October 5, 2018 • 46 mins
Will and Mango have so many questions about pirates: did they really exaggerate their R's? Did they all have parrots? Were lady pirates more successful than male ones? And was there really a rabbi pirate who made his crew keep kosher? From buried treasure to walking the plank, Will and Mango take a good look at the Golden Age of Piracy.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
I guess what, mango? What's that? Will? So, a couple
of weeks ago, you quoted this old deep thought by
Jack Handy and it took me by surprise. Do you
remember doing this? So I don't remember what we were
talking about, but I definitely remember quoting Deep Thoughts, and
I think it was like the face of a child
can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
That is definitely the one that was one of my favorites,
(00:24):
although it's hard to pick a favorite, And honestly, it
had been a few years since i'd really binged on
Deep Thoughts, and I feel like that's the only way
to experience them, like you have to read a hundred
at a time, and so I was a little bit
overdue for this. And for any listeners who might not
remember Deep Thoughts, they were these silly and stupid one
liners that were delivered as though they were these inspirational
(00:46):
and meaningful pieces of advice. And you know, Jack Candy
actually been writing these since the mid eighties, but I'm
pretty sure you and I both discovered them when Handy
would read them on Saturday Night Live. Is that is
that where you first heard them? Yeah, definitely, that's when
when I was first exposed to him. Yeah, so this
was the early nineties. I guess we were both in
middle school at the time. And I thought about another
one when Tristan was wearing these fancy kicks the other day.
(01:08):
He's got lots and lots of shoes, but he had
some some really fancy ones on, and so I thought
about this when it said before you criticize someone, you
should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when
you criticize them, you're a mile away from them and
you're in their shoes. So stupid. I love that, but
it's kind of good advice. I guess it definitely is.
(01:30):
And actually, one of the other things I noticed is
that there was more than one deep thought about pirates weirdly,
but I think my favorite was pirates were always going
around searching for treasure and never realized the real treasure
was the fond memories they were creating. Well, I do
feel like you're reading that is a sign because we've
(01:51):
been talking about doing an episode on pirates for such
a long time now, we definitely have. I mean that
that's how we knew it was time to do this,
because we've been keeping this list of all the pirate
stereotypes and I wanted to know what of them are
actually true and you know, like we're pirates anything like
the ones that we see in the movies. Did they
actually say stuff like shiver mey timbers or buried treasure?
(02:14):
Or did they really carry around monkeys and parrots? And
my god, I hope that they did. But it's time
to find out, So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(02:44):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as
always I'm joined by my friend man Guesh Ticketer and
on the other side of the soundproof glass, I actually
don't know what Tristan is doing today. I am up
in New York. I'm in my hotel room, in this
very fancy studio, which is just my ask in my
hotel room. So it may not sound as great as
Tristan usually makes it sound, but mano, I gotta know
(03:05):
what is Tristan doing. So he did not disappoint. He
showed up in a total pirate Halloween costume. Um, he's
got everything. He's got an ipatch, a bandanna, try corner hat,
he's got hoop earrings, he's got a stuffed parrot. On
his shoulder, and he even has a try corner hat
for his stuffed parrots. I'm not sure how true to
(03:26):
life that part is, but it is a nice touch.
So well done, Tristan McNeil. Oh wow. And actually, I
just as we're talking, I just got a text from
Ramsey's showing me a picture of Tristan. This is amazing.
I mean, you could say every part of his costume
is pretty much in line with the way that we
conceive of pirates, because I mean, I guess this is
(03:47):
how we're used to seeing them in books and pop culture.
So thank you Tristan for furthering this stereotype of pirates.
But it does make us wonder like, how much, if
any of this is actually true. And I don't just
mean how pirates dressed in real life, but how they
acted to Like, on the one hand, parrots we see
in movies and theme parks off and come off as
these really these charming and kind of rough around the
(04:10):
edges folk heroes, almost like Robin Hoods of the Sea
or something. Yeah. I mean, do you think about like
Wesley from The Princess Bride and he's just kind of
a gentleman pirate. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. And you know,
when you read these historical accounts and pirates mostly though
sound like these bloodthirsty outlaws, it's a bit of a
mixed message. So with today's show, we thought it would
(04:31):
be fun to try to make sense of the competing
pirate narratives and to do that will fact check some
of the biggest stereotypes we typically associate with pirates and
see which ones hold water. And then a little bit
later we'll separate pirate truth from pirate fiction when we
share a few of our all time favorite pirates stories. So, Mago,
you want to kick us off, like what pirate cliche
(04:52):
do you feel like we should start with today? Well,
I was thinking about it. You know, it was international
talk like a Pirate Day not too long ago, and
while I did manage to slip a few hours into
my conversation this year, I also, you know, I couldn't
help feeling like a little bit of a phony since
I actually have no idea how pirates talked, and as
(05:13):
it turns out, nobody does. So piracy was as peaked
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so there aren't really
any audio recordings to refer to, and the witness accounts
that we do have only include kind of a handful
of quotes from actual pirates. What about writing from the pirates?
I mean, it feels like there's got to be at
least one pirate autobiography floating around out there, wouldn't there be? Yeah?
(05:34):
Actually there really aren't. There. There isn't much of a
record of anything written by pirates themselves. Blackbeards supposedly kept
a diary of all the exploits, but that's never been recovered.
And so the little bit of writing we do have
from actual pirates comes mostly from the ones who started
out as nobility before going rogue, and since they tend
to be really well educated, their speech patterns probably wouldn't
(05:54):
have mimiced those of most pirates anyway. So, you know,
you think about all the talk of salty dogs and
scally wags and pirates inviting folks to shiver me timbers
whatever means, But like, none of those are phrases that
pirates actually used. Yeah, probably not. I mean, like I
mentioned earlier, there's no real evidence one way or the other,
(06:15):
but most scholars think English speaking pirates from the so
called Golden Age of piracy probably spoke the same way
merchant sailors did at the time. A lot of both
of the people in these groups came from a riverfront
neighborhoods in London, so it's likely they spoke with similar
accents and used common slang. But sadly you don't really
see shiver me timbers coming up in in much of
(06:36):
that discussion. That's a real disappointment. But I'm guessing the
pirate jargon we're used to mostly comes from books and movies, right,
stuff like Treasure Island or Peter Pan. I guess yeah,
And Treasure Island in particular is the one that will
come off a lot today. A lot of the phrases
we connect with pirates were first popularized by the book
in eighteen eighty three, and then again in Disney's movie
(06:57):
adaptation in the nineteen fifties. And actually the movie version
is also credited for our association of pirates with these
gruff and vaguely Scottish accents, and that's because it starred
Robert Newman as the fictional pirate Long John Silver. So
Newman was a native of southwest England, and as such
he spoke with this really distinctive regional dialect called West
(07:19):
Country English, and some of the dialect's characteristics line up
perfectly with how most of us imagined pirates to have talked. So,
for example, West Country speakers tend to emphasize their rs.
They also replaced the verb is with b, which is,
you know, a decidedly pirate move when you think of
constructions like where be the rum? And if that wasn't enough,
(07:39):
West Country speakers are even known to replace the word
yes with our sometimes huh. So our conception of pirate
speech seems to be pretty arbitrary when you when you
break it down like this, I mean, if it really
does go back to just that one performance. Yeah, So
Newman's role in Treasure Island wasn't his only one as
a pirate. He also appeared in a couple of other
pirate movies in the era, and it was all of
(08:00):
this together that started to influence other people's portrayal of pirates,
until finally the West Country accent just became the standard.
And while it might seem random that Southwest English accent
would become the de facto voice, there's actually more of
a historical connection than you might expect. So just listen
to this explanation I found on slate quote. It's not
entirely arbitrary that Newton should have used an exaggeration of
(08:23):
his own dialect to play long John Silver. The West Country,
the southwest corner of England, including Cornwall, Somerset, Devon, Dorset
and Bristol, has a long seafaring tradition, and so many
historical pirates would likely have spoken in a similar way.
Both Blackbeard and Sir Francis Drake were from that area,
although Sir Francis was technically a privateer. But perhaps the
(08:44):
most famous inhabitant of the West Country is Hagrid from
the Harry Potter series. Can't you just imagine Haggard saying
you're a pirate? Harry end quote? Yeah, I mean I
can easily imagine that, And I actually can't believe that
I've never made that connection before, because Haggard totally sounds
like a pirate or yeah, fictional one, I guess. But
(09:04):
you know, there is some evidence that pirates really did
have their own unique way of speaking, including some bits
of nautical lingo that eventually found their way into popular usage.
And now the origin of these phrases can be pretty
tough to pin down, but there are at least a
few that are thought to have come from pirates and privateers, including,
you know, learn the ropes, and of course three sheets
(09:25):
to the wind. And the first of these came from
the need for sailors to understand how to use the
complex system of ropes and pulleys that controlled the ship's sails,
so they would literally have to learn the ropes. And
so was three sheets to the wind just as literal?
Or was that a term for being super drunk like
how we use it today? This one was actually pretty
(09:45):
literal too, And and actually the original phrase pirates used
was three sheets in the wind, not to it. And
and so you might guess that the sheets in question
were the sails on a ship, but actually they were
the ropes that controlled those sails. So apparently if three
or more ropes became loose, the sales would start flapping,
and then the crew can lose control of where the
(10:06):
ship's headed. So if somebody's really drunk, they're just as
out of control as a ship with three sheets and
the wind m So another question I was eager to
answer is whether or not pirates really hid buried treasure.
And while it does seem like this happened on occasion,
it was definitely not a widespread practice, and in fact,
I could only find a couple of historical accounts of
(10:26):
pirates actually burying their loot, and even in those cases,
the pirates only hit it for a short period while
they waited for the heat from their latest tist to
die down. In fact, pirate treasure never stayed buried for long,
and they certainly didn't circulate a bunch of treasure maps
with big red xs on them for people to go
looking for it. And that's partly because pirates didn't really
(10:47):
deal in treasure chests full of gold or pieces of
eight or whatever you like to imagine like. Instead, when
pirates looted chips, they were stealing things like coffee and
sugar and tea and textiles like whatever those ships were in,
and then they would sell those spoils on the black market,
and that's how they'd end up with the pirate gold
we associate with them. But even then, once pirates had
(11:08):
all this golden hand, they weren't super frugal or forward
thinking enough to invest it. Instead, you know, according to
this maritime historian named David Accordingly, pirates typically blew their
loot on drinking, gambling, and women as soon as they
got to port. Yeah, I mean, I'd say that fits
with the pirate lifestyle a lot more than squirreling away
your money. And you know, I mean I think about this,
(11:30):
burying treasure would effectively be like putting your money in
a bank, and I don't know, banking doesn't strike me
as this very piratey thing to do. But exactly anyway,
I mean, this idea of buried treasure had to come
from somewhere, though, So do you do you think it
just spawn out of those few scattered accounts that you found?
