May 7, 2019 • 24 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):
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio, Are
(00:27):
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 Bent, my name is no Do. We're pirates known
for their diving skills. Well, they were maritime, you know,
I would I would think they would go to a
(00:47):
great length to stay as dry as possible. They were
known for their non consensual diving skills when they had
to walk the plank. I'm sorry bad. I felt bad
about that, and now it's very true. I feel I
think we all feel bad about that, but we feel
great about our super producer. Give it up for Casey Pegram. Now,
(01:09):
none of us here in the studio, and hopefully none
of you have been involved in acts of I R
L piracy. Let's be honest. It is twenty nineteen and
in these our modern days, many people are digitally pirating things. Yeah,
I was about to say, I think we've all probably
downloaded a torrent or two in our day. We're not
(01:30):
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 steal a car. That's right. Um,
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
(01:54):
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 still can buy pirate
hats and you know, pirate swords and little eye patches
with the jolly Roger on his sports team. Sports Team.
It's a lego set, you know, it's a it's a
series of lego sets. It's a series sets. It's a
(02:16):
kid's cartoon. Remember the Pirates of Dark Water, remember yeah,
oh deep cut. I loved it. I loved it. I
like to do. They were sort of like future pirates.
They were steams 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
(02:36):
get canceled, which I thought was a great point. Man.
It just seems like they get up to a lot
of stuff that's not so great, you know, 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
(03:01):
some based in Smalley, some based off different coasts, and
these folks are not romanticized. But we have in our
collective brains we have this idealized, romanticized concept of a pirate,
a swash buckler, you know what I mean, A lovable rogue.
This romanticization begins in three It's weird because we can
(03:25):
pinpoint the exact moment where it began. It began arguably
with Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. So Treasure Island
comes out, and you guys remember Treasure Island, right, of course,
swashbuckling adventures on the high seas, I believe long John
John Silver, you know, all of the kind of like
(03:47):
tropes of pirate nous 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 Caribbean. Who knew that would work.
It's a film franchise based on a ride, and I'll
admit the ride is pretty dope, but it you know,
(04:09):
when you're a kid, But it's it's problematic. It is definitely,
as you guys said, romanticizing things. But yeah, Treasure Islands
has this tremendous influence on how we think of pirates today.
It includes all those things that we consider cliches or
mandatory parts of a pirate story, Treasure maps that have
an X on the spot, one legged sailors who have
(04:31):
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
us believe when we engage with things like talk like
a Pirate Day or watching Pirates of the Caribbean nineteen
(04:53):
or whatever, whichever, when they're on how far are they
into that? How many? How many? Johnny Depp got canceled briefly? Uh,
and I think he's 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.
(05:14):
They're doing it without him. Are they just gonna get
Keith Stewart to do it? I'm not you mean Keith
Richards that's the one. Yeah, one of the Keiths, one
of the keith I'm not discriminatory when it comes to Keith.
That's good a guy, Dame Keith and there. Give him
some dreadlocks. Put him in the film. Yeah, just kind
of prop him up with the bottle of rum. Is
Keith Stewart a famous proser or? That's just I think
that's the guy who went to my high school. It's possible,
(05:35):
kind of a Keith Richard's vie. I don't know any
famous Stewarts except for John Stewart, Rod Stewart. Okay, well
you got me there. He did not go to high school.
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
(05:56):
looking at a pirate fact versus pirate fiction. For things, First,
the life of a pirate was grim. They were ruthless.
This was a time of homicide. This was a time
of murder. If you think of Captain Jack Sparrow realized
in real life he could have never become the captain
(06:17):
of a pirate ship. He would have been killed by
his crew. Was it for wearing eyeshad him? I think
it was less less the the coal liner and more
the profound commitment to running away, 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
(06:38):
to They had to capture these ships. We know that
the most famous pirates were probably not the most successful
as well. We also see this whole Barry treasure thing.
You know, it probably happened several times, but it was
not common. It was not normal. These guys. Pirates didn't
(06:58):
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 gonna do when he's eighty, because he doesn't think
he'll make it. There only here's the thing, man, Some
pirates did kind of live the equivalent of a Twilight
Years retiring to Florida kind of situation. Didn't that they did?
