Tartan Jack

As my edit is gone . . . I meant to say "1691" rather then "1695" as the start of the broader dates. The 2 wars are important factors as to WHY the sailors were so well trained in combat tactics and techniques, as well as their grudge against those whom they served as privateers and in the Royal Navy, but left them jobless, shipless, and destitute at the end of hostilities. Also of note would be the Yamasee War in the Carolinas and Georgia and Jacobite issues culminating the the Jacobite Rebellion of 1715-> both of which play into the politics and atmosphere of that area (the Carribean and the American colonies especially) and the larger "British" empire/kingdom. The broader dates are relevant in what lead up to the 1715 pirate explosion, the openness to piracy as a real option (the success of the Rounders), the fears, conditions, and scope they operated in, as well as the aftermath on the following decades as it reverted to a strictly criminal activity on one hand and the fiction that birthed the popular myth on the other. When in non-first-person portrayal (when teaching, rather than acting in-period), I've used all that. It is ALL relevant. I'd even say both date sets are relevant and accurate from a certain perspective. I could easily argue either, depending on situation and context. Still, the popular image conjured up by the term "Golden Age of Piracy" is rooted squarely in the 1715-1725 events, people, and personalities-> even though some names (such as Captain Kidd, for example- who I'd argue wasn't actually a so much a pirate as a failed privateer- and Morgan -who saw himself as more a privateer and royal mercenary) are certainly from the earlier Rounder and Buccanner periods. As you can tell, I see the era of pirates as several sub eras: - Buccanners - Rounders (Pirate Round pirates, St Mary's and Madagascar) - New-Providence/Flying Gang (the "classic pirate era") - Lowther/Low (criminal element takes over) Later stuff (everything post 1730-ish, well before the American Revolution), which more often was smuggling more than actual piracy. In THAT sense, you could even expand the Golden Age of Piracy from 1630-ish to 1730-ish with several markedly distinct sub-sets within that larger period. If one uses that HUGE hundred-year period as the GAoP, then I'd make a distinction of 1715-1724 as the "Classic Age" of piracy/pirates. Plus . . . The Asian (Chinese, Japanese -Wakou-, and Korean) and the Med/Barbary pirates are another element that we have completely failed to consider/include. The Barbaries extended from the Crusades until the 1800s- when the US Navy took then on head-on. Either are MUCH longer than the popularly imagined "Golden Age" stuff was in the Americas and Indian Ocean. But, those are seldom included, mentioned, or even thought of when discussing "pirates." To the "popular imagination,"Pirates" remains the stuff related to the the Americas from generally 1630-1730-ish and most specifically 1715-1724.

