Brit.Privateer

This question kind of occurred over at "Ask Historians" on Reddit. Lesson: people like to talk about drugs a lot: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1y0m6y/did_caribbean_pirates_smoke_cannabis/

Not sure. I don't think they are "servant to the company" kinds of servants, since they are wearing coarse osnaburg. By 1740, the practice of Absentee Plantation owners became a regular occurence, and so "servants acting as attorneys, managers, and overseers" became a frequent site. This article goes into great detail on the subject: Mason, Keith. “Absentee Planter and the Key Slave: Privilege, Patriarchalism, and Exploitation in the Early Eighteenth-Century Caribbean.” William and Mary Quarterly 70, no. 1 (January 2013): 79–102. Now, I know we've put to bed the idea of head-rags for sailors and seamen… BUT, this seems to be direct evidence that (at least common) colonists wore them. And these are from Jamaica to boot!! Should we have any reason to believe that 40-20 years earlier it would have been any different, fashion changes accepted (which didn't change all that fast for commoners)?? I think you missed something in that quote - "tied around their Head, AND A HAT ABOVE." The practice of wearing a cloth around the head under the hat has been documented before for this period. It's a practice that helps with issues such as preventing the oils of the body (via the head) soiling a hat, making a hat fit better, or (the most relevant in this case) to help with the rub/fit of a hat against a bare scalp or short-haired scalp. If we are talking about gentlemen, gentlemen wore wigs during this period. Wearing a wig usually required cutting of the hair or keeping very short hair. Unfortunately for the wearer, the rubbing and regrown of hair also caused itching. I would be careful about trying to apply the Rackham, Read, and Bonny case to things - it's one case, and it's an exceptional case to the norm. If Rackham did wear Calico a lot (and wasn't something Johnson made up, which wouldn't be surprising), the reason a period writer noted it was because, normally, sailors disliked straight cotton clothes (as in from the cotton plant, not the wool cotton). Attempts at selling blue cotton shirts to sailors repeatedly failed - sailors and the lower class had a tradition of wearing linen and linen was more durable. Jack Rackham probably stood out for his odd choice.

You found a reference to a period source, good find. I can fill in some more precise details here about it: It's from Charles Leslie, A New History of Jamaica from the Earliest Accounts, to the Taking of Porto Bello by Vice-Admiral Vernon. In Thirteen Letters from a Gentleman to his Friend, 2nd Edition (London: Printed for J. Hodges, 1740). Your particular quotes are from the second letter, pages 30, 34-37.

Actually, this wouldn't be the first time New Jersey played host to a story about Blackbeard's Treasure. I'll quote Kevin Duffus in his book about Blackbeard, page 199: There have been so many Blackbeard treasure stories over the past 300 years. It seems like almost every state along the eastern seaboard has one. Remember, buried treasure stories have been popular on the American coast since the eighteenth century. If pirates didn't bury it, it was Spaniards, or some other group. Now, to this poster. Let's dissect what they have to say: Then why are you asking for our help when you won't even reveal details of what you have found so far in terms of evidence? How do you expect us to help? This already sounds like a fantasy story written by George Lucas or someone like that for a film. If you are going take this seriously, why would this crew, who all were supposed to have shares of the treasure they stole, go out of their way to travel all the way to New Jersey (which, by the way, you didn't even mention what part of New Jersey it was) to hide it like this? Also, what treasure did he hide? His main treasure came in the form of slaves and sugar. It's not like him and his crew had a huge hoard of treasure to hide - that crew stayed mainly in the Caribbean and didn't take huge treasure fleets out in the Red Sea. If that were the case, we would all know about it and it would have been reported on, especially if actual archaeologists were involved. Also, which archaeologists, which treasure hunters? A lot of vague information in this story You really expect this to be believed? Who died? What are the names of the people who died? How would this not be reported with MULTIPLE deaths? You don't even provide a number of deaths. Vague again. Any documentation on that? Because money for that kind of stuff could have come from, I don't know, maybe the tax payers? It doesn't help you didn't name the town this all took place in. Because a second hand story from someone else and a TV documentary are the most reliable sources for this kind of stuff. Ask your friend in Washington State if one of the guys in the documentary looked like this: http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/000/277/569/eb0.jpg Why do you need something that says "I found the site, I have the answer" when you just said "I have found the cave entrance...I know EXACTLY where it is and know where the empty treasure room is." You just contradicted yourself. If you were, you would know better than to engage in this kind of treasure hunting junk. Also, what does "so on" refer to? That I do believe, of all of this - you're on your way to being a FICTION writer for sure. This all smells to high heaven of bull s... Either you're a troll, are in a desperate cry for attention, want research for another project, or was potentially drunk or high when writing this. This thread does not belong in Captain Twill, it should be in "The Skull & Quill Society" section of this forum. Also, for those of you who are going to say "but it could have some truth to it," as far as I'm concerned, it's the burden of the original poster to demonstrate that anything remotely claimed in this post is true. I wouldn't be surprised if this story was 100% fabricated by the poster (and not a legend passed on in the area, though we don't even know what that area is).

