June 20, 2026 • 25 mins
Nowadays most people know the pirates depicted in fiction bear little resemblance to real-life, historical pirates. Few actually buried any treasure, and fewer still lived in secretive island hideouts -- however, in at least one case, the truth appears stranger than fiction. Join the guys as they explore the story of Nosy Boraha, the Pirate's Paradise.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with a
bit of an epilogue to our continuing fascination with pirates.
Did you know, friends and neighbors, that there was a
pirate's paradise once upon a time?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, and a lot like the wild West wasn't quite
as wild as people think. Do check out our previous
episode on that. It turns out that pirates depicted in
fiction often bear very little resemblance to the real life
historical ones. And in our previous conversations about some of
history's most ridiculous pirates, we mentioned the quite egalitarian, dare
(00:39):
we say democratic, ways that the pirates organized their society,
and I believe we hinted at something of a pirate paradise.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Absolutely, folks, Let's roll the tape. Ridiculous Histories, a production
of iHeart Radio. Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeart Radio.
(01:24):
Are with a hard, are a vast and ahoy, fellow
ridiculous historians, Welcome to the show. Today, we're diving into piracy.
I guess diving is an accidental pun. There. Hi, my
name is Ben, my name is no.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Do were pirates known for their diving skills?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
They were maritime, you know, I would I would think
they would go to a great length to stay as
dry as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
They were known for their non consensual diving skills when
they had to walk the plank.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm sorry, Oh I felt bad about that one. No,
it's very I think we all feel bad about that,
but we feel great about our super producer. Give it
up for Casey Pegre. Now, none of us here in
the studio, and hopefully none of you have been involved
in acts of IRL piracy. Let's be honest. It is
(02:16):
twenty nineteen, and in these our modern days, many people
are digitally pirating things. I was about to say, I
think we've all probably downloaded a Torrent or two in
our day. We're not advocating that here, but you may
remember that very pointed trailer where I told you about
how piracy does hurt people. You wouldn't download a car,
which you wouldn't download a car. That's where you wouldn't
(02:38):
steal a car. That's right. So we're not talking about
that kind of piracy. We're talking about a much much
more brazen form of piracy. And I want to start
the show off by talking about the fact that in
this age of political correctness, and you know, people getting canceled.
Why aren't people talking more about how pirates probably aren't
the best role model for little kids. You know, you
(02:59):
still can pirate hats and you know, pirates swords and
little eye patches with the Jolly Roger on.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
His sports team.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's a sports team. It's a lego set, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's a it's a series of lego sets.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's a series sets. It's a kid's cartoon. Remember the
Pirates of Dark Water? Remember that?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah? Oh deep cut. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I loved it. I liked it too. They were sort
of like future pirates.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
They were some apocalyptic sci fi pirates, you know. Uh,
it's it's funny, Casey, you were mentioning that off the
air as well. You specifically said, aren't pirates due to
get canceled, which I thought was a great point. Man.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It just seems like they get up to a lot
of stuff that's not so great, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
The lowest of hijinks. So nowadays we romanticize pirates. However,
this was not always the case, and we should point
out now that there are active pirates existing around the
world right some based in Somalia, so based off different coasts,
(04:02):
and these folks are not romanticized, but we have in
our collective brains, we have this idealized, romanticized concept of
a pirate, a swashbuckler, you know what I mean, A
lovable rogue. This romanticization begins in eighteen eighty three. It's
weird because we can pinpoint the exact moment where it began.
(04:25):
It began, arguably with Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson.
So Treasure Island comes out, and you guys remember Treasure Island,
right of.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Course, swashbuckling adventures on the high seas. I believe long
John long John Silver. You know, all of the kind
of like tropes of pirate ness were sort of solidified
in that one book and then it was taken and
run with and everything from the Pirates of Dark Water
to the Disney Treasure Island to everything. Who knew that
(04:59):
would work.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's a film franchise based on a ride, and I'll
admit the ride's pretty dope, but it you know, when
you're a kid, but it's it's problematic. It is definitely,
as you guys said, romanticizing things. But yeah, Treasure Island
has this tremendous influence on how we think of pirates today.
It includes all those things that we consider cliches or
(05:21):
mandatory parts of a pirate story, Treasure maps that have
an X on the spot, one legged sailors who have
a trusty parrot, you know what I mean, all the hits,
all the all that slow cool jazz. But if we
look at real pirates, we see a lot of dissonance
between what they actually were and what Hollywood would have
(05:43):
us believe. When we engage with things like talk like
a Pirate Day or watching Pirates of the Caribbean nineteen
or whatever, whichever one, they're wrong. How far are they
into that? How many? How many?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, Johnny Depp got canceled briefly, and I think he okay,
now I can't remember because I think it maybe turned
out that his estranged wife was actually being abusive towards him.
I saw that pop up in the press and then
it kind of went away. So that's yet to be determined.
I know he's not in the next one, but they're
doing it without him. They're doing it without him.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Are they just gonna get Keith Stewart to do it?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I'm not you mean Keith Richards.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's the one. Yeah, one of the Keith, one of
the Keith. I'm not discriminatory when it comes to Keith.
