It is difficult to specify exactly when the history of piracy began. It dates back more than 3000 years, but its accurate account depends on the meaning and use of the word "pirate" or "piracy". Today the English word "pirate" has different meanings. According to the Webster Dictionary, it means:

--- A robber on the high seas; one who by open violence takes the property of another on the high seas; especially, one who makes it his business to cruise for robbery or plunder; a freebooter on the seas; also, one who steals in a harbor.

--- An armed ship or vessel which sails without a legal commission, for the purpose of plundering other vessels on the high seas.

--- One who infringes the law of copyright, or publishes the work of an author without permission.

--- Pirate perch (zool.), a fresh-water percoid fish of the United States (Aphredoderus Sayanus). It is of a dark olive color, speckled with blackish spots.

Before the 17th century "piracy" was mentioned in Greek and Latin sources and all disputes and definitions of piracy were based on it. It appears that the word "pirate" was used for the first time by the Roman historian Polybius about 140 BC. An early written source of piracy and its description can be found in Homer's "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey". However, the first clear definition of piracy was written down by the Greek historian Plutarch in about 100 AD. Plutarch describes the pirates as people who attacked ships and maritime cities without legal authority.

During the Middle Ages from the 9th to the 11th century, the Scandinavians tried to expand their empire, most likely due to a lack of space to live in. Norsemen came from Denmark, Sweden and Norway, and they were not called pirates but rather "Vikings". Another popular meaning of the word in medieval England was "sea thieves". In the year 789 AD, the first Viking ships arrived at the southern coast of England. However, the real Viking invasion began in 793 AD, when Vikings plundered and destroyed a church on the island Lindisfarne, off the northeast coast of England. Landfall on the northern coast of Britain followed soon. In 795 Viking raiders were recorded near Dublin, and in 799 on the coast of south west France. The Viking empire expanded rapidly, before it ended around 1050 AD.

The era of the Golden Age of Euro-American Piracy started with the discovery of the New World in the 15th century. The American colonies were seized by the Spanish, as new technologies allowed long and accurate sea voyages. The power of the empires during this era was mostly based on control of the seas rather than on control of the land. While Spain was trying to spread their power in the New World and exploit its treasures, the English, French and Dutch struggled to catch up with Spain. While the Spanish plundered the immeasurable wealth from the Native Americans, England and France sponsored pirates to attack the Spanish ships that were transporting treasures from America back home. During the war this kind of piracy was legitimized by the state as legal privateering. At the late 17th century Spain was no longer the unrivaled sea power. Other nations like France and especially England overtook Spain and expanded their fleets; international sea-born trade became very popular. A massive trading network was established across the oceans. As countless valuable goods were transported by merchant ships, a new type of soldiers of fortunes emerged from the large population of seafarers - the pirates.

The pirate groups often were wildly composed of slaves, mutineers and greedy adventurers. These groups usually gathered in the Caribbean during the second half of the 17th century, a melting-pot for thousands of outlaws, slaves from sugar plantations, deported Irish, Liverpool beggars, Scottish highwaymen and exiled Huguenots. In 1655 Barbados was described as "a dunghill wheron England doth cast forth its rubbish." These men formed the basis for the Caribbean piracy that emerged in the 17th century.

At the late 17th and early 18th century piracy got rather out of hand and the plundering and looting inflicted a lot of damage to the British Empire and other nations. Piracy was no longer legitimized. Soon it was recognized that stable, regular trade served the interests of a mature imperial power far better than piracy. From this point forward the only pirates were those who explicitly rejected the state and its laws and declared themselves in open war against it. The numbers of pirates flocked to the red flag grew, and a deadly spiral of increasing violence developed, as state attacks were met with revenge from the pirates leading to greater state terror. After a raid pirates often would make for a city like Port Royal in Jamaica, where they spent all their money in one great binge of drinking, whoring and gambling.

Also the Mediterranean had a piracy problem. During the 16th and 17th century the so-called Barbary Coast - the coast of North Africa - was haunted by pirates from Algiers, Tunis and Morocco, like Barbarossa.

The Golden Age of Piracy lasted roughly from 1650 to 1725. The Caribbean islands were the center of piracy during the Golden Age of Piracy, as it offered numerous hiding places and uncharted islands. Pirates used these islands also to resupply with fresh water and provisions and to hide from the empires' navies after their raids. It was almost impossible for the navy to track down a pirate ship hiding in one of the countless secret coves.

Captured pirates had to be transported back to London for prosecution, which was a very complicated and time-consuming process. The notorious pirate William Kidd was a classic case of annoyance to England. He was one of the reasons why the British empire introduced a new law in 1700, called "Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy". This law granted rewards for resisting pirate attacks, enforced the death penalty and allowed the navy swift trial and execution of pirates wherever they were found without a real jury. Under the provisions of the new law the war against the pirates increasingly took place around the peripheries of the British empire, and it wouldn't just be one or two corpses that dangled from crosstrees down near the tidemark but sometimes twenty or thirty at a time.

This law was the first step to end the reign of the pirates. In 1713, the Treaty of Utrecht ended war between the European nations, and from this point forward the states could concentrate more efficiently on hunting down the pirate threat. The Caribbean colonies were brought into line to support the interests of the empire on site. People like Woodes Rogers, governor of the Bahamas, and Sir Henry Morgan, who was established as a governor in Jamaica, helped to suppress and fight piracy. The favorable conditions of the Golden Age of Piracy had ended, returning wealth to the merchants and revenue to the state.