"I will be ommiting some details because I have done this research and have found evidence of the story proving the tale to have at the very least, a good amount of fact to it." Yea... Have fun with that story. Let us know when you bring up actual legitimate documentation and not some promise that "oh yea, it's legit." Then we'll talk. Otherwise, hello Blackbeard legend number 1435.

Jacobites and the 1721 Act for the More Effectual Suppression of Piracy? I had to introduce people to the idea that pirates weren't radical anti-capitalist liberties, one step at a time. I suspect half my listening audience thought Jacobites never heard of them before and one man probably thought it was a new brand of crisps.

Part 2 of the Podcast is up: Here is the discussion thread on reddit for this podcast: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2dmvnr/the_askhistorians_podcast_episode_17_discussion/ To listen, eithert go here: http://askhistorians.libsyn.com/askhistorians-podcast-016-golden-age-of-pirates-part-2 and click "Pod" that is next to the title and on the page it brings you to right click and select "save as" to download the podcast. OR - It's also available on Stitcher http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/tas-stacey/the-askhistorians-podcast and on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-askhistorians-podcast/id812302476?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D8 Have a listen, enjoy, and I would love to know what you all think.

Also, I should point out at some point that I do get the interviewer to plug the Beaufort Pirate Invasion - I thought that would be a nice thing to do.

The AskHistorians Podcast - Golden Age of Pirate - Featuring ME, and the other expert from r/AskHistorians on pirate history. (This is a 2-part episode, the other part will come out 2 weeks from now - for now, I have posted part 1 here, I'll put the link to part 2 when it comes out in 2 weeks). Here is the discussion thread on reddit for this podcast: http://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/2cbyjk/the_askhistorians_podcast_episode_16_discussion/ To listen, eithert go here: http://askhistorians.libsyn.com/askhistorians-podcast-016-golden-age-of-pirates and click "Pod" that is next to the title and on the page it brings you to right click and select "save as" to download the podcast. OR - It's also available on Stitcher http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/tas-stacey/the-askhistorians-podcast and on iTunes https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-askhistorians-podcast/id812302476?mt=2&ign-mpt=uo%3D8. Have a listen, enjoy, and I would love to know what you all think.

