The Book of Pirates Read online

  The idea of a pirate with a hook seems to have started with Captain Hook in Peter Pan, though there were plenty of sailors who had hooks.

  Peg Leg

  Unlike eye patches and hooks, we do know about some pirates with wooden legs. There were two well-known pirate captains with peg legs.

  The first was the Frenchman Francois LeClerc, whose nicknames were Pata de Palo (“wooden leg” in Spanish) and Jambe de Bois (French for “wooden leg”). He was not exactly a pirate. He was a French privateer (sort of a legal pirate...as we explain here). Despite having a peg leg (and a severely damaged hand, but no hook), he was quite an active pirate. He liked to hunt for Spanish treasure galleons and burn villages along the Spanish Main. He died in 1563.

  The second known pirate captain with a wooden leg was the Dutch pirate Cornelis Jol. He was also called Pata de Palo, or Houtebeen (Dutch for “wooden leg”). Before he became a pirate, he was an admiral in the Dutch West India Company. Like LeClerc, he was also more privateer than pirate, and he too liked to hunt treasure-filled Spanish galleons. He never captured one, but he did attack many Spanish towns and ships. He died in 1641.

  There are many accounts of peg-legged sailors who became cooks. It was a job they could do and still be at sea. With only one leg, it’s very hard and dangerous to climb the rigging. Long John Silver in Treasure Island made the image of the one-legged pirate cook famous.

  Cap’n Michael says:

  I remember our cook on the old Montezuma’s Revenge. Scabrous Bob, they called him. He usta...on second thought, maybe I shouldn’t tell ya about him. Just the thought gives me the rumblin’ belly wobbles.

  Most pirates wore great big boots—PROBABLY FALSE!

  To be a pirate, you’ve got to have those big up-to-the-knee boots with the wide folded-over cuffs, what they called bucket-top boots. Right?

  Actually, if you look at the various pictures of pirate captains from the 1600s and 1700s—pictures that were drawn in the 1600s and 1700s—the captains are all wearing shoes, not boots. Boots were not practical onboard ship. They would be hard to move about in, hard to climb the rigging in, and next to impossible to kick off if you fell overboard. On ship, sailors often went barefoot. It was easier for climbing the rigging.

  But those big boots were useful on land for going through the jungles and brush. Even so, most drawings of Henry Morgan and other buccaneers attacking Spanish towns show them wearing shoes. There are several drawings of buccaneers who lived off the land. They are shown wearing moccasin-like shoes or are barefoot with leather hides wrapped around their legs.

  Captain Edward England wearing shoes

  Tattoos were common among pirates—MOSTLY FALSE!

  Tattooing is an old art. Many ancient tribes used tattoos. However, the word “tattoo” was not used by Europeans until 1769. When Captain James Cook made his famous visits to the various Polynesian islands, the sailors saw the natives with tattooing all over their bodies. Many of the sailors got tattoos from the natives as a souvenir of visiting the South Pacific. It became quite fashionable.

  Sailors with large tattoos of a sailing ship on their chest or a mermaid on their biceps did not become popular until after Captain Cook’s voyages.

  But, long before Captain Cook visited Polynesia, William Dampier, a buccaneer and pirate himself, told how sailors used tattooing. He wrote: “the Jerusalem Cross is made in men’s arms, by pricking the skin, and rubbing in a pigment...(gun) powder.” The sailors pricked their skin with a sharp needle and some gunpowder to make a small design of a cross.

  So, before the 1800s, a sailor (and pirate) might have a small design of a stylized cross as a tattoo, but not until later did the large, complex tattoos show up.

  Jerusalem Cross

  Pirates were always drunk—MOSTLY TRUE!

  Stories tell of how pirates drank rum all the time, and if they ran out of rum, they complained about it.

  Yes, pirates did complain when the rum ran out. Blackbeard was involved in just such a dicey occasion. He wrote about it in his journal: “Rum all out...rogues a-plotting.” The crew was getting ugly, and things might have gone badly; but in the nick of time, they captured a ship that had a cargo of spirits aboard. Blackbeard’s crewmen were happy again, and drunk, and the problems were avoided for awhile.

