Pirates have been figures of fascination and fear for centuries. The most famous buccaneers have been shrouded in legend and folklore for so long that it's almost impossible to distinguish between myth and reality. But what was life really like for an early 18th-century pirate? The answer: pretty grim. It was a world of staggering violence and poverty, constant danger, and almost inevitable death. While the period from the late 1600s to the early 1700s is usually referred to as the "Golden Age of Piracy," the practice existed long before Blackbeard and other famous pirates struck terror in the hearts of merchant seamen along the Eastern Seaboard and Caribbean. And it exists today, primarily in the South China Sea and along the African coast. One of the earliest and most high profile incidents of piracy occurred when a band of pirates captured Julius Caesar, the Roman emperor-to-be, in the Greek islands. Instead of throwing him overboard, as they did with most victims, the pirates held Caesar for ransom for 38 days. When the money finally arrived, Caesar was let go. When he returned to port, Caesar immediately fitted a squadron of ships and set sail in pursuit of the pirates. The criminals were quickly caught and brought back to the mainland, where they were hanged. Although pirates would search the ship's cabins for gold and silver, the main loot consisted of cargo such as grain, molasses, and kegs of rum.
Sometimes pirates stole the ships as well as the cargo. Neither Long John Silver nor Captain Hook actually existed, but the era produced many other infamous pirates, including William Kidd, Charles Vane, Sam Bellamy, and two female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The worst and perhaps cruelest pirate of them all was Captain Edward Teach or Thatch, better known as "Blackbeard." Born in Britain before 1690, he first served on a British privateer based in Jamaica. Privateers were privately owned, armed ships hired by the British government to attack and plunder French and Spanish ships during the war. After the war, Blackbeard simply continued the job. He soon became captain of one of the ships he had stolen, Queen Anne's Revenge, and set up base in North Carolina, then a British colony, from where he preyed on ships traveling the American coast. Still, the local townspeople tolerated Blackbeard because they liked to buy the goods he stole, which were cheaper than imported English goods. The colony's ruling officials turned a blind eye to Blackbeard's violent usiness.
It wasn't until Alexander potswood, governor of neighboring Virginia, sent one of his navy commanders to kill Blackbeard that his reign finally came to an end in 1718.
The most famous pirates may not have been the most successful. "The reason many of them became famous was because they were captured and tried before an Admiralty court," said Moore. "Many of these court proceedings were published, and these pirates' exploits became legendary. But it's the ones who did not get caught who were the most successful. The pirates' favorite form of punishment was to tie their victims to the boat with a length of rope, toss them overboard, and drag them under the ship, a practice known as "keel hauling." Sadly, buried treasures—and the ubiquitous treasure maps—are also largely a myth. "Pirates took their loot to notorious pirate hang-outs in Port Royal and Tortuga. Pirate flags, commonly referred to as the Jolly Roger, were indeed present during the Golden Age. And victims were often marooned on small islands by pirates. Eye patches and peg legs were also undoubtedly worn by pirates, and some kept parrots as pets. Some pirates even wore earrings, not as a fashion statement, but because they believed they prevented sea sickness by applying pressure on the earlobes.
In the new movie Pirates of the Caribbean, prisoners facing execution can invoke a special code, which stipulates that the pirate cannot kill him or her without first consulting the pirate captain. Indeed pirates did follow codes. These varied from ship to ship, often laying out how plundered loot should be divided or what punishment should be meted out for bad behavior. But Jack Sparrow, Johnny Depp's hero, probably wouldn't have lasted very long among real pirates. In the movie, he will do anything possible to avoid a fight, something real-life pirates rarely did. The endless sword duels, a big part of all pirate movies, probably happened on occasion. But real-life encounters were often far more bloody and brutal, with men hacking at each other with axes and cutlasses.
In one legendary account, a notorious pirate, trying to find out where a village had hidden its gold, tied two villagers to trees, facing each other, and then cut out one person's heart and fed it to the other.
Pirate literature is not noted for its accuracy, and there has never been any thoroughgoing research into the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Their story, like that of all pirates, has been treated as a peg upon which the bourgeois imagination can hang its thirst for mobility, ill-gotten gains and romantic independence. And like all tales of high adventure, their story comes in widely different versions, The whole area is one of legend and myth and it depends on what you make of it.
