Brit.Privateer

Well, it looks like my previous comments inspired a few people to think outside of the box with this, good. I never really thought that we would get rid of the name "Golden Age of Piracy." One thing that would be interesting to find out concerning the Golden Age of Piracy is when the name first come into significant use for describing any of the piratical actions from the 16th to early 19th centuries? I do wonder if any scholar has done work on Pirate History in Public Memory. Back when I studied Civil War history, I noticed how this concept - looking at how the public memory and perception of history over time that is - became popular. In the end, if I were forced to pick when the Golden Age of Piracy took place, 1691-1724. More specific than that is debatable. For the beginning date, when was the first recorded attack on civilian vessels in the Indian Ocean by a pirate coming from the Atlantic World? And for the ending date, I would go with the end of the last active pirates in the Low/Lowther family of pirates. But the problem with that is that Francis Spriggs was part of that bunch, and its not exactly clear where or if he died as a pirate. I suspect that he may have met his fate in Florida in 1725 at the hands of natives, especially when one takes into consideration how sparce and vague reports of attacks done by him get. While there are other acts of piracy that take place soon after in the rest of the 1720s, that doesn't mean they should count in the Golden Age. Robbery as a whole will always be in society as long as someone is desperate somewhere and as long as those same people are capable of making bad choices. Therefore, piracy will always be around - its just robbery at sea after all. If the Golden Age of Piracy is supposed to contain those pirates that had significant ties to one another and operated in large numbers for the time from the 1690s to 1720s, then 1724 is where you want to stop. Here is a related question, how do the Guardas Costas of the Caribbean that sailed during this period (and were often pirates or at least called pirates by English officials) fit into our definition of the era? How do they fit into our studies of pirates overall? For instance, of all those pirates Marcus Rediker described in his book on pirates and numbered at 5,000 overall during the 1710s and 1720s, does he include these Spanish raiders of questionable legality?

Never thought I would see anyone reference the assault on Fort Noherooka in North Carolina (where hundreds of Tuscarora Indians were killed and hundreds taken prisoner and sold into slavery). Dr. Larry Tise at East Carolina University is actually working on getting public awareness of that event since next year is the 300 aniversary of it (I've been working on it with him) Anyway, I love stuff like that Kevin, for it adds so much context to the pirate events of the time. Some writers on pirate history make pirate history feel like it took place in a vacuum and had minimal influence from the outside world. Thank goodness recent scholarship on pirates is finally tying in the politics of early eighteenth century world into this. Recent work by Ed Fox and Arne Bialewshewski have discussed the role of the Jacobite rebellions within the pirate world for example. Thank you for pursuing such history Mr. Duffus, and I hope to see some publications on the subject soon. But back to the thread topic of Defining the Golden Age of Piracy. Has anyone proposed that maybe we should do away with the term "Golden Age" outright? I feel like by this point in pirate historiography that the term "Golden Age of Piracy" has almost lost its meaning and is used to give the era a romantic feel to it (and an easier way in which to remember when this all took place). I think a more interesting question that might help people undestand and learn more about history during the period is - what allowed and what caused pirates to go sea, do so in large numbers, and operate over significant periods of time from the 16th to early 19th centuries? If answered correctly, one can learn a lot about the development of colonies, economics, politics, and more during this very important period in world history.

Someone here said something about cutlass blades being really sharp. That isn't necessarily true. The expert I know on this issue is Privateer Armoury, since they are the ones that explained this to me. When I ordered a fully functional cutlass from them, I though the blade was not that sharp. Actually, through talking with them and trying it out myself, the cutlass is sharp enough to do its job since it has so much weight behind the edge. Learn something everyday - you don't need a razor-sharp edge for a effective sword.