The politically related impact of the rash of organized piracy in the aftermath (the time following the official peace and suddenly unemployed sailors) of the Queen Anne's War (War of Spanish Succession) is a major "starting point" for the brief period most think of as "the pirate era" -for the reasons Foxe mentioned above. The "Pirate Round" era was certainly a famous round of piracy, which had an end at the beginning of the War, so that could be called the "prequel" to the GAoP (if you will). It was after the burgeoning pirates were kicked out of Jamaica (following the raids on the Spanish recovery camps from the Hurricane treasure fleet disaster) that the "Golden Age" really kicked off. It was in high-tide until Woodes Rogers kicked/brought "peace through pardons" to New Providence, which then fractured the organization as many pirates when peacefully into the night or even became pirate hunters. The pirates where then forced to a period of complete roving (and crewmen moving between crews of a group or gang of pirates), which framed a central part of the "pirate image" captured by later writers. The death of Roberts spelled the beginning of the end (IF that of Blackbeard and a wide number of others in 1718 didn't already) of "classic piracy," which then concluded with the end of that same loosely knit and VERY interconnected band in 1724, as Foxe noted. Another element unique to this period is "self-proclaimed-pirates" who weren't out-and-out criminals (I'd say that the Low/Lowther group WERE and would have been such regardless of the era). Many of the captains and crewmen of the "New Providence"-related group -which called THEMSELVES "The Flying Gang" (THEY even thought of themselves as an interconnected group)- probably would have been "honest men" if given the free opportunity and if the Royal Navy and civilian merchantmen had been less "cruel" in their policies. Such is shown at how many became pardoned so easily trough the period, even if the pull of relatively easy money and a more "carefree" lifestyle beckoned then back, after they had experienced it. Even Roberts own famed statement reflects this: "A merry Life and a short one, shall be my Motto." The focus of the Flying Gang was more self-sufficient living and a "merry life," as opposed to a back-breaking one with little joyful benefit as almost a slave of one's debt they could never repay thanks to the poor wage of a sailor. (This is the root of the "gentleman pirate," "good pirate," and "honest man turned pirate" motif that captured writers and that fuels pirate fiction from 1720 through today. Of note is that the first "pro-pirate" writing appeared DURING the "Golden Age" itself, not many years or decades later- as is almost always/VASTLY the case when dangerous men are "glorified" into heroes. In contrast, pirates of other periods tend to fall into 2 camps: 1) "We are legitimate citizens of our country" (even if that country isn't the one of their birth), where the sailors were more of mercenaries than true pirates or thought they were on legitimate missions on behalf of that country- whether the country thought so or not. The Buccaneers were certainly of this camp, as were many of the "Rounders." 2) Out-and-our criminals and/or sadists in it JUST for the money (to get rich) and/or for the sheer joy or rape, pillage, torture, and murder. The Low/Lowther camp was in this group almost to-a-man. So, the "tight" dates would be 1715-1724, for the New Providence-related band. The "looser" dates would be 1695-1724, if you include the "Rounders" in the GAoP (as most tend to). Rounders include FAMOUS pirates such as Every/Avery, Kidd, Tew, and so forth. The debate here is if the Rounders are of the same group in spirit and mentality as the Flying Gang members. In my personal research, I lean toward the narrower dates for period-accuracy- but also keep and ear/eye out for the wider dates- as it's interesting info. My overall tendency is to THINK of the "Flying Gang" period AS the Golden Age of Piracy . . . Accurate or not.

DAMNATION!!!! Missed it! I thought it was more in summer.

I want to make the crossed ham flag. Me too.

I was surprised at the mix of intellectual whimsy (as expected from the Wallace and Gromit folks), the nod to "pirate" films and lore, and the actual historical references. This is one I WILL buy when it comes out on DVD and look forward to seeing all the subtle stuff I missed in the theater. If you haven't seen it, DO!

In the American Revolution AKA "AmRev" (or American War" for British POV), the terms in the Colonies were: Patriots (what called themselves), Rebels (what the Redcoats and those supporting the Crown/Parliament), or Whigs for those who supported American Independence and Loyalists or Tories for those that remained loyal to the Crown. The terms "Whigs" and "Tories" then quickly vanished from the American political vocabulary and other terms appeared, while those 2 remain in British politics for MUCH longer after the war. Side note: Many (all?) of the Redcoat/British units who fought in the war have refused to utilize battle honours from the American War in their appropriate places, such as tags/banners hanging from their unit flags that show the wars fought. The ones where I read the reason said that "it wasn't an war against an enemy, but ourselves" and therefore not really something they were proud of having fought or the like.

If I may "toss in" a note on painting in a design . . . A while back, I spent too much time trying to find out what kind of paint was used on flags. It turned out to be a resin-based paint that is now illegal due to chemical leach involved that is now considered a hazardous material. Further research showed that the dangerous resin was replaced with a MUCH safer and more stable plastic medium, to create acrylic paint. From that time on, the resin paint vanished and acrylic became the "standard" one used in flags and all resin-paint applications. I was, then, recommended by a number of flag experts and historical preservation/experts to use acrylic as the best and most accurate substitute and to AVOID enamels completely in a period-correct flag. The acrylic look, feel, and wear is supposed to be IDENTICAL to actual-period-correct resin paint, but much easier to use, safer, actually available, and so forth. I was surprised at that response and reaction . . . but it came from a number of independent and knowledgeable sources. So, if/when I make my period-correct flags, I plan to do any painted stuff using acrylic. (Oh, and I have a bit of a flag obsession . . . )