(07:20):
They did nail on the head. This is something that
the three of us recently found out about because we're
all right, we 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 ee those are
those are kind of Hollywood creations. But some pirates did
(07:43):
make it. Some pirates did, as you say, no have
a retirement plan. There is a small island off the
coast of Madagascar that we call Nosy Barraja today. Weird,
it's weird. It's a weird one. Uh. In the past
it was known as the Saint Mariy Casey, could could
(08:04):
you help us out with that? Yeah, you'll sat Mari
That sounds about right, Casey, and Ben on the case
whoa And I think 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 casey Pegram casey Pegram, the man
the myth the legend. And speaking of men, myths and legends,
(08:32):
there was in the Indian Ocean again, just off the
coast of Madagascar, a real life pirate paradise. Yeah when
about in the neighborhood of a 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 um of this area and
(08:55):
it was simply headed with the Island of Pirates. It
is near the East Indies trade route, very very centrally
located to where these folks would have been pillaging and
pirating and looting and raping their way across the high
seas um. It was very convenient and it was the
perfect place too. It was it was like a real
(09:16):
life treasure island in fury 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.
Since pirate named Adam bald Ridge started making that his
base in sixte this became a home away from home,
(09:37):
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. They
first off enjoyed proximity to multiple trading routes. You know
(09:57):
what I mean this, Uh ships would be turning from
the East Indies with precious goods, uh fine fine clothing,
spices and so on. And then it had a bunch
of bays and inlets that were protected geographically from storms.
It was situated in quiet, easy water. It had tons
(10:21):
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.
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
(10:41):
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 would be like vying for
the same stuff. Like there wasn't necessarily like an overall
brotherhood of pirates. To my understanding, it was sort of
(11:01):
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
legendary real pirates. William Kidd, Robert Culifford, Henry Avery, Abraham,
Samuel Thomas too, and so on. The island had a
(11:27):
main town called em Booty Potatra, which is a mouthful.
And they also had family here, you know, they met,
they met women who were native to the area, and
they had children, and they evolved this sort of um,
non criminal lifestyle. But they took a bunch of stuff
(11:48):
with them. So the island today remains allegedly home to
massive amounts of missing loot or as your prefernal booty
booty booty hard t So uh, we're talking gold, We're
talking coins, works of art, religious artifacts, precious stones, and
(12:11):
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 for decades and decades and
decades and decades. But one thing that really fascinated us
(12:33):
was the culture that sprang up on this island, particularly
that there is an actual pirate cemetery. That's nuts. There's
actually there there, you know, like the whole nine there tombstones,
they're weird messages and codes and skulls and there's actually
there's skulls inscribed on the tombstones and that whole Jolly
(12:53):
Roger imagery. Yes, so it's not a huge one. It's
on a hill um shaded by palm trees and it
overlooks the ocean and uh, it's pretty small. Only about
thirty real life I r L. Pirates are buried there,
and they were buried there because they were residents of
this island. This was their home away from their home
(13:15):
on the high Seas, I guess. And you can still
go visit this site today. Yeah, yeah, you can go
towur it the same way that you could see another
local attraction. It's only about it's three or four dollars
to go us. There's a small pathway behind this long
(13:36):
way wall which is south of the capital, and signs
from there will lead you to 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 uh St Pierre. The problem is that over
(13:59):
the years, surprise, surprise, uh not, a lot of people
have put time into taking care of the gravestones and
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
(14:22):
in being around pirates and finding their treasure, I would
totally mess with their graves because I would figure they
would be buried with their stuff, because again I have
like a goonies level understanding of real pirates. Yeah, yeah,
you have to be fair. That's probably one of the
more historically accurate pirate films. It's out there right right right, good.
(14:42):
Mine was Peppy long Stocking or PEPPI Longstocking. 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 I think so, you know, I mainly
remember her hair h but it's it's true, though, this
is one of the misconceptions that's leading to um pretty
(15:06):
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 imagine if you listening and
Casey and Noel and I are are all together and
we're we're pirates, were sailing the high seas, and we
rob a ship and we get our booty with the
(15:28):
hard tea, then we're gonna keep it on this ship
and then later we'll divide it up amongst ourselves. Again,
this idea buried treasure comes from Treasure Island, and the
X marks the spot. The whole nine largely fictive. The
only person we know for sure to bury anything was
(15:48):
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. He didn't do it
in yours. So one of the I don't know, slightly
(16:09):
more well known, certainly not as well than 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
um or a k a. La Bush, La Bush, La
Bush casey. Can we get a sound effect for that?