I just good a guy named Keith in there. Give
him some dreadlocks, put him in the film.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, just kind of prop him up with a bottle
of rum.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Is Keith Stewart a famous for series though? That's just
I think that's a guy who went to my high school.
It's possible we had kind of a Keith Richard's vibe.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I don't know any famous Stuart's except for John Stewart,
Rod Stewart. We're okay, well you got me there. He
did not go to oscool.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But but yeah, yeah, it's amazing this kind of this
kind of vision, this pop culture phenomenon exists. But we
can we can set the stage for today's show by
looking at pirate fact versus pirate fiction. First things first,
the life of a pirate was grip. They were ruthless.
(07:02):
This was a time of homicide. This was a time
of murder. If you think a captain Jack Sparrow realized
in real life he could have never become the captain
of a pirate ship. He would have been killed by
his crew.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Was it for wearing eyeshadow?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I think it was less less the the coal liner
and more the profound commitment to running away.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Oh that's right, because pirates didn't run away. If anything,
they ran towards things, right, That's what they That's what
they had to do. You know, they had to they
had to capture these ships. We know that the most
famous pirates were probably not the most successful as well.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
We also see this whole Bury treasure thing. You know,
it probably happened several times, but it was not common.
It was not normal. These guys. Pirates didn't live super long.
They weren't like long term thinking, you know what I mean.
It's like one of the guys selling drugs and the
wire is not wondering about what he's going to do
(08:04):
when he's eighty because he doesn't think he'll make it there.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Only here's the thing, Ben, Some pirates did kind of
live the equivalent of a Twilight Years retiring to Florida
kind of situation, didn't they They did.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
They did nail on the head. This is something that
the three of us recently found out about. Because we're
all right, we understand that Hollywood doesn't depict a lot
of the truths about pirates, like the whole walking the
plank thing are and I made. Those are kind of
Hollywood creations, but some pirates did make it. Some pirates did.
(08:41):
As you say, Nol have a retirement plan. There is
a small island off the coast of Madagascar that we
call Nosey Burraja today weird, it's weird, it's a weird one.
In the past it was known as the is Sainte Marie. Casey,
could you help us out with that.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, you'll stall Mari. That sounds about right, Casey, and
Ben on the case whoa and noul I thank you.
I appreciate that, Ben, but you nailed it in the
first place. We just got a little bit of confirmation
from our resident, what do you call him, a Francophone. Yeah,
Casey Pegram, Casey Pegrim, the.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Man, the myth, the legend. And speaking of men, myths
and legends, there was in the Indian Ocean again, just
off the coast of Madagascar, a real life pirate paradise. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
When about in the neighborhood of one thousand pirates weren't
out pirrating, they can't. This was kind of their summer home.
You know they're off season paradise. There was a map
from seventeen thirty three that was discovered of this area
and it was simply headed with the Island of Pirates.
It is near the East Indies trade route, very very
(10:00):
centrally located to where these folks would have been pillaging
and pirrating and looting and raping their way across the
high seas. It was very convenient and it was the
perfect place to it. It was like a real life
treasure island in theory anyway, right, because it was perfect
tucked away location where they could hide all of their
ill gotten booty. I like saying booty, right right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Since a pirate named Adam Baldridge started making that his
base in sixteen ninety one, this became a home away
from home or in some cases a legit first home
for a lot of pirates and it went on until
seventeen nineteen with a pirate named John pro There were
multiple reasons for this tiny island to be attractive to pirates.
(10:49):
They first off enjoyed proximity to multiple trading routes. You
know what I mean. This ships would be returning from
the East Indies with fresh goods, fine fine clothing, spices
and so on. And then it had a bunch of
bays and inlets that were protected geographically from storms. It
(11:14):
was situated in quiet, easy water. It had tons of fruit.
You could just live off the land if you had to.
And so a bunch of or make their own rum
or make their own rum. Oh that's probably more important
than the fruit. That was a big That was a biggie,
I think yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
And they lived in these little huts, right, They were
like little wooden huts, and each one was marked with
an emblem or one of you know, the pirate the
ubiquitous pirate flags, which presumably would have been different designs
for the different crews that were under serving under these
different captains. And also, wouldn't you think, man, that some
of these factions wouldn't necessarily be like vying for the
(11:52):
same stuff, Like there wasn't necessarily like an overall brotherhood
of pirates. To my understanding, it was sort of like
every man, every crew for themselves kind of situation. And
yet they managed to coexist on this island, That's true.
Quite a few of them managed to coexist, So maybe
they had kind of a truce situation. But we're talking
(12:13):
legendary real pirates, William Kidd, Robert Culliford, Henry Avery, Abraham,
Samuel Thomas, two and so on. The island had a
main town called Embodi Futatra, which is a mouthful. And
they also had family here, you know. They they met
women who were native to the area, and they had children,
(12:36):
and they evolved this sort of non criminal lifestyle, but
they took a bunch of stuff with them. So the
island today remains allegedly home to massive amounts of missing
loot or as you prefernal booty, booty, booty hard d.
