The Chapman

I can dance and whistle...

What all is known about ship's cats at the time? Yes/No? Accommodations? Usual number of cats, if present? Was their presence customary? Tolerated as a form of necessity, or what? I've seen indications by authors asserting that some ships were more or less floating menageries and barnyards, in which cat(s) would have been merely part of a greater animal population, but I'm not sure if I buy that, at least as regular practice. I have some information, which I'll post later, but right now I gotta go to work. Ideas or documentation, anybody?

^ Extremely difficult. > After years of working with a tight-knit group in construction, I'm now working (driving) alone. In the trades, I always, always had someone to hang out with that I knew from work. I now realize that all I ever did was work. I find the making and keeping of purely social friends and acquaintances hard because at the age of 40, I don't really know how. V Dream car (boats included)?

Heinrich Skau: "What else would Patience make? Lazy slut…" The use of the words ‘slut’, as described in several books I’ve been reading lately, seem to insist that use of this word in time period was not to be taken as pejorative. One source describes its use as ‘playful’. In Pepys’ use the term ‘slut’ is used to describe his girl servant, and other working types and cooks, as in ‘admirable slut’, and I’ve seen another use, in Dampier, of a description of Dr. Foster’s wife as ‘the nastiest wasting slut’. As far as I can tell, it specifically refers to cooking, housekeeping, and general household-oriented issues. Pepys’ use of the term in reference to his ‘beloved’ daughter seems to imply the making of a mess. I don’t recall an occasion of Pepys calling his own wife a ‘slut’, but then, she doesn’t seem to have done much cooking or cleaning. The thing is, the term ‘slut’ applies to maids, cleaning girls, wives without servants, etc. As far as the usage of the term in greater society, it seems to me the age was characterized by a great deal of both physical and verbal crudity. It wouldn’t surprise me overly much if a word previously used as a vulgarity and insult (which it was) would have been picked up as stylin’ verbiage. I wonder if analysts and etymologists really know how to balance that inescapable duality, in which big stuff was accomplished, and big thoughts thought by big thinkers, in combination with stunning vulgarity and crudity. Kind of like the present day. It brings to mind for me the current usage of ‘ho’, which, believe me, is in constant use as essentially non-pejorative and ‘playful’, at least in the community in which I live (for instance, while at ShopKo last week I saw a young man shopping with his about three-year-old son. This guy had tattooed on his neck, in plain view for the world to see, the words, “Ho Love”. Is this a playful use? It’s certainly routine in the social milieu in which I reside). Now, how long is the use of, say, ‘Ho’ going to last? Is it truly non-pejorative? Would Pepys have used it in referring to his little mistresses? (Actually, I think likely so. He strikes me as that kind of guy). Anyway. This comment has to do with the use of the word ‘slut’ in context on a post in Lascars.

Jeans.

Burp.

^ I've had episodes of going to places, feeling deja vu, and realizing I had dreamed about the location without ever having been there, my entire life. > It makes me feel sometimes as though everything is planned out ahead of time, and I'm following a predetermined path that I can occasionally get glimpses of, but can never wholly see. v Favorite weather.

They Might Be Giants.

I'm re-reading the Thirty Years' War chapter in BATTLE CRIES AND LULLABIES; it's a little difficult to get a handle on some of it, as the value system is so very foreign to me, in specific some of the terms for women that, this author claims, had no negative connotations at the time. I'm not sure I buy that, and I'm looking into it before posting a full review. As for the Thirty Years' War, it does seem that particular demonstration of Europeans' habit of pointless, interfamilial homicide bears more than a passing resemblance to the Great War, in that this mindless exercise went on forever largely because nobody seemed to have any clue how to stop it.