Hey, for those of you in the U.S., This version of Treasure Island will be available through Amazon.com on July 24th, both BluRay and DVD. http://www.amazon.com/Treasure-Island-Eddie-Izzard/dp/B007RMQ4MM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1339102821&sr=8-1 http://www.amazon.com/Treasure-island-Blu-Ray-Eddie-Izzard/dp/B007RMQ52Q/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1339102821&sr=8-2

Actually...it comes from this: http://www.armada.mde.es/ArmadaPortal/page/Portal/armadaEspannola/ciencia_museo/06_documentacion--02_archivo--01_del_deposito_hidrografico--coleccion-marques-victoria Álbum del Marqués de la Victoria Dictionary of Ancient and Modern Naval Architecture of Juan José Navarro de Viana and Buffalo (1687-1772), first Marquis of Victoria, Captain General of the Royal Navy. "D. Juan Jose Navarro was certainly the most versatile of the sailors illustrated military, engineer, seaman and great artist. His masterpiece, made ​​between 1719 and 1756, the demonstration Dictionary of Ancient and Modern naval architecture and shipbuilding album, as is generally known, is a veritable encyclopedia of what has to do with the ship. The Dictionary is divided into four main sections relating to shipbuilding, the rigging, the ship's equipment, understood in its broadest form, and a section on some particular features. The section on shipbuilding, including aspects relating to the supply of timber from its location, selection, harvesting and curing, to hand to form the structure of a ship to England. The rigging is from all aspects, from the preparation and trees with sticks and rods, through the provision of the standing and work, referring to the types of motonería to cutting and handling the sails. In a third section could include the ship's equipment, including boats and barges, tools for carpenters and other trades of the ship and the shipyard, the materials used for construction, fittings, nails, and all aspects of the equipment the vessel. This block would be especially important to study the artillery and exhibits relating to the offices of the ship, a veritable catalog of life on board. Complete dictionary a number of peculiarities and curiosities which can be grouped in a fourth block, which begins with the delineation of the ancient monuments of the ships they used, and they have been, in marble, obelisks, paintings and medals, which is can add a number of films concerning the disposal of stockpiles, machinery, hoists and infrastructure. A special treatment required set of sheets, numbered from folio 126 to 133, Navarro grouped under the name of the timber Addicion oak used in the New Building of the English, the Rig Ore Fine rig and Rules for guarnirl or observing. Although these contents are not homogeneous and should be included in the section on each of them inside the Dictionary, chronologically are similar and represent the results of the Boards of Builders held in Cadiz in 1752." The 1995 reprint of this is very rare (only a thousand printed), so if you ever can get it, it's worth its weight in gold. This website only has low quality pics of the book.

Brit. Privateer - To read some on a prequel of Treasure Island you may like to try John Drake's spin on it in his three book series: Flint and Silver, Skull and Bones, and Pieces of Eight. Jas. Hook I've heard of those books. But, when I talk about Treasure Island, I stick to Robert Lewis Stevenson in terms of comparing and contrasting the movie version with the original source material (and Stevenson didn't right a prequel or sequel). How are those books though?

I would pay money to see Mel Gibson in a pirate movie. It probably would not be an accurate movie, but if its anything like the awesomeness of the Patriot... But anyway, I didn't even see the chainmail on that outfit. It would be interesting to know more about reasoning behind some of this costume selection from the people who made this film. At some points, I wonder if the costume coordinator simply ran out of outfits and didn't want to make more, so they borrowed whatever looked cool from their studio's collection.

The DVD will be available in July...in region 2 version (the sort that works in the UK) on Amazon.com UK version. For the U.S., still not known when it will be released on DVD in region 1.