(12:58):
So we're talking gold, we're talking coins, works of art,
religious artifacts, precious stones, and legend has it that the
treasure of William Kidd is still buried somewhere in this
pirate island, in the bay near the main town, and
people have been hunting around this area for buried treasure
(13:23):
for decades and decades and decades and decades. But one
thing that really fascinated us was the culture that sprang
up on this island, particularly that there is an actual
pirate cemetery that's nuts, there's actually there, you know, like
the whole nine. They are tombstones.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
They're weird messages and codes and skulls and there's actually
there's skulls inscribed on the tombstones.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Totally, and that whole Jolly Roger imagery. Yes, so it's
not a huge one. It's on a hill shaded by
palm trees and it overlooks the ocean and pretty small.
Only about thirty real life irl pirates are buried there,
and they were buried there because they were residents of
this island. This was their home away from their home
(14:12):
on the high Seas, I guess. And you can still
go visit this site today.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, yeah, you can go tour it the same way
that you could see another local attraction. It's only about
three or four dollars to go us. There's a small
pathway behind this long way wall which is south of
the capital, and signs from there will lead you to
(14:38):
the cemetery. There's a small hut where you can pay
your entrance fee and you can learn more about the
pirates that are buried in the in the area, and
then you can walk over to Saint Pierre. The problem
is that over the years, surprise, surprise, not a lot
of people have put time into taking care of the
(15:03):
gravestones on the grave site. So a lot of a
lot of graves and crips were damaged because because of
a very understandable crime. I have to say, guys, if
I grew up in this area, or if I were
interested in being around pirates and finding their treasure, I
would totally mess with their graves because I would figure
(15:25):
they would be buried with their stuff. Because again I
have like a goonies level understanding of real pirates.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, yeah, you know, to be fair, that's probably one
of the more historically accurate pirate films that's out there,
right right right. Mine was Pippy long Stocking or Pippy
long Stocking. I do she was? She was she a pirate.
She wasn't a she was on a pirate ship. There
was a pirate, I believe. I believe she served under
some sort of pirate and she had a monkey, right
(15:52):
I think?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So, you know, I mainly remember her hair. But it's
it's true, though, this is one of the misc inceptions
that's leading to pretty serious damage to this real life
pirate cemetery. Pirates didn't again, they didn't really bury treasure.
It could happen, but it was not commonplace instead. Just
(16:13):
imagine if you listening and Casey and Noel and I
are all together and we're pirates. We're sailing the high seas,
and we rob a ship and we get our booty
with the hard tea. Then we're going to keep it
on this ship, and then later we'll divide it up
amongst ourselves. Again, this idea of buried treasure comes from
(16:35):
Treasure Island, and the X marks the spot. The whole
nine largely fictive. The only person we know for sure
to bury anything was Captain Kidd, and the entire reason
he buried his treasure was to keep it away from
the Governor of New York. He buried it outside of
New York, I don't know, like Yonkers or something. I'm kidding.
(16:57):
He didn't do it in Yonkers.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So one of the I don't know, slightly more well known,
certainly not as well of them as Billy. The kid
pirates that was laid to rest in this graveyard and
spent a lot of time on this island was a
French Corsair by the name of Olivier Lavasier or a
ka LaBouche, LaBouche LaBouche.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Casey, can we get a sound effect for that.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Of course, that means the mouth. I don't know if
he has some sort of weird snaggletooth kind of situation
going on, or if he just talked too much. But
apparently dead men tell no tales. But here's the thing,
LaBouche did tell tales after his passing, in the form
of a cipher. I know you're a fan of a
(17:53):
good cipher, and we're not talking about a freestyle rap, ben,
are we no?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
But fun fact, I am actually very scarily to freestyling. Yeah,
we're talking about a cipher is in a code. So
he's executed in seventeen thirty for as many, many, many
many crimes as a scaly wag, a buccaneer and so on.
But apparently, moments before his execution he yelled, find my treasure,
(18:20):
the one who may understand, and hurled a necklace into
the crowd. And this necklace had sort of a note,
but it was actually a cipher is a seventeen line
coded message. And you can see you can see photographs
of this cipher on a great article by Magellan Times.
(18:42):
The cipher itself remained It's unsolved today, right, No one's
cracked it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I believe that's true, and not that it wasn't attempted,
because maybe it's just maybe no one's figured it out yet.
I mean, on the same article there is like a
key with some of the little symbols and what letter
they're present, But obviously it didn't do the trick.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And not for nothing people have been trying to find
this for such a long time. There's a guy named
Barry Clifford who is a real life treasure hunter and
somewhat successful too. That that's nuts to me. Do you
guys think about that. We're here in our podcast studio
and we're we're having a lovely time making shows and
(19:23):
exploring these stories, but this guy is actually out hunting treasure.