I mean, that's why I thought at first, But it
turns out this is another case that's rooted less in
(11:52):
history and more in treasure Island. So in the book,
long John Silver is on the hunt for a stash
of hidden gold, and of course a secret treasure man
is the key to finding it. But what's funny is
that Robert Louis Stevenson didn't actually invent this idea, and
he didn't base it on real life either. Instead, he
flat out stole the idea from another seventeenth century author,
(12:12):
Edgar Allan Poe. Poh really, yeah, So It comes from
post short story The gold Bug, and the main characters
hunt down Captain Kid's treasure using a cipher that's based
on how frequently certain letters appeared in the English language
in this story. And this is pretty much the same
premise as in Treasure Island, except Stevenson substituted a map
(12:33):
in place of the cipher, and the author later copped
this too, like like in his preface to the book,
he said, quote, the map was the chief part of
my plot. For that I broke into the gallery of
Mr Poe. M alright, Well, a pattern is definitely starting
to emerge here because I actually have another pirate stereotype
that we can at least partly thank Treasure Island for,
(12:54):
And that's the idea that pirates made people walk the plank.
Not to be fair, plank walking did ex is among
pirates to some degree, but most historians will tell you
that it was a pretty rare form of punishment. Now,
the most recognizable example of the practice occurred in the
mid eighteen hundreds, I think, and this was when an
eyewitness reported that a British ship captain had been abducted
(13:15):
by pirates and that quote, a plank was run on
the starboard side of their schooner, upon which they made
Captain Smith walk, and as he approached the end, they
tilted the plank when he dropped into the seat. Now
beyond that, we know that some Caribbean pirates also forced
captured sailors to walk the plank, and there even some
accounts of Mediterranean pirates taking part in something similar back
(13:37):
in the days of ancient Rome. In this case, the
pirates would suspend a ladder out over the ocean and
then mockingly invite prisoners to crawl out on it and
swim back home to freedom. That seems pretty cruel, But
I'm curious how does Treasure Island fit into all of this. Basically,
Robert Louis Stevenson and a few other writers of his
air are mostly responsible for making plank walking, you know,
(13:58):
more ubiquitous than it really was, and their stories presented
as kind of the go to form of punishment that
pirates used, and this idea was only enforced by popular
illustrations and paintings from this same time period. Now all
of that really cemented. Plank walking is one of the
visual icons of piracy, and the interesting thing about this
(14:18):
misplaced attention is that it actually makes some pirates seem
less cruel than they really were, because the pirates really
wanted to do away with a mutinous crew member or
a troublesome captive. I mean, they had far worse methods
than simply forcing somebody overboard. And you know, some of
the more common practices included marooning someone onto an island,
which almost always resulted in a slow death for the victim.
(14:41):
Then there was the especially grizzly punishment called keel hauling,
and this was when the victim was tied naked to
a rope, thrown overboard, and then just tragically dragged beneath
the entire length of the ship while barnacles cut up
their skin. It's it's pretty gross to read about it. It
It feels horrible. In fact, I want to get us
on have your note A S A P. So I'm
(15:02):
just gonna come right out and tell you that pirates
almost certainly kept parrots as pets. And so this is
another pirate trope that was popularized by a treasure Island
long John Silver was the first fictional pirate to walk
around with a parrot on his shoulder, but in this case,
Stevenson was really drawing from history. So to give a
little background when we talk about the Golden Age of piracy,
(15:24):
which I still find such a funny phrase to say,
you know, we're really referring to this period from about
the mid sixteen hundreds to round seventeen thirty. And in
that time, the recent discoveries of the America's in Australia
had created a boom and exploration. So for the first
time in history, multiple nations were shipping tons and tons
of money and valuable goods all across this largely uncharted
(15:47):
and unprotected oceans, and of course this made them easy
picking for enterprising pirates, hence the term Golden Age. But
in order to rob ships of their precious cargo, pirates
had to go where the ships went, which meant taking
to trade routes that mostly led to the Caribbean or
West Africa or the various coasts along the Indian Ocean.
And this required long voyages that lasted weeks or months
(16:09):
at a time and often took the pirates to these
exotic lands populated by unusual animals like parrots and also monkeys.
So let's get to the important part. Please tell me
that the monkey thing is true? Because the world is
kind of a rough place right now, and I feel
like it would make me feel better to know that
a pirate captain could have had a parrot on one
(16:30):
shoulder and a monkey on the other one. So there
isn't much documentation about that specific combination, but pirates with
monkeys certainly weren't uncommon. Parents were the more practical pet though.
Parrots would eat things that were already on board, so
you think about like fruits or seeds or nuts, and
they didn't really need that much to sustain them. Plus
(16:51):
they could be taught all these kind of neat tricks
like how to talk. And you know, there's no better
way for a pirate to start up a conversation at
port than by introducing people to talking bird that he,
you know, picked up. Well let's see. Well that's a
good point. And still you think after a while it
might be kind of risky to walk around with a big,
bright bird on your shoulder. I mean, it seems like
that's a tough way to keep a low profile. Yeah,
(17:13):
but it's also good branding. I don't think that many
pirates actually kept their parents for that long. According to
this historian, Angus Constant, author of the history of pirates.
He writes, back home, people would pay good money for
parrots and other exotic creatures, and sailors could easily buy
them in Caribbean ports. Some were kept, but most were
(17:33):
sold when the ship reached home. So really they were
selling them as soon as they got to port. That
makes sense. So it's still it's nice to know that
pirates really did keep parents, even if only for a
little while. But all right, well, I know there's a
couple more pirate myths that we want to take a
look at. But before we do, let's take a quick break.
(18:07):
They're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
the facts and fiction that fuel the modern view of pirates.
All right, Mago. So one of the more interesting topics
that I looked into this week were the big gold
earrings that pirates wore. And the question here wasn't whether
or not pirates really wore them. I think, you know,
most historians agree that many of them did, but why
did they wear them? So the story I'd always heard
(18:29):
is that the ear rings were away for pirates to
pay for their burials, Like, uh, if a pirate happened
to die on land instead of at sea, the gold
from their earrings could cover the cost, and obviously, even
for a pirate, that would be preferable to just being
put in this mass grave or left out for the
crows to eat. I'm guessing yeah. I mean, there is
some evidence that supports this idea. But those earrings and
(18:51):
other kinds of jewelry weren't just a fail safe for
pirate burial. I mean they were also symbols of rebellion
against the seventeenth and eighteenth century laws that we're really
meant to control what people could wear or do in
their private lives. So in England, just for example, men
weren't allowed to wear jewelry, and certain colors were off
limits for commoners to wear, and if somebody didn't conform
(19:13):
to those rules, they could be heavily fined or even imprisoned. So,
as this pirate historian, Gael Sellinger put it, the so
called sumptuary laws were quote a legal way for the
ruling class to separate themselves from commoners by regulating what
they wore, what they could drink, and where they could live. Well,
I mean it is easy to see how none of
that would sit very well with pirates, who are obviously
(19:34):
big fans of flouting the law whenever possible, right, yeah, exactly,
But for full disclosure, some historians do question how widespread
the practice of dressing flamboyantly and wearing ear rings really was.
And you know, many of them would argue that the
bandanas and the sashes and earrings that we usually picture
pirates wearing actually come from more like these series of
(19:56):
drawings and children's books, and that those depictions had really
been based in Spanish bandits, not pirates. But you know,
as was most things we've talked about today, there's not
a ton of evidence in either direction, though, so it's
likely that at least a few pirates did dress this
way well, and that kind of in your face fashion
sense would also fit into what we do know about
pirates backgrounds. Most of them actually started out as crew
(20:19):
members aboard the respective countries merchant marines or naval ships
before turning to a life of piracy. And from what
I've read, life aboard those ships was often rougher and
actually more tyrannical than it was on actual pirate ships.
Like on a merchant ship, for instance, crew members lived
in these squalid conditions. They were subject to a ton
of rules that were just as strict, if not stricter,
(20:42):
than those on land and merchant marines and naval captains.
They had the final say on everything that happened on
their ships, which left many crew members feeling oppressed and
really voiceless as a result. Yeah, and it's it's really
no wonder that so many of them would jump ship
and and sign on as pirates instead, because you despite
their reputation, pirates weren't antarchic or lawless when dealing with
(21:04):
one another. I mean, their ranks were composed of these
societal outsiders and outcasts, you know, that's definitely true. But
they weren't so jaded as to think that social orders
of any sort were automatically a bad thing. They just
needed to find a better or what they saw as
a more fair system, So on board pirate ships, that's
exactly what they did. I mean, the pirates recognized that
(21:26):
in order to prevent infighting and to be able to
keep morale high during their months at see, they needed
to do things a little bit more democratically, and so
to that ind pirate captains took a vote on just
about everything, I mean, from where to go, what the steel,
how to deal with prisoners. So really, the only time
that the captain took complete control was during a battle,
(21:48):
and you know that's for obvious reasons. That's not a
time when it would be smart to pause and take
a vote. I love this idea that like deciding what
the steel should be a democratic vote. Yeah, exactly, it's
so fun. But you know, obviously there were more perks
to pirate democracy than just saying you know where the
ship would go or what you're gonna steal. If you
(22:08):
listen to this breakdown I found from Robert Curson used
this pirate historian and author of the book Pirate Hunters.
It's pretty great. So so here's what he says. Quote,
the captain's vote didn't count any more than the lowliest deckhands.
If they wanted to throw the captain out, they could
dismiss him or lower his rank. They could maroon him
on an island or dump him into the sea, all
(22:30):
by vote. That was true even if a captain owned
his own ship, they had a constitution and even compensation
schemes for injuries. The captain almost never earned more than
two or three times the way to the lowliest deckhand.