(16:35):
Of course, that means the mouth. I don't know if
he has some sort of weird snaggle tooth kind of
situation going on, or if he just talked too much. Um.
But apparently dead men tell no tales. But here's the thing,
La Bush did tell tales after his his passing in
the form of a cipher. I know you're a fan
(16:56):
of a good cipher. We're not talking about a freestyle rap, then,
are we know? But fun fact, I am actually very
scarily good at freestyling. Uh yeah, we're talking about a
cipher is in a code. So he's executed in seventeen
thirty for his many, many, many many crimes as a scallywag,
a buccaneer and so on. But apparently, moments before his execution,
(17:21):
he yelled find my treasure the one who may understand
it 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 um photographs of this cipher
on a great article by Magellan Times. The cipher itself
(17:47):
remain it's unsolved today, right, No one's cracked it. I
believe that's true, and not not that I wasn't attempted,
because maybe it's just maybe no one's figured it out. Yeah.
I mean on the same article there is like a
key with some of the little symbols and what are
they represent? But obviously it didn't do the trick, and
not for nothing people have been trying to find this
(18:07):
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? Like, we're here in our podcast studio
and we're we're having a lovely time making shows and
exploring these stories. But this guy is actually out hunting treasure.
(18:30):
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 like Steve Zesue style. Yes,
well he was more like a naturalist figure. Um, but yeah,
I'd be down, especially if you knew a good area
to look. Where might that be. It's almost as that
(18:52):
we've been talking about what might have been a hotbed
of pirate activity and boggles the boggles the mind, and
if boggled Barry Clifford's mind to the point where he decided,
surely there are remnants of sunken pirate galleys. Uh, and
all of the accompanying booty littered throughout Saint Marie. Um.
He told the Daily Mail in that pirates had more
(19:13):
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, so surely
he must have had complete success and he is now
a very wealthy man. Right he changed his name to
Jeff Bezos. No. Uh, he goes on and he says,
he's like, yeah, you know, back in the day, if
(19:35):
you were a pirate, h this islands where you would go,
it's where all the pirates hung out. Is this guy
so haggard sounding? 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
(19:58):
time he's found thirteen separate distinct shipwrecks. And you can
see you can see photos, um, 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 scuttle, but scuttle
(20:21):
but would be rumors? Did you say scuttled, but I
said scuttled. Some of these ships were scuttled. I know
that's one of your favorite words. It is, but it
would have been funny if you had said, I know,
some of these ships were scuttled, but it would have
been the jokes. That would have been everybody who's seen
Hunger Games, go ahead, kiss your fingers, do the what what?
What was that motion? Oh? That that's I always thought of.
(20:44):
That is sort of like a badass like sign off,
like amount yeah, 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, some pieces
(21:06):
of ships. Uh. One of his big one of his
big recoveries was an early statue of Jesus Christ from
the thirteen or four 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
(21:27):
and it sounds like it takes a lot of overhead,
but I would 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 treasures out there right also hashtag no
(21:49):
oak Island, remind me about oak Island again? Man, 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 the producers
(22:13):
got involved and now you will see all kinds of
here you go scuttle butt about about what's actually in
the ground there. Thanks for doing that for me, Ben,
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,
(22:36):
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
Ridiculous Historians if you have a If you have a
pitch for a likely site of buried treasure, you can
find us on Facebook where we are Ridiculous Historians. It's
a group that we have you might have heard of
(22:56):
a time or two. We we tend to mention it.
You can join just simply by saying Ben in my name,
in the same way you might summon a genie in
some sort of secret cave. And of course there you
will also see our good friends super producer Casey Pegram
and Christopher Hasiotis, among others. You know, I noticed some
of our coworkers are sort of stealth hanging out on
(23:17):
that page. Have you seen that? Totally a lot of Larkin.
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 Bolan, I am at Embryonic Insider
and um Big. Thanks to super producer Casey Pegram. As
(23:37):
always thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme. Thanks
to our here in spirit uh cohort Christopher Hasiotis, um
who is one day You're gonna see the light about
how how amazing a movie man he is? And let
us know about your favorite pirate throughout history And let
me know, was pity long stalking a pirate? I don't know.