Pirates didn't bury their treasure, because they didn't expect to live long enough to make it worth saving for a rainy day. Mutilations, vicious floggings, point-blank shootings and hangings were not uncommon in those cases, and provided lessons in terror that increased the chances that subsequent crews would surrender without a fight when pirates approached. Most cargo was carried in heavy casks that could easily be dislodged in heavy storms; equipment could plummet from the rigging; and in a naval battle, the amount of shrapnel created by a cannonball tearing through a wooden ship was truly horrific. Rum, distilled from West Indies molasses, was indeed the drink of choice for sailors of the time (in its watered-down form it was known as grog). Pirates drank more rum than other sailors, because a big part of the pirate life was to shuck off the rationing of food and drink that they had experienced on merchant and naval ships. In fact, pirates conducted so much business "over a Large Bowl of Punch," one account said, that if a man didn't drink, he was "under Suspicion of being in a Plot" against fellow pirates. Parrots, like the one on Long John Silver's shoulder, or monkeys like the one in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies, were common sailors' pets, because those things were symbols of having been to exotic lands.
Unlike the Errol Flynn movies, very few pirates were romantic aristocrats who'd had a reversal of fortune. "Real pirates were not aristocratic," Dr. Rediker said. "Real pirates were rough and rugged working people who put their lives on the line in hopes of having a different way of life and getting money in ways they could not expect to get in normal British or American society." In the late 1600s, many pirates got their start as privateers working for England and the Netherlands, attacking the richly laden merchant vessels of France and Spain. But in the last and biggest wave of piracy, which lasted just a decade, from 1716 to 1726, many pirates were sailors who had mutinied in protest against poor pay, execrable food and brutal discipline by their captains.
The process then fed on itself, because whenever pirates boarded a merchant ship, they would ask how many of the crew wanted to join them, and there were usually several volunteers. For sailors on slave ships, joining the pirates also meant avoiding death from African diseases, and the possibility of having to fight a slave rebellion, something that happened on at least 10 percent of all slave voyages. If they happened to capture a fully loaded slave ship, the pirates often would ask many of the slaves if they wanted to join, which explains why there were so many documented cases of African pirates.
Pirate crews not only came from all nations and races, but included a smattering of women, the most famous of whom were Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who joined the crew of Calico Jack Rackam in the West Indies. Bonny and Read originally went to sea disguised as men, something a couple hundred women may have done over several decades, according to records of the East India Co. The final golden period of piracy that included Bonny and Read was also the era of Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, and the most fearsome pirate of them all, Bartholomew "Black Bart" Roberts, whose crews captured more than 400 ships in just four years.
Pirates created for themselves one of the most democratic societies of the time. Because they had lived under the harsh thumbs of often aristocratic captains, pirates were determined to elect their own captains. They also drew up "articles" that specified how they would live together, and voted on whether crew members had violated those rules and how they should be punished. The only time pirate captains had unquestioned control of their crews was when they were on a raid. The rest of the time, a raucous, argumentative form of democracy prevailed. The 2,000 or so pirates who operated in the Atlantic in the early 1700s disappeared almost as suddenly as they arose. The beginning of the end came in 1722, when "Black Bart" Roberts was killed while fighting a British man-of-war off the coast of Africa and much of his crew was captured. At the same time, many pirates were being captured and hanged in mass executions up and down the coast of America and Africa. The risk of dying at a young age was something every Atlantic sailor of the 1700s was aware of, and those who went into piracy were under no illusion they would live a long life. The skull and crossbones on the Jolly Roger were borrowed from a symbol that captains entered in their logbooks whenever a sailor died during a voyage. "Pirates understood that mortality ruled in the world in which they lived,." "They wanted a better life even if for a short period, and so they selected this symbol and said: 'Let us live under the flag of King Death -- a merry life but a short one.' Among pirates who were hanged, many went to their deaths defiantly. One account said that on the gallows in Boston in 1726, pirate William Fly's last words expressed his hope that "all Masters of Vessels might take Warning ... to pay their Sailors their Wages when due, and to treat them better [because] their Barbarity to them made so many turn Pyrates (sic)." That kind of commitment to freedom in the face of danger and death is one reason so many people remain fascinated with pirates today.