Review of Ed T. Fox,, ed. Pirates in Their Own Words: Eye-Witness Accounts of the “Golden Age” of Piracy, 1690-1728. Fox Historical, 2014. http://www.lulu.com/shop/et-fox/pirates-in-their-own-words/hardcover/product-21700684.html http://www.lulu.com/shop/et-fox/pirates-in-their-own-words/paperback/product-21707029.html http://www.lulu.com/shop/et-fox/pirates-in-their-own-words/ebook/product-21708777.html In the world of transcribed published primary sources for pirate history in the 1690s-1720s, the selection is limited. But Dr. Fox’s new collection of 76 primary source documents of varying length (from short letters and testimonies to trial transcripts) is a refreshing new edition to the study of pirate history. Before this work, the most recent large collection of Golden Age of Piracy-specific documents came in the form of Joel Baer’s 4-Volume work. Baer’s work, while remarkable, mostly concentrated on large works and trials. His selection was also of the more well-known primary sources for pirate history (in particular, the trials). One other concerning issue is the availability – the set is rarely seen outside of a selection of libraries reference sections. On the other hand, Fox’s work is comprised of numerically more works, a mix of documents in terms of notoriety in pirate history, and more wide availability since Fox’s work is the first of these pirate document collections to be available through digital download. The selection of sources presented in this collection cover the entire width of the Golden Age of Piracy of 1690 to 1728, and only that era. The other collections often branched out to cover piracy before and after this period. The collection also tries it’s best to bring the voice of the pirates themselves forward, which explains the title of this work, “Pirates in their Own Words.” But, as the introductions written by Dr. Fox at the beginning of each document explains, sifting through the bias of period documents is much easier said than done. But many of the documents are also from witnesses of piracy and/or victims of piracy. The selection of the documents brings about many intriguing pieces of information and insights into the lives and actions of pirates. Some of the documents, I’ve personally heard about, but never seen before. This includes letters from a wife and another from a widow of pirates in Madagascar in the 1690s. Overall, this collection has a strong representation of pirates serving in the 1690s, likely a byproduct of Dr. Fox’s work on pirate Henry Every’s history (that eventually produced the book, King of the Pirates). Another work that attracted my attention was a thorough description of a battle with a pirate – since battle accounts with pirates are relatively rare (since many encounters with pirates resulted with the civilian target surrendering instead of fighting). Finally, it was with great joy to see that the work of Jacob du Bucquoy is being translated after all these years (the non-English works about piracy from the era often go neglected in studies of piracy). For those that study pirate history, especially those looking to approach it from an academic level, it is essential to look at the original documents (and not just Charles Johnson’s General History of Pyracy). With collections of transcribed documents only coming to light on rare occasions, not to mention be available to a more general audience, Pirates in their Own Words is a priceless publication to possess, and who better to bring such sources to us than an academic historian of piracy whose work is helping bring new light to pirate history.

You said barefoot twice? Any reason? I should note that expect another adaption of Peter Pan coming to theaters in June of 2015 through Warner Brothers. Its the one of three that has actually made it to production of recently (the other two, one from Disney and the other from Sony both are stuck in development hell for now and show no signs of progressing). Also " everyone knows real pirates wore boots" - good thing you added a symbol to denote sarcasm, a trip through captain twill threads here explains why.

If you are a college student/professor/associate at a institute that invests in good history databases, there's a good chance that you have access to a British Newspaper database that covers papers from 1600-1900. That's where I got the newspaper account and transcribed it myself for that facebook post linked by Mission.

Actually, we don't know the age of Blackbeard by period documents. The claim that he was between ages 35-40 is conjecture from a writer on Blackbeard history, Robert Lee, in the 1970s. His claim in on pg 4 of his book (hardcover first edition anyway) and his footnote for that fact is simply, "This is based upon pictures found in books published in England shortly after his death and deductions from general accounts of his activities." Those pictures are certainly those that accompanied Charles Johnson's General History of Pyracy in 1724 - and Johnson never makes a claim to his age, and the illustrator never saw Blackbeard in real life (and neither did any of the other illustrators afterwards) and none of the other documents about Blackbeard from the period talk about age. The illustrators just worked with a very minimal description and worked with imagination from there. It should be no basis for giving him an age. More recent experts on Blackbeard, such as Kevin Duffus, point out that this "fact" about Blackbeard originated with Lee and has no basis (but it still gets passed around). A more reasonable estimate would be late 20s, based on a survey of pirates done by pirate historian Marcus Rediker that looked into ages of pirate crew members and looked at ages of officers and such.