I gotta say, if I had to pick another job,
no offense to you guys, but I would totally be
a treasure hunter. Would you guys be in like if
we had a chance of finding treasure.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Like Steve Zisu's style, Yes, well he was more like
a naturalist, like a figure, but yeah, I'd be down,
especially if you knew a good area to look. Where
might that be?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's almost as though we've been talking about what might
have been a hotbed of pirate activity. It boggles the
boggles the mind, and it boggles Barry Clifford's mind to
the point where he decided, surely there are remnants of
sunk in pirate galleys and all of the accompanying booty
littered throughout Sant Marie. He told The Daily Mail in
(20:09):
twenty fifteen that pirates had more money than they could
spend in ten lifetimes. So surely there's stuff squirreled away
in these little lagoons or you know, in caves or
what have you. Right, yeah, yeah, so surely he must
have had complete success, and he is now a very
wealthy man.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Right he changed his name to Jeff Bezos. No, he
goes on and he says, he's like, yeah, you know,
back in the day, if you were a pirate, this
island's where you would go. It's where all the pirates
hung out.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Why is this guy so haggard sounding.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
He's lived a hard life, you know what I mean.
He doesn't wear sunscreen, so that's the secret. It's very apparently,
it's very bad for your throat not to wear sunscreen.
But he has been exploring the island for almost well
more than twenty years, and during this time, he's found
thirteen separate distinct ship and you can see you can
(21:02):
see photos, you can see some of the stuff that
he's that he's extracted from these crash sites or these
uh oh, some of these ships were probably scuttled too,
if their damage was too great. And I know you
love that word.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Scuttle, but scuttle, but would be rumors if I say scuttled,
but I said scuttled.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Some of these ships were scuttled. I know that's one
of your favorite.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Words, is but it would have been funny if you
had said, I know some of these ships were scuttled, but.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It would have been yeah, it's true. The jokes that
would have been everybody who's seen Hunger Games, go ahead,
kiss your fingers, do the uh what what was that motion?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Oh that's I always thought of that as sort of
like a badass like sign off, like I'm out yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think both of us have done
that in social situations before. But anyway, Yes, he has
not found treasure. Clifford has not. He has, however, found
religious artifacts. He's found ships, of course, and pieces of ships.
One of his big one of his big recoveries was
(22:07):
an early statue of Jesus Christ from the thirteenth or
fourteenth century. So who knows whether you have a dream
job or something that's just sort of a means to
an end right now, maybe a career in treasure hunting
is for you. It takes some dedication, and it sounds
like it takes a lot of overhead, but I would
(22:27):
personally love it. I would love it if someone listening
now actually found buried treasure, you know what I mean,
because even we know it was super unusual. No, it's
largely a myth, but that doesn't mean it's totally a myth.
The treasure's out there right Also hashtag no oak.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Island Remind me about Oak Island again?
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Then the Oak Island money Pit. We did a show
on this for stuff they don't want you to know,
and the Oak Island money Pit in Nova Scotia is
thought to be a site of largely unrecovered buried treasure.
Now this has also become a reality show phenomenon, so
(23:10):
the producers got involved and now you will see all
kinds of here you go scuttle butt at about what's
actually in the ground there.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Thanks for doing that for me, Ben.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Hey Man, I got your back. So some things have
been carbon dated. Some people have claimed that they found something,
but they haven't found any significant treasure. The thing is,
there are real buried treasures out there, and I would
I would love to be a part of finding one.
So you know, hit us up, Hit us up on
(23:41):
Ridiculous Historians if you have a If you have a
pitch for a likely sight of buried treasure, you can
find us on Facebook where we are Ridiculous Historians.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It's a group that we have. You might have heard
of a time or two. We tend to mention it.
You can join just simply by saying Ben in my name,
and the same way you might some and a genie
in some sort of secret cave.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And of course there you will also see our good
friends Superducer, Casey Pegrim and Christopher Hasiotis, among others. You know,
I noticed some of our coworkers are sort of stealth
hanging out on that page.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Have you seen that? Totally a lot of Larkin.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram. If
you want to get a peek behind the curtain, you
can follow. You can follow us on our personal instagrams.
I am at Ben Bolin.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I am at Embryonic Insider and big thanks to super
producer Casey Pegrim. As always thanks to Alex Williams who
composed our theme. Thanks to our Here in Spirit cohort
Christopher Hasiotis, who is one day going to see the
light about how amazing a movie Mandy is.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And let us know about your favorite pirate throughout history, And.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Let me know was Pippy Longstocking a pirate? I don't know.
I forget, it was a long time ago. We'll see
you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Fellow ridiculous historians, we are returning to you with a
bit of an epilogue to our continuing fascination with pirates.
Did you know, friends and neighbors, that there was a
pirate's paradise once upon a time?
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, and a lot like the wild West wasn't quite
as wild as people think. Do check out our previous
episode on that. It turns out that pirates depicted in
fiction often bear very little resemblance to the real life
historical ones. And in our previous conversations about some of
history's most ridiculous pirates, we mentioned the quite egalitarian, dare
(00:39):
we say democratic, ways that the pirates organized their society,
and I believe we hinted at something of a pirate paradise.
