It's a Ship, not a Boat

I (kind of) took a class on pirates

Ok I actually didn’t take a class on pirates I took a class on the Age of Sail which is different. However, because of this class, I was finally motivated to watch Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl which was great. I’m not sure why/how I’ve avoided these movies. I feel like everyone my age has seen them. The first one, and Finding Nemo, came out in 2003 which is when I was born. I’ve been watching a lot of movies and reading IMDb trivia a lot lately. In the last week I’ve watched the above movies, Romeo + Juliet, The Great Gatsby, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Hot Rod, and Monsters University. I did not, however, watch Full Metal Jacket, so yet another week of waiting to do that show. Anyway, I am not an expert about pirates by any means, but one of my professors is. On the last day of class, we asked him questions about pirate history. I asked if female pirates were real to which he said yes and here we are. He was pretty specific about what makes a pirate a pirate, which rules out some people like Grace O’Malley, but more on this later. I thought it would be fun to think about real pirates and what piracy actually looked like in the 1700s. Make sure to tune in live at 11am on Tuesday at KSDT.

So what is piracy? It’s really exactly what you’d think it is. According to Oxford, piracy is the act of “attacking ships at sea in order to steal from them”. The Golden Age of Piracy was around the 1680s to 1720s. The primary locations were in the Caribbean (shocker) and North Africa. Piracy was a big risk but came with high rewards as pirates could make more in their position compared to other (legal) jobs at sea. I don’t think piracy as a concept is especially complicated. This episode is primarily about specific pirates and life at sea. There is a book from 1724 that is extensive in its comments about pirates, though its accuracy is difficult to measure. It’s called A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson. Piracy is still somewhat ambiguous, and though the information should be taken from this book with a grain of salt, it’s important to understanding even a bit about piracy during the eighteenth century.

The ship is probably what I’ve learned the most about. Do you know the difference between a ship and a boat? Ships have decks, boats don’t If you’ve been on a vessel with more than one level, it’s probably a ship. A ship is technically a boat, but not all boats are ships. Get it? In the pirate world, the ship you had would say a lot about what kin d of pirate you were. Normal government-approved ships would sail with flags of the country they came from. This was helpful when sailing into port. Allied countries would see the flags and act accordingly. Pirate ships took advantage of this and would contain a wide range of flags which changed depending on where they were headed. Pirate ships in movies are much grander than those in real life. Pirates liked sloops, fast but small sailboats. Pirates also picked on ships their own size and were not as intent on finding the most treasure. It didn’t really make sense to attack a much bigger target. On top of having to handle more physical space, it also meant taking down a bigger crew. However, the better the pirate, the bigger their ship. More accomplished pirates would go above a sloop. Blackbeard’s ship, Queen Anne’s Revenge, needed 300+ people to man its. 40 cannons. Pirates would get close to the target ship by using flags, and would then hoist the Jolly Roger flag when close enough to strike fear. So yes, the skull and crossbones thing is real. Then, pirates would use weapons and force to take what they wanted. Of course, gold and silver were preferred. Their worth is obvious. Pirates were also interested in silk, tobacco, rum, fur, spices, or anything that could be sold for value or used on the ship.

Some towns drew in more pirates than others. Port Royal, Jamaica, New Providence, Bahamas, and Tortuga, Hispaniola were some of the bigger areas. The Barbary Coast of Northern Africa is also notable. These areas were popular because they gave pirates some level of safety to repair their ships and restock on provisions. Pirates had much to contribute to the economy. Though illegal, their wares encouraged trade. In New Providence, there were some governors and judges who were willing to work with pirates. To me it kind of reminds me of how criminals can get a reduced sentence in exchange for information. It makes sense that officials didn’t want to get on pirates’ bad sides. Port Royal is famous for its pirates. It has some of the big names: Blackbeard, Calico Jack, and Henry Morgan. There’s many more of course, but I only have so much time in an episode!

