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Pirate Fact & Fiction
Pirate FAQ
Pirates are so steeped in legend that it can be hard to separate fact from pure fiction, or even reconcile that such characters actually existed! Through the mists of time and Hollywood reels, these mercenaries of the high seas have evolved into rakish and romantic figures. But what were pirates really like -- where do history and centuries of mythmaking meet? Ask or answer a question below. [See also: Pirate Glossary | Pirate Treasure]
| QUESTION | ANSWER |
| Q: Did pirates really make people walk the plank? | A: One of the world's foremost experts on pirates, David Cordingly, suggests in his book Under the Black Flag that real pirates didn't typically stand on such ceremony and that accounts of pirates making people walk the plank are rare and more likely the product of popular fictionalized accounts like Peter Pan. Most victims were dispatched by far more bloody and expeditious means: "Seamen who resisted a pirate attack were hacked to death and thrown over the side." However, according to Wikipedia, plank walking was a latecomer to pirate culture. It emphasizes at least two such accounts, from the 19th century on. |
| Q: Were pirates all drunkards? | A: Johnny Depp's humorous turn as the perennially sloshed Capt. Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean movies isn't such an off-base caricature when you understand that pirates had a larger ration of alcoholic beverages (bottled beer, wine, brandy, and rum) than of water. Because water stores on board were limited and prone to spoiling, water was preserved and made more palatable by mixing it with rum -- creating grog! A man's got to drink, right? |
| Q: Did pirates pierce their ears? | A: While it is not known if pirates really did sport piercings, lore has it that pirates believed piercing their ear with silver or gold improved eyesight. An alternate explanation is that pirates wanted to have enough money to cover the cost of a proper burial. The gold in a ring or an earring would pay for their final expenses. |
| Q: Did pirates wear brightly colored clothing? | A: The typical early eighteenth-century pirate dressed in a variation of a contemporary sailor's traditional garb: short blue jacket, checked shirt, long canvas trousers or petticoat breeches, red waistcoat, and a scarf or handkerchief around the neck. Motley flair resulted from donning exotic articles of clothes pilfered from captured ships or made from plundered silks and velvets. Pirate captains adopted the dress of their naval and sea captain counterparts, dressing in the style of English gentlemen. The stereotype of colourfully-garbed pirates possibly stems from the flamboyant "Calico Jack" Rackham, whose multicoloured garb made him stand out in a crew. |
| Q: Did "X" really mark the spot? Q: If it was purely fictional, how did most pirates mark the spot? | A: The map with an "X" marking the location of the buried treasure is an entirely fictional plot device planted in the collective brain by the Robert Louis Stevenson classic Treasure Island. The burying of booty was, in itself, mostly a myth. If you have acquired riches, why hide them when you can spend them? Only Blackbeard and and Captain Kidd are believed to have permanently hidden a large stash of treasure. Kidd's cache is believed by many to be hidden in the famous "money pit" on Oak Island. As for Blackbeard's, as he himself put it: "Only the devil and I know the whereabouts of my treasure, and the one of us who lives the longest should take it all" |
| Q: Did pirates really maroon people? | A: Marooning was indeed a common enough fate for victims of pirate attacks. But it was also a method used by pirates to punish their own. Pirates were typically deposited on islands where they stood little hope of surviving or being rescued. A marooned pirate often used the pistol he was given to subsist to instead end his life and a slow, terrible death by starvation and thirst. Marooning was considered a reasonable punishment for certain offenses of the pirate code, including deserting the ship or quarters in battle or stealing from other pirates. Marooning was a particularly common practice in the West Indies. |
| Q: Are buccaneer, corsair, and privateer all just different words for the same thing -- a pirate? | A: Yes, and no. A pirate, by definition, is someone who robs and plunders on the sea. Privateer is a term applied to an armed ship (as well as to a commander or crew member of the vessel) licensed to attack and seize ships belonging to a hostile nation. The license, called a "letter of marque and reprisal," was issued by a sovereign to merchant vessels as a means to legally raid and pillage enemy ships. Corsair is a term applied to pirates based in the Mediterranean, the most famous of which were those who trolled the waters along the Barbary Coast under authorization of Muslim rulers to attack the ships of Christian countries. Buccaneers were pirates who plundered in the Caribbean and along the coast of South America during the seventeenth century. The poster boy for the buccaneers is Henry Morgan, who waged war on the Spanish at the behest of the English governor of Jamaica. |
| Q: Did pirates really take parrots as pets? | A: Our most representative image of a pirate is Treasure Island's Long John Silver, the one-legged seaman who is accompanied on his travels by the parrot Cap'n Flint. Trade in exotic animals was active during the age of piracy, which supports the theory that parrots were captured for their inherent value, if not company. Seamen were known to have brought birds back as souvenirs of their tropical voyages, as pets and to sell them in the London bird markets. Parrots were also sometimes used as presents to bribe officials. |
| Q: What about wooden legs? | A: Pirates/seamen were often injured during storms and attacks and loss of limbs was a frequent disability. |