Minnie Pearl

On the Samuel, Byrd worried. They had to get to their middler. They had three ships’ worth of trade goods on top of the metal and coins, which was easily divided and disposed of. But Thomasse, Thomassse, what was he about? He wouldn’t speak to anyone in depth, nothing since the last fight, when he had suffered his little scratch and gone stone statue except for gibbering under his breath. Beyond understanding, that; the man had been brave up to the point, and all the sudden, there he went, from no more blood than would come from a pinprick on a baby’s ass. Nilda, the middle cutter, the money exchanger, in the Bay in his token place, waiting, or he was assured to be waiting, to broker their haul of merchandise. The Brazil man, or so he was supposed, waiting to take his users’ slice of the profits… Maybe they were being too greedy, going for the other two ships’ contents promptly, instead of parceling it out; they could most all swing on the hemp cord. But why not? ‘I should have been dead when my ship was taken’, thought Byrd. And dead at any one of the prizes. Dead like that little Girl. The little Gig. The Gig…and what? Four years past? How long had that been, when that little whore appeared in his fever, before seeing the elefant…he was back in the room. The room was small, perhaps ten feet square. The walls were stone, with one small window through which the new dawn could be detected, and a rough wooden door, the inside bar worn almost halfway through in the latch. It was hot, as it is in that locale, at that season. The one bed was placed against the wall lengthwise, where Byrd had moved it to protect his weak side while asleep. He sat on the bed, slouched rather, his buttocks just barely catching the straw of the mattress, his upper back against the relative cool of the stone wall. His clothes lay on the floor in a heap, not usual for him, but there were no hooks in the walls, and on the previous night he had been in something of a hurry. He was naked. He regarded the whore gathering her things in front of him, also naked, her bending over, standing, bending again. She was young, too young, and dark, her profession undoubtedly the result of her penniless family selling her as a young child to a procuress, or procuror, whichever, it hardly mattered. By Byrd's estimation she was just barely into her puberty, although the skills demonstrated told of long experience belying her age. It was so hard to tell, and what did it matter anyway, Johnny? It had been dissatisfying. Disappointing. He wondered why. Perhaps because... because he did miss white women, really; the challenge, the play... The native girls and whores were simply too easy, there was no sense of sweet, dominating victory when the hot poker stirred the fire, as it were. The years of exposure had darkened his arms. He closed his eyes, and an image entered his mind, as though waiting in Shakespearean wings to present itself. It was of white skin, writhing on silk, bare of the trappings of class and style, of his dark arm crossing alabaster bosom, clenching a pair of wrists as he demonstrated Hindoo tricks guaranteed to ruin any proper lady... A particular alabaster bosom, of a particular woman, a woman who by all sainting Lucifer owed him, owed him - that was it. A slight clinking sound broke his reverie. As his eyes flashed open, he saw the whore, still naked, lifting the door latch, his breeches in her arm, the small coins sewn in an inside pocket ringing together just enough, as they were meant to do. Her eyes went wide as she saw his waking state. Byrd launched forward without thinking, and grabbed her by the hair, shoving her slight body upright against the door. With the knife he honestly did not recall picking up, he transfixed her into the wood of the door, the blade entering her throat horizontally, and making a most interesting 'thunk'-ing sound. She gurgled once, twice, and began flailing, blood pouring not out of her mouth, or down her breast, but down her back, running on the door to puddle at her feet, a pink froth building up on her shoulders like a coating of lilac flowers in the spring. Byrd was instantly regretful. Now there would be a payment to be made, restitution for the property he had just ruined. "Vloek", he muttered. "Damn". Why had he been so quick with the blade, over shiteing breeches and tuppence? And it came to him why, the wherefore, and how he hated, oh so hated, business left unfinished. Byrd remembered why, and most terribly importantly, who. As the realization of the reason for his action washed over him, the previous night entered into his mental ledger in the column of 'Satisfactory' indeed. Indeed. And by God, and Lucifer, and the hosts of the beyond, he had work to do, places to travel, a person to see, and reckon with, play with. The girl had ceased flailing, and begun to jerk her limbs. Byrd walked over to her, and peered at her face, her dusky eyes just beginning to glimpse the mystery of the shrouding darkness, the fear of the unknown gleaming in her eyes. He tilted his head, left, then right, regarding her face, waiting. He felt the warm blood on the soles of his feet, incongruous on the cool floor. He waited. He waited, and at just the right moment, that last chance which he so enjoyed with men (but not, oddly, with women, and this one gave him no good feeling), he said, "Goodbye, my little gig..." "...Goodbye".