Think about how that must have struck. A guy who's
come from a tyrannical rule on a merchant ship where
the hours were terrible and the conditions even worse. He
(22:51):
gets on a pirate ship and suddenly he has a
real say in what they're doing. I mean, it sounds
kind of amazing. Yeah, it's pretty weird to think about,
but you know, some of these pirate were practicing democracy
nearly a century before it took root in America and
in France. And you know, those constitutions you mentioned were
even written down in some cases. And I was looking
for some examples of this, and one of them I
(23:12):
was reading about it was from one of the most
prolific pirates of this Golden Age, and his name was
Black Bart Roberts. Now, he managed to overtake more than
four hundred ships during his many years at sea, which
obviously is no small feat. But I think what I
found most impressive about his career was this set of
by laws that he and a crew member drafted back
in seventeen twenty two. Now, this included some pretty progressive
(23:35):
rules that you might not expect, you know, from a
pirate ship. But you know, take this worker's compensation plan
that you had mentioned According to the by laws, quote,
every man who shall become a cripple or lose a
limb in the service shall have eight hundred pieces of
eight from the common stock, and for lesser hurts proportionately.
I mean, it's kind of amazing that they got that
(23:57):
sort of security from a pirate job, right, Like, no
wonder so many people went into piracy. Yeah, and you know,
to stick with black Bart's by laws for just a
second here. That The other thing I think I was
struck by was the picture they painted of life aboard
his ship, because you know, we tend to think of
pirates as this rowdy bunch of all hours of the night,
drinking and gambling. Of course, that's how things were when
(24:19):
the pirates came to port, but according to these by laws,
it was a very different story when they were at sea.
So just listen to this from it as well. It
says none shall game for money, either with dice or cards,
and the lights and candles shall be put out at
eight at night, and if any of the crew desire
to drink after that hour, they shall sit upon the
(24:40):
open deck without lights. I mean, that's pretty amazing, and
that there's this curfew on a pirate ship, Like, that's
not something I would have expected exactly. And at the
same time, you know there's no gambling. I mean, I
guess if the goal is to form some sort of piece,
those do sound like really smart moves. And you know,
since we're talking about how shockingly judicious pirates could be,
(25:02):
I do want to mention another famous pirate that fits
that bill, and that's black Beard. So he and his
cohorts were based in the Bahamas and they were only
active around seven years or so. But this period from
seventeen thirteen to seventeen twenty was a super eventful one.
In fact that there's some historians that argued that the
term Golden Age of piracy should really only be applied
(25:23):
to those seven years and that seven year span, so
that kind of gives you an idea of how successful
black Beard and the other islander pirates were. By seventeen seventeen,
the pirates had actually thrown the commercial trade of three
separate empires into total disarray, and they even managed to
beat back the Royal Navy's warships. I mean, whether you
love them or hate him, these pirates really knew how
(25:44):
to shake things up. Yeah, that's to put it mildly,
I guess, But I mean, what was black beard deal anyway, Like,
was he one of those legitimate sailors who went rogue
or had he always been more of a proper pirate? Yeah, so,
he and most of the other pirates from the Bahamas
started out on merchant naval ships, and in a way,
their actions as pirates were kind of this revolt and
(26:04):
revenge against their former bosses. And this is kind of
a tangent, but one of black Beard's contemporaries was this
guy named Captain Bellamy, and his crew especially loved this
new role that they were taking on. Like the crew
actually called themselves Robin Hood's Men, and Bellamy once explained
to a captive quote they vilify as the scoundrels do
when there's only this difference. They robbed the poor under
(26:26):
the cover of law, and we plunder the rich under
the cover of our own courage. I want to make
sure we don't go too far here and paint pirates
is more heroic than they really were. I mean, you're
kind of saying black Beard was a level headed guy,
or that his actions were maybe justified in some way,
at least in his own mind. But how does that
square with his reputation as being really a cruel and
(26:49):
fearsome pirate. I mean he was a pretty violent guy,
right well, I mean yes and no. So pirates on
the whole did some pretty terrible things, and there's no
question about that. They invaded, they pillared ships and colonies,
their ransom hostages, and pretty much ignored any laws but
the ones they made up for themselves at sea. But
in a lot of cases, including Black Beards, that brutality
(27:10):
was exaggerated. You know, it was mostly by the imperial
authorities on land and the newspapers that they held sway
over And if you think about it, nearly every bit
of pop culture associated with pirates, including Treasure Island, is
derived from those stories, and it's inspired by black Beard
and these other Bahamas pirates. So that means a lot
of our understanding of what pirates did is skewed as well,
(27:33):
since most of it can be traced back to these
somewhat embellished accounts. So so you're saying black Beard wasn't
as terrifying and cut throats as we might think, exactly,
And there are actually dozens of eyewitness accounts of Black
Beards victims and with the exception of his final bloody
showdown with the Royal Navy, not a single one of
them mentions the pirate captain actually killing anyone. And if
(27:56):
that's kind of hard to swallow it, it's probably because
black Beard and self purpose. He cultivated his image as
this fearsome force to be reckoned with. Like if you
listen to this description, I found this at the Smithsonian.
But but you'll see what I mean. Quote black Beard
wore a silk sling over his shoulders, on which there
were three braces of pistols hanging in holsters like bandeliers.
Under his hat, he tied lit fuses, dangling some of
(28:19):
them down the sides of his face so as to
surround it with a halo of smoke and fire, making
him look more frightful than a fury from hell. Merchant
crews would take one look at this apparition and the
army of wild men around him, bearing cutlasses, muskets, and
primitive hand grenades, and invariably surrender without firing a shot.
So I guess it was all for show then, like
(28:40):
kind of an intimidation tactic, right, And I mean, some
pirates really did perform the horrible acts we read about,
like dragging someone who crossed them beneath their ship, but
that wasn't their first choice, Like, they mostly wanted to
just frighten people into giving up without a fight. And
that's actually what the whole pirate flag was about. Like
when a black flag was hoisted, it was a message
that another ship should prepare to be boarded and pillaged,
(29:03):
but also that they wouldn't come to harm so long
as they cooperated. Meanwhile, you've got like a red flag,
which was a much more rare but a completely different story,
and that meant the pirates had come for blood. But
this desire for non violent resolution really makes a lot
of sense when you think about how practical pirates were
in general. I mean, like why slaughter your captives when
(29:23):
you could just ransom them for money or put them
to work in your own crew. I mean, that's just
just business one oh one. Right, So, since we're on
the subject of surprising pirate traits, we we should probably
talk about how egalitarian pirates actually were, because you know,
not only did they welcome those of low economic or
social standing into their cruise, but they also made room
(29:45):
for folks who were frequent targets of discrimination on land,
and that includes Africans, European Jews, and women. But before
we get into that, let's take one more quick break. Okay, Well,
(30:12):
so you mentioned before the break that pirrating was sort
of an equal opportunity profession, and that makes sense when
you think about it, because if you're on the run
from the Royal Navy or whatever, the race or gender
of your crewmates isn't going to be a top priority.
And for the most part, pirates welcomed all commers and
that have to be pretty enticing for people who felt
repressed or restricted on land. I'm guessing right, like, what
(30:34):
did they have to lose? Yeah, that makes sense, and
I do think a great example of that mentality are
the bands of Jewish pirates that took to the open
Ocean during the early seventeen hundreds. That this is honestly
something I'd never heard about before this week, and apparently
historians are still piecing together their history as well, Like
I was reading that just in this past decade, several
(30:56):
graveyards were found in the Caribbean and many of the
tombstone is their feature Hebrew writing and stars of David
right alongside those iconic skull and crossbones symbols. I mean,
that is pretty wild. So I hadn't heard about this either,
But what made so many Jewish people go pirate? Well,
I guess the seeds of it were actually planted in
(31:16):
the very same month that Columbus set sail back in
four two. So after sending Columbus on his way, the
King and Queen of Spain ordered the expulsion of all
Jews and Muslims from the country. Now, Portugal did the
same thing just a few years later. So these Spanish
Portuguese Jews set out to find new homes, and many
of them wound up settling on Caribbean islands. And in fact,
(31:40):
by the seventeen twenties, when Jewish pirates first set sail,
un estimated twenty of Kingston, Jamaica's population was descended from
Jewish exiles. Yeah, so a few of these Jews started
captaining their own pirate ships and christening them with names
like Queen Esther and the Shield of Abraham. And for
the most part, these Jewish pirates would exclusively target Spanish
(32:03):
and Portuguese ships, not surprisingly because this was really seen
his payback for those generations of unjust treatment. I mean,
this is fascinating. So it sounds like we're still uncovering
the full history of Jewish pirates. But I am curious
are there any notorious ones we should know about, Like, like,
who's the Blackbeard of Jewish pirates? You know, I'm not
sure about that exactly, but I think my favorite was
(32:25):
probably Schmool Polachi, who supposedly joined in a number of
pirate raids against the Dutch and Spanish ships. But here's
the wild thing about Polacci. He was actually a rabbi, right,
he was a rabbi pirate, Like that's kind of an oxymoron, right,
Well apparently not. I mean, by most accounts, Polacci was
also pretty pious. So not only did he insist that
(32:48):
his crew donate a tenth of their treasure to charity,
he also made sure they all kept kosher during their voyages.
That's amazing. So no shellfish. But uh, you know what
we're talking about, how piracy was this drastic kind of
escape for repressed people. And I think another great example
of that are the many women who built new lives
for themselves at sea. So most of them earned their
(33:09):
keepers servants or cooks or prostitutes. But if you also
found work as merchant sailors, naval officers, and and even pirates.
For instance, there's this Irish pirate named Grace O'Malley and
in the sixteenth century she became one of the few
female pirates to captain her own ship, and she made
a pretty frightening name for herself all along the coast
of Ireland. Like she had a bunch of really intense
(33:30):
scars on her face, which he claimed were from being
attacked by an eagle. And if that wasn't badass enough,
she also reportedly gave birth to her youngest son while
aboard her ship and then proceed to fight off invaders
with her baby in one hand and a sword into other.