Pirates had a sense of themselves as morally superior to the rulers of the world," and in a sense, they won that battle. The people who hanged them are by and large not remembered in popular culture, but pirates are -- they lost the battle but won the war.
Pirates are the ultimate underdogs. They often have a lesser quality ship (or product or service). To compensate, they have to be more creative and clever in dealing with their opponents. They don’t view their ship (or their product) as home base. They view it as a means to beat the opponent, by capturing or sinking their enemy’s ship. How can you go after your enemy? How can you look at your own product or service as a means to an end? Because most of their vessels were stolen or “acquired,” pirates often had smaller, faster vessels, but lacking the big guns of the ships they were often pitted against. Flexibility becomes one of the tenets of living the pirate’s life in business, flexibility married to cunning and adaptability. Captains didn’t have the final say on matters the way they do in movies. Turns out that most pirate ships were run democratically. The captain would get a share and a half of the treasure, but otherwise, his word carried no more weight in official votes than his crew. Plundering, pillaging, and other pursuits aside, pirates are all about getting results.
Blackbeard, Samuel Bellamy, William Kidd—the names of famous pirates remind people of parrots, treasure, and adventure on the high seas. But the fact that many pirates were African-American is often left out of U.S. Black History Month celebrations. During the 17th and 18th centuries, Bolster said, as many as 30 percent of sailors were African-American. At sea, African Americans worked as cooks, musicians, skilled sailors, and unskilled workers. On whaling ships they often worked as harpooners, hunting whales with spears called harpoons. African Americans also worked on pirate ships. Whether harpooners or pirates, African Americans played an important role in the history of sea travel. They worked on fishing boats and transport boats throughout the New World. They also served on boats in wars such as the War of 1812.
A favorite discipline tool of ship officers was the cat-o’-nine-tails or simply “the cat”: a whip with nine leather lashes designed to tear a man’s flesh. After a whipping, a sailor became known as a “tiger” when his wounds turned to scars, giving the appearance of stripes. The pirate is a robber but the story is much more complicated, going “pirate” was more about a social uprising than just stealing someone else’s goods. Typically, the naval and merchant ships (the vessels of the 18th century) were ruled by hierarchical leadership, organized through violence. They were the antithesis of democracy. Blackbeard consciously created his own legend. Towering at 6’2” when the average man stood 5’ 6”, Blackbeard had an impressive mantle of black hair and a beard than began just below his eyes. He had this satanic appearance and he used it as a means of intimidating people. Before battle, he would tie up his hair and beard in ribbons and then he would put sparklers around his head to create this glow and people would be terrified of him. Blackbeard played with the imagery of being the devil. one story where a man on shore asked Blackbeard who he was. He replied, “My name is Blackbeard. I came from hell. And I’m about to carry you there.”
I love pirates because they were rebels, because they didn’t conform. They had their own ideas; they didn’t care what everybody else’s were. They were free.”
The term 'buccaneer' comes from a French word, boucan, which refers to a type of grill that the buccaneers often used. The original buccaneers were hunters on the island of Haiti. The Spanish drove them off the island and so they formed groups with others who hated the Spanish in order to prey on Spanish ships. Buccaneers often worked with the enemies of Spain but rarely with Letters of Marque, so they were not true privateers. Eventually the term became common for pirates who operated out of the West Indies.
'Corsairs' operated exclusively in the Mediterranean Sea. They were often privateers, authorised to prey on the ships from Christian nations. The most recognised of these are the Corsairs from the Barbary Coast in North Africa. The Barbary Corsairs used galleys until the 17th Century, when they finally switched to sailing ships. Often these privateers would forget their religious ideals and become full-fledged pirates.
Piracy has been around since the first person decided to send goods by ship. Some of the earliest pirates were Phoenicians who sailed the Mediterranean from about 2000 BC onward. A clay tablet dated to approximately 1350 BC mentioned piracy. In approximately 340 AD a man named Cleomis was honoured by Athens for ransoming some people who were captured by pirates. Archaeologists have even excavated a city in Greece called Aerial, which they think was a haven for pirates. There are many Roman documents that mention piracy as well. Piracy became a huge problem around 60 BC, with pirates prowling the Mediterranean, particularly the eastern portions and focusing on major trade routes. Julius Caesar was even captured by pirates in 75 BC. Piracy increased until a commander named Pompey was ordered to put a stop to it. He raised an army and within three months had eliminated the pirate threat. Later on, during the Middle Ages, pirates continued to operate. The best known of the time were the Vikings, although they generally raided settlements rather than attacking sailing vessels. The first known raid by Vikings happened in 793 AD, when they attacked the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Based largely in Scandinavia, they raided settlements from northern Russia down to Spain, around the British Isles and the Baltic Sea and ventured as far west as North America. At the same time piracy grew along the coast of China and Korea. These pirates were mostly Japanese, but over time the group became more diverse. Coastal raiding was fairly prevalent from the 13th to the 16th Centuries in the East.
