River pirate

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Yangtze River, in China. The Imperial Japanese Army ultimately sunk the Panay in 1937, known as the Panay Incident
.

A river pirate is a

pirate who operates along a river. The term has been used to describe many different kinds of pirate groups who carry out riverine attacks in Asia, Africa, Europe, North America, and South America. They are usually prosecuted under national, not international law
.

Asia

Yangtze River of China, a hotbed of river pirate activity from the nineteenth century until the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, which was combated by patrols of American and European gunboat flotillas
.
Mekong River
, where modern-day Asian river piracy exists.
Mekong River sampan
boat, typically used by modern-day Asian river pirates

China

In Asia, river piracy is a major threat even today. The "

Hankou 680 mi (1,090 km). In 1874, the U.S. gunboat USS Ashuelot reached as far as Ichang, at the foot of the Yangtze gorges, 975 miles (1,569 km) from the sea. In this period, most US personnel found a tour in the Yangtze to be uneventful, as a major American shipping company had sold its interests to a Chinese firm, leaving the patrol with little to protect. The added mission of anti-piracy patrols required U.S. naval and marine
landing parties to be put ashore several times to protect American interests.

Southeast Asia along Mekong River

Currently, in a region known as the

hijacked, and thirteen crewmen were killed. The hijackers were caught and executed by the Chinese government in 2012.[1][2][3]

Viking
river raiders.
conquest of Siberia, in the reign of Tsar Ivan the Terrible
.
Danube River
, are the natural boundary between Serbia and Romania, where modern-day river piracy exists.

Europe

Balkans

In the

medieval Narentines, of the ninth and tenth centuries, were known for their piracy on the River Neretva
.

Russia

The

Cossack
river pirate along the Volga or possibly Don River. Yermak was later pardoned for his crimes and became the "Conqueror of Siberia".

Along Danube River

Modern piracy exists on the Danube River in Serbia and Romania. Allegations were made from 2006 that Romanian river pirates had attacked vessels from Bulgaria on the Danube. The Romanian government responded by accusing captains of fabricating stories while illegally selling their own cargo and evading customs.[4] There were further allegations of Danubian piracy on Ukrainian vessels in 2012[5] but in only one case were there allegations of actual attacks on crews: more properly the incidents amounted simply to theft from cargo vessels.

North America

United States

Ohio and Mississippi Rivers

American river piracy in late eighteenth and mid-nineteenth century was primarily concentrated along the

rafts
were sunk or sold down river.

From the late eighteenth to early nineteenth centuries, American river pirates on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers chose flatboats, keelboats, and rafts as profitable targets to attack because of the valuable and plentiful cargo on board.

Toward the end of the Revolutionary War, after their escape from New Madrid, Spanish Upper Louisiana Territory, John Turner and the counterfeiter Philip Alston joined Chickasaw Indian leader, James Logan Colbert and a mixed, roving band of Natchez refugees, Cumberland settlers, and Chickasaw, numbering around 600, made piratical attacks against Spanish shipping on the Mississippi River in 1781 and 1782.[6][7]

After the Revolutionary War, American river piracy began to take root in the mid-1780s along the upper Mississippi River, between

St. Louis and the confluence with the Ohio River at Cairo. In 1803, at Tower Rock, the U.S. Army dragoons, possibly from the frontier army post up river at Fort Kaskaskia, opposite St. Louis
, raided and drove out the river pirates.

In 1803, at Tower Rock, the U.S. Army dragoons raided and drove out the river pirates.

Starting in the late 1790s, Stack Island became associated with river pirates and counterfeiters. In 1809, the last major river pirate activity on the upper Mississippi came to an abrupt end, when a group of flatboatmen, meeting at the head of the "Nine Mile Reach," decided to make a raid on Stack Island and wipe out the river pirates. They attacked at night, a battle ensued, and two of the boatmen and several outlaws were killed. The attackers captured nineteen other men, a fifteen-year-old boy and two women. The women and teenager were allowed to leave. The remaining outlaws are presumed to have been executed.

From 1790 to 1834,

regulators sweeping through western Kentucky, so set up his new operation at Diamond Island
, followed by Cave-In-Rock and later, along the Mississippi River, from Stack Island to Natchez, Mississippi.

