Fox

Two small points: Forgive my idiocy, but is that not a good pictoral example of the pistols on silk slings that everyone was pooh-poohing earlier in the thread? Not necessarily, I usually wear my sword beneath my coat and it sticks out through the side vent.

Not off the top of my head, but I know a man who might. I'll email him and see what he says.

To quote something I read recently "I am not so egotistical as to suppose that my positions are invariably correct, my arguments always unanswerable or my statements to be swallowed without consideration..." If I state something or express an opinion it is because I believe it. If I believe it then it is because I have some cause to believe it. If it can be shown that I am wrong then I'll gladly concede, so there's no need to start getting snide just because I disagree with you. In this particular case though the 1857 piece (thankyou very much for taking the time to post it) makes no mention of the platforms and what-not supposedly found by the early excavators, so my original point still stands that the first we ever hear of oak platforms and coconut matting comes after 1860, more than half a century after their supposed discovery, from someone completely unconnected with their discovery and who had a very strong ulterior motive in making the pit sound more interesting than in fact it was. :) So, pending any other early reports surfacing I'll repeat my original assertion: there's no evidence that McGinnis and his friends, or the Onslow Company, found anything of interest in the pit. There's no evidence that they found oak log platforms or coconut matting or that later expeditions found stone tablets with coded messages or man-made flood tunnels. There is no evidence that any such thing as the "Money Pit" really exists, or ever existed except in the imagination of small boys and credulous adults. There might be a fabulous Templar/Kidd/Inca/Alien/<insert wacky theory here> treasure buried at Oak Island. The Holy Grail and the rare "Pope John Paul" issue of Playboy might be buried in my garden. The evidence is just as good for either supposition.

I would be interested to know exactly what the 1857 Liverpool Transcript article said. I'm not suggesting that nobody had ever heard of Oak Island prior to 1860, merely that the essential elements of the legend (the oak platforms etc) cannot be traced with any certainty to any time earlier than that. Since I am working from memory 1860 was an approximate date (I thought it was the actual date, but that might well be my mind playing tricks on me) and I may in fact be thinking of the 1857 article. Incidentally, are you sure you're not thinking of the 1862 Liverpool Transcript article written by J.B. McCully? However, even if the 1857 article does list all the common elements of the legend, that is not really any less dubious than an article of 1860 (or thereabouts) is it? The fact remains that the description of all these wonderful things discovered in the Money Pit still originates from a heresay source dating to at least half a century after the discovery and initial excavations. :) If McGinnis himself had reported finding oak platforms or the Onslow Company had kept records of their "discoveries" then it would still be suspect, but at least it would be first hand. As it is though, the only records we have of those crucial early finds (which really have formed the basis of every subsequent excavation attempt) are extremely dubious, coming from non-contemporary sources with known ulterior motives. The earliest first hand account of the diggings at Oak Island (pending the 1857 article) appears to be the 1862 article by McCully who describes taking part in the boring sometime after 1849 (presumably 1850 or later). In that article even McCully himself admits that he can't be certain about what was found in the early excavations! Subsequent, better recorded excavations have failed to find any sign of the oak platforms, coconut matting, or flood tunnel. The artefacts reportedly recovered from the pit pre-1860(ish) have all entirely disappeared - rather conveniently. I'm sorry, the Oak Island legend is attractive but you've really got to be kidding yourself if you take any of it seriously. There is no evidence that there was ever anything found on Oak Island

Right back at ya I'm afraid Cap'n In 1860 two prospective treasure hunters gave a news-paper interview outlining the stuff so far found on Oak Island. They were hoping to attract investors and on the back of that interview collected several thousand dollars. Unfortunately they also created a lot of credence in their summary. Prior to that 1860 interview there is absolutely no record whatsoever of anything being found. There are no Onslow Company reports to tell us about layers of flag-stones or logs or anything else, everything we "know" about Oak Island excavations prior to 1860 comes from that single, and frankly rather dubious, newspaper piece. The story has some massive massive flaws in it, not the least of which is that having supposedly gone to such lengths to hide something the original treasure-buriers apparently left such obvious clues as to the whereabouts of the pit that a 12 year old boy was able to find it?!?! I don't think so. The reason so many people have lost fortunes (and sadly one or two of them have lost their lives) chasing after the Oak Island treasure is that they've believed everything they've been told about layers of logs and coconut matting, they've believed the reports of treasure chests being found by core drilling and they've believed the stuff about fragments of stone engraved with coded messages being found. Sadly, in actual truth, nothing of the kind can be shown to have been found.