(23:58):
I forget it was a long time ago. We'll see
you next time, Folix. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History is a production of I Heart Radio, Are
(00:27):
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 Bent, my name is no Do. We're pirates known
for their diving skills. Well, they were maritime, you know,
I would I would think they would go to a
(00:47):
great length to stay as dry as possible. They were
known for their non consensual diving skills when they had
to walk the plank. I'm sorry bad. I felt bad
about that, and now it's very true. I feel I
think we all feel bad about that, but we feel
great about our super producer. Give it up for Casey Pegram. Now,
(01:09):
none of us here in the studio, and hopefully none
of you have been involved in acts of I R
L piracy. Let's be honest. It is twenty nineteen and
in these our modern days, many people are digitally pirating things. Yeah,
I was about to say, I think we've all probably
downloaded a torrent or two in our day. We're not
(01:30):
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 steal a car. That's right. Um,
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
(01:54):
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 still can buy pirate
hats and you know, pirate swords and little eye patches
with the jolly Roger on his sports team. Sports Team.
It's a lego set, you know, it's a it's a
series of lego sets. It's a series sets. It's a
(02:16):
kid's cartoon. Remember the Pirates of Dark Water, remember yeah,
oh deep cut. I loved it. I loved it. I
like to do. They were sort of like future pirates.
They were steams 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
(02:36):
get canceled, which I thought was a great point. Man.
It just seems like they get up to a lot
of stuff that's not so great, you know, 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
(03:01):
some based in Smalley, some based off different coasts, and
these folks are not romanticized. But we have in our
collective brains we have this idealized, romanticized concept of a pirate,
a swash buckler, you know what I mean, A lovable rogue.
This romanticization begins in three It's weird because we can
(03:25):
pinpoint the exact moment where it began. It began arguably
with Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson. So Treasure Island
comes out, and you guys remember Treasure Island, right, of course,
swashbuckling adventures on the high seas, I believe long John
John Silver, you know, all of the kind of like
(03:47):
tropes of pirate nous 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 Caribbean. Who knew that would work.
It's a film franchise based on a ride, and I'll
admit the ride is pretty dope, but it you know,
(04:09):
when you're a kid, But it's it's problematic. It is definitely,
as you guys said, romanticizing things. But yeah, Treasure Islands
has this tremendous influence on how we think of pirates today.
It includes all those things that we consider cliches or
mandatory parts of a pirate story, Treasure maps that have
an X on the spot, one legged sailors who have
(04:31):
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
us believe when we engage with things like talk like
a Pirate Day or watching Pirates of the Caribbean nineteen
(04:53):
or whatever, whichever, when they're on how far are they
into that? How many? How many? Johnny Depp got canceled briefly? Uh,
and I think he's 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.
(05:14):
They're doing it without him. Are they just gonna get
Keith Stewart to do it? I'm not you mean Keith
Richards that's the one. Yeah, one of the Keiths, one
of the keith I'm not discriminatory when it comes to Keith.
That's good a guy, Dame Keith and there. Give him
some dreadlocks. Put him in the film. Yeah, just kind
of prop him up with the bottle of rum. Is
Keith Stewart a famous proser or? That's just I think
that's the guy who went to my high school. It's possible,
(05:35):
kind of a Keith Richard's vie. I don't know any
famous Stewarts except for John Stewart, Rod Stewart. Okay, well
you got me there. He did not go to high school.
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
(05:56):
looking at a pirate fact versus pirate fiction. For things, First,
the life of a pirate was grim. They were ruthless.
This was a time of homicide. This was a time
of murder. If you think of Captain Jack Sparrow realized
in real life he could have never become the captain
(06:17):
of a pirate ship. He would have been killed by
his crew. Was it for wearing eyeshad him? I think
it was less less the the coal liner and more
the profound commitment to running away, 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
(06:38):
to They had to capture these ships. We know that
the most famous pirates were probably not the most successful
as well. We also see this whole Barry treasure thing.
You know, it probably happened several times, but it was
not common. It was not normal. These guys. Pirates didn't
(06:58):
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 gonna do when he's eighty, because he doesn't think
he'll make it. There only here's the thing, man, Some
pirates did kind of live the equivalent of a Twilight
Years retiring to Florida kind of situation. Didn't that they did?
