Brit.Privateer

well, he doesn't have to be unsuccessful to be poorly clothed. Edward Ward depicts sailors of the period as men who would gamble and sell off their clothes if they had but one rag still left, and other period descriptions show that as well. Snelgrave describes how the pirates caroused with throwing wine on things such as blankets and then throwing the stuff over the side. Pirates and Sailors appeared back then to be very wasteful and easily thrown into a position of shabbily being dressed It doesn't seem very far off that even moderately successful pirate might have mediocre or what you would describe as poor quality clothing. But I guess it's the choice of the reenactor ultimately, no way I can tell anyone how to dress.

Johnson's history stands in that unique area. It has parts of fiction and parts resource supported fact. But I think we have to remember that Johnson was also trying to sell to an audience, and I think the thrilling way these books were written, as seen in volume II especially, that we can verify that a more general audience was trying to be appealed to here.

Thanks for all the help guys. At least now I know where my options are. Before I posted this thread, I tried contacting the museum that the Queen Anne's Revenge project is associated with, but never got a reply. Also, when I did a search on Worldcat for a first edition of the General History, for some reason I couldn't find anything I could get a hold of. But now I think I got a hold of the situation. Thanks again

I am looking to find a library that holds a first edition copy of Captain Johnson's "General History of Pirates." I need to see the text to a first edition for some research I am doing. While there are many copies of the second edition around, I am either looking to find a good print of the 1st edition or find an original held by a library here in the United States that I can go view. As it has been described before, there are large differences between the first and other editions, and I want to seet he first edition. Anyone got any thoughts?

Is information for what these guys wore really that scarce? I could have sworn there was descriptions for these guys. Just wondering, what is out there so far? I personally do not have knowledge because I concentrate on the 1690-1730 period. For resources have you tried hitting up such things as the Calendar of State Papers or all those documents in the National Archives in the UK? Because I have a feeling that if there is any more new information to be found, they would be in either one of those places. But I suppose to get the time and money to research there, you have to be a historian for a college or something. For people like myself here in the US who would love to get into those archives, getting the money and time to go to the UK is a little bit difficult.

Just some thoughts on this picture: The guys in this pic are pretty well on the mark for the proper age of the pirates. It appears that a lof of these guys are in their later teens and 20s. The only way I could see an improvement in that department would be to see one or two guys in their 30s (maybe). For those who say there are too many younger guys, I wouldn't say that its that bad, and I think its refreshing to see that many younger guys in a reenacting group. While Rediker says the median age for mariners turned pirate would have been around 28, medians are misleading (just like how they say it was unusual for people to live past 40, often that number is a little misleading because if you factor in high child mortality then the average life expectancy would be lowered). While there would have been mariners of 28 and older, there would also be a ton of guys who were below that and back into the teens as well (and believe me, in history reenacting, the older sort is always well over represented). Once again the clothing selection is excellent. Many of the guys are wearing deck trews. I see one guy wearing petitcoat breeches too. Also, not sure if we are using all the correct terms here. For those referring to slops, when you say that, you mean the suits of clothing made for sea (the proper meaning of slops) or are you just referring to the trousers? Also, as far as I can tell, this pic hasn't been photo shopped. Usually its real easy to tell if something has been photo shopped because lighting will be screwed up in the pic (at least that is one of the most common things I see screwed up).

Oh, just to note, they did have Native American stuff, plus other stuff, out there at that event as stated above, BUT, they were on sale. These guys were raising money for repairing one of their boats they have, and they happened to have made those items themselves too (hey, how many people you know also make/do stuff with other time periods, I bet you know many that do, I myself am significantly American Civil War as well). As for their numbers, like I said before, a lot more of their guys are up in New Jersey and in several other places in the U.S., and I think I even heard overseas too. I happened to have another pic of them at a different event (I think in MD too, but not sure): http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/6117/im...imgp8741jx0.jpg. Also, for being clean, while it is true that people over state how dirty they are, if you could zoom in on that pic, you would see the stains of my waist coat and on my my coat sleeve. While the clothing isn't "rolling in mud" dirty, the clothing isn't clean either.