Oh, so like Jane Austen then? Blackadder revealed that: Edmund: Yes, I gave myself a female pseudonym. Everybody's doing it these days: Mrs. Ratcliffe, Jane Austen-- Baldric: What, Jane Austen's a man? Edmund: Of course -- a huge Yorkshireman with a beard like a rhododendron bush. Baldric: Oh, quite a small one, then? Edmund: Well, compared to Dorothy Wordsworth's, certainly. James Boswell is the only real woman writing at the moment, and that's just because she wants to get inside Johnson's britches.

I actually say that at times when aggrivated with authorship of General History of Pyracy discussions, but I spin it as "Apparently, Defoe wrote everything in England from 1700-1730, unless Johnathan Swift wrote it."

Either it was Defoe or a really screwed up Scotsman.

I was about to say, the Oxford English Dictionary says the term hurricane in the English language has plenty of use all the way back to the mid sixteenth century. Also, interesting you list Alexander Hamilton's A New Account of the East Indies - we don't know much about the author besides what he wrote in that book. Scholars haven't found much value in his work because his descriptions and depictions of places and events in India and Asia are shown to be pretty mixed up or inaccurate. It seems that Hamilton wasn't the best person for writing about such things. I do wonder how good his nautical descriptions are though.

Sorry, I've seen people harped upon here in North Carolina for confusing places for being in South Carolina. Habit I guess. Doesn't help the two states also share a few place names in common (for instance, there are towns named Greenville in both North and South Carolina).

That's strange, I had not heard this reason before. I always thought they stayed in the Cape Fear area to careen and repair vessels. I will have to look around later to see if I can find anything on this. One other note (besides Cape Fear is in North Carolina, so he was not hanging out in South Carolina), I noticed this in terms of when hurricane season begins and ends for southeastern North Carolina: http://www.myreporter.com/?p=1125 I can testify to this, I was living in North Carolina in late August 2011 and that's when we got hit by a small hurricane. While habitation of North Carolina at the point Stede Bonnet was there hadn't been terribly long, it's possible locals could have learned this and informed Bonnet's crew. With that information, I would have thought Bonnet would run south - but I suspect he stayed to repair and careen, if not hope for something else happening where he could get out of that way of life.

I like it, finding the origins of the story and the stereotype. I suspect back then that the law may have had a number of women in prison that the system said were prostitutes, but, we are taking the word of 17th century French courts that were probably just trying to process through people as quickly as possible. Wouldn't be surprised if there were a number of women (and men) in jail for vague or false reasons. "That person is poor, is accused of thieving and prostitution, she says not guilty but the accuser does, seems about right. Guilty, ___ years in prison, next - we have 20 more cases today to get done." 17th and early 18th century Canada - written about quite a bit by Canadians, but their history is not that well known outside of Canada it always seems. I am often impressed with Canadian research efforts into obscure topics or those things that are not that interesting initially (their monographs on weapons for the 17th and early 18th century are amazing).