  Onboard ship, you might easily run out of fresh water. It often spoiled, turning slimy and green. Drinking alcohol (beer, wine, rum, brandy, etc.) was much safer than drinking water. Bacteria does not live in alcohol, so while getting drunk was not all that good for you, it was much better than dying from disease. AND a lot more fun.

  All pirates say “Aarrrrrh” and “Yo Ho Ho”—FALSE!

  Pirates had a special way of talking. There is even now a special day to celebrate this—“Talk Like a Pirate Day” on September 19. But how did pirates talk? Did they talk like the pirates in movies? Like Long John Silver? Did they say “Aarrrrrh” all the time, peppered in between with “Yo ho ho”?

  We can blame the actor who played Long John Silver in the classic Treasure Island (1950) for this one. His name was Robert Newton, and he was British. He had a natural accent that used the “Aaaarrrh” sound. People loved his Long John Silver character, and the movie was VERY popular. So afterwards, everybody thought pirates sounded like him. Just like the past few years—after Pirates of the Caribbean came out—everyone thought pirates talked and acted like Captain Jack Sparrow.

  But pirates came from all over and had many different accents. There were pirates with Irish accents, Scottish accents, French accents, Spanish accents, Welsh accents, Cockney accents, etc., even in the same crew. In fact, they spoke many different languages. So maybe a few sounded like Robert Newton, but not many.

  Captains could do anything they wanted. They kept the lion’s share of the treasure and ruled their ships any way they wanted—FALSE!

  Pirates elected their captains. If they didn’t like how he was running things, they could “unelect” him and vote in a new captain. The whole crew made major decisions by group vote.

  There was also another officer who was about as powerful as a captain, if not more so. That was the quartermaster. The crew elected him, too. The captain was in charge during battles, but at other times, the quartermaster usually ran things.

  As for dividing up plunder and treasure, there were strict rules about this, which the whole pirate crew agreed to. These were called the articles. According to the ship’s articles, the captain was usually given two shares, while crewmen got one share. Thus, a captain got twice as much treasure as the rest of the crew, but they did not get huge piles of treasure that they hid away in treasure caves or buried in the sand.

  A lot of pirates wore gold hoop earrings—MAYBE SOME, BUT WE’RE NOT SURE!

  Pirates are often shown wearing gold hoop earrings. However, in the accounts written by pirates and the people who met pirates, there seems to be no mention of pirates wearing earrings. Earrings are not even mentioned in the pirate classics Treasure Island or Peter Pan.

  There is a pirate flag design that shows a skull in profile, wearing a bandanna and earring, but that flag design has been shown to be a fairly modern design.

  There was a pirate by name of Theophilus Turner (no relation to Will Turner). He was a member of Robert Culliford’s pirate crew and also sailed with Captain William Kidd. There is a listing of things taken from him when he was arrested. In the list of items were two gold earrings. The thing is, we don’t know if Theo WORE the earrings or just had them because they were part of his share of the loot.

  A painting of a pirate by Howard Pyle seems to be the first illustration to show hoop earrings. Douglas Fairbanks Sr. was the first pirate to wear hoop earrings in the movies, seen in The Black Pirate.

  So why is the idea of pirates wearing earrings so common? There is a common superstition (backed up a little by acupuncture beliefs) that if you pierce an ear, you will improve the eyesight of the eye on the opposite side. Musketmen and snipers would be very inter
ested in this.

  Some believe (even now) that piercing your ear improves night vision, prevents seasickness, and provides protection against drowning or going down with the ship.

  And if you did drown and washed ashore somewhere, the people who found you were supposed to pay for your burial with the gold earring. Some sailors put the name of their home port on the inside of the earring. This way the body could be sent home to the dead pirate’s family for burial.

  Also, even now, many sailors get their ear pierced as a badge of honor. They do this for perhaps having gone round the Horn (the southern tip of South America) or crossing the equator.

