5/7/2023 0 Comments Real pirates![]() ![]() So hoist the Jolly Roger and get out those treasure maps: We’re setting sail in search of the real-life pirates of the Caribbean. But there are still places where you can find genuine traces of the region’s piratical history, along with fun ways to celebrate the myth. Separating hard truth from colorful legend isn’t always easy in the Caribbean today-if Blackbeard really slept in all the places where he’s said to have bedded down in island towns large and small, the famous marauder must have had a serious case of narcolepsy. Of course, the popular image of pirates hobbling around on peg legs, sporting parrots on shoulders, saying things like “shiver me timbers,” and wearing copious amounts of eyeliner owes less to reality than to fictional creations such as Long John Silver of Treasure Island and Johnny Depp’s Captain Jack Sparrow of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean movies. In fact, of all the accounts of all of Blackbeard's raids and captures of ships, he threatened a lot of people but he never actually killed anybody prior to his final, fatal battle with the Royal Navy.The Caribbean really was a hotbed of piracy at one time-especially during the 17th and 18th centuries, when Europe-bound ships laden with goods from North and South America were easy pickings for enterprising buccaneers. A bunch of people bizarrely dressed like a post-apocalyptic image.Īnd that was precisely the idea, especially Blackbeard's, was to cultivate an image of terror, so somebody would be so scared of them they'd surrender without a fight. So lots may have also had eye patches and hooks for arms because they'd lost their eyes and limbs in these various accidents, so pirates probably looked like some crazy fiend from the early Mad Max movies. Rigging fell in storms, cargo and barrels shifted around, in battle you'd be hit by wooden splinters. Many of them, in fact, had been in accidents because being a sailor, whether a pirate or not, was very dangerous. They were Robin Hood figures, robbing from the wicked rich to settle scores. They argued they weren't thieves and brigands, they said they were engaged in essentially a social revolt against the ship owners and ship captains who made their lives miserable. ![]() These pirates from the golden age of piracy were folk heroes at the time they were still alive. So many of them mutinied and took over their vessels. So you had thousands of people without a means to sustain themselves with a special skill set. And the big piracy outbreak was prompted by the ending of a big colonial war, the Spanish succession. Most pirates had been merchant or naval sailors prior to going into piracy. And almost all pirates had previously been sailors. And you can imagine how boring it must have been on a pirate ship on your off hours, what are you going to do? The colorful and talkative parrots were treated as a form of entertainment and recreation.Īll of these characteristics pirates had, because having a parrot as a pet, missing arms, eyes and hands, was very common among sailors in that time period. And so they would come back to grey, dreary, England, and one of the things they would bring back with them was colorful birds from the tropics, especially parrots, who could be trained to sit on your shoulder but also to actually speak words. One of the most common Oceanic sailing routes for English seamen was to go from England to the Caribbean because that was a major route of merchant shipping. ![]() It’s this gang that all of the pop culture images and iconography related to pirates comes from. Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, the women pirates Mary Read and Anne Bonny, were all part of this one gang. This particular gang of pirates, who were active at the very beginning of the 18th century for only 4-5 years. Following is a transcript from the video.Ĭolin Woodard:I think the average person imagines a pirate with a hook for a hand, a great big floppy hat, a blue waistcoat, and maybe even a peg leg, with a parrot on his shoulder. Did pirates actually have parrots as pets or hooks for hands? Author of “ The Republic of Pirates,” Colin Woodard explains. ![]()
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