“Mutton”. “Mutton?” asked Skau. “Yes, yes, mutton!” insisted Thomasse, and he sat down at a table with a chair, leaving Billy standing alone. Billy glanced around; there was only one other chair in the place, aside from the article supporting the old sot, and it didn’t look sturdy. He considered walking out into the street to find his own amusement, but Byrd had warned him about the hazards of a Black man walking alone in Colonial towns. Slave once was enough. He walked to a wall and leaned against it casually, keeping his eyes on the doorways. Thomasse insisted: “MUTTON! And bread. With butter.” “Boiled mutton”, said Skau. Thomasse glowered. “Good enof”. The windows of the place were tallowed paper, giving a dim glow to the room. The entry fenester shined incandescent, but the position of the sun did not allow entry of direct light. It instead gave the impression of overshooting the structure, missing it, to continue on in its blazing chariot into the far sea. Billy absently looked out the doorway, watching figures pass and gleam, like angels passing through gossamer, seeming to glide through space on their way…to…to… …nothingness, in a blonde halo of flaming Hell; and he thought about Byrd’s slave woman, the one who destroyed itself, but only for a moment, and then the moment was gone.

I've been trying off and on to fight my way through UNDER THE BLACK FLAG, by the way. Where was this guy's editor? Aren't they supposed to EDIT? It reads like he took copious notes on the backs of playing cards, shuffled them all up, and then wrote the book off them while stoned out of his mind. I'll try to finish it sometime but I'm not promising anything.

Next is BATTLE CRIES AND LULLABIES, an overview of women's activities and roles in war through history. So far it's very good.

I'm resurrecting this thread from January, mostly because I finally read A book about pirates. I didn't bother before, because it's really not how I ended up on this board, being more interested in a generally not well studied time period and the social, economic, and political attitudes of the time. Which, let's face it, eventually bring in the subject of piracy as an international force on mercantile exchange of the time. I picked up two books, Under the Black Flag being one of them, which I haven't read fully yet. The other is VILLAINS OF ALL NATIONS. Quick review: Marcus Rediker seems to write books on the time period from a Labor perspective, viewing the interactions of differing class hierarchies as an inevitable outgrowth of the (capitalist), mercantilist sustem. The book is published by Beacon Press, a publishing arm of the Unitarians, a very liberal and 'progressive' outgrowth of the more activist leanings in the modern Protestant belief structure. The emphasis in his work is of piracy as a form of proletariat revolution, and less as a result of greed. His points: -The idea that being a 'hand' at the time, i.e. selling your labor for a living, was to essentially consign oneself over to death of one sort or another due to conditions. He regards working conditions at this point as a death machine. -The 'upper classes' could not possibly have been less interested in the well-being or enrichment of anyone other than themselves, and treated their employees, slaves, and servants as subhuman primates to be exploited, abused, and killed. -Ruling, controlling powers engages in constant terrorism and executions to impress and control the roiling lower classes. -That pirates sometimes seemed less interested in 'loot' than in their freedom from what they regarded as paid slavery. -Privateering inadvertently created the conditions for a nascent egalitarian movement, which led to... -Pirates creating passably democratic forms of society more or less unprecedented in known history up to that time. My take? Well, some good points, and an interesting perspective. His points about the pirate life being one of spontaneous social revolution are good; and I do feel he downplays the idea that anyone planned any of it (I sincerely doubt it). And it's worthwhile mentioning that in the early 18th century, telling your boss to 'shove it' didn't just cost you your job, it literally made you a criminal. The book does shed some light on the economic and social times of the early 1700s, and how and why people ended up at sea without really wanting to be there, simply having no economic choice; which probably went a long way to creating a truly disaffected working seafaring class. When costs go up, employment opportunity shrinks, and wages are cut, you have a potentially explosive situation. Rediker seems to feel these circumstances to be part of what created the 'golden age of piracy'. Generally, a good read, and while I appreciate his perspective, it's obviously not the whole story (it never is), and I get the feeling that Rediker can barely keep himself from running into the street outside his classroom window at the University of Pittsburgh and chanting, "POWER TO THE PEOPLE!" If you have a chance, it's okay.

The boat secured, with a sullen-looking boy hired to watch over it, Thomasse and Billy walked through the streets of Lascars. Billy had never been to the place, and looked around with great interest, while the other man moved ahead with some knowledge of his direction, but apparently reluctant to arrive anywhere. The first thing of note was the women; there were many. Second was the congestion, the crowding of people surprising Billy, and obviously aggravating Thomasse, who vengefully swung the end of his walking-stick low, knocking the shoes of passers-by. This moved Billy to step away a bit in case one took offense. Suddenly, Thomasse stopped in the midst of the crowd and said, “I am hungry”, and rushed into a tavern doorway. Billy chased after him, nonplussed.