Is that Yeah, that's pretty impressive and definitely something black
Beard can't claim to have done. But yeah, I think
(33:51):
for my money, the undisputed queen of female pirates and
and honestly maybe just pirates in general has got to
be Captain Ching Shew. In the early nineteenth century, she
spent her youth working as a cortison on a floating
brothel in Canton, China. Now, during this time she made
a name for herself as this really shrewd businesswoman, and
(34:12):
apparently she had a knack for blackmail and would often
use the secrets that she'd heard as a prostitute. And
she would do this in order to control her wealthy
and influential clients. So, as you might imagine, this was
a pretty attractive skill to a pirate, which is how
she came to marry this other very famous pirate, one
of the South China Sea, and his name was Ching
(34:34):
I Saw. And this guy was no slouch when it
came to pirrating. And by the time he married the
twenty six year old Ching she this was in I
think eighteen o one, Chang had already united a bunch
of rival pirate gangs into what he called the Red
Flag Fleet. So did Ching she have any power herself
or was she kind of just this figurehead. No, she
(34:56):
was definitely a very active participant in her husband's in
her prize, and in fact, you know, many of these
stories report that she actually demanded equal control of the
fleet as a condition of their marriage, and her role
really only grew as time went on. So it was
only six years into their marriage that Chang passed away suddenly.
(35:16):
And this was at the age of forty two, and
a few weeks later change she took her husband's place
as the leader of the red flag fleet, which to
me sounds a little suspicious, like her husband suddenly dies.
But do we know how big that fleet was that
she inherited. Well, we don't know how many ships are
men she inherited from her husband, but we do have
(35:38):
a pretty good estimate of the size of her fleet
a few years after she took over, And that's because
in eighteen o nine, her forces captured an East India
Company employee named Richard Glasspool. Now, after he was released
a few months later, he writes this account of his experience,
and it included this detailed estimate of change she's forces. So,
(35:58):
according to him, that were roughly eighty thousand pirates under
her command and over eighteen hundred ships in her fleet.
And so to give you an idea of just how
vast her entourage was, consider that Blackbeard himself commanded only
four ships and three hundred pirates, and that was at
his peak. I mean, those numbers really are insane, Like
(36:19):
eighty thousand pirates and ships like I don't know how
you could actually keep that many pirates in check. Well,
chance she borrowed from other pirates playbooks in that regard,
because once she took command, she quickly instituted this strict
code of laws for all of her men to follow,
and strict really is the key word here. And just
(36:39):
as an example, if any pirate disobeyed as Superior's orders
or started giving orders of their own, they were immediately
beheaded right on the spot. And you know, she had
some really specific rules about female captives that you probably
won't find in any other pirate codes, Like there was
this one rule that said if a pirate took a
female prisoner for his wife, he had to be faithful
(37:02):
to her and couldn't sleep around. That's really interesting. But
you know, I am still kind of hung up on
the sheer size of her operation. I mean, her fleet
probably like you could see it rivaling some of the
nation's entire armed forces from that time. I mean probably so.
In fact, under Chin She's command, the Red Flag Fleet
fought off not only the Chinese military, but the East
(37:23):
India Company, the Portuguese Navy, and you know, they were
undefeated for three full years until Ching She finally retired
altogether back in eighteen ten. Wait, so she retired, like
I didn't even know pirates could do that. I mean,
of course, not many of them did, and even fewer,
if any, retired in a way that Ching she did.
And you know, you look back at her retirement, it
(37:45):
was actually part of a deal that she made with
the Chinese government. And you know, after years of defeat,
the officials were just desperate to get Ching She out
of the spotlight by any means necessary, and so they
extended this offer to her wherein she and her forces
would surrender and go their separate ways. And this was
in return for amnesty and full pensions for every single
(38:08):
member of the crew. Wait, all eighty thousand of them
got pensions. Yeah, isn't that wild? So she and her
forces were seen as such a big threat that the
Chinese government basically paid them all to stop being pirates.
I mean, it was definitely a one of a kind deal,
at least as far as I can tell. That is amazing,
And you know, I know we're talking about criminals here,
(38:30):
but I have to say it is pretty cool that
not only were their female pirates, but kind of the
most badass pirates of them all tend to be women. Here. Yeah,
and there's actually this great quote that I wanted to
read from a pirate historian and the author of a
book called Pirate Women. So her name is Laura Silk
Duncom And and here she's talking about that attraction to
(38:51):
pirrat ng and the freedom and entail that we mentioned earlier.
And well she's talking specifically in this case about female pirates.
I really think this could have applied to almost all
the ones that we've talked about today. So here's what
she says. All of these pirates had ships that were
very different and methods that were very different. But I
think they share the desire to control their own fates,
(39:12):
and the desire for freedom from convention would unite all
these women. Their hopes to escape the normal and be
a part of something adventurous would tie all these women together.
And we all share that desire for adventure, not the
desire for slitting throats or plundering the high seas. But
one can empathize with the desire to have a say
and how their life goes. Yeah, I do feel like
(39:34):
people want to have a say and how their life goes,
and I like that. But how about we end on
that note and start the fact off. So the Pittsburgh
Pirates used to go by a totally different name, the
(39:55):
Pittsburgh Alleghanies, you know, named after the Mountain range. But
when they poached the second baseman from the Philadelphia Athletics
in the eighteen eighties, Philadelphia newspapers were outraged. They called
it a theft, and they referred to the team as
a bunch of pirates, and the name stuck. That's how
they got the name. Wow. One of my favorite pirates
who isn't often talked about these days is John Lafoote,
(40:17):
who was a barefoot pirate who used to be the
nemesis of Captain Crunch. So I don't know the full
story behind this rivalry. Apparently, Captain Horatio P. Crunch was
created by an ad firm and this was in response
to a survey that claimed kids hated soggy serial I
love that they had to do a survey to find
out that people don't like soggy cereal. But because the
(40:40):
cereal was so crunchy, the pirates wanted it anyway. That
the Captain was so popular and did such a good
job of fighting off Lafoote that there was once a
public movement to promote him to the rank of admiral.
But Quaker Oath was not convinced, and he's been overlooked
now for I don't know several decades. Yeah, Admiral Crunch
(41:01):
is into cereal. I'd pick off this right. So have
you ever heard of Pirate Joe's in Vancouver? Yeah? I
don't think so. So it's this store that was recently
shut down. But basically, this guy in Canada would drive
down to Trader Joe's groceries in the US because there
are no Trigger Joe's stores in Canada. He'd buy a
ton of stuff in bulk and then sneak it back
(41:21):
up and sell it at a higher cost. He had
actually been banned from Trader Joe's stores for doing this,
so sometimes he'd wear wigs or dresses or fake mustaches
and pinstripe suits. It got really elaborate. Sometimes he'd even
recruit day laborers to help him shop and pay at
the register like it was crazy. And when Trader Joe's
took him to court in two thousand and sixteen, they
(41:42):
did this in the US, they couldn't prove that he
was actually hurting their business, so he kind of got
to keep doing it for a while, and then finally
Trader Joe's brought another court battle. During the last court battle,
he took the p off his sign to change it
from Pirate Joe's to I Rate Joe's. When he finally
settled the case, the shop closed down in two thousand seventeen. Alright, well,
(42:04):
something equally ridiculous here. We we've talked about the Postafarian
religion before in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
So for anybody who doesn't know, it was this satirical
religion that was invented really in response to religious fundamentalist
and the main claim is that a flying spaghetti monster
is just as likely as any other type of God,
(42:24):
so that's the one they chose to worship. But for
some reason, the very first Postafarian wedding also had a
pirate connection to it. Now, the event took place in
New Zealand. This was just a couple of years ago,
and the bride and groom were head to toe in
pirate gear and everyone there wore eye patches of course,
(42:45):
right now, that said, there was also this nod to
pasta and so the officiant wore a colender on her head,
which is the official headdress of the church. The couple
exchanged rings of pasta and and their vows they agreed
to always add all when boiling spaghetti. Very romantic. So
(43:05):
when Julius Caesar was years old, he was kidnapped five pirates,
and when the pirates asked for a ransom of twenty
talents of silver, he just laughed in their faces and
told them to up it to fifty because he was
worth so much more than that. So that's actually the
part of the story i'd heard before. But the part
I didn't know was that he was stuck on the
ship for thirty eight days, and during that time he
(43:27):
was not a good hostage. He was just completely unintimidated
by these pirates. Not only did he refuse to coward
to them, he actually treated them like they were his servants.
He'd write poetry and then forced them to listen to
it when he when he slept, he demanded they stopped talking,
and instead of acting like a prisoner, he just kind
of like stomped around doing what he wanted to do,
and they kind of gave him respect for it. Of course,
(43:49):
while he did act chummy with them the whole time,
he let them know that they should watch out. And
when he was finally freed, he of course rounded up
a small fleet, found his way back to them, took
back his fifty talents, took the rest of their possessions
as well, and then eventually had them killed, which you
know is very Julius Caesar of him. That is so
Julius Caesar of him. But all right, well, one of
(44:10):
the best ways to fight off modern pirates might just
be pop music, and in particular the music of Brittney Spears.
I was look at this old Guardian article from two
thousand thirteen and Britney Spears emerged as this unlikely figurehead
and a fight against Somali pirates. And that's because British
naval officers started blasting the songs Oops, I did it
(44:32):
again and Baby one more time at them, and strangely
the tactic proved more intimidating than guns and harpoons, apparently
because it's one naval officer put it quote her songs
were chosen by the security team because they thought the
pirates would hate them the most. These guys can't stand
Western culture or music, making Brittany hits perfect and as
(44:53):
soon as the pirates get a blast of Brittany, they
move on as quickly as they can. So what I
love about that story too, is like you're talking about
reporting for two and those songs I feel like came
out in like two thousand, two thousand one septime around
a minute. It's like they didn't just like pick the
latest pop songs. They went back and specifically chose Brittany
to scare off, very specific. They're still just as powerful today,
(45:17):
so I'd be curious that they if they go back
and use them again. Well, I do feel like you
have to get the trophy for that. I saved that
one especially for last, just for that fact. I knew
i'd get this one locked up. Well, I'm sure there
are other great facts that we have not mentioned today
about pirates, and we love to hear those from you guys.
As always, you can always email us part Time Genius
and How Stuff Works dot com or hit us up
(45:38):
on Facebook or Twitter. But from Tristan, Gabe, Mango and me,
thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part
(45:58):
Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
wouldn't be possible without several brilliant people who do the
important things. We couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil
does the editing thing. Noel Brown made the theme song
and does the MIXI mixy sound thing. Jerry Rowland does
the exact producer thing. Gabeluesier is our lead researcher, with
support from the Research Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown
and Lucas Adams and Eves. Jeff Cook gets the show
(46:20):
to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what
you heard, we hope you'll subscribe, And if you really
really like what you've heard, maybe you could leave a
good review for us. Did we? Did we forget Jason?