Speaker 1 (00:48):
Absolutely, folks, Let's roll the tape. Ridiculous Histories, a production
of iHeart Radio. Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeart Radio.
(01:24):
Are with a hard, are a vast and ahoy, fellow
ridiculous historians, Welcome to the show. Today, we're diving into piracy.
I guess diving is an accidental pun. There. Hi, my
name is Ben, my name is no.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Do were pirates known for their diving skills?
Speaker 1 (01:40):
Well?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
They were maritime, you know, I would I would think
they would go to a great length to stay as
dry as possible.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
They were known for their non consensual diving skills when
they had to walk the plank.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I'm sorry, Oh I felt bad about that one. No,
it's very I think we all feel bad about that,
but we feel great about our super producer. Give it
up for Casey Pegre. Now, none of us here in
the studio, and hopefully none of you have been involved
in acts of IRL piracy. Let's be honest. It is
(02:16):
twenty nineteen, and in these our modern days, many people
are digitally pirating things. I was about to say, I
think we've all probably downloaded a Torrent or two in
our day. We're not advocating that here, but you may
remember that very pointed trailer where I told you about
how piracy does hurt people. You wouldn't download a car,
which you wouldn't download a car. That's where you wouldn't
(02:38):
steal a car. That's right. So we're not talking about
that kind of piracy. We're talking about a much much
more brazen form of piracy. And I want to start
the show off by talking about the fact that in
this age of political correctness, and you know, people getting canceled.
Why aren't people talking more about how pirates probably aren't
the best role model for little kids. You know, you
(02:59):
still can pirate hats and you know, pirates swords and
little eye patches with the Jolly Roger on.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
His sports team.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
It's a sports team. It's a lego set, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:09):
It's a it's a series of lego sets.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
It's a series sets. It's a kid's cartoon. Remember the
Pirates of Dark Water? Remember that?
Speaker 1 (03:16):
Yeah? Oh deep cut. I loved it.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
I loved it. I liked it too. They were sort
of like future pirates.
Speaker 1 (03:21):
They were some apocalyptic sci fi pirates, you know. Uh,
it's it's funny, Casey, you were mentioning that off the
air as well. You specifically said, aren't pirates due to
get canceled, which I thought was a great point. Man.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
It just seems like they get up to a lot
of stuff that's not so great, you know.
Speaker 1 (03:41):
The lowest of hijinks. So nowadays we romanticize pirates. However,
this was not always the case, and we should point
out now that there are active pirates existing around the
world right some based in Somalia, so based off different coasts,
(04:02):
and these folks are not romanticized, but we have in
our collective brains, we have this idealized, romanticized concept of
a pirate, a swashbuckler, you know what I mean, A
lovable rogue. This romanticization begins in eighteen eighty three. It's
weird because we can pinpoint the exact moment where it began.
(04:25):
It began, arguably with Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson.
So Treasure Island comes out, and you guys remember Treasure Island,
right of.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
Course, swashbuckling adventures on the high seas. I believe long
John long John Silver. You know, all of the kind
of like tropes of pirate ness were sort of solidified
in that one book and then it was taken and
run with and everything from the Pirates of Dark Water
to the Disney Treasure Island to everything. Who knew that
(04:59):
would work.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
It's a film franchise based on a ride, and I'll
admit the ride's pretty dope, but it you know, when
you're a kid, but it's it's problematic. It is definitely,
as you guys said, romanticizing things. But yeah, Treasure Island
has this tremendous influence on how we think of pirates today.
It includes all those things that we consider cliches or
(05:21):
mandatory parts of a pirate story, Treasure maps that have
an X on the spot, one legged sailors who have
a trusty parrot, you know what I mean, all the hits,
all the all that slow cool jazz. But if we
look at real pirates, we see a lot of dissonance
between what they actually were and what Hollywood would have
(05:43):
us believe. When we engage with things like talk like
a Pirate Day or watching Pirates of the Caribbean nineteen
or whatever, whichever one, they're wrong. How far are they
into that? How many? How many?
Speaker 2 (05:56):
Well, Johnny Depp got canceled briefly, and I think he okay,
now I can't remember because I think it maybe turned
out that his estranged wife was actually being abusive towards him.
I saw that pop up in the press and then
it kind of went away. So that's yet to be determined.
I know he's not in the next one, but they're
doing it without him. They're doing it without him.
Speaker 1 (06:12):
Are they just gonna get Keith Stewart to do it?
Speaker 2 (06:15):
I'm not you mean Keith Richards.
Speaker 1 (06:16):
That's the one. Yeah, one of the Keith, one of
the Keith. I'm not discriminatory when it comes to Keith.
I just good a guy named Keith in there. Give
him some dreadlocks, put him in the film.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
Yeah, just kind of prop him up with a bottle
of rum.
Speaker 1 (06:27):
Is Keith Stewart a famous for series though? That's just
I think that's a guy who went to my high school.
It's possible we had kind of a Keith Richard's vibe.
