Pirates

I was out to take this picture today because of pirates. This is a replica of some of the first models we built for sea trade. Portugal was the first global power, followed closely by Spain. I guess my spanish friends can disagree a little here. For them we just did it at the same time. The fact is that Portugal started a maritime expansion in order to achieve dominance in trade with the Far East. We also started some military incursion in North Africa to secure entry points to those routes. After Columbus discovery of America (he thought was India) Spain pressed a spanish born Pope to force negotiations with Portugal. Columbus studied in Portugal and was certain the world had a lower circumference than it really has. That's why he thought America was India.

In the 7th of June 1494 the Treaty of Tordesillas was signed and divided the newly discovered lands outside Europe into an exclusive duopoly between the spanish and the portuguese along a north-south meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands. The lands to the east would belong to Portugal and the lands to the west to Spain. The treaty was ratified by Spain in July and by Portugal in September. The other side of the world would be divided a few decades later by the Treaty of Saragossa, signed on 1529, which specified the anti-meridian to the line of demarcation specified in the Treaty of Tordesillas.

No one before has global empires. They where all local, regional or continental restricted. No one would do it after also. Not even today. Maybe the most similar situation was the one lived during the cold war between USA and Soviet Union. That's why i feel sorry for the Americans, they are 500 years outdated and didn't noticed.

After this splitting by the Pope of the world, other countries become at war with Portugal and Spain. They started to issue letters of marque that allowed pirates to become privateers, that is, to work for those countries that issued the letter. Basically it granted immunity to pirates that worked for the Dutch East India Company and the British. One of the most famous pirates, and a British hero, is Sir Francis Drake. Basically all pirates from that period where of British, Dutch and French origins. That took care of the military problem.

But there where two others. And the British and the Dutch also solved them. One was the Pope. The treaty was signed between Portugal and Spain, but with the Church blessing. The way to solve this was to start new religions, which they both did. The other was how to legalize those actions.

The Dutch East India Company seized a portuguese flag ship, the Santa Catarina. This robbery was polemical even in some circles inside the investors of the dutch company. To make the defense of those actions, Hugo Grotius for the dutch, wrote "Mare liberum". The british responded with John Seldon's "Mare clausum". The result was the actual formula of territorial waters and international waters.

Most of our international laws are descendants of those times, they are just formulas to legalize the dutch and british piracy. Some obsolete rules can still be used, like the real ship's flag only needed to be raised just before the first shot. Those are pirate tactics. For many years the british and the dutch endured on those actions. One must only remember that Hing Kong was released to China only a few years ago. The British Empire took over Hong Kong because they needed an entry point in China for the distribution of one commodity they where selling, and the Chinese Emperor didn't wanted to sold in China. I am speaking, of course, of opium, heroin. The British Empire didn't hesitated to send His Majesty Ships to enforce the drug lords trade.

I guess that's why i laugh at those new comers with their new shinning religions and technologies, pretending to be global powers. Most of the times they just are descendants of pirates, drug lords and criminals at least 500 years outdated.