I believe that many of those bahama pirates in 1715-1718 used often sloops since they were good in shallow waters (and were easily available and easy to get) that there in the bahamas were but in longer voyage I would chose brigantine or frigate or slaver. In sloops cannon ports are low and in real Atlantic storm they are not in good....sloops were small so i would not dare cross oceans whith so puny vessel But . . . Sloops DID sail back and forth across the Atlantic, sometimes several times- one right after the next. The problem is that we think of "pirate ship" as all huge warships, not a mix of small vessels up to big ones. What we have gone through is a pendulum of ideas. In novels and, later, films from the latter 1700s through the 20th century, pirate vessels are shown almost universally as "big ships." So, historians began to point out that about half (or "most," "majority," etc) were actually smaller vessels of 6-12 guns- often described as "sloops." Then that got OVERstated into "almost all were actually sloops" . . . Foxe and others are now trying to balance that statement. "Ships" was a wide-range of sizes of vessels, but larger than a "sloop." The line between a sloop and ship even got fuzzy . . . Many were likely smaller 100-footer-ish merchantmen, rather than "flagship" sized vessels like the QAR (approx. 200 feet, if I recall properly- which was big at the time). Sloops were oft 40-100 feet long and ships were 100-ish to 250-ish (I'm sure the experts could put better parameters on that). In analogy, I'd say sloops were like "pick-up trucks" and ships were like "rigs/lorries" in function and size. Even then, there is a gray area between them in the middle-weight range. (Would that be a fair and reasonably accurate analogy?)

As this thread just keeps going . . . I'll toss in this one observation: By reading the sources and the modern interpretations of them, I get the impression that pirates looked something like Americans at Highland games- meaning that they wore an odd hodge-podge of socio-economic garment styles at the same time. I see guys in kilts, "Prince Charlie" jackets (a kilt tails-tux jacket) with hiking boots and a t-shirt and a (non-uasable) plank-fur sporran. It is an odd mixture of styles that would work perfectly fine on their own, and each with a VERY appropriate situation. The hiking boots, simple, usable sporran, and t-shirt are perfectly at home at the games, while a tux-level "Prince Charlie" garb is a bit "overdressed"- basically someone wearing a tux to a baseball or football game. Yet, at a formal dinner (as often proceeds or follows the games), the tux-type garb is PERFECT, while the hiking boots are rather underdressed for the occasion. How that impact pirates is this: I have a feeling that they would wear a mix of worn "seaman" garb with the finery all mixed together and rather at stylistic odds. If I ever get a "nice coat," I plan to wear it with my blood-stained slops (real blood thanks to the hand-cut at Paynestown a couple years ago) . . . just for kicks- or some other mixed style. I do think they would purposefully "up their wardrobe" when given the chance, but probably would do so like a "red neck at New York society gathering" (you get the idea, and remember I like where "red neck" is a common and "good" thing)- some ODD mix of jeans, t-shirt, diamonds, pearls, and some very expensive jacket/dress.

Greetings! Sorry I haven't been around much since the Adventure Alliance's Parley back in August. Life and work have made thing stupid busy. But, I look forward to reconnecting to my old friends. (Also, finally remembered how my log-in was typed) Slainte, John "Tartan Jack" Wages of South Carolina

Thanks, Sterling. I guess it's older than I had realized. I was thing AmRev-era. Glad to hear otherwise. Cooking and period food isn't something I know much about. -Always learning. I'd heard/read from many sources of an American Rev/Napoleanic period origin of pickling. I am VERY glad to know it's older than that.

Pickling, itself, however is a way of preserving food. It began in France in the early 19th C. "Some of the earliest known pickling began in France, in 1809, when M. Nicolas Appert discovered that by removing the air from the packaging of food, it would be safe to eat, even after a long period of storage. Methods were established for preserving foods in glass such as bottles and jars, using corks, wax seals, and other lids." http://www.howtopickle.com/Pickling_Guide.html That daye fits with what I remember from before (forgot sources). That is 90 years after-the-fact.