I think everyone has at least heard of Blackbeard as a pirate. He’s arguably the most famous of the bunch. There is little known about Blackbeard’s early life except that he was born Edward Teach in 1680 somewhere in Britain. Really all that’s known of Blackbeard comes from Johnson’s questionable book. He became the pirate of his own ship in 1716, after formerly working under Benjamin Hornigold. He captured La Concorde, a slave ship used by the French, and renamed it to Queen Anne’s Revenge. Can you really criticize him for that? He did actually have a beard, and braided it with ribbons. Legend says that he put “slow-burning, smoking fuses in the beard” to scare whoever he was attacking. He always carried three pistols in addition to knives. Ideally, a pirate could get their victim to give up the goods without a fight, so a tough appearance helped. Though considered one of the toughest pirates, he was pretty fair and split the bounty with the crew. He actually only used this ship for a year before it sank. He blockaded the port of Charleston, South Carolina and demanded a ransom while holding hostages. It worked, he was paid, the hostages were freed, and the Queen sailed away. Queen Anne’s Revenge sank after hitting a sandbar in North Carolina. It was only found in 1996, but 400k+ artifacts have been recovered. The British government decided to crack down on piracy around this time, and was willing to pardon pirates who announced their loyalty to the crown without punishment. Blackbeard accepted this offer but then continued as a pirate shortly after making a deal with Charles Eden, governor of North Carolina. This of course angered many, and a 100 pound reward was offered for Blackbeard, dead or alive. There was a major battle between Blackbeard’s crew and the team of pirate hunters assembled by the Virginia governor, Alexander Spotswood. In the end, Blackbeard was wounded 20 different times with a cutlass and had five pistol shots. His head was hung on the ship of the victors and it sailed back to Williamsburg. His skull is supposedly used for a drinking vessel.¹ Isn’t it crazy that all of those things happened in really just two years?

John Rackham is maybe my favorite, but it’s not because of him, but rather his crew. Rackham was born in 1682 in England and moved to the New World in the early 1700s. Like Blackbeard, little is known about him prior to piracy. He was commonly called Calico Jack for his love of the printed fabric that was all the rage in the eighteenth century. He literally got the name because of his clothes. This was actually a practical choice for a pirate, because it’s just plain cotton and is much more breathable than silk or velvet which were also popular at the time. Silk was a luxury, but calico was useful. It makes sense that Calico Jack would be like this as he was considered bery cunnining and one of the best players of the system. He was actually responsible for the Jolly Roger flag. He was elected to be the new captain of The Ranger, a mid-size ship he worked on, after the former captain retreated instead of attacking a much larger French vessel. Here’s a good example of Calico Jack’s cunningness in action: when seen capturing a Jamaican vessel by government official in Port Royal, he avoided the Spanish pirate hunting ship that followed him by making use of the low tide. Spanish ships, galleons, are large and heavy ships. They could not sail in shallow water. Calico Jack was clearly not a stupid guy, but he did some stupid things. He had an affair with Anne Bonny, who was married to James Bonny, a sailor employed by the governor of Nassau. He was of course caught, but offered money to have James divorce his wife, but this was illegal and James refused. Sucks for James though, because Anne ran away to join Calico Jack’s crew. More on her later. Calico Jack was finally captured in 1720 and was tried in Spanish Town, Jamaica. Of course they were all guilty. Calico Jack was hanged and put on display.² All of his male crew members were put to death, but two survived: Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

