It's Fun to be a pirate...

... or is it?

*

Pirates. Mention ‘pirates’ to adults, even more than children, and eyes begin to twinkle, a smile broadens the face and the clichéd ‘Arrr’ erupts from the lips. Given the choice of dressing up as a pirate or a wizard for a fancy dress party the winner, more often than not, is the stereotypical pirate.

Canstock photography © jgroup

The romance of fiction, the novels, TV shows and movies influence our perception of piracy, specifically during the 'Golden Age' of the early 1700s. We have a rose-tinted romantic view of a life On The Account. Say ‘pirate’ and we think Treasure Island, Jack Sparrow, or Captain Hook from Peter Pan, some of us even remember the bumbling but lovable animated character, Captain Pugwash.

Real pirates were not nice people. For 21st century entertainment, though, who, apart from a horror-movie buff, is going to sit through a big-screen movie about drunken, stinking-to-high-heaven louts pillaging, torturing and butchering? The small screen TV dramas such as Black Sails depict some of the rougher side of a life at sea in the early 18th century, but the storyline, especially in the first series, had to be buoyed up by (unnecessary in my opinion) explicit sexual scenes to keep the interest and attention. Factually, it was not accurate.

But do we want accuracy for entertainment? Moonlit nights, calm seas, a gentle breeze ruffling through swaying palm trees? That is the image conjured into our minds. Do we care that the Flying Dutchman does not exist, or the Marie Celeste was probably abandoned because her crew thought escaping vapour from the hold full of alcohol was smoke? Frightened, believing the ship was about to blow up, they abandoned ship. In their panicked haste they did not do so wisely. Leaving all sail set the ship took off without them. In a good following wind with a veseel travelling at seven to nine knots, an oarsman in a small rowing boat would not have been able to keep up. It must have been devastating to see your home, your livelihood – your only way of staying alive – disappearing off towards the horizon without you. The poor unfortunates, however, were not exotically abducted by alien space pirates as film and fiction would have us believe. 

Reality has its place, but so does the world of story and pleasurable escapism.

We like handsome heroes and pretty heroines. We enjoy the breath-taking alarm of danger and engrossing adventurous romps. Pirate stories give us the (safe) dangerous excitement we crave. Pirates seek treasure – don’t we all? Maybe we do not go off to dig at X marks the spot with our trusty, by-chance found treasure map, but several million of us do trot off to the local store every week hoping to buy that illusive winning lottery ticket.

Pirates were on a get-rich-quick mission and did not particularly care how they did it, as long as they had silver in their pockets for the taverns and brothels, and could get it as easily as possible. We all know that pirates plundered the loot then buried the heavily laden treasure chests on remote Caribbean islands. Their captured enemies they made to walk the plank at sword point, leading to inevitable death by drowning or fiercesome sharks.

Pirates went about saying things like, ‘Shiver m’timbers,’ and ‘Where be tha’ rum?’ Their ships were all gloriously fast, and the flag fluttering jauntily – yet menacingly – from the masthead was always a pair of crossed bones beneath a leering skull set against a black background. 

Pirates, we know, wore a gold-hooped earring and had gold-capped teeth. They drank rum (a lot of it), had frequent swashbuckling fights with those sharp-bladed lethal cutlasses they carried, lusted after buxom wenches and died nobly on the long drop with a short stop.

Or did they? Sad to say most of that is untrue, it is the stuff of story.

Where does the fact end and the fiction begin? But  does it really matter if the story is good and the adventure ... well, adventurous?