Thanks Cascabel Like I said, I've never really looked into belt hooks, but three or four examples (and yes, I should have thought of those all-iron Scottish things) is enough to convince me they had 'em.

I agree it looks impractical. On the other hand if it were attached to a belt too then the neck strap would be partially redundant. You're effectively saying "that doesn't look like it would work therefore the picture must be wrong", which is, with the greatest of respect, speculation. Maybe (and this is equaly speculative, and thus equally valid) the cartridge box on a neck strap was stupid and impractical. Let's face it, there's not a massive number of pictures showing it, documentary evidence is relatively limited and it was, at best, a short lived fashion. Maybe it wasn't attached to a waistbelt and that's why it was quickly replaced with something more practical. Alternatively, maybe it was attached by some means other than a waist belt. perhaps there's a button hole on the back that attaches to the front of the coat to stop it swinging. (I'm not seriously suggesting that that was the case, merely pointing out the possibilities). Rather than basing our trust of evidence on our own interpretation, let us base our interpretation on the evidence. FWIW, I really don't think much of the hilt of that sword BB'd depicted with... Does Gilkerson offer any examples of 1600s belt hooks?

Absolutely, there might be a fabulous treasure located on Oak Island. By the same token though the Holy Grail and the complete Shakespeare manuscripts might be buried in my garden. The evidence for either is just as good, and the chances are just as high for either case. The sum evidence (actual evidence mind, not made up stuff) for there being anything buried on Oak Island is that in 1795 Daniel McGinnis found a dip in the ground in a clearing in the undergrowth with a block and tackle hanging from a nearby tree. That's it. Until it was landscaped in the late 80s there were dips and holes all over my garden too.

I've got plenty of adventure. Digging whacking great holes to find a non-existent treasure just doesn't seem very adventurous to me. Gimme a jungle and some pygmies with blow-pipes and a fabulous idol and a big rolling boulder and some booby-traps (how I love to fall into booby-traps) and a fedora and a bloke with a big scimitar anyday... actually, that might make a good film... Would "because if I had the dough I think a beautiful island in the South Seas might be nicer" be an acceptable answer?

The argument about period illustrations is a complex one, and to a huge extent depends on what you're trying to prove or disprove by them. Let us take, for example, the illustrations that accompanied Johnson's General History, which would include all but the buccaneer picture of those I just posted - though they do come from different editions of the book. What do we know about the illustrations? The Blackbeard picture is from the first (1724) edition, the Roberts picture is from the third (1726) edition, but based on that in the first edition, the Rackham picture is from the third edition and the Bonny and Read pictures are from the first Dutch edition (1725). Therefore, all of the pictures are broadly contemporary with their subjects in terms of time. Where they fall down is that it is unlikely the illustrator of any of those editions of Johnson actually saw the people he was drawing. OK, so we can't say that we know what Roberts looked like, or how big BB's nose was. That kind of detail must be made up by the artist(s). However, that doesn't mean that we can't believe anything in the pictures. The picture of Roberts is clearly based on the written description of him to be found in the text, in which he is described as wearing a red damask waistcoat. If we look at the picture we can see that he is indeed wearing a damask waistcoat - this is important, he's not wearing a coat, he's wearing a waistcoat. The artist clearly knew what a waistcoat looked like, he'd have seen several of them every day, so he drew one. We can't use the picture of Roberts to say what he looked like, but it's a damn good illustration of a waistcoat circa 1720. Similarly, just because the artist who illustrated the first edition hadn't met BB doesn't mean for a second that he'd never seen a cartridge box. The illustrator of the Dutch edition may never have seen Bonny and Read, but he knew they disguised themselves as men so he drew them in typical English sailors' clothing of the time, with which he was probably pretty familiar (Holland being a maritime nation and all that) These artists didn't live in a box. They lived in the real world and they knew what things looked like. So too did their audience, so they had to be accurate to a certain degree. No, we can't treat period illustrations as photographs, we can't pretend that they are 100% accurate (though of course, we don't know that they're not), but it would be incredibly stupid to dismiss them as fanciful and inaccurate. If we dismiss the reasonable number of period illustrations (whose consistency goes a long way to verifying their accuracy btw), what else are we going to base our conclusions on? There are other sources (written, archaeological etc) but the wealth of pictures available to us is probably the best and largest source of information about the appearance of pirates and seamen of the GAoP. Now, does anyone have any evidence for GAoP period belt hooks?