I just saw this movie on the U.S. SyFy channel for the first time, and I liked it. It altered a few characters and the plot slightly, but I think the changes worked for this approach (for those who have not seen it, I will not go into detail). Eddie Izzard was good in his role. I definitely got the the perspective of John Silver struggling to get a bunch of rowdy pirates to do what he planed. With over three hours of time, the movie fleshed out the Treasure Island story, including showing how Silver and Blind Pew got their physical trademarks. The movie by far was really good at showing more and telling less. It was interesteding to see the most racially diverse group of actors in these roles I've ever seen. Also, this version by far has the largest roles ever seen for women in a Treasure Island film (except "Pirates of Treasure Island' but let us not count that one). A kind of refreshing to see this adaptation of the old story. It was different, but not different enough to be off putting (like the 1999 that ended with everyone but Ben Gun, Long John Silver, and Jim Hawkins dead). The only things I didn't like were some of the smaller roles have so-so actors (at least thats the only negative thing that comes to mind right now). As for the clothing and weaponry, the weaponry was slightly above average in quality and the clothing was...strange. First, the weaponry looked like real weaponry. The blades were reasonable lenghts and widths and had decent styles of hilts (at least from what I could see watching it only once). For the firearms, there were some typical late 18th-century pistols in there. Also some of arms stuck out to me as being form Loyalist Arms right away. Some of the others looked really and I couldn't identify the manufacturers. For the clothing: It's hard to describe it. It is obvious that the movie was influenced by Pirates of the Caribbean in the sense that they mix in this clothing from around the world (especially from the Indian Ocean and South-East Asia) with Atlantic world style clothing. They use these cloths that, some of them appear to be a mix of cloths that look like they are of a old historical style, but it's hard to determine at times. Some clothing is so strange in shape that it's hard to identify what it is. There is a lot of raggedness and drab colors/sun bleached colors (with bright colors mixed in on occasion) and dirt. The resulting look is like a misleading accurate look. Of course, there are some items that are just weird and wrong, like the kit Israel Hands wore that looked like a bunch of leather pads tied together. It's just strange. Pirates of the Caribbean does this misleading accurate look too. At least we are getting farther and farther away from that clean bright look of those technicolor films of the 1950s. That's all I can say about the film with only being able to watch it once and watching without some way to pause or rewind to get a second look at things.

For the Nathaniel Mist thing, the article you will want to read is: Bialuschewski, Arne. “Daniel Defoe, Nathaniel Mist, and the General History of the Pyrates.” The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 98, no. 1, 2004: 21-38. He explains how Mist was involved with the book's publication. The general conclusion appears to be that Mist was by far the person most responsible for getting this book published, if not the author himself. Evidence seems to point towards Mist very much. Also, to counter the ideas that it was Daniel Defoe, consider this. Mist is pretty responsible for publishing this book. In 1720, Mist and Defoe had a falling out relating to a libel case and Mist's newspaper (I won't go into details here). There is no indication that the two worked together after that. If Defoe had written General History, no evidence has come to light yet that the two reunited to work on the book's publication. To explain why Defoe has been considered at all, look to 1930s Defoe biographer John Robert Moore. He appears to be the first one to make the claim, and thanks to him Defoe's name is even listed as General History's author in the U.S. Library of Congress. Moore also claimed many other anonymous works had been written by Defoe. You would think that Defoe wrote practically everything written in Great Britain from 1700-1730 (unless it was written by Johnathan Swift) if you listened to Moore. In the late 1980s, P.N. Furbank and W.R. Owens published works that demonstrated that a lot of the works attributed to Defoe were not written by him afterall. For the use of a pen name, a lot of authors did this during the early eighteenth century. For one thing, there were libel cases to consider. Also, "factual fiction" or writings based on facts but has fiction mixed in was controversial, and General History has plenty of factual fictions. It's part of the reason why the word "history" was added to titles to works at the time. It made the book seem more legitimate. People of the upper classes during the period seemed to be concerned about if they were reading the truth or not (or at least period writings about the subject expressed that idea). Even fiction about the lower class and their immoral activities was controversial, like the book Moll Flanders. To be reading such books or to be associated with such writing was not considered a classy thing to do (but that doesn't mean they didn't read such works of course...). Want to know more about writing of the period, here is where I got my knowledge on the subject: Davis, Lennard J. Factual Fiction: The Origins of the English Novel. New York: Columbia University Press, 1983. Watt, Ian. Rise of the Novel: Studies in Defoe, Richardson, and Fielding. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1957. Zimmerman, Everett. Boundaries of Fiction: History and the Eighteenth-Century British Novel. London: Cornell University Press, 1996.