Billy looked at Thomasse again as they glided to rest. For the first time he noticed the man’s coat was buttoned two holes off, and the sides were uneven. Also, he hadn’t shaved himself well at all. Even in his plain clothing, Billy felt he cut a finer figure than Thomasse. And that man was shaking again. Billy looked away, it being bad manners to goggle at another’s poor estate. Billy quickly secured the prow of the boat to an available ring and hopped out to finish the job. When his feet hit solid surface he immediately felt a weird uncertainty, unsure as to how to proceed exactly. He reflexively questioned, “Thomasse, hou’ long we bin ot?”, as he walked foot over foot, trying to anticipate the rolling that was no longer there. The ground was solid and throwing him. He stopped for a few titch, and waited…

I agree; more pictures.

A rough idea sketch of the bay.

THE ISLAND The island is based on any one of the small port islands in the area. I personally think Montserrat, with a more rugged interior, middling plantation development, and dependent more on trade (illicit or otherwise) for revenue and activity. Lascars is drier, and therefore much less prone to yellow fever and malarial problems than, say, Jamaica, mostly because I feel obligated to at least mention the ferocious death rates on other islands from disease. Fewer mosquitoes, less death. Almost everything is trade. It’s pretty obvious that without corrupt administration Port Royal would have been pretty much of a nowhere burg; and the major influence creating the character of that port was its use for illegal merchandising. Wealth in the New World at the time was based in significant part on smuggling and privateering/piracy, and really, with the exception of occasional flukes of trendy cash crops, that’s how rich people made their money (the old fashioned way: they stole it). So; Lascars is mostly a natural bay turned into a port/boom town, being used for transfer of goods. Since most Caribbean ports were engaged in large-scale fencing operations, I see no reason to mess with success. Lascars: the biggest pawn shop in the Atlantic!

Thomasse Bio Thomasse (rhymes with ‘dumbass’) is an accountant/bookkeeper type who is made captain of a merchant ship during one of the endless trade wars, and who gets a privateer’s commission later on. He is not really a sailor, or much of a captain, but is very good at delegating work and has an odd skill at keeping the peace among his crews. Thomasse is every Burger King assistant manager. He is well-liked, generally, but somewhat ineffectual. His crews keep electing him as a kind of default setting, so there is some sort of a captain and no-one fights over it. The crew of the Samuel vote to continue looting shipping after the cessation of hostilities of whatever war has just been fought (does it matter, really?), and by a slow process, finally start looting, robbing and raping on British merchant ships. Thomasse knows he is in big, big trouble, but doesn’t know how to stop it or get out of it.

Byrd Bio Byrd is from a hanger-on Puritan family in England with contacts among the Dutch in New York. He is a step- step- son of a reasonably successful estate holder to whom he is not related by blood at all. He is low in the ranking of inheritance, and he uses his intelligence and craft to get what he wants, which is money. He is sent to the Colonies to look after his father’s interests in a merchant concern, where he spends his time manipulating the merchant partner for what he can get. Unfortunately, it develops the merchant has been concealing his true state of destitution, and when the merchant dies, Byrd is left with nowhere near the money he should have had. He finagles a post to the Company in India, and on arriving there spends his time stealing from his bosses, whoring around, generally misbehaving, and doing his own trading deals under the table. During a fairly routine trade voyage to Sumatra the ship he’s on is captured by pirates, and due to a series of unpleasant events, Byrd turns over all his belongings and those of his shipmates, and joins on to save his own skin. He develops to be a fairly good pirate, as he possesses no scruples to speak of. He has been with the crew of the Samuel for three years. He has kind of a problem; although he did have money stashed with ‘friends’ and some measure of identity in New York and in England, whether anyone thinks he’s alive still is open to debate; and at this point it might be better to not turn up again. Byrd is about five feet nine or ten inches, slim but well-muscled, and is somewhat vain about his physique. He has blondish hair and weirdly lit blue eyes that are almost an aquamarine color; they are very distinctive. His facial features are handsome, and I think I’m basing him somewhat on a mix of Christian Bale and a young Paul Newman. See? You always spend more time on your villains.