CP, If you wanted to get involved in some pirate silliness next year I think some sort of appearance at the SWPF next year could be arranged. Maybe you could do some kind of signing session and a half hour reading for younger visitors or something like that. I don't know what effect it would have on your sales (you'd certainly sell half a dozen copies...) but I can guarantee the finest funnest weekend you've had for a long time. Feel free to respond here, PM me, or better still email me direct if you think you might be interested.

THERE'S NOTHING THERE!!! No secrets, no treasure, no booby traps, not even a damn pit! There might have been archaeology once, but that's not there any more either. Sorry for the shouting, just hoping that anyone stupid enough to think about bidding on it might hear.

May I offer these into the melting pot? Anne Bonny with a pair of holsters similar to Blackbeard's, but at right angles. They look to me like slightly larger pistols too. Mary Read with similar arrangement. What interests me about this picture is that her sword, axe, and brace of pistol all seem to be on the same baldrick Jack Rackham with similar holsters again, but opening the opposite way A buccaneer of about 1700 with his pistol shoved into a sash. I can't make out what's going on with Roberts' pistols here, but it might be of use to someone. Another, slightly earlier than Story's, view of BB. He seems to just have rings on his bandoleer. Note: He is very clearly not wearing a belt over his coat, his cartridge box is only suspended round his neck. I know there has been some debate in the past about whether it was always secured to the belt too, and here is a very clear answer. OK, time for me to maybe upset people. I can't help noticing that none of these pictures seem to show pistols held on by belt clips. Surely, the belt clip would make most of those precarious looking devices redundant? Does anyone have any evidence on the origin of belt clips for pistols, and whether they do actually date back as far as the GAoP? I'm not saying they don't, I've never looked into it, but it does just seem to be taken for granted...

I believe the information Jib is after is spread over several threads/posts, so with the indulgence of those present I'll recap. "Jolie Rouge" is one theory about the origin of the term "jolly roger", but it is almost certainly not true. The term "Old Roger" was being applied to pirate flags a couple of decades before the term "jolly roger", so it's most likely that that is the origin. Of course, why "Old Roger" is open to debate (possibly, but not definitely, it comes from Roger being a name for the devil). The plain red flag certainly meant "unless you surrender now you will receive no quarter", and may also have meant "I accept no quarter", but I think the latter meaning was probably less universal. In terms of pirate jolly rogers with skeletal motifs (but not always skull and cross bones) then red probably came first, but only in as much as the first example of a piratical jolly roger was red. However, it was pretty much an isolated incident and the next mention of a jolly roger is black so to say that they started red and later became black is probably misleading. For over half the pirate flags we know about we only have description of the motifs, not the colours, so we just can't tell what colour they were. Privateer George Shelvocke believed (in 1718) that yellow was the most common colour for pirate flags (with black markings), but by the mid 1720s black seems to have been most common. Other than that we know of red jolly rogers, white, and blue, being flown by pirates of the GAoP. Of course, not all flags flown by GAoP pirates were jolly rogers. The flag in my signature for example was one of Thomas Anstis'.