I think some clarification is needed on "editions" of the original Charles Johnson's History. There were four editions of the first volume and one of the second volume that were actually done by whoever Charles Johnson was (most likely Nathaniel Mist) from 1724 to 1728. Each of the new editions of the first volume had some form of editing or addition of information or new chapter. The second volume did not go beyond one edition. After 1728, any further editions through to today were either reprints, or combinations of the two volumes and/or remixes of previous vol.1 editions. Some publications of the 1720s and 1730s outright stole chapters from Johnson, including works on famous criminals, highwaymen and so on. If you want the best representation of the whole History, I suggest the edition edited by Schonhorn in 1972. It includes notes on when particular lines and chapters appeared in this work and historical notes on the information in the History. One notable change that comes to my mind between editions is the name of Blackbeard. In edition one, its Thatch, but in edition two its Teach. Also, if I remember correctly, the origins of Blackbeard change between editions.

Was looking through some old posts on another forum and I came upon this thread, and thought of this one instantly. Hope it helps with this conversation on the Peter the Great hat: http://www.ukpiratebrotherhood.co.uk/forum/index.php?topic=795.0

For GAOP Stuff in that book, there are exerpts from the following: Ashton, Philip, and John Barnard. “A History of the Strange Adventures and Signal Deliverances of Mr. Philip Ashton, Jun. of Marblehead [1725].” Fillmore, John. “A Narrative of the Captivity of John Fillmore and His Escape from the Pirates (1802).” [it was first published in 1802 but is about an experience from the 1720s/] Roberts, George. “Four Voyages of Capt. George Roberts...written by Himself (1726).” Snelgrave, William. "A New Account of Some Parts of Guinea and the Slave-Trade [1734]." I believe the rest of it is post (or possibly pre) GAOP stuff, I just scanned these things out of it when I had it.

Here is some background on this documentary: http://bonesdontlie.wordpress.com/2011/09/13/nelsons-skeleton-crew/ Specifically: "Excavations over the past years of British Royal Navy cemeteries from the mid-18th to early 19th century have unearthed the remains of numerous sailors. Detailed examination has been conducted of 340 skeletons, including 120 skeletons from Greenwich, 50 from Gosport and 170 from Plymouth." It seems that more and more studies are being done on the remains of these British sailors. For instance, here one one on the diet of sailors based on their remains: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120323093802.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29

This should take care of your needs: http://www.muzzleloaderbuilderssupply.com/pistols/1720englishheavy.html http://www.muzzleloaderbuilderssupply.com/pistols/englishgeorgian.html Is that what you are looking for?