Speaker 2 (06:33):
I don't know any famous Stuart's except for John Stewart,
Rod Stewart. We're okay, well you got me there. He
did not go to oscool.
Speaker 1 (06:42):
But but yeah, yeah, it's amazing this kind of this
kind of vision, this pop culture phenomenon exists. But we
can we can set the stage for today's show by
looking at pirate fact versus pirate fiction. First things first,
the life of a pirate was grip. They were ruthless.
(07:02):
This was a time of homicide. This was a time
of murder. If you think a captain Jack Sparrow realized
in real life he could have never become the captain
of a pirate ship. He would have been killed by
his crew.
Speaker 2 (07:18):
Was it for wearing eyeshadow?
Speaker 1 (07:20):
I think it was less less the the coal liner
and more the profound commitment to running away.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Oh that's right, because pirates didn't run away. If anything,
they ran towards things, right, That's what they That's what
they had to do. You know, they had to they
had to capture these ships. We know that the most
famous pirates were probably not the most successful as well.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
We also see this whole Bury treasure thing. You know,
it probably happened several times, but it was not common.
It was not normal. These guys. Pirates didn't live super long.
They weren't like long term thinking, you know what I mean.
It's like one of the guys selling drugs and the
wire is not wondering about what he's going to do
(08:04):
when he's eighty because he doesn't think he'll make it there.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Only here's the thing, Ben, Some pirates did kind of
live the equivalent of a Twilight Years retiring to Florida
kind of situation, didn't they They did.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
They did nail on the head. This is something that
the three of us recently found out about. Because we're
all right, we understand that Hollywood doesn't depict a lot
of the truths about pirates, like the whole walking the
plank thing are and I made. Those are kind of
Hollywood creations, but some pirates did make it. Some pirates did.
(08:41):
As you say, Nol have a retirement plan. There is
a small island off the coast of Madagascar that we
call Nosey Burraja today weird, it's weird, it's a weird one.
In the past it was known as the is Sainte Marie. Casey,
could you help us out with that.
Speaker 2 (09:02):
Yeah, you'll stall Mari. That sounds about right, Casey, and
Ben on the case whoa and noul I thank you.
I appreciate that, Ben, but you nailed it in the
first place. We just got a little bit of confirmation
from our resident, what do you call him, a Francophone. Yeah,
Casey Pegram, Casey Pegrim, the.
Speaker 1 (09:20):
Man, the myth, the legend. And speaking of men, myths
and legends, there was in the Indian Ocean again, just
off the coast of Madagascar, a real life pirate paradise. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
When about in the neighborhood of one thousand pirates weren't
out pirrating, they can't. This was kind of their summer home.
You know they're off season paradise. There was a map
from seventeen thirty three that was discovered of this area
and it was simply headed with the Island of Pirates.
It is near the East Indies trade route, very very
(10:00):
centrally located to where these folks would have been pillaging
and pirrating and looting and raping their way across the
high seas. It was very convenient and it was the
perfect place to it. It was like a real life
treasure island in theory anyway, right, because it was perfect
tucked away location where they could hide all of their
ill gotten booty. I like saying booty, right right. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Since a pirate named Adam Baldridge started making that his
base in sixteen ninety one, this became a home away
from home or in some cases a legit first home
for a lot of pirates and it went on until
seventeen nineteen with a pirate named John pro There were
multiple reasons for this tiny island to be attractive to pirates.
(10:49):
They first off enjoyed proximity to multiple trading routes. You
know what I mean. This ships would be returning from
the East Indies with fresh goods, fine fine clothing, spices
and so on. And then it had a bunch of
bays and inlets that were protected geographically from storms. It
(11:14):
was situated in quiet, easy water. It had tons of fruit.
You could just live off the land if you had to.
And so a bunch of or make their own rum
or make their own rum. Oh that's probably more important
than the fruit. That was a big That was a biggie,
I think yeah, I think you're right.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
And they lived in these little huts, right, They were
like little wooden huts, and each one was marked with
an emblem or one of you know, the pirate the
ubiquitous pirate flags, which presumably would have been different designs
for the different crews that were under serving under these
different captains. And also, wouldn't you think, man, that some
of these factions wouldn't necessarily be like vying for the
(11:52):
same stuff, Like there wasn't necessarily like an overall brotherhood
of pirates. To my understanding, it was sort of like
every man, every crew for themselves kind of situation. And
yet they managed to coexist on this island, That's true.
Quite a few of them managed to coexist, So maybe
they had kind of a truce situation. But we're talking
(12:13):
legendary real pirates, William Kidd, Robert Culliford, Henry Avery, Abraham,
Samuel Thomas, two and so on. The island had a
main town called Embodi Futatra, which is a mouthful. And
they also had family here, you know. They they met
women who were native to the area, and they had children,
(12:36):
and they evolved this sort of non criminal lifestyle, but
they took a bunch of stuff with them. So the
island today remains allegedly home to massive amounts of missing
loot or as you prefernal booty, booty, booty hard d.
