be in the pirate areas of Somalia are closely connected to whatever warlord or other is currently considered the head honcho there. If not indeed they are the same guys. The stream of money would see to that. Revenuesources arent exactly plentiful there.
If the situation is allowed to continue ( and it likely will), there might develop cartels in Somalia that institutionalize the piracy and thus making negotations more similar to what you describe the Barbary coast privateers were like. But in the current confused situations I guess you are right that you cant buy your way out - even if I am thinking that there are attempts made.
As for piracy in General, I have been interested in the subject for years. Apparently only a small percentile is reported.Filing a report means delays and cost increases making most grab and run jobs on the water a relatively safe business.(At least that used to be the situation in the Pacific and South Atlantic until recently).
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Originally Posted by Adm.Lee
Nah, not really; I was just reading on that. The Barbary Pirates were sailing under the flags of various Barbary princes (the Sultan of Morocco, Bey/Dey of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli). These princes would demand tribute payments (money and sometimes ships) from other countries, or else they would declare war. Interestingly, the accepted form for declaring war would be to chop down the nation's flagpole at its consulate. Then his ships (naval and privateers) would seize all the merchant ships they could, imprisoning the crews until a new tributary treaty was made.
Normally, a country would pay up as a cost of doing business in the Mediterranean. Sending a squadron of warships along with the negotiators would be a useful way to decrease the payment demanded.
The Barbary Wars, as sometimes known here, took place when Tripoli started one of these wars, and the USA didn't want to pay. We did end up paying some money, but not for tribute, just to get back the crew of the USS Philadelphia. In the meantime, the Navy bombarded the city a few times, captured some of the privateers and instigated a revolt that captured the city of Derna.
So, that meant that there was a legally recognized power behind the "pirates"-- really privateers-- and that there was someone to negotiate with, who could stop the raiders. I don't see that in Somalia. As I understand it, there are pirate bosses with their own militias, but there are so many that a country (or group of countries) can't shut off the pirates by talking to any one of them. They are more like crime bosses than princes. You would need to take control of all of their ports, and then find real jobs for all of the ex-fishermen who turned pirate when their fishing grounds were wiped out.
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