I think I can answer some questions here posed earlier. I had the fortune of actually participating at an event with these guys in July at the Lockhouse. Before this, I had only done Civil War, and was only approaching Pirates through historical study. I have to say, not only was it refreshing to get out of the normal Civil War community, but to see that the concept of trying to recreation (that is recreating the material culture of the period, in particular the clothing, and trying to present pirates for who they really were; mariners who had chosen the path of robbing fellow mariners to make a living) from the Civil War community has filtered through to other time periods. I was impressed with their level of accuracy (I have been trying to study, besides main history, the material culture of pirates for about 2 years now) these guys have obtained. I was more impressed that they had made most of this stuff themselves (those guns and swords look like they were from a musuem!), and in doing so have solved that dreaded problem faced by many who wish to become "hardcore" reenactors in any time period: how do I reenact if I can't get all the authentic gear right away? They solved it by making all this stuff, and they have a ton of stuff! I was talking with them about their gear, and they said that the stuff they had there was only a fraction of what they actually owned. If they had all their gear together, they could probably clothe over 30 or so people, and arm them too. Thats how I got on the field, was because they outfitted me. I will link you all a pic we posed for at the event I mentioned previously: http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/8505/pi...hebeach5jc0.jpg I am the one in the middle with the black hat, sword, and pistol. There were 7 or 8 of them total at this event. I enjoyed my time with them considerably, and look forward to doing more with them in the future. Also, for their overall strength, there is between 40-60 active members, and 150 members overall according to their leader, Joe. A lot more of their active guys seem to be in New Jersey. They are under the press of high gas prices and restricted time just like the rest of us. Also, they are working hard to get their website and facebook group up as soon as possible.

Here is one of my favorites: I just realized that this may have been linked before. Still good though.

Actually, they are most likely referring to real pigs. The Spaniards did bring a lot of pigs with them. I remember studying this in a couple of my classes here in college. It sort of goes along with that whole "Guns, Germs, and Steel" book (though it probably deserves it's own class with the amount of information you can get out of it). When De Soto came in at Florida and went through the South, he had pigs with him, and several of them got loose and into the wild. Pigs aren't native to the Americas. The pigs spread the diseases that they had to the environment and then it spread to the animals. Then the disease went to the Native Americans and devistated their population. De Soto reported many populous native villages, in particular in Arkansas. Many years later when Europeans came into the area again, the same area was significantly depopulated. Guess what was the cause? That's right, the root is the pigs.

I found something interesting in my book "Ships and Science, The Birth of Naval Architecture in teh Scientific Revolution, 1600-1800" by Larrie D. Ferreiro. In the "terms, symbols, units of measure, and money" section: I provide 2002 U.S. dollar equivalents for most prices cited in the text. Although it is very tricky to convert the money of two and three centuries ago to present values (not only were the commodities different-e.g., horses versus cars-but the proportions of salary spent on, say, housing and food were poles apart), economists have developed estimates of inflation that permit a rough comparison of currencies. The two principal currencies of the period were the French livre tournois (literally, the pound of the city of Tours) and the British pound sterling. Currency conversoins vary by year, so to simplify matters I take the midpoints of the two centuries under study (1648 and 1750) as an average value for each century. Approximate values in U.S. dollars (2002) 1600s____1 pound sterling = $69.00____1 livre tournois = $10.00 1700s____1 pound sterling = $160.00___1 livre tournois = $6.80

Best place to start is William Gilkerson's "Boarders Away: With Steel." It is so amazing how well documented Gilkerson is, with pictures and drawings all around. Detail is excellent, and will lead you to other sources as needed. You will most likely need to buy, I don't think this book is that common.

Even though bow and arrow were used by Europeans in the New World, that was mainly in the 16th century. I grant you that the New World was not first priority in the weapons market, but the bucanneers would have been armed with the best weapons they could obtain and the easiest ones they could use. The matchlock or flintlock muskets were easier to learn how to use than bow and arrow, and these men did prefer muskets. Bow and arrow: highly unlikely, most likely no.

If you can get your hands on a copy, the "Boarders Away!" books by William Gilkerson is a great spot to start any research on swords. Also, this man may be able to help you: http://www.olddominionforge.com/ He actually makes period swords (the right way I might mention).

Is that a joke or are you serious? Is Brad Pitt doing a historical movie?

I have a question about the yellow flags Foxe. When you say they are yellow, what exactly do you mean. Were they just a solid yellow flag, or was it a solid yellow flag with aditional symbols on them, or were the flags partially yellow? Also, as it seems that colors and symbols all represented something on flags, what significance did yellow have?

This topic brings up something that I have been looking for for a long time. Is there any place where it would list muzzle velocities for cannon? It would be interesting to figure out how much power that gunpowder is producing, how fast the ball is going, and ect.

What book would this be in? Source? I am interested to read this story more.

While this Roc fellow was not the one I was looking for, his story is still very interesting, and is not one you commonly hear about. Usually when one talks about the 17th century age of Bucaneers, we mainly hear about Sir Henry Morgan and L'Olonnais, and not many other people, all the others being passed on as not as significant as the two stated and as many of the pirates in the Golden Age of Piracy in the early 18th century.

I could not find the story for Roc Brasiliano, but when looking I found the man I was looking for, Bartholomew Portugues. The story comes from Exquemelin: Bartolomeo was captured, and he was aboard a Spanish ship and the threat of him being hanged was in the air, "...Bartolomeo spoke good Spanish, and overheard teh sailors discussing the hanging. He at once looked for some means of saving his life. He took two empty wine jars and stoppered them tightly with cork. The night, when everyone was asleep escept the sentry who stood guarding him, Bartolomeo did all he could to persuade the man to go to his hammock. But as he showed no intention of doing so, Bartolomeo decided to cut his throat. This he did, without giving the sentry a chance to cry out. Immediately Bartolomeo lowered himself gently into the water with his two jars, and with their help swam to the shore..." Thanks, just goes to show you once you even get a little bit of idea where to go that you can find what you are looking for.

Hello all, been trying to find the source of a particular story that some of my friends and me remembered. The story went something like: A pirate was captured in the Caribbean (most likely a 17th century pirate), and to escape he blew up a few wineskins as floatation devises and swam to shore. I don't know the name of the person, but I think it was a pirate captain. I want to find the whole story so I can get more exact information. Anyone else ever read of a tale like this and know where a source possibly is?

To add to this, there are copies of this book, as in a digital pictures form of the book, online. Both books are found here: General History of Pyrates History of Pyrates Just click on the picture of the book to continue

That reminds me how pirates were notorious for dressing in more upper class clothing they had taken when they arrived in ports. But what was the inspiration of this, to show wealth or to try and be like the upper class. My bet is on to show wealth. Any thoughts?

I think I may have exagerated too much my last post, but I still stand that there was a difference in aristocratic classes of Europe and America in the early 19th century. Maybe not as much as I said before, but differences none the less. For some reason the Jacksonian age rings a bell.

I would like to point some things that may have a major impact on etiquette, social classes and economy. One thing to observe about Europe is that they had a concept of settled aristocratic ruling power that they accepted (unlike the U.S., which when forming their own country involved the common person into politics and rule and tried to avoid a settled aristocratic class). Standards were set for each social class. With those social classes also came etiquettes. A lot of the social classes were not set by economic standing (which today plays one major role in U.S. society), but by who your father was or your nationality. A person who had earned a lot of money and was not royal was treated a little different from somone who had blood lines of royalty. Imagine all the different etiquettes that can result out of all this? Just throwing this out to get thought going.