Something that I have noticed in the last 7 or 8 years over here is the scary level of education that some members of the public have about what we do. Perhaps the reason we don't have Ren Faires over here is simply because the majority of the public in the UK (probably 70%) do care if we get it wrong, and do have a fairly shrewd idea about what is right and wrong (and I'm using the word "wrong" on an authenticity level, not on some kind of ethical level). I'm not suggesting that everyone knows how many buttons should be on an ASC waistcoat or exactly what year the snaphaunce lock was invented, but you stick a brown bess musket in a 17thC display and someone will mention it at least every 10 minutes. There's been a massive increase in the number of historical documentaries made in a popular style over here for the TV, and of course, endless historical dramas like Sharpe and Hornblower (I'm sure there's mroe now than ever there was before), and more and mroe people are watching them. I think it's this increase in historical TV which is encouraging people to take mroe of an interest in their heritage, and for me at least, it's a bit of an insult to let that new-found interest go to waste by not doing my best. On the other hand there are still people who just want to be entertained (I believe philistines is the correct term), and for them we do have medieval "knights" in their bike-boots and velvet cloaks... Alas, most pirate re-enactment over here is on a similar sort of level. This wasn't going to be a tirade but unless I stop typing soon it's likely to become one.

This is all most amusing to me. Over here we don't have anything that compares with Ren Faire - my mind is all a-boggle.

Thanks Sir Eric, and may I return the honour by saying what an excellent appraisal of UTBF that was. Hmmm, pirate thesis...

My babies... As well as the guitars, mandolin and bouzouki pictured I also play tin whistle, bit of bass guitar and double-bass, bit of flute, bodhran, bit of banjo (5 string). I've got some old English bagpipes that need some repair work before I can learn to play them and I'm in the process of building a hurgy-gurdy. Oh, and I can just about scrape a tune or two out of the concertina and melodeon that live on top of the harmonium (which I can't play more than one finger at a time). I did start to learn the fiddle, but I just couldn't get my guitarist's fingers to hold the bow right and after 18 months of making no progress and alienating all of my friends, family and neighbours I decided to swallow my pride and give in. I play all sorts of music. The first band I played in was a blues band, and since then I've played rock, more blues, jazz, lots of folk-rock, and my latest ambition is to get a folk-rock shanty band off the ground.

There's no question that pirates were bad guys. By the very definition of the word if they don't commit robbery with violence then they're not pirates. The question of whether they were just bad guys is perhaps more interesting. A minor point, but I would drop references to "Master and Commander". a; it's not set during the golden age of piracy, but nearly a century later, and b; there are no pirates in it. If you're going to pursue the question of how accurate or not Hollywood's portrayal of pirates is then I would recommend taking a look at my site Pirate Mythtory. It's not so much about the obvious errors in popular media (undead pirates and all that OTT stuff), but about the kinds of misconceptions which we think we know all about, but perhaps don't. Don't want to blow my own trumpet, but you might find it useful. Whether writers in the 17/18th centuries would have had much political savvy is an interesting point, and I think the answer is a great big YES. Religious upheavals of the 16th century had tought people to question what they were told, to make up their own minds. Between 1642 and 1653 England was ravaged with civil war, precisely because of the differences between the will of the people and the will of the crown. Out of the civil war rose a number of short-lived, but politically important movements such as the Levellers and the Diggers. The Levellers were strongest in the army, and their influence spread wherever the army went. In 1649 they were so disillusioned by Cromwell's Republic (itself a radical idea) that they staged a mutiny. The mutiny was suppressed but the movement was not. Following the civil war England was the central state in a "Commonwealth" of countries, which would go on to become the British Empire, but were at that time ruled as republics. At the time of the Restoration in 1660 many Levellers left England and began new lives in the colonies. Perhaps less significant and certainly less successful was the civil war in France that was known as the Fronde, 1648-53. Members of the French Parlement opposed unfair new taxes and the excessive power of Cardinal Mazarin. However, the revolutionaries were defeated and in fact the French crown was able to strengthen itself and award itself extra power as a result. In the second half of the 17th century revolutionary ideas continued to ferment. The Glorious Revolution of 1688 was successful, not because the Lords wanted to exchange a Catholic James II for a Protestant William III, but because the people supported such a move. Neither let us overlook the importance of writers such as Hobbes and Locke in arousing public interest in radical politics during the 17thC. In America Nathaniel Bacon's manifesto and "Declaration of the People" of 1676 contain very strong overtones of issues and complaints that would resurface a century later and spark the American Revolution. One of the biggest issues of the day in the Royal Navy was the question of whether "Gentlemen Officers" (who were born into good and ancient families) were more suited to command ships and fleets than "Tarpaulin Officers" (who had the advantage of skill and experience but not birth), or vice-versa. By the time of the golden age of piracy most people, and particularly writers, were fairly politically astute. Perhaps one of the best, and indeed most pertinent examples of this is the second volume of Johnson's General History of the Pirates which suffers (IMHO) from extensive and overt political commentary, much to the detriment of the history it purports to record. ...sorry, what was the original question?