The concept is present both before and after. Plus, sailors were probably more Biblically "literate" (to us a bad phrase) than many are today. They would have instantly understood the allusion, whether they had known it or not. What we don't know of is a specific IN-period reference. They couldn't say the chapter, verse, and possibly not even the book. But, even the illiterate knew the stories better than most people today.

Thanks for sharing this, that's awesome! (Just thought I'd repeat an appropriate thought)

There were entire cohesive, prop departments in the "studio system" where period-correct costume sets would be created and reused again and again (for decades). The costumes and sets on "The SeaHawks" were a "second use" of the ones from "The Private Lives of Elizabeth and Essex." So, if you want to see the beautiful sets of The Sea Hawks in color, watch "Elizabeth and Essex." Of all the "negatives" of the studio system that people love to point out, there were also a great many positives too.

Wake, I can't remember if I was ever included in some way . . . or not. If I ever make it to an event where ya'll are there, I'd feel "at home" with you all. Anyways, having a rather "fluid" crew is oddly appropriate for a ship that shares the name of a liquid silver metal . . .

I fly different flags, so usually one is flown daily. It's just WHICH one is flying that varies.

WOW! This is the first I've missed in years. I was flying a "Fort Moultrie" blue Liberty flag (American Revolution) anyways. I worked last night and this morning. I was too busy to think about it.

That sure looks like it. The names and dates fit. GREAT find!

In case anyone doesn't catch the reference look up "The Book of Jonah" and the events preceding the whale/fish.

Thanks. That's OK by me. I was letting it go, as it was off topic. What about: "20th C. contemporary" instead . . .\ (Main aim: trying to think like a common sailor of the early 18th. C for this discussion, rather than an early 21st C. person. On this matter, there is a HUGE difference. It hasn't ended. Good point. I meant in the western world, as an massively organized legal institution. As long as humans seek to dominate other humans, it will probably exist in some forum. Back to topic: I think Duffus makes an interesting point in the article. Pirates were in the slave trade, Blackbeard was in the slave trade (as documented by Tobias Knight's documents). I've not seen evidence that such was his main objective, but was certainly a side-element. He captured a slave ship, operated it for 6 months, then wrecked it. I could even see that he COULD have had knowledge of the Beufort inlet before he wrecked the QAR (not that I've seen direct, documentary evidence of that either). North Carolina would make a ready market for such a captured cargo with minimal questions asked. The question is whether it was a case of "what now" or "that worked well" in the mind of BB after capturing the slaves either on the QAR or another prize . . . Slavery and the slave trade in relation to GAoP pirates would make an interesting study (for someone looking for such a topic to spend hundreds or thousands of hours on).