Jason who
I guess what, mango? What's that? Will? So, a couple
of weeks ago, you quoted this old deep thought by
Jack Handy and it took me by surprise. Do you
remember doing this? So I don't remember what we were
talking about, but I definitely remember quoting Deep Thoughts, and
I think it was like the face of a child
can say it all, especially the mouth part of the face.
That is definitely the one that was one of my favorites,
(00:24):
although it's hard to pick a favorite, And honestly, it
had been a few years since i'd really binged on
Deep Thoughts, and I feel like that's the only way
to experience them, like you have to read a hundred
at a time, and so I was a little bit
overdue for this. And for any listeners who might not
remember Deep Thoughts, they were these silly and stupid one
liners that were delivered as though they were these inspirational
(00:46):
and meaningful pieces of advice. And you know, Jack Candy
actually been writing these since the mid eighties, but I'm
pretty sure you and I both discovered them when Handy
would read them on Saturday Night Live. Is that is
that where you first heard them? Yeah, definitely, that's when
when I was first exposed to him. Yeah, so this
was the early nineties. I guess we were both in
middle school at the time. And I thought about another
one when Tristan was wearing these fancy kicks the other day.
(01:08):
He's got lots and lots of shoes, but he had
some some really fancy ones on, and so I thought
about this when it said before you criticize someone, you
should walk a mile in their shoes. That way, when
you criticize them, you're a mile away from them and
you're in their shoes. So stupid. I love that, but
it's kind of good advice. I guess it definitely is.
(01:30):
And actually, one of the other things I noticed is
that there was more than one deep thought about pirates weirdly,
but I think my favorite was pirates were always going
around searching for treasure and never realized the real treasure
was the fond memories they were creating. Well, I do
feel like you're reading that is a sign because we've
(01:51):
been talking about doing an episode on pirates for such
a long time now, we definitely have. I mean that
that's how we knew it was time to do this,
because we've been keeping this list of all the pirate
stereotypes and I wanted to know what of them are
actually true and you know, like we're pirates anything like
the ones that we see in the movies. Did they
actually say stuff like shiver mey timbers or buried treasure?
(02:14):
Or did they really carry around monkeys and parrots? And
my god, I hope that they did. But it's time
to find out, So let's dive in. Hey, their podcast listeners,
(02:44):
welcome to Part Time Genius. I'm Will Pearson, and as
always I'm joined by my friend man Guesh Ticketer and
on the other side of the soundproof glass, I actually
don't know what Tristan is doing today. I am up
in New York. I'm in my hotel room, in this
very fancy studio, which is just my ask in my
hotel room. So it may not sound as great as
Tristan usually makes it sound, but mano, I gotta know
(03:05):
what is Tristan doing. So he did not disappoint. He
showed up in a total pirate Halloween costume. Um, he's
got everything. He's got an ipatch, a bandanna, try corner hat,
he's got hoop earrings, he's got a stuffed parrot. On
his shoulder, and he even has a try corner hat
for his stuffed parrots. I'm not sure how true to
(03:26):
life that part is, but it is a nice touch.
So well done, Tristan McNeil. Oh wow. And actually, I
just as we're talking, I just got a text from
Ramsey's showing me a picture of Tristan. This is amazing.
I mean, you could say every part of his costume
is pretty much in line with the way that we
conceive of pirates, because I mean, I guess this is
(03:47):
how we're used to seeing them in books and pop culture.
So thank you Tristan for furthering this stereotype of pirates.
But it does make us wonder like, how much, if
any of this is actually true. And I don't just
mean how pirates dressed in real life, but how they
acted to Like, on the one hand, parrots we see
in movies and theme parks off and come off as
these really these charming and kind of rough around the
(04:10):
edges folk heroes, almost like Robin Hoods of the Sea
or something. Yeah. I mean, do you think about like
Wesley from The Princess Bride and he's just kind of
a gentleman pirate. Yeah, that's that's exactly right. And you know,
when you read these historical accounts and pirates mostly though
sound like these bloodthirsty outlaws, it's a bit of a
mixed message. So with today's show, we thought it would
(04:31):
be fun to try to make sense of the competing
pirate narratives and to do that will fact check some
of the biggest stereotypes we typically associate with pirates and
see which ones hold water. And then a little bit
later we'll separate pirate truth from pirate fiction when we
share a few of our all time favorite pirates stories. So, Mago,
you want to kick us off, like what pirate cliche
(04:52):
do you feel like we should start with today? Well,
I was thinking about it. You know, it was international
talk like a Pirate Day not too long ago, and
while I did manage to slip a few hours into
my conversation this year, I also, you know, I couldn't
help feeling like a little bit of a phony since
I actually have no idea how pirates talked, and as
(05:13):
it turns out, nobody does. So piracy was as peaked
during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, so there aren't really
any audio recordings to refer to, and the witness accounts
that we do have only include kind of a handful
of quotes from actual pirates. What about writing from the pirates?
I mean, it feels like there's got to be at
least one pirate autobiography floating around out there, wouldn't there be? Yeah?
(05:34):
Actually there really aren't. There. There isn't much of a
record of anything written by pirates themselves. Blackbeards supposedly kept
a diary of all the exploits, but that's never been recovered.
And so the little bit of writing we do have
from actual pirates comes mostly from the ones who started
out as nobility before going rogue, and since they tend
to be really well educated, their speech patterns probably wouldn't
(05:54):
have mimiced those of most pirates anyway. So, you know,
you think about all the talk of salty dogs and
scally wags and pirates inviting folks to shiver me timbers
whatever means, But like, none of those are phrases that
pirates actually used. Yeah, probably not. I mean, like I
mentioned earlier, there's no real evidence one way or the other,
(06:15):
but most scholars think English speaking pirates from the so
called Golden Age of piracy probably spoke the same way
merchant sailors did at the time. A lot of both
of the people in these groups came from a riverfront
neighborhoods in London, so it's likely they spoke with similar
accents and used common slang. But sadly you don't really
see shiver me timbers coming up in in much of
(06:36):
that discussion. That's a real disappointment. But I'm guessing the
pirate jargon we're used to mostly comes from books and movies, right,
stuff like Treasure Island or Peter Pan. I guess yeah,
And Treasure Island in particular is the one that will
come off a lot today. A lot of the phrases
we connect with pirates were first popularized by the book
in eighteen eighty three, and then again in Disney's movie
(06:57):
adaptation in the nineteen fifties. And actually the movie version
is also credited for our association of pirates with these
gruff and vaguely Scottish accents, and that's because it starred
Robert Newman as the fictional pirate Long John Silver. So
Newman was a native of southwest England, and as such
he spoke with this really distinctive regional dialect called West
(07:19):
Country English, and some of the dialect's characteristics line up
perfectly with how most of us imagined pirates to have talked. So,
for example, West Country speakers tend to emphasize their rs.
They also replaced the verb is with b, which is,
you know, a decidedly pirate move when you think of
constructions like where be the rum? And if that wasn't enough,
(07:39):
West Country speakers are even known to replace the word
yes with our sometimes huh. So our conception of pirate
speech seems to be pretty arbitrary when you when you
break it down like this, I mean, if it really
does go back to just that one performance. Yeah, So
Newman's role in Treasure Island wasn't his only one as
a pirate. He also appeared in a couple of other
pirate movies in the era, and it was all of
(08:00):
this together that started to influence other people's portrayal of pirates,
until finally the West Country accent just became the standard.
And while it might seem random that Southwest English accent
would become the de facto voice, there's actually more of
a historical connection than you might expect. So just listen
to this explanation I found on slate quote. It's not
entirely arbitrary that Newton should have used an exaggeration of
(08:23):
his own dialect to play long John Silver. The West Country,
the southwest corner of England, including Cornwall, Somerset, Devon, Dorset
and Bristol, has a long seafaring tradition, and so many
historical pirates would likely have spoken in a similar way.
Both Blackbeard and Sir Francis Drake were from that area,
although Sir Francis was technically a privateer. But perhaps the
(08:44):
most famous inhabitant of the West Country is Hagrid from
the Harry Potter series. Can't you just imagine Haggard saying
you're a pirate? Harry end quote? Yeah, I mean I
can easily imagine that, And I actually can't believe that
I've never made that connection before, because Haggard totally sounds
like a pirate or yeah, fictional one, I guess. But
(09:04):
you know, there is some evidence that pirates really did
have their own unique way of speaking, including some bits
of nautical lingo that eventually found their way into popular usage.
And now the origin of these phrases can be pretty
tough to pin down, but there are at least a
few that are thought to have come from pirates and privateers, including,
you know, learn the ropes, and of course three sheets
(09:25):
to the wind. And the first of these came from
the need for sailors to understand how to use the
complex system of ropes and pulleys that controlled the ship's sails,
so they would literally have to learn the ropes. And
so was three sheets to the wind just as literal?
Or was that a term for being super drunk like
how we use it today? This one was actually pretty
(09:45):
literal too, And and actually the original phrase pirates used
was three sheets in the wind, not to it. And
and so you might guess that the sheets in question
were the sails on a ship, but actually they were
the ropes that controlled those sails. So apparently if three
or more ropes became loose, the sales would start flapping,
and then the crew can lose control of where the
(10:06):
ship's headed. So if somebody's really drunk, they're just as
out of control as a ship with three sheets and
the wind m So another question I was eager to
answer is whether or not pirates really hid buried treasure.
And while it does seem like this happened on occasion,
it was definitely not a widespread practice, and in fact,
I could only find a couple of historical accounts of
(10:26):
pirates actually burying their loot, and even in those cases,
the pirates only hit it for a short period while
they waited for the heat from their latest tist to
die down. In fact, pirate treasure never stayed buried for long,
and they certainly didn't circulate a bunch of treasure maps
with big red xs on them for people to go
looking for it. And that's partly because pirates didn't really
(10:47):
deal in treasure chests full of gold or pieces of
eight or whatever you like to imagine like. Instead, when
pirates looted chips, they were stealing things like coffee and
sugar and tea and textiles like whatever those ships were in,
and then they would sell those spoils on the black market,
and that's how they'd end up with the pirate gold
we associate with them. But even then, once pirates had
(11:08):
all this golden hand, they weren't super frugal or forward
thinking enough to invest it. Instead, you know, according to
this maritime historian named David Accordingly, pirates typically blew their
loot on drinking, gambling, and women as soon as they
got to port. Yeah, I mean, I'd say that fits
with the pirate lifestyle a lot more than squirreling away
your money. And you know, I mean I think about this,
(11:30):
burying treasure would effectively be like putting your money in
a bank, and I don't know, banking doesn't strike me
as this very piratey thing to do. But exactly anyway,
I mean, this idea of buried treasure had to come
from somewhere, though, So do you do you think it
just spawn out of those few scattered accounts that you found?