After some searching, I've struck garlic! French that is. I think I found your source. The French priest who traveled the French Caribbean at this time, Jean-Baptiste Du Tertre, seemed to have a lot of thoughts on women in the Caribbean during this time. I know of this because of previews from the book The Libertine Colony: Creolization in the Early French Caribbean. Author Doris Garraway says of Du Tertre, "...Du Tertre portrays European women as the indispensable catalyst for the emergence of a social order. In his narrative of colonial origins, there was once a land of disparate, nomadic brutes, who made their living trading pelts, raiding ships, producing crops, and the like, until God brought French women to domesticate them." (pg 127). "According to Du Tetre, the practice of amassing women from in and around Paris began around 1640." (pg 128). For what you are interesting in (and anyone interested in further studying the French Buccaneers), you might want to obtain The Libertine Colony. It's published by a reputable press, Duke, where the past decade research into French Caribbean colonies and slavery has been a huge craze (in other words, you couldn't ask for a better place to see such a book published from). http://www.amazon.com/The-Libertine-Colony-Creolization-Caribbean/dp/0822334658 Even more good news, Du Tetre's works are readily available for free and downloadable. But there there is one catch - I couldn't find any translations to English. Why? I suspect that since some French scholars tried to discredit the accuracy of such works so much that no one thought it would be worth it (besides the fact that it's not a subject normally approached by English speakers until recently). But Doris Garraway appears to have a goal here of showing that they are still useful. Anyway, that's what I can give you in response to an original source. If the number reported is correct, its probably sitting in that source. If not, maybe it will give you the correct number (if it ever existed and wasn't an accidental swapping of number and date), or maybe Garraway's secondary source might have it (remember, you can only preview so many pages online, so who knows what else is in there). On another note, the idea that the, "prison system wished to empty their dungeons of female prostitutes, thieves and petty criminals," is a reasonable one. It wasn't easy to recruit people to go live in the Caribbean, especially in the seventeenth century. Many whites saw it as a death trap for white people (disease), and a place where Europeans might become uncivilized and savage (this idea remained well into the 19th century, with the 1880s and 1890s seeing the beginning of changing this concept with the introduction of tropical cruises and resorts coming around and people started marketing the tropical climates as actually good for health, not altering of your morals, and as a reward for working hard in the cold North). The English engaged in transferring criminals to work in and populate colonies frequently. After about 1650 or so, with a number of colonies established with a number of men, and the colonies finally becoming profitable, the organizers of colonies wanted to maintain and keep a population to continue profits. It seemed as though the closer one got to the equator, the fewer women there would be (the New England colonies had nowhere near this problem, they were pretty self sustaining and had only minimal immigration after the 1650s, and grew out of sheer population fertility). So, colonies want to keep colonies growing, and there are mostly men. It already sucks living in this warm environment remote from European civilization, and tons of people went back to Europe after working a few years in the colonies (if they survived). The men are demanding more women for the colonies. If that is what will get them to stay (and if the by product of them pairing up might be giving birth to a population of people more acclimatized to living there, and therefore doing things for the colony that could make money), the colony organizers and governments therefore realized that it was in their interest to try their best to get women to the colonies. Even though slavery of Africans was already well started by this point, it was the second half of the seventeenth century that established said slaves as the dominant work force in these warm climate colonies. But, even with that, it was still desired that a small population of white people be maintained in colonies to oversee this slave workforce and defend the colony from possible attack. Hope any of this helps what you're working on. What is this for anyway Mission?

I think you pinpointed what Black Sails is doing. I'm not sure I absolutely buy the whole "this is equivalent to this in modern slang" thing. To be honest, if I want to get that kind of language, there are tons of other shows that do that already, or places in real life where one can hear that for free. Sometimes I think we don't give the audience enough credit - and doing this almost feels like you're calling your audience dumb (I mean, sure, plenty of teenage boys are probably watching this with joy for all the swearing and nudity, but that doesn't mean you have to insult their intelligence). Can't period language have some entertaining value? Rather than drag everything down to the lowest common denominator, how about trying to press forward for quality once in a while? It's just another thing that I think can make it hard to get into the show.

From what I've heard, it's been reduced to "Inspired by the book The Republic of Pirates." This wouldn't be the first time a script or a book of any kind has it's rights purchased and Hollywood tears it apart and takes it quite far from it's original form practically to the point of being unrecognizable. Also, in the case of non-fiction, having a book that people know about will add a false sense of authority to the show (emphasize false, since anyone who does a little critical analysis will realize it doesn't mean a thing considering how far they are removing the show from the book's narrative). From what I've seen of the plot they are developing - it strangely sounds like they are ripping off either Hallmark's Blackbeard film or Robert Newton's 1952 Blackbeard the Pirate film (which I'm pretty sure Hallmark got heavy inspiration from). They've been doing crazing stuff with the Blackbeard story for a long time. The previously mentioned 1952 film pits Blackbeard against Sir Henry Morgan - who I'm not even sure were ever even alive at the same time, let alone sailed together at one point and turned into Morgan hunting down Blackbeard. You want to talk about confusing people? Add to that Blackbeard (who is played by Robert Newton, the inventor of the stereotypical pirate accent we know so well today) SPOILER, dies at the end by being buried by his own men in the sand at the beach up to his neck and drowning as the tide comes in. Is it accurate to say that Blackbeard has become literature's, art's, and Hollywood's honey pot for pirate stories? Even though we have people like Kevin Duffus here trying their best to make the proper information available, a large number of people will always seem to want what Hollywood keeps on putting out.