  Pirates always flew a black Jolly Roger flag, and it was a threat of DEATH—FALSE!

  The black pirate flag struck fear in the hearts of those who saw it on a ship coming toward them. They knew it meant PIRATES! And those pirates were going to kill them all! All pirates flew a black Jolly Roger flag with some type of skull and crossbones design on it. You just wouldn’t be a pirate without it, right?

  Jolly Roger:

  A popular name for the black flag with skull and crossbones flown by pirates.

  The first black flag was not seen until the year 1700. Before that, pirates flew a red flag. This was the Bloody Flag and meant “No Quarter Given.” To “give quarter” meant to show mercy. So this red flag meant “no mercy shown...we will kill you all.”

  The black flag actually meant, “If you do not fight against us, we will not hurt you.” Pirates learned it was good for the business to advertise. They wanted to encourage the sailors on the other ship to let them take the cargo without fighting back. Fighting was messy and a lot of hard work. And you could possibly get KILLED. So, pirates preferred not to do it. But, if anyone fought back, then down came the black flag, and up went the red one (and sometimes they flew both at the same time, probably because they didn’t have time to take down the black one).

  Pirates were mostly white guys from England—FALSE!

  Actually, recent studies have shown that about one-third of the pirates were of African descent or of mixed race. Some pirate crews (though not all) treated other races as equals. It varied from crew to crew, but these men found themselves much more welcome among pirate crews than among society in general at that time.

  Many were escaped or freed slaves with a grudge against those who enslaved them. Most of them would fight to the death rather than be taken prisoner and become a slave again. Many of them had reputations as fierce warriors. This would have made them very attractive to the pirates as crewmen.

  There were also Hispanic pirates, Asian pirates—pirates of all races and types. They were from many different countries, yet they worked together for a common goal.

  And they weren’t all men. Many pirates were women. They weren’t all grown-ups either. There are many pirates we know about who were teenagers or even younger.

  Many pirates we know about were teenagers.

  Pirates had parrots, monkeys, and other animals as pets—POSSIBLY TRUE!

  Long John Silver had a parrot. Barbossa had a monkey. Didn’t every captain have some sort of pet?

  The exotic birds of the Americas, and especially the talking parrots and mynahs, had been a big hit back in London. If a sailor brought back a parrot, he could sell it. On the long voyage home, if he had trained it to do some tricks or say some words, he could sell it for quite a bit, and with the meager income sailors received, this would be a nice bonus. Sailors also brought monkeys, iguanas, and other exotic creatures back home to sell or give to their wives or children. In the late 1600s, William Dampier, sailing with a band of buccaneers, wrote: “Here are also kept tame Monkeys, Parrots, Parakites, &c, which the Seamen carry home.”

  We know that sailors and sometimes bands of buccaneers brought birds and other exotic animals aboard ship. But it’s not clear if any of them kept the animals after returning to port and having a chance to sell them.

  A Spanish hidalgo (soldier of fortune) followed by his slave carrying a tamed parrot.

  Pirate ships were huge, powerful ships with cannons everywhere—MOSTLY FALSE!

  You’ve probably seen the pirate movies where two big ships come barreling at each other with their guns thundering. A big bad pirate had a big bad pirate ship—a huge sailing beast just bristling with cannons everywhere—just the thing for robbing and plundering people, no?

  Actually, pirates often hugged the coastlines and shallow waters. They waited to pounce on passing ships and wanted to hide from the big naval vessels on patrol. Pirates would much rather run away than fight with another big ship. Maybe that doesn’t sound very brave, but they weren’t interested in fighting if they didn’t have to. They were all about the plunder. Naval vessels usually had no treasure worth stealing. For a pirate, speed was a much more important quality than power, along with the ability to go into shallow waters, where they could thumb their noses at the big powerful warship that couldn’t catch them (as long as they were out of cannon range).