As I was reading through this thread, I find myself a little confused. I think that some definitions have to be established. You all have mentioned sloops and ships primarily categories of vessels so far. But, both those terms are not very specific terms. Sloops, while many people take it as meaning a vessel with a single mast at roughly amidships (as compared to a ketch that is a little bit aft of that point), during our time period a sloop can also mean a small vessel that has more than one mast. Thomas Riley Blanckley in his nautical dictionary A Naval Expositor in 1732 had the following definition for a sloop: "Sloops - Are Sail'd & Masted as Mens fancys leads them sometimes with One Mast, with Two, and with Three, with Burmudoes, Shoulder of Mutton, Square Lug & Smack Sails, they are in Fugure either Square or Round Stern'd" So a sloop could be considered a ship, if one goes by the frequently used definition of a proper ship using three masts. Ships, interchangably used as a term for sailing vessels as a whole and for specifically three-masted square-rigged vessels. While sloops were generally considered to be a smaller vessels, a ship with three masts can vary greatly in size. So, maybe to clarify this discussion on the size and type of vessels commonly used, it may help to discuss things in terms of ship size (tonnage) and maybe armament and crew size as well. If we talk in those terms more, things might be a little bit more orderly. One thing to consider is that the typical merchant vessel transversing the Atlantic in the late 17th and early 18th century that the largest of the merchants ranged in the 150-200 ton range, but many more vessels came in around 50 tons or less (source: The Heyday of Sail: the Merchant Sailing Ship 1650-1830 pg 25). While the British East India Company often built vessels of around 500 tons and larger, their fleet could be numbered in a few dozen or so. So my question is, what a common tonnage for these vessels and common crew size for these vessels. Those two things are more telling to me than "sloop" or "ship" or even number of guns (for some accounts blur the lines between guns in carriages on the deck and swivel guns). So, correct me if I am wrong, a very common tonnage size and crew size for the GAOP was between 50 and 100 tons and a crew of between 40 and 100 (around 80 sounding like a good mean in that number set). And the interesting thing about those numbers is that in terms of tonnage per crew, that places pirate crews at about 2 or 3 times higher than merchant vessels at the time.

I think that David Cordingly has found only one entry of a pirate making someone walk the plank, and that comes from the post Napoleonic era of piracy. It would be interesting to find out though if the use of the plank has it's origin in the late 18th century slave trade. There is a grain of truth to most myths, maybe this is it.

I have searched the forums and nothing really came up that satisfied what I was looking for (it was difficult to think up good search terms for this as well that were specific enough). So here we go: I am in search of good, historically correct pen and/or quill, ink, and container to keep it in. In particular, I am looking for these items in a form that a sailor who could write (like Esquimelin, Dampier, or any of the other sailors who wrote journals at sea during this time) would have during the GAOP era. So far, all I have found is a source for period correct paper to write on: http://www.2makepaper.com/

Interesting. I do wonder how frequent black linen came about (or was it a really dark blue)? Also, how hard would it be to do a black dying on ship (and would they actually go out of their way to do it)?

Since we are on the topic of pirate flag materials, and since I have had the idea of making a period correct flag as well on the back burner for a while, I've got a related question. If a crew was just getting started and wanted to make their own black flag, how available would black wool bunting be at sea? Would they actually go to all the trouble to dye wool bunting black (or something close)? Or what other material would they have used? I know about and can document black silk. I can also document using a dirty tarpaulin to fool an oponent into believing a prize vessel was a pirate vessel (I think that's in Johnson somewhere). Can anyone else contribute to that?

That's pretty much what I'm looking for. Sample, and ability to refer anyone to the source if they wish to sample too. Also, I'm not going to set up a still just to do this.

Well, for rum not traditionally being made in the Caribbean during this time, that's not the case. According to the well researched book Caribbean Rum: A Social and Economic History by Frederick Smith, the islands began producing rum in the 1630s and 1640s, mostly for local consumtion in the Caribbean but a good amount still went abroad to the Chesapeake and New England. Also, ships coming into port frequently restocked their alcohol with local rum. Between 1699 and 1701 Barbadoes alone exported around 600,000 gallons of rum annually to the colonies, 19% of all Barbados exports. The strong majority of that rum went to New England and the Chesapeake. As for how nasty this rum was, I would still be interested in seeing what that mainstream nasty stuff was like. Stuff like that gives you a good appreciation for modern technology in drink-making.

That means we can eliminate Thomas Tew Rum then, since they use blackstrap molasses. The search continues.

One question. Blackstrap Molasses, when did they start making that? The name itself comes from the early 20th century. Thomas Tew Rum uses Blackstrap.

I looked at the Barbadoes Rum people, and it seems like they have refined the stuff a lot. I suspect that isn't what I am looking for. I would be almost convinced by Smoke and Oakum, but their mixing in of gunpowder kind of deters me. Any other possibilities?