Forgive my ignorance, but isn't the whole point of research to look at the facts and the evidence and then draw conclusions from that. It's some years since I was in an English class at school but I'm sure I remember Mr Faludy telling me that conclusions come at the end, not the beginning. Seriously, if you're studying history then you're not going to impress anyone marking your essay if you dismiss evidence which doesn't fit in with your theory. However, in answer to your question, I suspect that the way officers were elected depended on a number of factors. For example, in an autocratic dictatorship (like Blackbeard's for example) it is unsurprising to find that the captain dished out rank and privilege to those friends of his whom he thought most deserving. In other, more democratic situations officers might be elected by the men - without checking I could be wrong but I'm sure there are one or two examples of officers being elected by the crews in Johnson. The main point about ship's officers, however they were appointed, is that they were probably chosen because of their ability. Whether elected by crew or by captain there's no sense in having a boatswain who can't tie a sheet-bend, or a pilot who can't write. FWIW, be careful how much importance you attach to the Quarter-Master. May I suggest a visit to this page.

Slighted by the suggestion that I hide from philosophical debate, here I am. (Though I would like to point out my long contribution to the Pirates as Terrorists thread ). Personally, I really don't buy the all-pervading democracy nonsense. Yeah, maybe some crews were more democratic than society of the time, but I suspect that in many cases the democracy in practice was that the bigger tougher guys got the votes. If my memory of Johnson is anything like reliable I can only recall one proper incident of what I would call the "democratic removal of an officer": when Vane's crew deposed him in favour of Rackham. I suppose that Phillips' demise was semi-democratic - the majority of his crew didn't like him so the killed him and his supporters. Kaizoku, Blackjohn's extract comes from the Roberts' chapter in Johnson's General History.

Actually I believe their use originated from a desire amongst officers that men should hold their necks straight, their heads up and have a more dignified soldierly look about them. If you think of the actual size of area protected by a leather stock - what's the point? (It reminds me of the oft-repeated notion that crescent gorgets, common in the 18thC for officers, developed as a protection against the tomahawks of the native Americans) I don't know the precise date of their origin but I believe they post-date the GAoP.

Pepys diary is one of the best sources for showing that human nature doesn't change with age. There's a great bit when he goes out to see one of Shakespeare's plays (possibly HenryV, but I might be mistaken) and reports that it wasn't bad but he didn't really like it much because he'd already read the book. How many times have you said "It wasn't a bad movie, but the book was better...?"

Ed is away from home at the moment so has very limited internet access and even more limited access to his notes and library. Its pretty much always been my belief that the various increases in piracy throughout history have been linked to post-war unemployment. With regards to socialist pirates I have long cherished an ambition to compare the number of post-civil war levellers (or their proteges) acting as buccaneers in the Caribbean in the 17thC. I've never quite got round to it, and am unlikely to do so any time soon so if one of you guys wouldn't mind checking it out and posting the results I'd be very grateful... Literacy: let us not forget that the late 17th-early 18thC saw a dramatic increase in "popular" writing, and more or less the birth of what we would describe as a novel. Defoe, Swift, and their contemporaries were perhaps fortunate to benefit from a significantly larger readership than their forbears.

The use of false flags was pretty widespread - I've even got a few examples of legitimate ships flying pirate flags to make themselves more intimidating. As to how many pirates flew pirate flags, it's difficult to say for sure. What we can say for sure though is that the practice was very widespread, and that by the mid 1720s the phrase "flying the black flag" was synonymous with "being a pirate". Of the pirates of the golden age I have found records of flags for about 50 or so pirate captains - certainly most of the well known ones. I think it must have been fairly common, for even that short lived pirate Richard Worley seems to have had at least 2 different flags.