I mean, that's why I thought at first, But it
turns out this is another case that's rooted less in
(11:52):
history and more in treasure Island. So in the book,
long John Silver is on the hunt for a stash
of hidden gold, and of course a secret treasure man
is the key to finding it. But what's funny is
that Robert Louis Stevenson didn't actually invent this idea, and
he didn't base it on real life either. Instead, he
flat out stole the idea from another seventeenth century author,
(12:12):
Edgar Allan Poe. Poh really, yeah, So It comes from
post short story The gold Bug, and the main characters
hunt down Captain Kid's treasure using a cipher that's based
on how frequently certain letters appeared in the English language
in this story. And this is pretty much the same
premise as in Treasure Island, except Stevenson substituted a map
(12:33):
in place of the cipher, and the author later copped
this too, like like in his preface to the book,
he said, quote, the map was the chief part of
my plot. For that I broke into the gallery of
Mr Poe. M alright, Well, a pattern is definitely starting
to emerge here because I actually have another pirate stereotype
that we can at least partly thank Treasure Island for,
(12:54):
And that's the idea that pirates made people walk the plank.
Not to be fair, plank walking did ex is among
pirates to some degree, but most historians will tell you
that it was a pretty rare form of punishment. Now,
the most recognizable example of the practice occurred in the
mid eighteen hundreds, I think, and this was when an
eyewitness reported that a British ship captain had been abducted
(13:15):
by pirates and that quote, a plank was run on
the starboard side of their schooner, upon which they made
Captain Smith walk, and as he approached the end, they
tilted the plank when he dropped into the seat. Now
beyond that, we know that some Caribbean pirates also forced
captured sailors to walk the plank, and there even some
accounts of Mediterranean pirates taking part in something similar back
(13:37):
in the days of ancient Rome. In this case, the
pirates would suspend a ladder out over the ocean and
then mockingly invite prisoners to crawl out on it and
swim back home to freedom. That seems pretty cruel, But
I'm curious how does Treasure Island fit into all of this. Basically,
Robert Louis Stevenson and a few other writers of his
air are mostly responsible for making plank walking, you know,
(13:58):
more ubiquitous than it really was, and their stories presented
as kind of the go to form of punishment that
pirates used, and this idea was only enforced by popular
illustrations and paintings from this same time period. Now all
of that really cemented. Plank walking is one of the
visual icons of piracy, and the interesting thing about this
(14:18):
misplaced attention is that it actually makes some pirates seem
less cruel than they really were, because the pirates really
wanted to do away with a mutinous crew member or
a troublesome captive. I mean, they had far worse methods
than simply forcing somebody overboard. And you know, some of
the more common practices included marooning someone onto an island,
which almost always resulted in a slow death for the victim.
(14:41):
Then there was the especially grizzly punishment called keel hauling,
and this was when the victim was tied naked to
a rope, thrown overboard, and then just tragically dragged beneath
the entire length of the ship while barnacles cut up
their skin. It's it's pretty gross to read about it. It
It feels horrible. In fact, I want to get us
on have your note A S A P. So I'm
(15:02):
just gonna come right out and tell you that pirates
almost certainly kept parrots as pets. And so this is
another pirate trope that was popularized by a treasure Island
long John Silver was the first fictional pirate to walk
around with a parrot on his shoulder, but in this case,
Stevenson was really drawing from history. So to give a
little background when we talk about the Golden Age of piracy,
(15:24):
which I still find such a funny phrase to say,
you know, we're really referring to this period from about
the mid sixteen hundreds to round seventeen thirty. And in
that time, the recent discoveries of the America's in Australia
had created a boom and exploration. So for the first
time in history, multiple nations were shipping tons and tons
of money and valuable goods all across this largely uncharted
(15:47):
and unprotected oceans, and of course this made them easy
picking for enterprising pirates, hence the term Golden Age. But
in order to rob ships of their precious cargo, pirates
had to go where the ships went, which meant taking
to trade routes that mostly led to the Caribbean or
West Africa or the various coasts along the Indian Ocean.
And this required long voyages that lasted weeks or months
(16:09):
at a time and often took the pirates to these
exotic lands populated by unusual animals like parrots and also monkeys.
So let's get to the important part. Please tell me
that the monkey thing is true? Because the world is
kind of a rough place right now, and I feel
like it would make me feel better to know that
a pirate captain could have had a parrot on one
(16:30):
shoulder and a monkey on the other one. So there
isn't much documentation about that specific combination, but pirates with
monkeys certainly weren't uncommon. Parents were the more practical pet though.
Parrots would eat things that were already on board, so
you think about like fruits or seeds or nuts, and
they didn't really need that much to sustain them. Plus
(16:51):
they could be taught all these kind of neat tricks
like how to talk. And you know, there's no better
way for a pirate to start up a conversation at
port than by introducing people to talking bird that he,
you know, picked up. Well let's see. Well that's a
good point. And still you think after a while it
might be kind of risky to walk around with a big,
bright bird on your shoulder. I mean, it seems like
that's a tough way to keep a low profile. Yeah,
(17:13):
but it's also good branding. I don't think that many
pirates actually kept their parents for that long. According to
this historian, Angus Constant, author of the history of pirates.
He writes, back home, people would pay good money for
parrots and other exotic creatures, and sailors could easily buy
them in Caribbean ports. Some were kept, but most were
(17:33):
sold when the ship reached home. So really they were
selling them as soon as they got to port. That
makes sense. So it's still it's nice to know that
pirates really did keep parents, even if only for a
little while. But all right, well, I know there's a
couple more pirate myths that we want to take a
look at. But before we do, let's take a quick break.
(18:07):
They're listening to Part Time Genius and we're talking about
the facts and fiction that fuel the modern view of pirates.
All right, Mago. So one of the more interesting topics
that I looked into this week were the big gold
earrings that pirates wore. And the question here wasn't whether
or not pirates really wore them. I think, you know,
most historians agree that many of them did, but why
did they wear them? So the story I'd always heard
(18:29):
is that the ear rings were away for pirates to
pay for their burials, Like, uh, if a pirate happened
to die on land instead of at sea, the gold
from their earrings could cover the cost, and obviously, even
for a pirate, that would be preferable to just being
put in this mass grave or left out for the
crows to eat. I'm guessing yeah. I mean, there is
some evidence that supports this idea. But those earrings and
(18:51):
other kinds of jewelry weren't just a fail safe for
pirate burial. I mean they were also symbols of rebellion
against the seventeenth and eighteenth century laws that we're really
meant to control what people could wear or do in
their private lives. So in England, just for example, men
weren't allowed to wear jewelry, and certain colors were off
limits for commoners to wear, and if somebody didn't conform
(19:13):
to those rules, they could be heavily fined or even imprisoned. So,
as this pirate historian, Gael Sellinger put it, the so
called sumptuary laws were quote a legal way for the
ruling class to separate themselves from commoners by regulating what
they wore, what they could drink, and where they could live. Well,
I mean it is easy to see how none of
that would sit very well with pirates, who are obviously
(19:34):
big fans of flouting the law whenever possible, right, yeah, exactly,
But for full disclosure, some historians do question how widespread
the practice of dressing flamboyantly and wearing ear rings really was.
And you know, many of them would argue that the
bandanas and the sashes and earrings that we usually picture
pirates wearing actually come from more like these series of
(19:56):
drawings and children's books, and that those depictions had really
been based in Spanish bandits, not pirates. But you know,
as was most things we've talked about today, there's not
a ton of evidence in either direction, though, so it's
likely that at least a few pirates did dress this
way well, and that kind of in your face fashion
sense would also fit into what we do know about
pirates backgrounds. Most of them actually started out as crew
(20:19):
members aboard the respective countries merchant marines or naval ships
before turning to a life of piracy. And from what
I've read, life aboard those ships was often rougher and
actually more tyrannical than it was on actual pirate ships.
Like on a merchant ship, for instance, crew members lived
in these squalid conditions. They were subject to a ton
of rules that were just as strict, if not stricter,
(20:42):
than those on land and merchant marines and naval captains.
They had the final say on everything that happened on
their ships, which left many crew members feeling oppressed and
really voiceless as a result. Yeah, and it's it's really
no wonder that so many of them would jump ship
and and sign on as pirates instead, because you despite
their reputation, pirates weren't antarchic or lawless when dealing with
(21:04):
one another. I mean, their ranks were composed of these
societal outsiders and outcasts, you know, that's definitely true. But
they weren't so jaded as to think that social orders
of any sort were automatically a bad thing. They just
needed to find a better or what they saw as
a more fair system, So on board pirate ships, that's
exactly what they did. I mean, the pirates recognized that
(21:26):
in order to prevent infighting and to be able to
keep morale high during their months at see, they needed
to do things a little bit more democratically, and so
to that ind pirate captains took a vote on just
about everything, I mean, from where to go, what the steel,
how to deal with prisoners. So really, the only time
that the captain took complete control was during a battle,
(21:48):
and you know that's for obvious reasons. That's not a
time when it would be smart to pause and take
a vote. I love this idea that like deciding what
the steel should be a democratic vote. Yeah, exactly, it's
so fun. But you know, obviously there were more perks
to pirate democracy than just saying you know where the
ship would go or what you're gonna steal. If you
(22:08):
listen to this breakdown I found from Robert Curson used
this pirate historian and author of the book Pirate Hunters.
It's pretty great. So so here's what he says. Quote,
the captain's vote didn't count any more than the lowliest deckhands.
If they wanted to throw the captain out, they could
dismiss him or lower his rank. They could maroon him
on an island or dump him into the sea, all
(22:30):
by vote. That was true even if a captain owned
his own ship, they had a constitution and even compensation
schemes for injuries. The captain almost never earned more than
two or three times the way to the lowliest deckhand.