(07:20):
They did nail on the head. This is something that
the three of us recently found out about because we're
all right, we 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 ee those are
those are kind of Hollywood creations. But some pirates did
(07:43):
make it. Some pirates did, as you say, no have
a retirement plan. There is a small island off the
coast of Madagascar that we call Nosy Barraja today. Weird,
it's weird. It's a weird one. Uh. In the past
it was known as the Saint Mariy Casey, could could
(08:04):
you help us out with that? Yeah, you'll sat Mari
That sounds about right, Casey, and Ben on the case
whoa And I think 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 casey Pegram casey Pegram, the man
the myth the legend. And speaking of men, myths and legends,
(08:32):
there was in the Indian Ocean again, just off the
coast of Madagascar, a real life pirate paradise. Yeah when
about in the neighborhood of a 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 um of this area and
(08:55):
it was simply headed with the Island of Pirates. It
is near the East Indies trade route, very very centrally
located to where these folks would have been pillaging and
pirating and looting and raping their way across the high
seas um. It was very convenient and it was the
perfect place too. It was it was like a real
(09:16):
life treasure island in fury 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.
Since pirate named Adam bald Ridge started making that his
base in sixte this became a home away from home,
(09:37):
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. They
first off enjoyed proximity to multiple trading routes. You know
(09:57):
what I mean this, Uh ships would be turning from
the East Indies with precious goods, uh fine fine clothing,
spices and so on. And then it had a bunch
of bays and inlets that were protected geographically from storms.
It was situated in quiet, easy water. It had tons
(10:21):
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.
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
(10:41):
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 would be like vying for
the same stuff. Like there wasn't necessarily like an overall
brotherhood of pirates. To my understanding, it was sort of
(11:01):
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
legendary real pirates. William Kidd, Robert Culifford, Henry Avery, Abraham,
Samuel Thomas too, and so on. The island had a
(11:27):
main town called em Booty Potatra, which is a mouthful.
And they also had family here, you know, they met,
they met women who were native to the area, and
they had children, and they evolved this sort of um,
non criminal lifestyle. But they took a bunch of stuff
(11:48):
with them. So the island today remains allegedly home to
massive amounts of missing loot or as your prefernal booty
booty booty hard t So uh, we're talking gold, We're
talking coins, works of art, religious artifacts, precious stones, and
(12:11):
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 for decades and decades and
decades and decades. But one thing that really fascinated us
(12:33):
was the culture that sprang up on this island, particularly
that there is an actual pirate cemetery. That's nuts. There's
actually there there, you know, like the whole nine there tombstones,
they're weird messages and codes and skulls and there's actually
there's skulls inscribed on the tombstones and that whole Jolly
(12:53):
Roger imagery. Yes, so it's not a huge one. It's
on a hill um shaded by palm trees and it
overlooks the ocean and uh, it's pretty small. Only about
thirty real life I r L. Pirates are buried there,
and they were buried there because they were residents of
this island. This was their home away from their home
(13:15):
on the high Seas, I guess. And you can still
go visit this site today. Yeah, yeah, you can go
towur it the same way that you could see another
local attraction. It's only about it's three or four dollars
to go us. There's a small pathway behind this long
(13:36):
way wall which is south of the capital, and signs
from there will lead you to 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 uh St Pierre. The problem is that over
(13:59):
the years, surprise, surprise, uh not, a lot of people
have put time into taking care of the gravestones and
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
(14:22):
in being around pirates and finding their treasure, I would
totally mess with their graves because I would figure they
would be buried with their stuff, because again I have
like a goonies level understanding of real pirates. Yeah, yeah,
you have to be fair. That's probably one of the
more historically accurate pirate films. It's out there right right right, good.
(14:42):
Mine was Peppy long Stocking or PEPPI Longstocking. 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 I think so, you know, I mainly
remember her hair h but it's it's true, though, this
is one of the misconceptions that's leading to um pretty
(15:06):
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 imagine if you listening and
Casey and Noel and I are are all together and
we're we're pirates, were sailing the high seas, and we
rob a ship and we get our booty with the
(15:28):
hard tea, then we're gonna keep it on this ship
and then later we'll divide it up amongst ourselves. Again,
this idea buried treasure comes from Treasure Island, and the
X marks the spot. The whole nine largely fictive. The
only person we know for sure to bury anything was
(15:48):
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. He didn't do it
in yours. So one of the I don't know, slightly
(16:09):
more well known, certainly not as well than 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
um or a k a. La Bush, La Bush, La
Bush casey. Can we get a sound effect for that?