(12:58):
So we're talking gold, we're talking coins, works of art,
religious artifacts, precious stones, and legend has it that the
treasure of William Kidd is still buried somewhere in this
pirate island, in the bay near the main town, and
people have been hunting around this area for buried treasure
(13:23):
for decades and decades and decades and decades. But one
thing that really fascinated us was the culture that sprang
up on this island, particularly that there is an actual
pirate cemetery that's nuts, there's actually there, you know, like
the whole nine. They are tombstones.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
They're weird messages and codes and skulls and there's actually
there's skulls inscribed on the tombstones.
Speaker 2 (13:49):
Totally, and that whole Jolly Roger imagery. Yes, so it's
not a huge one. It's on a hill shaded by
palm trees and it overlooks the ocean and pretty small.
Only about thirty real life irl pirates are buried there,
and they were buried there because they were residents of
this island. This was their home away from their home
(14:12):
on the high Seas, I guess. And you can still
go visit this site today.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, yeah, you can go tour it the same way
that you could see another local attraction. It's only about
three or four dollars to go us. There's a small
pathway behind this long way wall which is south of
the capital, and signs from there will lead you to
(14:38):
the cemetery. There's a small hut where you can pay
your entrance fee and you can learn more about the
pirates that are buried in the in the area, and
then you can walk over to Saint Pierre. The problem
is that over the years, surprise, surprise, not a lot
of people have put time into taking care of the
(15:03):
gravestones on the grave site. So a lot of a
lot of graves and crips were damaged because because of
a very understandable crime. I have to say, guys, if
I grew up in this area, or if I were
interested in being around pirates and finding their treasure, I
would totally mess with their graves because I would figure
(15:25):
they would be buried with their stuff. Because again I
have like a goonies level understanding of real pirates.
Speaker 2 (15:31):
Yeah, yeah, you know, to be fair, that's probably one
of the more historically accurate pirate films that's out there,
right right right. Mine was Pippy long Stocking or Pippy
long Stocking. I do she was? She was she a pirate.
She wasn't a she was on a pirate ship. There
was a pirate, I believe. I believe she served under
some sort of pirate and she had a monkey, right
(15:52):
I think?
Speaker 1 (15:53):
So, you know, I mainly remember her hair. But it's
it's true, though, this is one of the misc inceptions
that's leading to pretty serious damage to this real life
pirate cemetery. Pirates didn't again, they didn't really bury treasure.
It could happen, but it was not commonplace instead. Just
(16:13):
imagine if you listening and Casey and Noel and I
are all together and we're pirates. We're sailing the high seas,
and we rob a ship and we get our booty
with the hard tea. Then we're going to keep it
on this ship, and then later we'll divide it up
amongst ourselves. Again, this idea of buried treasure comes from
(16:35):
Treasure Island, and the X marks the spot. The whole
nine largely fictive. The only person we know for sure
to bury anything was Captain Kidd, and the entire reason
he buried his treasure was to keep it away from
the Governor of New York. He buried it outside of
New York, I don't know, like Yonkers or something. I'm kidding.
(16:57):
He didn't do it in Yonkers.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
So one of the I don't know, slightly more well known,
certainly not as well of them as Billy. The kid
pirates that was laid to rest in this graveyard and
spent a lot of time on this island was a
French Corsair by the name of Olivier Lavasier or a
ka LaBouche, LaBouche LaBouche.
Speaker 1 (17:25):
Casey, can we get a sound effect for that.
Speaker 2 (17:32):
Of course, that means the mouth. I don't know if
he has some sort of weird snaggletooth kind of situation
going on, or if he just talked too much. But
apparently dead men tell no tales. But here's the thing,
LaBouche did tell tales after his passing, in the form
of a cipher. I know you're a fan of a
(17:53):
good cipher, and we're not talking about a freestyle rap, ben,
are we no?
Speaker 1 (17:57):
But fun fact, I am actually very scarily to freestyling. Yeah,
we're talking about a cipher is in a code. So
he's executed in seventeen thirty for as many, many, many
many crimes as a scaly wag, a buccaneer and so on.
But apparently, moments before his execution he yelled, find my treasure,
(18:20):
the one who may understand, and hurled a necklace into
the crowd. And this necklace had sort of a note,
but it was actually a cipher is a seventeen line
coded message. And you can see you can see photographs
of this cipher on a great article by Magellan Times.
(18:42):
The cipher itself remained It's unsolved today, right, No one's
cracked it.
Speaker 2 (18:46):
I believe that's true, and not that it wasn't attempted,
because maybe it's just maybe no one's figured it out yet.
I mean, on the same article there is like a
key with some of the little symbols and what letter
they're present, But obviously it didn't do the trick.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
And not for nothing people have been trying to find
this for such a long time. There's a guy named
Barry Clifford who is a real life treasure hunter and
somewhat successful too. That that's nuts to me. Do you
guys think about that. We're here in our podcast studio
and we're we're having a lovely time making shows and
(19:23):
exploring these stories, but this guy is actually out hunting treasure.