There’s a line from Phineas and Ferb that’s like “if I had two nickels for every time [insert event] happened, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird it happened twice”. The fact that there were two secret women on Calico Jack’s ship is a two nickels moment. Little is really known about both Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Bonny was born around 1698 in Cork, Ireland. She was the illegitimate daughter of a lawyer and his maid. She was raised as a boy, and at some point moved with her parents to South Carolina. She presumably married for love, because after choosing James Bonny, her father kicked her out. They went to Nassau to find work, where she met Calico Jack. She dressed as a man while on the ship, as did Mary Read. Read was born around 1695 in England as was also brought up as a boy. This decision was made by her mother in order to get inheritance money from the father’s family. She was in the military in Flanders and got married. After her husband died, she moved to the West Indies and at some point joined Calico Jack’s crew. Here’s where it gets weird. Calico Jack was jealous of Bonny and Read’s relationship. He knew Bonny was a woman, but not Read. He was kind of right to be jealous though, because Read apparently revealed herself to be a woman to Bonny in an attempt to start a romantic relationship. Bonny supposedly told Calico Jack that read was a woman, though this is all unconfirmed. When Calico Jack’s entire crew were captured, both Bonny and Read pled their bellies to avoid death. Read died in prison in 1721. Bonny’s father must have felt bad for everything because he somehow got her released. She moved to South Carolina, married a local man, had a total of ten children, and died in 1782.³ Things worked out for her I guess.

Last but not least, we have Stede Bonnet. I was going to talk about Henry Morgan, but his name wasn’t as cool so forget about him. Bonnet was also kind of crazy for this: he abandoned his major sugar plantation, wife, children, and wealth in 1717 for piracy. For this reason, he was called the Gentleman Pirate. He was born in 1688 in Barbados, son to Edward Bonnet who owned the plantation. He married the daughter of another plantation owner and served in the local militia. He drew up legal documents to allow his wife and friends to run the plantation in his absence, but there is little known why. I won’t bother going over all the speculations, but the most common is that he had something mental going on. He led the Revenge with a crew of 70, but had no real reason for any revenge. He was initially very successful and went to Honduras where he met the infamous Blackbeard, who actually took over Bonnet’s ship. Bonnet was held as a glorified prisoner. He eventually got Revenge back and picked up his crew who had been marooned. In trying to chase down Blackbeard, Bonnet racked up his own reputation. Unfortunately, he was caught by the Cape Fear River, though he supposedly said he’d blow up his ship before surrendering. His crew however, were not as excited about this idea and gave themselves up. Bonnet tried to use his gentleman status and information on Blackbeard to get out of his trial, but it didn’t work. There is a transcript of the trial which is cool because now we don’t have to rely so much on Johnson’s book. Bonnet was hanged in 1718. He was only a pirate for a little over a year.⁴ It’s crazy his career was so short, maybe he could’ve been the next Blackbeard.

Much can be said about the history of piracy. Like most history from the 1700s, there’s a lot we just don’t know. I only talked about five pirates, but there’s hundreds if not thousands. It’s funny, because pirate movies were not popular prior to Pirates of the Caribbean. People actually credit the first movie to breaking the pirate curse on movies. Pirates clearly carried a lot of weight though, and their reputation preceded them. They obviously did bad things, but are also really interesting, hence the Substack theme. I want to end with a short story. When I was in sixth grade band, I played “Pirates of the Barbary Coast”, a not-too-difficult song that had a lot of flute in it (which was good because I played the flute but bad because I was bad at the flute). That song follows me to this day. I can hear it in my mind. I remember playing it and thinking I was pretty much as cool as a real pirate. It is still what I think of when I think about pirates and probably will be what I think of for the rest of my life. Pirates of the Caribbean was great, but it has nothing on “Pirates of the Barbary Coast” and I stand by that.

1. “Pirates of the Barbary Coast” composed by Timothy Loest

2. “Pirates of the Caribbean Theme Song” composed by Hans Zimmer

3. “Alcohol-Free” by Twice

4. “Leave the Door Open” by Silk Sonic

5. “Young and Beautiful” by Lana Del Ray

6. “Mulan’s Decision” composed by Jerry Goldsmith

7. “Steal My Girl” by One Direction

8. “Treasure” by Bruno Mars

9. “Stay Gold” by Stevie Wonder

10. “Silver Springs” by Fleetwood Mac

1. https://www.rmg.co.uk/stories/topics/blackbeard-edward-teach-pirate

2. https://www.thewayofthepirates.com/famous-pirates/calico-rackham-jack/

3. https://www.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/rmgc-object-157040

4. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-gentleman-pirate-159418520/