* Original text from Pirates Truth and Tales by Helen Hollick

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A Brief Timeline

1492  Christopher Columbus ‘discovered’ the Caribbean and the Americas

1509  Permanent (European) settlement of Port Royal (Caguay) Jamaica 

1570  Lady Mary Killigrew organising piracy off the Cornish coast

1581  Lady Elizabeth Killigrew involved in piracy off the Cornish coast

1593  Grace O’Malley of Ireland meets with Elizabeth I of England

1651  William Dampier born

1659  Oliver Cromwell dies 

1660  Charles II returns from exile and is restored to the English throne

1665  Henry Morgan raiding in the Spanish Main

         Plague in London

1666  Great Fire of London

1671  Henry Morgan sacks Panama

1674  War with Spain

1675  Henry Morgan made Governor of Jamaica

1676  Daniel (de)Foe born

                Governor Alexander Spotswood born

1677 William of Orange marries Mary, daughter of James II

1679  (circa) Woodes Rogers born 

1680  Edward Teach born

(1680-1690?) Charles Vane born

1682  Jack ‘Calico’ Rackham born 

                Bartholomew Roberts born

1683  Henry Morgan is removed from Port Royal Council for being drunk - October

1685  Charles II dies his brother, James, becomes King 

11th June Monmouth lands at Lyme Bay 

6th July   Monmouth defeated at Sedgemoor

                Judge Jeffries and the Bloody Assizes: hundreds of rebels hanged or sold as slaves

1686  Dampier’s second circumnavigation

1684  Alexandre Oliver Exquemelin's The Buccaneers of America published

                Tortuga now deserted by pirates. The term ‘buccaneer being widely adopted

1687  Dr Hans Sloan and Duke and Duchess of Albemarle arrive in Port Royal

1688  Henry Morgan dies 25th August

                Pirates using Port Royal, Jamaica

5th November William of Orange lands at Torbay; James II flees to France 

1689 War with France 

                Sam Bellamy born 

1690 William defeats James at Battle of the Boyne 1st 

                Howell Davies born

1692 7th June Port Royal devastated by earthquake 

1693  Fictional pirate Jesamiah Acorne born 

                William and Mary College, Virginia founded

1694 Bank of England founded

1695  Death of Queen Mary

1697 End of war with France

1700  Death of Charles II of Spain

  (circa)   Anne Bonny born

1701       War of Spanish Succession declared

               James II dies of a stroke

               Act of Union between England and Scotland ‘British Isles’ formed

1702       William II dies Sister-in-law Anne becomes Queen 

                First daily English newspaper – the Daily Courant

1703 Work begins on Buckingham House (Palace)

1704 English capture Gibraltar

                Battle of Blenheim

1706 Building of the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg began

1707 Act of Union (Scotland and England to form Great Britain

1708 Planned Jacobite rebellion with a French landing in Scotland – James caught measles

1709  17th February Andrew Selkirk rescued from being marooned

1710 St Paul’s Cathedral completed

                Alexander Spotswood appointed Governor of Virginia

1711 Woodes Rogers Madagascar, at pirate community in almost ended 

1713 War with Spain over, privateers expect full pardons for acts of piracy

1714 Bahamas raided by French and Spanish

                Nassau sacked three times

                Death of Queen Anne, accession of George of Hanover

                End of the War of the Spanish succession

1715 Spanish treasure fleet wrecked 31st July

1717 Piracy in its height in the Bahamas, Caribbean and the East coast of America

                Whydah Galley sinks 

17th November Blackbeard captures the Queen Anne’s Revenge

1718  Woodes Rogers arrives in Nassau 

  May       Blackbeard blockades Charlestown harbour

June         Queen Anne’s Revenge runs aground 

September/October Blackbeard meets other pirates on the beaches of Ocracoke  

November Governor Spotswood sends Lt. Robert Maynard to capture/kill Blackbeard

22nd November Blackbeard killed

1719  War with Spain

                Royal Pardon extended to 1st July

               Robinson Crusoe published by Daniel Defoe

19th June Howell Davies is shot dead

                Anne Bonney and Mary Read become pirates

                Edward Teach’s remaining crew hanged at Williamsburg

                Charles Vane arrested

1720  Gov. Woodes Rogers hangs all pirates who refuse to give up piracy 

February  Battle of Nassau 

18th November Calico Jack Rackham hanged at Port Royal

                South Sea Bubble bursts – financial ruin for many 

                Robert Walpole becomes the first Prime Minister of Great Britain

                First daily newspaper in England

1721  Charles Vane hanged (?)

                Pirate community in Madagascar coming to life again.

                 Bartholomew Roberts of the Royal Fortune killed in battle 

1722  February Bartholomew Roberts dies

1723  Charles Johnson’s A General History of Robberies and Murders of Notorious Pyrates published

1727  Death of George of Hanover (George I) succession of George II 

1732   15th July Woodes Rogers dies

The Fiction

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and the Fact

where most pirates ended up
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What do you prefer? The fiction or the fact?