Think about how that must have struck. A guy who's
come from a tyrannical rule on a merchant ship where
the hours were terrible and the conditions even worse. He
(22:51):
gets on a pirate ship and suddenly he has a
real say in what they're doing. I mean, it sounds
kind of amazing. Yeah, it's pretty weird to think about,
but you know, some of these pirate were practicing democracy
nearly a century before it took root in America and
in France. And you know, those constitutions you mentioned were
even written down in some cases. And I was looking
for some examples of this, and one of them I
(23:12):
was reading about it was from one of the most
prolific pirates of this Golden Age, and his name was
Black Bart Roberts. Now, he managed to overtake more than
four hundred ships during his many years at sea, which
obviously is no small feat. But I think what I
found most impressive about his career was this set of
by laws that he and a crew member drafted back
in seventeen twenty two. Now, this included some pretty progressive
(23:35):
rules that you might not expect, you know, from a
pirate ship. But you know, take this worker's compensation plan
that you had mentioned According to the by laws, quote,
every man who shall become a cripple or lose a
limb in the service shall have eight hundred pieces of
eight from the common stock, and for lesser hurts proportionately.
I mean, it's kind of amazing that they got that
(23:57):
sort of security from a pirate job, right, Like, no
wonder so many people went into piracy. Yeah, and you know,
to stick with black Bart's by laws for just a
second here. That The other thing I think I was
struck by was the picture they painted of life aboard
his ship, because you know, we tend to think of
pirates as this rowdy bunch of all hours of the night,
drinking and gambling. Of course, that's how things were when
(24:19):
the pirates came to port, but according to these by laws,
it was a very different story when they were at sea.
So just listen to this from it as well. It
says none shall game for money, either with dice or cards,
and the lights and candles shall be put out at
eight at night, and if any of the crew desire
to drink after that hour, they shall sit upon the
(24:40):
open deck without lights. I mean, that's pretty amazing, and
that there's this curfew on a pirate ship, Like, that's
not something I would have expected exactly. And at the
same time, you know there's no gambling. I mean, I
guess if the goal is to form some sort of piece,
those do sound like really smart moves. And you know,
since we're talking about how shockingly judicious pirates could be,
(25:02):
I do want to mention another famous pirate that fits
that bill, and that's black Beard. So he and his
cohorts were based in the Bahamas and they were only
active around seven years or so. But this period from
seventeen thirteen to seventeen twenty was a super eventful one.
In fact that there's some historians that argued that the
term Golden Age of piracy should really only be applied
(25:23):
to those seven years and that seven year span, so
that kind of gives you an idea of how successful
black Beard and the other islander pirates were. By seventeen seventeen,
the pirates had actually thrown the commercial trade of three
separate empires into total disarray, and they even managed to
beat back the Royal Navy's warships. I mean, whether you
love them or hate him, these pirates really knew how
(25:44):
to shake things up. Yeah, that's to put it mildly,
I guess, But I mean, what was black beard deal anyway, Like,
was he one of those legitimate sailors who went rogue
or had he always been more of a proper pirate? Yeah, so,
he and most of the other pirates from the Bahamas
started out on merchant naval ships, and in a way,
their actions as pirates were kind of this revolt and
(26:04):
revenge against their former bosses. And this is kind of
a tangent, but one of black Beard's contemporaries was this
guy named Captain Bellamy, and his crew especially loved this
new role that they were taking on. Like the crew
actually called themselves Robin Hood's Men, and Bellamy once explained
to a captive quote they vilify as the scoundrels do
when there's only this difference. They robbed the poor under
(26:26):
the cover of law, and we plunder the rich under
the cover of our own courage. I want to make
sure we don't go too far here and paint pirates
is more heroic than they really were. I mean, you're
kind of saying black Beard was a level headed guy,
or that his actions were maybe justified in some way,
at least in his own mind. But how does that
square with his reputation as being really a cruel and
(26:49):
fearsome pirate. I mean he was a pretty violent guy,
right well, I mean yes and no. So pirates on
the whole did some pretty terrible things, and there's no
question about that. They invaded, they pillared ships and colonies,
their ransom hostages, and pretty much ignored any laws but
the ones they made up for themselves at sea. But
in a lot of cases, including Black Beards, that brutality
(27:10):
was exaggerated. You know, it was mostly by the imperial
authorities on land and the newspapers that they held sway
over And if you think about it, nearly every bit
of pop culture associated with pirates, including Treasure Island, is
derived from those stories, and it's inspired by black Beard
and these other Bahamas pirates. So that means a lot
of our understanding of what pirates did is skewed as well,
(27:33):
since most of it can be traced back to these
somewhat embellished accounts. So so you're saying black Beard wasn't
as terrifying and cut throats as we might think, exactly,
And there are actually dozens of eyewitness accounts of Black
Beards victims and with the exception of his final bloody
showdown with the Royal Navy, not a single one of
them mentions the pirate captain actually killing anyone. And if
(27:56):
that's kind of hard to swallow it, it's probably because
black Beard and self purpose. He cultivated his image as
this fearsome force to be reckoned with. Like if you
listen to this description, I found this at the Smithsonian.
But but you'll see what I mean. Quote black Beard
wore a silk sling over his shoulders, on which there
were three braces of pistols hanging in holsters like bandeliers.
Under his hat, he tied lit fuses, dangling some of
(28:19):
them down the sides of his face so as to
surround it with a halo of smoke and fire, making
him look more frightful than a fury from hell. Merchant
crews would take one look at this apparition and the
army of wild men around him, bearing cutlasses, muskets, and
primitive hand grenades, and invariably surrender without firing a shot.
So I guess it was all for show then, like
(28:40):
kind of an intimidation tactic, right, And I mean, some
pirates really did perform the horrible acts we read about,
like dragging someone who crossed them beneath their ship, but
that wasn't their first choice, Like, they mostly wanted to
just frighten people into giving up without a fight. And
that's actually what the whole pirate flag was about. Like
when a black flag was hoisted, it was a message
that another ship should prepare to be boarded and pillaged,
(29:03):
but also that they wouldn't come to harm so long
as they cooperated. Meanwhile, you've got like a red flag,
which was a much more rare but a completely different story,
and that meant the pirates had come for blood. But
this desire for non violent resolution really makes a lot
of sense when you think about how practical pirates were
in general. I mean, like why slaughter your captives when
(29:23):
you could just ransom them for money or put them
to work in your own crew. I mean, that's just
just business one oh one. Right, So, since we're on
the subject of surprising pirate traits, we we should probably
talk about how egalitarian pirates actually were, because you know,
not only did they welcome those of low economic or
social standing into their cruise, but they also made room
(29:45):
for folks who were frequent targets of discrimination on land,
and that includes Africans, European Jews, and women. But before
we get into that, let's take one more quick break. Okay, Well,
(30:12):
so you mentioned before the break that pirrating was sort
of an equal opportunity profession, and that makes sense when
you think about it, because if you're on the run
from the Royal Navy or whatever, the race or gender
of your crewmates isn't going to be a top priority.
And for the most part, pirates welcomed all commers and
that have to be pretty enticing for people who felt
repressed or restricted on land. I'm guessing right, like, what
(30:34):
did they have to lose? Yeah, that makes sense, and
I do think a great example of that mentality are
the bands of Jewish pirates that took to the open
Ocean during the early seventeen hundreds. That this is honestly
something I'd never heard about before this week, and apparently
historians are still piecing together their history as well, Like
I was reading that just in this past decade, several
(30:56):
graveyards were found in the Caribbean and many of the
tombstone is their feature Hebrew writing and stars of David
right alongside those iconic skull and crossbones symbols. I mean,
that is pretty wild. So I hadn't heard about this either,
But what made so many Jewish people go pirate? Well,
I guess the seeds of it were actually planted in
(31:16):
the very same month that Columbus set sail back in
four two. So after sending Columbus on his way, the
King and Queen of Spain ordered the expulsion of all
Jews and Muslims from the country. Now, Portugal did the
same thing just a few years later. So these Spanish
Portuguese Jews set out to find new homes, and many
of them wound up settling on Caribbean islands. And in fact,
(31:40):
by the seventeen twenties, when Jewish pirates first set sail,
un estimated twenty of Kingston, Jamaica's population was descended from
Jewish exiles. Yeah, so a few of these Jews started
captaining their own pirate ships and christening them with names
like Queen Esther and the Shield of Abraham. And for
the most part, these Jewish pirates would exclusively target Spanish
(32:03):
and Portuguese ships, not surprisingly because this was really seen
his payback for those generations of unjust treatment. I mean,
this is fascinating. So it sounds like we're still uncovering
the full history of Jewish pirates. But I am curious
are there any notorious ones we should know about, Like, like,
who's the Blackbeard of Jewish pirates? You know, I'm not
sure about that exactly, but I think my favorite was
(32:25):
probably Schmool Polachi, who supposedly joined in a number of
pirate raids against the Dutch and Spanish ships. But here's
the wild thing about Polacci. He was actually a rabbi, right,
he was a rabbi pirate, Like that's kind of an oxymoron, right,
Well apparently not. I mean, by most accounts, Polacci was
also pretty pious. So not only did he insist that
(32:48):
his crew donate a tenth of their treasure to charity,
he also made sure they all kept kosher during their voyages.
That's amazing. So no shellfish. But uh, you know what
we're talking about, how piracy was this drastic kind of
escape for repressed people. And I think another great example
of that are the many women who built new lives
for themselves at sea. So most of them earned their
(33:09):
keepers servants or cooks or prostitutes. But if you also
found work as merchant sailors, naval officers, and and even pirates.
For instance, there's this Irish pirate named Grace O'Malley and
in the sixteenth century she became one of the few
female pirates to captain her own ship, and she made
a pretty frightening name for herself all along the coast
of Ireland. Like she had a bunch of really intense
(33:30):
scars on her face, which he claimed were from being
attacked by an eagle. And if that wasn't badass enough,
she also reportedly gave birth to her youngest son while
aboard her ship and then proceed to fight off invaders
with her baby in one hand and a sword into other.