It troubles me when viewing slavery as inherently evil is dismissed as "politically correct." Slavery is evil, and one need not adhere to any one right wing or left wing political viewpoint to think so. The term "political correctness" is better reserved for the rigid lockstep postmodernist political orthodoxy that prevails in certain universities, which analyzes everything in terms of ethnic and religious groups' grievances and "power," dismisses everything created by the "powerful," (i.e. whites, Christians, capitalists, Americans, Europeans) and automatically validates everything produced by the "powerless" (everybody else). I reject political correctness in the sense I just described, but that doesn't stop me from considering slavery as evil: ALL slavery. To take the contrary view requires you to reject not just political correctness, but the Western democratic tradition that views all men as created equal, the Western capitalist tradition that regards society as happiest and most productive when everyone is free to pursue their own wealth and prosperity. I understand that in the 1700s slavery was a widespread and accepted institution, not just in the Americas and Europe but all over the world, and that most people wouldn't have thought to question it. That mitigates the evil, but doesn't make it right. Many of those who did think to question slavery, even in the 1700s, recognized that it was wrong, noticeably a large number of the Quakers, Benjamin Franklin, and (ironically, since he was a slave owner) Thomas Jefferson. The notion that "all men are created equal" is, in the philosophical realm, an enlightenment idea. Slavery was controversial in the 18th C., but legal and had many who argued for it. I was trying to mention it from the POV of the early 18h C, and from a common-man's POV, rather than an elightenment POV. Personally, I find it awful and am glad it was disposed of, along with a number of social, economic, and political ideas from the 18th C. My point was that, as it was LEGAL and largely practiced at the time, we need to look a it with the moral POV of the time. Also, I was starting to and mentioned that not ALL slave owners were evil people. A fair number used the laws of the time to do "the right thing" and used the legal protections afforded by the laws to the ADVANTAGE of themselves and the men and women enslaved. To use a passage that was used at the time as a guide, look at the book of Philemon in the Bible. The background is that Philemon's slave Onesimus had fled and ran to Paul. Paul then wrote this letter and sent Onesimus back to Philemon. In it, Paul argues that sense both are Christians, Philemon should treat Onesimus as a fellow Christian and either treat Onesimus as a member of his household or set him free. Actually, of one does a detailed study of slavery and slave terminology in the Bible, it will be very interesting. What I was talking about is the 20th C. "taking for granted" that slavery is inherently evil" without looking into the pros, cons, the way it was practiced in different periods, and all the other details. Take a look at the film "Amazing Grace" (2006) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454776/ on Wilberforce, who was the leader in getting the slave trade illegal in Britain, a century after our period. Even then, it was defended by many, many people and only barely passed the first time around. It was the anti-slavery advocates of THAT time that changed public opinion. We live in a post-American Civil War, post-Wilberforce, and post-civil rights movement world. In the 18th C, the perspective was VERY different than our own. It was also just as complex as many socio-political issues are today. I'd also separate slavery from the foundations of western democracy, as slavery WAS and REMAINED legal well into the history of western democratic governments. At the time, Quakers were seen as "odd" in many ways, which is also a reason they were persecuted by most everyone else. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin were half-century later. Also, they were products of the "Enlightenment" philosophical school that developed during the 18th C. In the early 18th C., there were a growing number who thought slavery was evil and sought to make it gone, and a great many more who saw no problem with it at all and another sizable group who saw it as a "necessary evil." I was aiming to highlight the OTHER POV of those that saw: "it as a legal reality, now how does one use that reality to do what is right and good . . . " That group lasted until slavery legally ended. I'd even do so far into saying it was the shift of that last group and "necessary evil" to the abolitionist side that finally ended slavery for good (which was a GOOD thing). Also, over a century later, in the American South, slavery was a debated issue and there WERE a number of plans to gradually scale it down, end it, and transform the economy from a slave economy to a wage economy. Now, that gets into the vast complexity of the causes of the American Civil War . . . I will say that "my people" (direct ancestors) were part of those that were legally at issue for teaching slaves to read and right (illegal at the time) and literally "tarred and feathered" and ran people out of town for abuse of slaves. They DID write, in church documents that church members who owned slaves were to treat them as they do their own children or not have them at all- abuse has a zero toleration. On my other side, my family was friends and associated of the Atlanta-based civil rights leaders in the 20th C. (What I was alluding to when saying I was "quite the opposite" . . . ) When you get down to it, slavery was part of human history from the beginning of recorded history and wasn't ended until the 1800s. In period, we need to study what was ACTUALLY thought and done, not what we wish had been thought and done from out POV 300 years (and a key 300 years in all of human history on that specific issue) later. To impose late 20th and 21st century morality on the early 18th C IS "politically correct" revisionist history. At the time, it wasn't nearly as clear as we today would like it to be. AT THE TIME, slavery was morally ambiguous.

Whether Scotland is viable as an independent or semi-independent nation depends ENTIRELY on what happen with the North Sea oil fields. If Scotland gets ALL of it, and the tax revenues, then it is theoretically financially stable. If not, then it is much, much harder for them. As much as part if me likes the idea of an independent Scotland, I'm not really sure how good of an idea it is in reality. Foxe and I have discussed it briefly and there are MANY issues of the SNP actually gets the independence referendum to pass.

Oh, and good find. LOVE IT!

Go, Tartan Army, Go! Tartan Navy and Tartan Air Corps too! May the Kilties of the Highland Units rip a new one . . .