Despite what many believe, piracy is still around, albeit in a slightly different form; there were 224 acts of piracy committed in 1996, according to the International Maritime Bureau.
Modern piracy often targets wealthy or well-known people. Yachtsman Sir Peter Blake was killed by pirates who raided his boat. Other acts of piracy are more reminiscent of Golden Age piracy; for example, pirates will sometimes seize an oil tanker or cargo ship and sell it later.
Most pirates did not have parrots or any kind of pet. The closest thing to a pet that would be found on a pirate ship would be a cat that was used to fend off the rat population.
'Walking the plank' is largely a literary and cinematic myth. There are not any documented cases of this in the history of piracy, although there were rumours and some supposedly eye-witness accounts of such behaviour. Pirates had far more cruel ways of treating prisoners. Often they would tie a prisoner to the mast and throw broken glass at them.
The term Jolly Roger is often used in relation to pirates. Some say the name is derived from the term 'jolie rouge'. 'Roger' was also the term used in England to describe a vagrant. One other possible origin comes from a term that referred to the devil -'Old Roger'.
The skull-and-crossbones symbol was not the only flag flown by pirates. In fact, most pirates had their own flag, probably terrifying to any ship they came across.
Some Famous Pirates
* Samuel Bellamy ('Black Bellamy')
* Stede Bonnet
* Anne Bonny and Mary Read
* Sir Francis Drake
* William Kidd
* Jean Lafitte
* Henry Morgan
* John Rackham ('Calico Jack')
* Bartholomew Roberts
* Edward Teach ('Blackbeard')
* Charles Vane
Sir Henry Morgan – The Pirate King
Pirates! Just the name alone conjures up images of action and adventure on the high seas. Robert Louis Stevenson's great adventure novel Treasure Island and the many Hollywood films from Captain Blood to the latest Pirates of the Caribbean saga have added to their mystique and their glamour. Yet they were not heroes during their golden age; most people regarded pirates as a plague on society. In fact in England the death penalty for piracy with violence was only repealed in the 1998 Crime and Disorder Act1. There was, however, one pirate of the Spanish Main who not only lived up to the high adventure role but who also — unusually — died a respected member of society in his bed, rather than dancing the hempen jig. This man was Sir Henry Morgan.
Henry Morgan was born in 1635 in the Welsh town of Llanrumney, which is now a suburb of Cardiff. It appears that he was born into a family of some note, his uncles being Major-General Sir Thomas Morgan, who fought for Cromwell during the Civil War, and Colonel Sir Edward Morgan, who was a Royalist. Much of his early life is a mystery, but with military men as relations, it is likely that young Henry followed the military life and that this is how he ended up in the Caribbean. In 1654 Cromwell planned an expedition to the New World to capture the Spanish-held island of Hispaniola2. With his influential uncle Thomas Morgan's help, young Henry became a successful soldier in the expedition's task force3. The expedition, commanded by Admiral Penn and General Venables, failed in its objective, and instead of returning empty-handed to England, the force turned to Jamaica and seized the weakly defended island in May 1655.