| Q: What was the biggest haul ever taken by a pirate ship? | A: The record holder is Henry Avery's capture of the Gang-i-Sawai, which netted a take valued at £325,000 (over $400 million today). The £3,000 payout given to each crew member was the equivalent of $3.5 million in today's currency. Avery's short but lucrative life as a pirate was captured in a play titled The Successful Pirate that ran for several years at Drury Lane Theatre and helped perpetuate the image of a pirate as a dashing outlaw. |
| Q: What is the difference between doubloons and pieces of eight? | A: The Spanish mined silver and gold in the New World (Mexico, Bolivia, and Peru) for two types of coins: gold was minted into doubloons (the most valuable coin) and silver was minted into pesos called pieces of eight (each worth eight reales, another early type of Spanish coin). To provide a sense of relative value: one doubloon was worth roughly seven weeks' pay for the average sailor; two pieces of eight could get you a cow. |
| Q: What was the most common pirate plunder? | A: practically anything. Vessels bearing gold and silver from the New World were a common target, but spices, silks, horses... you name it, if it could be successfully fenced in port, it would be taken. The ships' equipment and rations (particularly alcohol) would often also be raided. However, it was rare that the ships themselves would be taken as prizes. |
| Q: What is hardtack? | A: Hardtack - otherwise known as ship's biscuits or pilot bread - are hard-baked rusk-like biscuits made of flour, water and salt that were a staple diet of pirates and seafarers. They usually had to be dipped in water or grog or crushed and mixed with wet food to make them edible. They were frequently infested with worms or weevils - usually if cheapskate outfitters hadn't left them to dry long enough. |
| Q: How did pirates typically divide up the booty? | A: Pirates more or less divided up the spoils equally, although the captain in a typical scheme (see Pirate Code) received 2.5 times as much as a regular member of the crew; the surgeon could hope for 1.25 times as much; the ship's carpenter, 3/4 as much; and boys only got a half share. |
| Q: Is piracy still a problem today? | A: Yes. Modern pirates tend to work in small groups - usually less than a dozen sailors - using small, fast boats launched from a larger ship. They have been known to be armed with anything from knives to rocket-propelled grenades. Murder, however, is less common - the International Maritime Bureau recorded 188 people taken prisoner by pirates in 2006, while 15 people were killed. Since modern supercargo vessels are slow, and have a relatively small crew compared to their forebears, they make tempting targets for pirates. The actual cargo itself, though, is usually not the target: many ships still carry large amounts of cash for payroll and port fees in the master's safe. Luxury yachts are another frequent target in unpatrolled sea lanes. However, more audacious pirates have attempted to raid cruise liners and even military vessels. China, Indonesia, South America and Eastern Africa are piracy hotspots. although an international crackdown has severely reduced the number of attacks in recent years. Commercial vessels are also now being equipped with a range of deterrents, including electric fencing, LRAD sound cannons (that can project deafening beams of 150db sound waves up to a mile away), water cannons and armed guards. |
| Q: Who was the most badass, bloodthirsty pirate of all time? | A: Blackbeard |
| Q: How old was the average pirate? Q: What about in other centuries? | A: The average age of pirates in the eighteenth century was 27. |
| Q: Would you consider Captain Cook a pirate? | A: All the voyages of Capt. James Cook were undertaken on vessels of the British Royal Navy or Merchant Navy. He did not engage in any clearly illegal acts of piracy, although the natives of Hawaii who fought and ultimately killed him might hold a different perspective. |
| Q: In what era did we find the most pirates? | A: The heyday of piracy is considered to be the 1700's to the early 1800's. However, piracy has been around much longer. |
| Q. Was Thomas Paine (Author of Common Sense) ever a pirate? | |
| Q: Were eye patches really that common among pirates? | A: There is one theory that the eye patch was worn over one eye so the pirate could move between the darkness of below-deck to the brightness of topside without waiting for the eyes to adjust. Another theory: the eye patch stereotype predates the "Golden Age of Piracy" by some 200 years. Up until the 1500s one of the key tools of maritime navigation was the cross staff, which required the navigator to look directly into the sun at high noon. This led to a lot of sailor/navigators who were partially blind in one eye. After significant sight loss, many would likely have taken to wearing an eyepatch over the afflicted eye. By the 1500s other tools like the back staff had been invented which eliminated the need to look directly into the sun, but by then the sailor/eyepatch image had made its way into public consciousness. |
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| Started By | Thread Subject | Replies | Last Post | |
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| MasterGunnerMark | Eye Patches | 4 | Jun 27 2007, 6:15 PM EDT by MasterGunnerMark | |
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Thread started: Jun 24 2007, 5:33 PM EDT
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I am very sceptical of the Crossstaff theory about eye patches for several reasons. The first is that it only applies to navigators, not sailors (or pirates) in general. Also, the dates given are wrong. The cross staff was invented around 1500. Other navigational tools in use at the time did not require looking at the sun. The mariner's astrolabe goes back quite a bit further and continued to be used through the 18th century. To use it, you adjust a bar until the sun is shining through holes in plates at either end. The end of the bar is a pointer which shows the latitude. The back staff which was invented around 1600 uses the sun shining through a slit behind the navigator. Finally, an eye patch is used to hide a blind eye or empty socket. An eye blinded by the sun looks normal and does not need to be hidden.
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