  Some pirates did have big ships, such as Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts. But they also had several smaller vessels sailing along with it as consorts (escort vessels). The big ship was the flagship: powerful and intimidating but not very quick and agile. The smaller vessels were the quick ones that could overtake a prey or cut off any escape route by working in pairs.

  Do not underestimate the abilities of a handful of pirates in a small open boat. There were several times when such a band of desperate men successfully took on and captured much larger craft.

  Pirate Timeline

  1176 BCE: Pharaoh Ramses III defeats the Sea Peoples (early pirates) in a great battle at the mouth of the Nile Delta.

  75 BCE: Julius Caesar is kidnapped by Cilician pirates and held captive.

  0 CE

  793 CE: Viking pirates make their first raid in England.

  1000

  1217: Medieval pirate Eustace the Monk is captured in the English Channel and executed.

  1400

  1401: North Sea pirate Klaus Störtebeker is captured and beheaded.

  1492: Christopher Columbus’s first voyage to the New World.

  1494: Treaty of Tordesillas. The pope declares that the New World belongs to Spain and Portugal.

  1500

  1501–1526: Expulsion of Muslims from Spain. Many settle in North Africa and become Barbary corsairs.

  1504: The Barbarossa brothers arrive in Tunis to engage in piracy as Barbary corsairs.

  1512: The first Spanish treasure fleet sails to Spain.

  1518: Aruj Barbarossa is killed by the Spanish. His brother Khizr takes command and inherits the name Barbarossa.

  1550

  1523: Jean Fleury seizes three galleons filled with silver, bound for Spain.

  1546: Khizr Barbarossa dies after a long, successful career as a Barbary corsair.

  1562–69: John Hawkins raids the Spanish Main.

  1573: Francis Drake captures a Spanish silver shipment crossing the Isthmus of Panama.

  1588: The Spanish Armada is defeated by the English.

  1593: Irish female pirate Grania ny Mhaille (Grace O’Malley) meets with Queen Elizabeth I.

  1600

  1600–43: Dutch corsairs (pechelingues) raid the Spanish colonies in the West Indies.

  1608–09: Sir Thomas Verney leaves England and his inheritance, and turns corsair.

  1612: Pirate hunter Sir Henry Mainwaring turns pirate himself and joins the corsairs.

  1616: Mainwaring returns to England, is pardoned, and writes a treatise on piracy.

  1628: Piet Heyn, in charge of a Dutch fleet, captures a complete Spanish treasure fleet.

  1642: Tortuga is taken over by French boucaniers.

  1649: The English Civil War: The English decide they don’t need a king. King Charles I is beheaded. England is ruled by a Commonwealth. Many of King Charles’ supporters flee to the New World. Some become pirates.

  1650

  1655: Jamaica is captured by the English. />
  1660: The Restoration: The English decide they need a king after all. Charles II (son of the beheaded Charles I) is crowned. Many supporters of the Commonwealth flee to the New World. Some become pirates.

  1660: The English port on Jamaica is renamed “Port Royal” in honor of the king being restored to the throne.

  1662: Port Royal invites buccaneers from Tortuga to use their port as home base.

  1667–1669: Henry Morgan’s buccaneers sack Maracaibo, Portobelo, and Cuba.

  1670: Roche Braziliano terrorizes the Spanish.

  1671: The sack of Panama by Henry Morgan’s buccaneers.

  1675: Sir Henry Morgan becomes lieutenant governor of Jamaica and suppresses piracy.

  1692: A powerful earthquake sinks two-thirds of Port Royal, Jamaica.

  1692: Thomas Tew captures a tribute ship of the Grand Moghul.

  1695: Captain John Every (Avery) captures the Grand Moghul’s ship.

  1697–99: William Kidd is sent to hunt pirates but turns pirate himself.

  1700

  1701: William Kidd is hanged after being tried for piracy and murder.

  1717: The pirate ship Whydah is wrecked off the coast of Cape Cod.

  1718: As governor, former privateer Woodes Rogers expels pirates from New Providence in the Bahamas.