Henry Morgan was never really a pirate as such. Instead, once the action on Jamaica was finished, he, like many ex-soldiers4, was encouraged to buy land on the island. He became one of the new colony's principal members of society and took the Letter of Marque5 to supplement his income. He, together with many of the best-trained soldiers on Jamaica, formed what was effectively Jamaica's own Navy, officially sanctioned by the English crown to hunt down Spanish ships and take their treasure. By the end of 1663 there were 22 officially licensed craft using Port Royal6 as their base of operations. Henry Morgan had a half-share of a small ship and took part in a raid organised by Commodore Christopher Myngs. The raid proved hugely successful and in December, 1662, another was organised. This attack on the pretty Mexican town of Campeche was again a success7. Morgan and some fellow privateers continued their pillaging of Spanish towns and ships over the course of the next two years. During this time Morgan became the leader of a small group of ships and was responsible for many attacks. The most famous was when he landed near the Mexican town of Frontera. Morgan marched his army of buccaneers 50 miles inland to assault the town of Villahermosa. However, after looting the town, they discovered that their own ships had been captured by the Spanish. Morgan quickly captured two Spanish ships and four coastal canoes in which they managed to escape. They then proceeded to sail and paddle 500 miles against the current until they landed in the area that is now Nicaragua. Here they again struck inland against the rich town of Granada.
n 1664 a new governor arrived on Jamaica. Sir Thomas Modyford was friends with the Morgan family8 and soon became firm friends with Henry after meeting the privateer on his return from his raids. In 1667 Henry married his cousin, Mary Elizabeth9, and was appointed the Colonel of the Port Royal Militia. His first job in this role was to supervise the expansion of Port Royal's harbour defences; however, by late 1667 Modyford appointed Morgan an Admiral and Commander-in-Chief of Jamaican forces. His task was to hunt down and destroy or capture all Spanish ships in the Caribbean. Morgan therefore assembled a force of some 700 men and proceeded to attack the Cuban town of Puerto Príncipe. After successfully attacking the small town, Morgan felt that the spoils were not sufficient. He decided to continue on to assault the much larger fortified town of Portobello. This was at the time the third most fortified town in the region, yet Morgan was able to capture it while losing only 18 of his own men. The haul from Portobello was huge10, so much so that the Spanish piece of eight coin actually became additional legal currency in Jamaica. The success of this raid firmly cemented Henry's reputation as a skilled buccaneer.
In 1670 Morgan assembled an expedition of 36 ships and 1846 men to attack Panama. It was through this legendary city that all the riches of the Peruvian silver mines passed, but the assault proved difficult. Panama sits on the Pacific side of the isthmus, so Morgan and his men had to cross miles of jungle and high mountains before they reached the city. After a hard fought battle the buccaneers left the city burning, with a haul estimated to be around 400,000 pieces of eight. Unfortunately, back in England the political climate had changed; many wanted peace with Spain and consequently the expedition was not good news. Modyford, who had licensed the task force, was recalled to London and imprisoned in the Tower. Meanwhile Morgan was also summoned back to answer charges. He arrived in England on 4 July, 1672 but was never arrested. Instead he was free to visit his native Wales and see the sights of London. When Modyford was released, Morgan used his contacts to make powerful friends and by November, 1673, Charles II was looking favourably upon Morgan. He received a Knighthood and was appointed Lieutenant-General of Jamaica's armed forces, while former governor Modyford became Chief Justice. Morgan returned to Jamaica on 5 March, 1674 to take up his new post.
Sir Henry settled into life managing his plantation on the island, but he never got the hang of politics. Although he became the Deputy-Governor in addition to the roles of a senior member of the Jamaican Council, Lieutenant-General of all armed forces and Judge-Admiral of the Admiralty Court, he constantly bounced in and out of political favour and was forced from office in 1681 by the Governor at the time, Sir Thomas Lynch. Sir Henry started a period of steady decline. He drank a lot and preferred to spend time with his old friends in the rum shops of Port Royal; he gained a lot of weight and started exhibiting rowdy behaviour. Eventually his friend Christopher Monck, the second Duke of Albemarle, was appointed Governor in 1684 and petitioned the King to have Sir Henry restored to power. The petition was ultimately successful on 10 April, 1688; however, the 53-year-old buccaneer didn't live long enough to make much of an impact. His health was failing and on 25 July, 1688 he died and was buried at Port Royal. At his burial he was given a full 22-gun salute from the ships in the harbour.
Sir Henry Morgan has developed a reputation as one of the most roguish pirates. He's probably the pirate who most fits the image of a reputable thief. He wasn't the evil scourge that Blackbeard was, nor did he have the flashiness of Calico Jack. In fact a lot of his fearsome reputation was down to a book published in 1684 by one of his crew members, John Esquemeling11. He did, however, earn his reputation as the Pirate King; he successfully ran the buccaneer fleets of Port Royal for many years.
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