(16:35):
Of course, that means the mouth. I don't know if
he has some sort of weird snaggle tooth kind of
situation going on, or if he just talked too much. Um.
But apparently dead men tell no tales. But here's the thing,
La Bush did tell tales after his his passing in
the form of a cipher. I know you're a fan
(16:56):
of a good cipher. We're not talking about a freestyle rap, then,
are we know? But fun fact, I am actually very
scarily good at freestyling. Uh yeah, we're talking about a
cipher is in a code. So he's executed in seventeen
thirty for his many, many, many many crimes as a scallywag,
a buccaneer and so on. But apparently, moments before his execution,
(17:21):
he yelled find my treasure the one who may understand
it 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 um photographs of this cipher
on a great article by Magellan Times. The cipher itself
(17:47):
remain it's unsolved today, right, No one's cracked it. I
believe that's true, and not not that I wasn't attempted,
because maybe it's just maybe no one's figured it out. Yeah.
I mean on the same article there is like a
key with some of the little symbols and what are
they represent? But obviously it didn't do the trick, and
not for nothing people have been trying to find this
(18:07):
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? Like, we're here in our podcast studio
and we're we're having a lovely time making shows and
exploring these stories. But this guy is actually out hunting treasure.
(18:30):
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 like Steve Zesue style. Yes,
well he was more like a naturalist figure. Um, but yeah,
I'd be down, especially if you knew a good area
to look. Where might that be. It's almost as that
(18:52):
we've been talking about what might have been a hotbed
of pirate activity and boggles the boggles the mind, and
if boggled Barry Clifford's mind to the point where he decided,
surely there are remnants of sunken pirate galleys. Uh, and
all of the accompanying booty littered throughout Saint Marie. Um.
He told the Daily Mail in that pirates had more
(19:13):
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, so surely
he must have had complete success and he is now
a very wealthy man. Right he changed his name to
Jeff Bezos. No. Uh, he goes on and he says,
he's like, yeah, you know, back in the day, if
(19:35):
you were a pirate, h this islands where you would go,
it's where all the pirates hung out. Is this guy
so haggard sounding? 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
(19:58):
time he's found thirteen separate distinct shipwrecks. And you can
see you can see photos, um, 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 scuttle, but scuttle
(20:21):
but would be rumors? Did you say scuttled, but I
said scuttled. Some of these ships were scuttled. I know
that's one of your favorite words. It is, but it
would have been funny if you had said, I know,
some of these ships were scuttled, but it would have
been the jokes. That would have been everybody who's seen
Hunger Games, go ahead, kiss your fingers, do the what what?
What was that motion? Oh? That that's I always thought of.
(20:44):
That is sort of like a badass like sign off,
like amount yeah, 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, some pieces
(21:06):
of ships. Uh. One of his big one of his
big recoveries was an early statue of Jesus Christ from
the thirteen or four 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
(21:27):
and it sounds like it takes a lot of overhead,
but I would 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 treasures out there right also hashtag no
(21:49):
oak Island, remind me about oak Island again? Man, 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 the producers
(22:13):
got involved and now you will see all kinds of
here you go scuttle butt about about what's actually in
the ground there. Thanks for doing that for me, Ben,
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,
(22:36):
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
Ridiculous Historians if you have a If you have a
pitch for a likely site of buried treasure, you can
find us on Facebook where we are Ridiculous Historians. It's
a group that we have you might have heard of
(22:56):
a time or two. We we tend to mention it.
You can join just simply by saying Ben in my name,
in the same way you might summon a genie in
some sort of secret cave. And of course there you
will also see our good friends super producer Casey Pegram
and Christopher Hasiotis, among others. You know, I noticed some
of our coworkers are sort of stealth hanging out on
(23:17):
that page. Have you seen that? Totally a lot of Larkin.
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 Bolan, I am at Embryonic Insider
and um Big. Thanks to super producer Casey Pegram. As
(23:37):
always thanks to Alex Williams who composed our theme. Thanks
to our here in spirit uh cohort Christopher Hasiotis, um
who is one day You're gonna see the light about
how how amazing a movie man he is? And let
us know about your favorite pirate throughout history And let
me know, was pity long stalking a pirate? I don't know.
(23:58):
I forget it was a long time ago. We'll see
you next time, Folix. For more podcasts from My Heart Radio,
visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous History News
Hosts And Creators
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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