Editing Piracy (section)

===North America===
[[File:Dan Seavey around 1920 (cropped).jpg|right|thumb|[[Dan Seavey]] was a pirate on the [[Great Lakes]] in the early 20th century.]]

Piracy on the east coast of North America first became common in the early seventeenth century, as English privateers discharged after the end of the [[Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604)|Anglo-Spanish War]] (1585–1604) turned to piracy.<ref>Clive Malcolm Senior, [https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/34506574/544142.pdf An Investigation of the Activities and Importance of English Pirates, 1603–40] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220531144419/https://research-information.bris.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/34506574/544142.pdf |date=May 31, 2022 }} (University of Bristol, PhD thesis, 1973)</ref><ref>Clive Senior, ''A Nation of Pirates: English Piracy in its Heyday'' (Newton Abbot, 1976)</ref> The most famous and successful of these early pirates was [[Peter Easton]].

[[River pirate|River piracy]] in late 18th-mid-19th century America was primarily concentrated along the [[Ohio River]] and [[Mississippi River]] valleys. In 1803, at [[Grand Tower, Illinois|Tower Rock]], the [[U.S. Army]] [[Cavalry|dragoons]], possibly, from the frontier army post up river at [[Fort Kaskaskia]], on the [[Illinois]] side opposite St. Louis, raided and drove out the river pirates.

[[Stack Island (Mississippi River)|Stack Island]] was also associated with river pirates and [[counterfeit money|counterfeiters]] in the late 1790s. In 1809, the last major river pirate activity took place, on the Upper Mississippi River, and river piracy in this area came to an abrupt end, when a group of [[flatboat]]men raided the island, wiping out the river pirates. From 1790 to 1834, [[Cave-In-Rock, Illinois|Cave-In-Rock]] was the principal [[outlaw]] lair and headquarters of river pirate activity in the Ohio River region, from which [[Samuel Mason]] led a gang of river pirates on the Ohio River.

River piracy continued on the lower Mississippi River, from the early 1800s to the mid-1830s, declining as a result of direct military action and local [[law enforcement]] and [[vigilante|regulator-vigilante]] groups that uprooted and swept out pockets of outlaw resistance.

[[Dan Seavey|"Roaring" Dan Seavey]] was a pirate active in the early 1900s in the [[Great Lakes]] region who joined the [[United States Marshals Service]] in later life, working to curb poaching, smuggling, and piracy on [[Lake Michigan]].<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sandusky |first=Trent |date=February 14, 2008 |title=Great Lakes Piracy: Pirates Thrived on the Great Lakes Long After Their Golden Age |url=http://voices.yahoo.com/great-lakes-piracy-pirates-thrived-great-lakes-893177.html |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140729042052/http://voices.yahoo.com/great-lakes-piracy-pirates-thrived-great-lakes-893177.html |archive-date=July 29, 2014 |access-date=November 25, 2024 |website=Yahoo}}</ref>