Cave-In-Rock was the lair, of American river pirates, along the Ohio River
, from 1790 to 1834.

During Samuel Mason's 1797–1799 occupation of Cave-In-Rock and after his departure, the name of

Wiley Harpe
, following them to Stack Island and Natchez.

From the late 1700s to early 1800s, on the Illinois side of the Ohio River north of Cave-In-Rock, Jonathan Brown led a small gang of river pirates at Battery Rock. The lower Ohio River country was routinely patrolled by the U.S. Army, with troops garrisoned at Fort Massac as constabulary against Native Americans, colonial raiders from Spanish Louisiana, and river outlaws in the region.

Between 1790 and 1820, the legendary

auger
, causing the boat to sink and be easily attacked. The boat and the cargo would later be sold down river.

American river pirates patrolled the Cache River cypress swamp of Southern Illinois, near the confluence of the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers, from the 1790s–1820.
New York harbor
by 1877.

James Ford, a civic leader and businessman, secretly led a gang of river pirates and highwaymen from the 1820s to the mid-1830s on the Ohio River, in Illinois and Kentucky.

River piracy continued on the lower Mississippi River from the early 1800s to the 1840s. These river pirates were mainly organized into large gangs similar to Samuel Mason's around Cave-In-Rock, or smaller gangs under the operation of John A. Murrell, which also existed from the 1820s to the mid-1830s between Stack Island and Natchez, Mississippi.

The decline of American river piracy occurred over time, starting as early as 1804 and ending by the 1840s, as a result of direct military action taken and the combined strength of local

regulator-vigilante groups that uprooted and swept out pockets of outlaw
resistance.

New York City

The New York City waterfront where river pirates harassed shipping from 1866 to 1877.
New York City Police fighting river pirates along the 19th century New York City waterfront

From 1866 to 1877, the

Patsey Conroy Gang
.

In the mid-1860s the

Sadie "the Goat" Farrell. Sadie the Goat modeled herself and her gang after the "pirates of the Golden Age" by flying the "Jolly Roger
" flag aboard their ship and making victims walk the plank.

The Charlton Street Gang raided small cargo and merchant ships and operated within the territory of New York City,

Poughkeepsie and Albany, New York
.

After the Charlton Street Gang murdered people in pirate raids in the

vigilantes in the region. Following this setback the Charlton Street Gang decided to return to New York City and commit only street crimes
never to return to river piracy again. By 1869, the gang disappeared from the scene.

The eventual decline of river piracy in New York City began in 1876 when the

George W. Gastlin
organized the "Steamboat Squad" in which armed police patrols in boats confronted and arrested the river pirates in New York harbor.[8]

United States – Mexico border

Rio Grande

Main articles:
Mexican Drug War

An increase in crime at the border between the United States and Mexico on

Mexican Drug War
.

South America

In recent years, river pirate activity on the Amazon River has been on the rise in various countries around that river.

In northern Brazil, due to the lack of investments in security, river pirate activity skyrocketed. Attacks against oil tankers, cargo boats and fishermen became very frequent in this region.

In Colombia, paramilitary groups and drug cartels committed numerous hijackings, and looting of boats and kidnapping are also frequent.

See also

References

  1. ^ Rodgers, pg. 44–47
  2. ^ "River Pirates of Cave-in-Rock". niu.edu. Archived from the original on 3 April 2012. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  3. ^ "Myanmar's army recovers captured Chinese boats". townhall.com. Retrieved 24 April 2015.
  4. ^ Pancevski, Bojan (22 July 2006). "Pirates of the Danube give shipping owners the blues". The Daily Telegraph.
  5. ^ Romanian Pirates Attack Ukrainian Ships More Frequently (in Ukrainian)
  6. ^ James 27–28.
  7. ^ Misc. Newspapers. The Colonial Records Project. North Carolina Department of Archives and History. http://www.ah.dcr.state.nc.us/sections/hp/colonial/newspapers/Subjects/Misc.htm Archived 19 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine.
  8. ISBN 1-56025-275-8

External links
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