Billy Bio Billy is West African; he ends up on a slave ship through either sale or capture, I’ll let his back story work out over time. He comes from the area that is roughly now Ghana. He is ‘rescued’ by a pirate ship and joins their crew. His ambition is to take his loot share and get land somewhere, although not in Africa, and be a grower and farmer. A couple of wives, some slaves of his own, you know, pastoral bliss.

LASCARS BAY New historical story thread. What’s it’s about: Starting a new thread for story writing within the ‘pirate’ time period genre. The other threads are getting into story arcs that are pretty well formed, and it might be fun to start something similar but with enough differences to make things interesting. Who and what would be dandy: A wide catchbag of characters: sailors, merchants, workers, hangers-on, shopkeepers, people ending up in places due to accident or flight, etc., variety and normal people. I’m much more interested in the activities of a runaway indentured servant than that of a ‘Gentleman of Noble Birth’. Shore activities and commerce of the period also involved many women characters and functions other than whores and wives; let’s look for some variety. Also, let’s keep in mind any place or ship where pirates and seamen congregated was a world melting-pot; nobody needs to be stereotypically ‘British Isles’. There were a lot of fascinating people roaming the world; I think it’d be cool to explore a wider world-view. There are a lot of re-enactors and interested persons on this forum who are continually learning about their time period. Inhabiting a character is an excellent way to practice or grow into a character, persona, or for that matter, caricature. This is about fun (FUN, DAMMIT!) and exploring and learning. Don’t worry too much about making mistakes. It’ll get there. A great thing would be, to be able to point out a series of posts for info on the time period, but not to the point that anyone gets scared out of posting, for fear of getting flamed for not being ‘correct’. And an interesting read can smooth over minor bobbles. The setting is a corrupt GAoP Colonial port in the Caribbean. I tried something in the Indian Ocean but it was just too obscure. Port Royal is taken, is looking after itself quite well, and I think an actual historical place is too limiting. I think it’s better to let the setting create itself a little, like Springfield, or Duckburg, or Gotham City.

I read in the Wisconsin State Journal today that the Walther .22 pistol the shooter had was sold to him by a dealer in Green Bay, WI, who then got deluged by the media. He stated this was his absolute worst nightmare. I bet. So; I'll go to the trouble of explaining simply, how this kid ordered up this particular pistol (I've purchased a lot of guns in the past, (don't ask), and grew up as close friends with a family that owned the local firearms store). Per Federal law, this kid went to the firearms dealers' website, supplied a credit card number and, importantly, the address and Federal Firearms' License number of a receiving dealer in Virginia. ONLY FFL HOLDERS CAN SHIP FIREARMS INTERSTATE FOR PURCHASE. THIS WAS NOT A 'MAIL ORDER' GUN. The dealer in Green Bay shipped the pistol to the dealer (in this case a pawn shop FFL) in Virginia. The kid filled out a purchase form in which he probably lied about ever having been in a mental institution, thereby committing a Federal felony. The kid's name and SSN was run through either a state background check system (For instance, the Illinois State Police run their own background checks; WI uses the Federal National Instant Check System, or NICS), or NICS. The kid's record came up clean and the pistol was transferred to him, after a statute-mandated waiting (or 'cooling-off') period. In this case the kid obviously didn't 'cool off'. NOW; and this is important; once that check came back clean, that dealer had no right to NOT hand the kid that gun. Some of you may remember the Luarie Dann school shootings in Winnetka, IL. I was for some reason standing in Mike's gun store when Fox News came in and asked to interview him (he didn't sell anything to Dann, the news crew just wanted an interview with a 'gun dealer'), and listened to Mike painfully attempt to explain to a totally uncomprehending reporter that if the checks come back clean, refusing a transfer because someone 'looks funny' or 'seems weird' is a basis for a discrimination lawsuit, and that he may as well refuse to sell a gun because the prospective purchaser is Black. Or Asian. The Glock came from a walk-in purchase in Virginia, from another store. Just in case anyone is wondering where the pieces came from and how they were purchased. They weren't really clean buys because the kid had to lie about his mental history on the form. Or maybe not. But the kid's official record was clean. What a mess.