Here I'm listing old words that got lost in time, so you don't get lost too. ;D
Please let me know if I'm missing something!
Pirates, Privateers, Corsairs, Buccaneers, Filibusters
We've all grown up convinced that all these words meant the same. But they don't, so let's see if we can define each of them.
Pirates: independent sailors that went around the seven seas, forcibly looting on other ships and coastal towns for their own benefit.
Buccaneers: French settlers in La Hispaniola. They were boar hunters, and had a particular technique to dry and smoke the meat of their prey: they buccaneered it.
When the Spaniards kicked them out, the buccaneers crossed to Tortuga and settled there. But since the island was so small, and at the beginning they had to share it with the English, the hunting didn't thrive. So they decided to try a new line of business: they became pirates.
So, some pirates had been buccaneers, just like some buccaneers became pirates --and quit buccaneering, basically because boar is hard to come across at sea.
However, not all pirates had been buccaneers, and not all buccaneers became pirates. So you were a buccaneer or you were a pirate. You couldn't be both at the same time.
Filibusters: the word comes from the Dutch vrijbuiter, which means freebooter. Fribustier in French, later changed to flibustier ---->filibuster in English.
They were French independent pirates that berthed in Tortuga. They called themselves Brethren of the Coast.
So, all filibusters were pirates, some of them had been buccaneers, and some of them became corsairs.
Corsair/Privateer:
A privateer was a pirate captain that received a Letter of Marque of a European king.
It's sort of accepted that privateer refers to English pirate captains with a letter of marque, while corsairs were French.
So, all corsairs were pirates. In the Caribbean, corsairs had been filibusters, and some of them had also been buccaneers. They counted themselves as Brethren of the Coast.
But becoming a corsair meant you were not a filibuster anymore (because filibusters were all freebooters, independent pirates).
Privateers were all pirates, but none of them were corsairs, nor filibusters, nor buccaneers--because all those words refer to French settlers/sailors and privateers were English.
Letter of Marque:
This thing was a contract of sorts between a given pirate captain (privateers were no regular sailors, but those who commanded a ship) and a European king --mainly English, French and Dutch.
The Letter recognized the captain as an officer of the royal navy of the given crown. This gave the captain a legal frame for his looting.
Captains committed to prey only on ships or towns of the crown's enemies, which turned their looting into acts of wars. Which was a good thing, since piracy was always punished with death, no exception. While war, well, you know, everything goes, right?
Also, they committed to tribute a share of their prize to the crown. Which was a good thing for the kings, because all of them were always pretty much broken.
By turning into some kind of "independent navy officer", the privateers accepted that they could be recruited to fight on the king's battles. E.g.: when Felipe II tried to invade England in 1588, Elizabeth's defensive fleet was commanded by two privateers: Raleigh and Drake.
The only problem was that back then, European kings made and broke alliances among themselves every other week, and news took at least two months to get from Europe to the Caribbean. So privateers and corsairs could never be sure who was their king's current enemy any given month. The easy fix was going after Spanish ships: they always had the best plunder, and everybody knew Spaniards were always whining about something.
The Letter of Marquee was to be renewed every one or two years by the colony's governor, and before granting an extension, they usually weighted how much trouble the privateer had caused against how much he'd tributed.
Master & Commander:
Once upon a time, warships had two bosses: the Master --the top sailor in charge of all things sailing. And the Commander, who was the war boss. He commanded the military crew and made all the decisions related to armed confrontations.
Until one day somebody scratched their head and cried, "Eureka!" They could merge both ranks into one and save money in wages! —really, this is why and how the rank was invented.
And thus, they started training officers that could be in charge of both the sailing and the military.
**Funny silly translation trivia: this rank in Spanish translates literally as "Captain of Sea and War," which is super poetic to me. While "Master & Commander" makes me think of lashing whips and ill-tempered bosses like the Bounty captain --don't know the story? google it asap! Or watch the movie with Anthony Hopkins and Mel Gibson when they were super young.
That is, if when hearing the words "Master & Commander" I can help thinking about dearest Russell Crowe playing Jack Aubrey. ;D
Oporto: Expensive, excellent red wine from the Portuguese city of the same name.
Laudanum: Liquid sedative made with opium.
Braies: underwear.
Felt hat: those lovely-classy-swashbuckling hats men used back then.
Flags
The Spanish flag between the 16th and 19th centuries was San Andrew's Cross, also called Burgundy Cross.
The French naval flag under Louis XIV was this one: