Brit.Privateer

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.

In a similar story, Basil Ringrose gives an account of a "Spanish Stratagem" whereby the Spaniards inflated a horse's hide and sent a fellow out to the buccaneers ship on it with the intent of setting it ablaze.

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?

The best and closest thing to a pirate encyclopedia is actually from the period, Scallywag.  It's called Captain Johnson's A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates .

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

The two things to remember are these-- until very, VERY recently, people aspired upwards in their dress, their desires and their attitudes. Modern westerners are about the only people I can find in all of history who aspire downwards-- billionaires in bluejeans and wealthy, coddled suburban kids dressing like ghetto gang members. Yes, previous generations sometimes enjoyed "slumming", but that was the exclusive domain of a wealthy few. The lower and middle classes were more inclined to "ape their betters" in dress and deportment. Not any longer.

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.

that reference to using a firearm barrel to cauterize wounds reminds me of a scene from one of the worst pirate movies ever made, "Blackbeard the Pirate" with Robert Newton as Blackbeard. In one scene, to get someone to talk, they heated up a barrel of a pistol in a fire, and where going to use it, until another event interrupted (won't go into it). While this is a reasonable idea, but even the guys in the movie made a good point saying "that ruins a good pistol." For pirates, I see pistols used for cauterizing as not likely.

Well, one thing to think about is that they must have been doing a lot of damage the shipping economy if the British government was willing to send out ships of war to capture and destroy the pirates.

For the Flints, I remember from Benerson Little's "Sea Rover's Practice" that a flint (most probable he meant a good one) lasted 20 "snaps."

Also, when the list refers to "4 bills," what are they talking about (I doubt they mean bellhooks)

Very interesting. I always wondered where the pirates and privateers docked up on the northern part of the North American coast. I thought that Tortuga and Port Providence were too far a distance to travel. Rhode Island makes sence as a pirate port due to the fact that it's name comes from the term given to them by the rest of Puritan New England "Rouge's Island." The Puritans did not like Rhode Islanders due to they were not Puritan, but a mix, with the first Baptists, Jews, and other religions. There was no established religion in this colony. Hopefully we will see more information soon!

It was suggested earlier that we should contact our Congressmen on this. How would we go about this? My first thought would be to obtain a published article about this issue. Where is the original article on this? Second, I live in Wisconsin, how would my sending a letter to him help?

I know that system. I like this site better though:

http://www.antique-horology.org/_Service%2...l/shipsbell.htm