We should remember there's a difference between free range proponents today and "free proponents" of back then. I suspect that today's advocates have more concern for the well being and nice treatment of the pig as an animal - while back then I suspect they were looking for a better quality product. And letting the pigs run in Britain at that time would have meant taking the pigs to a place to go rooting around for nutrients like acorns (or penning them up into a bigger area for them to pick over). The pigs serve a great purpose in being taken to areas to go root, helping clear land for further cultivation. The pigs will get rid of all the acorns and other edible things within their reach, which helps get the land ready for whatever cultivation one wishes to engage in (easier and probably more effective than trying to do it by your own hand). But then there was the issue of having to herd the pigs to and fro between area they are getting fed and where they are being kept. You might loose a pig and it takes workers to herd them. Keeping them in a pen and bringing food to them reduces chance of loosing them and requires less hours from the workers. On the flip side, early colonial pigs were not penned in that often and allowed to roam free and created large amounts of feral pigs. Virginia is especially known for this. Why? Similar problems that Jamaica had, Virginia had in the early 17th century. It wasn't sugarcane that took everyone's attention in Virginia, it was tobacco. With workmen being in short supply in Virginia, once tobacco became the realized cash crop, everyone went whole hog (pun intended) for growing it. So, with so few workers around, taking the time to cut the wood and establish fences that could keep animals in our out of properties (including the pigs) was not really done much. Pigs roamed the streets of settlements eating trash from the streets. Of course, this practice eventually went away later in the 17th century when a population with workers established itself and African-based slavery became the dominant labor force. Roaming pigs really ticked off American Indians because said pigs would root up the crops of American Indians. Another interesting point, while it's known that plenty of early Europeans let pigs and other animals loose (accidental or otherwise) and left, some islands along coasts throughout the colonies of America had pigs left by settlers where the pigs could roam without a fence (water worked for that) and the colonists could go back and pick up pigs as needed. These islands would often get the name of hog island, so if you see a local island named hog island, you probably can guess why it's called that. It's interesting what history studies will do to you, I apparently know a lot about pigs and their influence on Atlantic world history.

Besides the fact that the title of the article, "The Last Days of Blackbeard," was not a particularly original idea, there are a few questionable statements. Woodard wrote: "Many intriguing questions remain unanswered—from the status of former slaves to the origins of principle figures like Blackbeard." There is absolutely no question that all 60 black men aboard the sloop Adventure were slaves—this can be proven through a number of deeds of Beaufort County, NC, and the Colonial Records of NC. On the other hand, there is no evidence that Black Beard built a home at Bath. Gov. Eden did not grant full salvage rights to the French ship a day after Black Beard made his midnight visit to Tobias Knight's house on Sep. 14—the Vice-Admiralty hearing took place at Bath on Sep. 24. Captain Ellis Brand did not lead a "contingent of armed men overland on horseback." A letter written by Captain George Gordon to the Lords of Admiralty on 14 Sep. 1721 stated that Brand "went by land a single gentleman, and a Servant to apprehend Thatch." When Maynard returned to Virginia, he took with him 15 suspected pirates (not 14), nine white and six black. Only five blacks were held for trial on Mar. 12, 1718/19 because by then, Caesar had been released. The forthcoming edition of my book reveals that Caesar returned to Bath, but also that he had been a slave residing at Bath since at least 1709. Respectfully, Kevin Duffus author of the 2008 book, The Last Days of Black Beard the Pirate Fourth edition to be released March 2014 I knew you would provide interesting commentary to that article. How many changes have you made to your book by the way? I obtained a signed copy of your 2011 edition while in Raleigh, but would hate to miss additional information. Glad to hear that your book is doing well enough to warrant a fourth edition (by the odd chance, are you releasing another edition since interest in Blackbeard will be increased again this winter of 2014-2015 because of NBC?).