I gotta say, if I had to pick another job,
no offense to you guys, but I would totally be
a treasure hunter. Would you guys be in like if
we had a chance of finding treasure.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Like Steve Zisu's style, Yes, well he was more like
a naturalist, like a figure, but yeah, I'd be down,
especially if you knew a good area to look. Where
might that be?
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Right?
Speaker 2 (19:48):
It's almost as though we've been talking about what might
have been a hotbed of pirate activity. It boggles the
boggles the mind, and it boggles Barry Clifford's mind to
the point where he decided, surely there are remnants of
sunk in pirate galleys and all of the accompanying booty
littered throughout Sant Marie. He told The Daily Mail in
(20:09):
twenty fifteen that pirates had more money than they could
spend in ten lifetimes. So surely there's stuff squirreled away
in these little lagoons or you know, in caves or
what have you. Right, yeah, yeah, so surely he must
have had complete success, and he is now a very
wealthy man.
Speaker 1 (20:24):
Right he changed his name to Jeff Bezos. No, he
goes on and he says, he's like, yeah, you know,
back in the day, if you were a pirate, this
island's where you would go. It's where all the pirates
hung out.
Speaker 2 (20:36):
Why is this guy so haggard sounding.
Speaker 1 (20:38):
He's lived a hard life, you know what I mean.
He doesn't wear sunscreen, so that's the secret. It's very apparently,
it's very bad for your throat not to wear sunscreen.
But he has been exploring the island for almost well
more than twenty years, and during this time, he's found
thirteen separate distinct ship and you can see you can
(21:02):
see photos, you can see some of the stuff that
he's that he's extracted from these crash sites or these
uh oh, some of these ships were probably scuttled too,
if their damage was too great. And I know you
love that word.
Speaker 2 (21:16):
Scuttle, but scuttle, but would be rumors if I say scuttled,
but I said scuttled.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Some of these ships were scuttled. I know that's one
of your favorite.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Words, is but it would have been funny if you
had said, I know some of these ships were scuttled, but.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
It would have been yeah, it's true. The jokes that
would have been everybody who's seen Hunger Games, go ahead,
kiss your fingers, do the uh what what was that motion?
Speaker 2 (21:39):
Oh that's I always thought of that as sort of
like a badass like sign off, like I'm out yeah.
Speaker 1 (21:45):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think both of us have done
that in social situations before. But anyway, Yes, he has
not found treasure. Clifford has not. He has, however, found
religious artifacts. He's found ships, of course, and pieces of ships.
One of his big one of his big recoveries was
(22:07):
an early statue of Jesus Christ from the thirteenth or
fourteenth century. So who knows whether you have a dream
job or something that's just sort of a means to
an end right now, maybe a career in treasure hunting
is for you. It takes some dedication, and it sounds
like it takes a lot of overhead, but I would
(22:27):
personally love it. I would love it if someone listening
now actually found buried treasure, you know what I mean,
because even we know it was super unusual. No, it's
largely a myth, but that doesn't mean it's totally a myth.
The treasure's out there right Also hashtag no oak.
Speaker 2 (22:47):
Island Remind me about Oak Island again?
Speaker 1 (22:49):
Then the Oak Island money Pit. We did a show
on this for stuff they don't want you to know,
and the Oak Island money Pit in Nova Scotia is
thought to be a site of largely unrecovered buried treasure.
Now this has also become a reality show phenomenon, so
(23:10):
the producers got involved and now you will see all
kinds of here you go scuttle butt at about what's
actually in the ground there.
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Thanks for doing that for me, Ben.
Speaker 1 (23:20):
Hey Man, I got your back. So some things have
been carbon dated. Some people have claimed that they found something,
but they haven't found any significant treasure. The thing is,
there are real buried treasures out there, and I would
I would love to be a part of finding one.
So you know, hit us up, Hit us up on
(23:41):
Ridiculous Historians if you have a If you have a
pitch for a likely sight of buried treasure, you can
find us on Facebook where we are Ridiculous Historians.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
It's a group that we have. You might have heard
of a time or two. We tend to mention it.
You can join just simply by saying Ben in my name,
and the same way you might some and a genie
in some sort of secret cave.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
And of course there you will also see our good
friends Superducer, Casey Pegrim and Christopher Hasiotis, among others. You know,
I noticed some of our coworkers are sort of stealth
hanging out on that page.
Speaker 2 (24:15):
Have you seen that? Totally a lot of Larkin.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You can also find us on Twitter and Instagram. If
you want to get a peek behind the curtain, you
can follow. You can follow us on our personal instagrams.
I am at Ben Bolin.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
I am at Embryonic Insider and big thanks to super
producer Casey Pegrim. As always thanks to Alex Williams who
composed our theme. Thanks to our Here in Spirit cohort
Christopher Hasiotis, who is one day going to see the
light about how amazing a movie Mandy is.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
And let us know about your favorite pirate throughout history, And.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Let me know was Pippy Longstocking a pirate? I don't know.
I forget, it was a long time ago. We'll see
you next time, folks. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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