Is that Yeah, that's pretty impressive and definitely something black
Beard can't claim to have done. But yeah, I think
(33:51):
for my money, the undisputed queen of female pirates and
and honestly maybe just pirates in general has got to
be Captain Ching Shew. In the early nineteenth century, she
spent her youth working as a cortison on a floating
brothel in Canton, China. Now, during this time she made
a name for herself as this really shrewd businesswoman, and
(34:12):
apparently she had a knack for blackmail and would often
use the secrets that she'd heard as a prostitute. And
she would do this in order to control her wealthy
and influential clients. So, as you might imagine, this was
a pretty attractive skill to a pirate, which is how
she came to marry this other very famous pirate, one
of the South China Sea, and his name was Ching
(34:34):
I Saw. And this guy was no slouch when it
came to pirrating. And by the time he married the
twenty six year old Ching she this was in I
think eighteen o one, Chang had already united a bunch
of rival pirate gangs into what he called the Red
Flag Fleet. So did Ching she have any power herself
or was she kind of just this figurehead. No, she
(34:56):
was definitely a very active participant in her husband's in
her prize, and in fact, you know, many of these
stories report that she actually demanded equal control of the
fleet as a condition of their marriage, and her role
really only grew as time went on. So it was
only six years into their marriage that Chang passed away suddenly.
(35:16):
And this was at the age of forty two, and
a few weeks later change she took her husband's place
as the leader of the red flag fleet, which to
me sounds a little suspicious, like her husband suddenly dies.
But do we know how big that fleet was that
she inherited. Well, we don't know how many ships are
men she inherited from her husband, but we do have
(35:38):
a pretty good estimate of the size of her fleet
a few years after she took over, And that's because
in eighteen o nine, her forces captured an East India
Company employee named Richard Glasspool. Now, after he was released
a few months later, he writes this account of his experience,
and it included this detailed estimate of change she's forces. So,
(35:58):
according to him, that were roughly eighty thousand pirates under
her command and over eighteen hundred ships in her fleet.
And so to give you an idea of just how
vast her entourage was, consider that Blackbeard himself commanded only
four ships and three hundred pirates, and that was at
his peak. I mean, those numbers really are insane, Like
(36:19):
eighty thousand pirates and ships like I don't know how
you could actually keep that many pirates in check. Well,
chance she borrowed from other pirates playbooks in that regard,
because once she took command, she quickly instituted this strict
code of laws for all of her men to follow,
and strict really is the key word here. And just
(36:39):
as an example, if any pirate disobeyed as Superior's orders
or started giving orders of their own, they were immediately
beheaded right on the spot. And you know, she had
some really specific rules about female captives that you probably
won't find in any other pirate codes, Like there was
this one rule that said if a pirate took a
female prisoner for his wife, he had to be faithful
(37:02):
to her and couldn't sleep around. That's really interesting. But
you know, I am still kind of hung up on
the sheer size of her operation. I mean, her fleet
probably like you could see it rivaling some of the
nation's entire armed forces from that time. I mean probably so.
In fact, under Chin She's command, the Red Flag Fleet
fought off not only the Chinese military, but the East
(37:23):
India Company, the Portuguese Navy, and you know, they were
undefeated for three full years until Ching She finally retired
altogether back in eighteen ten. Wait, so she retired, like
I didn't even know pirates could do that. I mean,
of course, not many of them did, and even fewer,
if any, retired in a way that Ching she did.
And you know, you look back at her retirement, it
(37:45):
was actually part of a deal that she made with
the Chinese government. And you know, after years of defeat,
the officials were just desperate to get Ching She out
of the spotlight by any means necessary, and so they
extended this offer to her wherein she and her forces
would surrender and go their separate ways. And this was
in return for amnesty and full pensions for every single
(38:08):
member of the crew. Wait, all eighty thousand of them
got pensions. Yeah, isn't that wild? So she and her
forces were seen as such a big threat that the
Chinese government basically paid them all to stop being pirates.
I mean, it was definitely a one of a kind deal,
at least as far as I can tell. That is amazing,
And you know, I know we're talking about criminals here,
(38:30):
but I have to say it is pretty cool that
not only were their female pirates, but kind of the
most badass pirates of them all tend to be women. Here. Yeah,
and there's actually this great quote that I wanted to
read from a pirate historian and the author of a
book called Pirate Women. So her name is Laura Silk
Duncom And and here she's talking about that attraction to
(38:51):
pirrat ng and the freedom and entail that we mentioned earlier.
And well she's talking specifically in this case about female pirates.
I really think this could have applied to almost all
the ones that we've talked about today. So here's what
she says. All of these pirates had ships that were
very different and methods that were very different. But I
think they share the desire to control their own fates,
(39:12):
and the desire for freedom from convention would unite all
these women. Their hopes to escape the normal and be
a part of something adventurous would tie all these women together.
And we all share that desire for adventure, not the
desire for slitting throats or plundering the high seas. But
one can empathize with the desire to have a say
and how their life goes. Yeah, I do feel like
(39:34):
people want to have a say and how their life goes,
and I like that. But how about we end on
that note and start the fact off. So the Pittsburgh
Pirates used to go by a totally different name, the
(39:55):
Pittsburgh Alleghanies, you know, named after the Mountain range. But
when they poached the second baseman from the Philadelphia Athletics
in the eighteen eighties, Philadelphia newspapers were outraged. They called
it a theft, and they referred to the team as
a bunch of pirates, and the name stuck. That's how
they got the name. Wow. One of my favorite pirates
who isn't often talked about these days is John Lafoote,
(40:17):
who was a barefoot pirate who used to be the
nemesis of Captain Crunch. So I don't know the full
story behind this rivalry. Apparently, Captain Horatio P. Crunch was
created by an ad firm and this was in response
to a survey that claimed kids hated soggy serial I
love that they had to do a survey to find
out that people don't like soggy cereal. But because the
(40:40):
cereal was so crunchy, the pirates wanted it anyway. That
the Captain was so popular and did such a good
job of fighting off Lafoote that there was once a
public movement to promote him to the rank of admiral.
But Quaker Oath was not convinced, and he's been overlooked
now for I don't know several decades. Yeah, Admiral Crunch
(41:01):
is into cereal. I'd pick off this right. So have
you ever heard of Pirate Joe's in Vancouver? Yeah? I
don't think so. So it's this store that was recently
shut down. But basically, this guy in Canada would drive
down to Trader Joe's groceries in the US because there
are no Trigger Joe's stores in Canada. He'd buy a
ton of stuff in bulk and then sneak it back
(41:21):
up and sell it at a higher cost. He had
actually been banned from Trader Joe's stores for doing this,
so sometimes he'd wear wigs or dresses or fake mustaches
and pinstripe suits. It got really elaborate. Sometimes he'd even
recruit day laborers to help him shop and pay at
the register like it was crazy. And when Trader Joe's
took him to court in two thousand and sixteen, they
(41:42):
did this in the US, they couldn't prove that he
was actually hurting their business, so he kind of got
to keep doing it for a while, and then finally
Trader Joe's brought another court battle. During the last court battle,
he took the p off his sign to change it
from Pirate Joe's to I Rate Joe's. When he finally
settled the case, the shop closed down in two thousand seventeen. Alright, well,
(42:04):
something equally ridiculous here. We we've talked about the Postafarian
religion before in the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster,
So for anybody who doesn't know, it was this satirical
religion that was invented really in response to religious fundamentalist
and the main claim is that a flying spaghetti monster
is just as likely as any other type of God,
(42:24):
so that's the one they chose to worship. But for
some reason, the very first Postafarian wedding also had a
pirate connection to it. Now, the event took place in
New Zealand. This was just a couple of years ago,
and the bride and groom were head to toe in
pirate gear and everyone there wore eye patches of course,
(42:45):
right now, that said, there was also this nod to
pasta and so the officiant wore a colender on her head,
which is the official headdress of the church. The couple
exchanged rings of pasta and and their vows they agreed
to always add all when boiling spaghetti. Very romantic. So
(43:05):
when Julius Caesar was years old, he was kidnapped five pirates,
and when the pirates asked for a ransom of twenty
talents of silver, he just laughed in their faces and
told them to up it to fifty because he was
worth so much more than that. So that's actually the
part of the story i'd heard before. But the part
I didn't know was that he was stuck on the
ship for thirty eight days, and during that time he
(43:27):
was not a good hostage. He was just completely unintimidated
by these pirates. Not only did he refuse to coward
to them, he actually treated them like they were his servants.
He'd write poetry and then forced them to listen to
it when he when he slept, he demanded they stopped talking,
and instead of acting like a prisoner, he just kind
of like stomped around doing what he wanted to do,
and they kind of gave him respect for it. Of course,
(43:49):
while he did act chummy with them the whole time,
he let them know that they should watch out. And
when he was finally freed, he of course rounded up
a small fleet, found his way back to them, took
back his fifty talents, took the rest of their possessions
as well, and then eventually had them killed, which you
know is very Julius Caesar of him. That is so
Julius Caesar of him. But all right, well, one of
(44:10):
the best ways to fight off modern pirates might just
be pop music, and in particular the music of Brittney Spears.
I was look at this old Guardian article from two
thousand thirteen and Britney Spears emerged as this unlikely figurehead
and a fight against Somali pirates. And that's because British
naval officers started blasting the songs Oops, I did it
(44:32):
again and Baby one more time at them, and strangely
the tactic proved more intimidating than guns and harpoons, apparently
because it's one naval officer put it quote her songs
were chosen by the security team because they thought the
pirates would hate them the most. These guys can't stand
Western culture or music, making Brittany hits perfect and as
(44:53):
soon as the pirates get a blast of Brittany, they
move on as quickly as they can. So what I
love about that story too, is like you're talking about
reporting for two and those songs I feel like came
out in like two thousand, two thousand one septime around
a minute. It's like they didn't just like pick the
latest pop songs. They went back and specifically chose Brittany
to scare off, very specific. They're still just as powerful today,
(45:17):
so I'd be curious that they if they go back
and use them again. Well, I do feel like you
have to get the trophy for that. I saved that
one especially for last, just for that fact. I knew
i'd get this one locked up. Well, I'm sure there
are other great facts that we have not mentioned today
about pirates, and we love to hear those from you guys.
As always, you can always email us part Time Genius
and How Stuff Works dot com or hit us up
(45:38):
on Facebook or Twitter. But from Tristan, Gabe, Mango and me,
thanks so much for listening. Thanks again for listening. Part
(45:58):
Time Genius is a production of How Stuff Works and
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important things. We couldn't even begin to understand. Christa McNeil
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(46:20):
to your ears. Good job, Eves. If you like what
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