3 tides after execution

Tar Bucket Bill · March 10, 2007

My brain is having a bit of a problem wrapping itself around this concept.

For those of you who are faint of heart, you may not wish to read any further, for I hope to spare you the imagery that the following can conjure.

In "Under The Black Flag" by David Cordingly, he mentions that after a pirate had been hanged "It was usual to allow three tides to pass over them before the bodies were taken away."

Does "3 tides" refer to 3 days of high tides, or does it refer to the tide washing over the body 3 times in the same day?

If it is the former I have issues with it, especially if the body were to be put into a gibbet iron.

If it is the later then I can see that this would have been a quick affair, but probably awashed with a couple more tides until authorities untied and dragged the poor dead wretch from the post it was secured to.

And if the body were to be tarred and placed in a gibbet iron and hung on a gibbet, was the body tarred while still cloathed, or was it uncloathed? I have never seen any reference to this.

-Tar Bucket Bill

blackjohn · March 10, 2007

There are generally two high and two low tides each day. The area swept by the rising tide is the intertidal zone. I would think this would mean being swept by three incoming tides. Not that pirates hanging in the intertidal zone would be covered head to toe in water, since the range of tide varies depending on various geomorphological factors...

StrangeBayPirate · March 11, 2007

Ah Mr.Bill,

Seems questions of executions ave "muddied the waters" fer us both.

similar past ponderings topic

Twould be nice to find definitive material(s) on the procedures of GAOP executions ... anyone?

Steven St'arr

blackjohn · March 11, 2007

I will admit I have studied this aspect as much as I should have. My first question would be, did they string 'em up within the intertidal zone, or did they *bury* them there? Or was it a little of each? I know there was some practice of bury folk there. The Brits did it to thousands of American POWs who died on the prison hulks during the RevWar.

Tar Bucket Bill · March 11, 2007

From accounts I have been reading lately about the execution of pirates, it seems to have been common practice to hang them from a gallows near the low tide mark [within the intertidal area of course]. Then the body was normally taken down after a half hour or hour and chained to a post still within the intertidal area and let the tide ebb and flow over it three times. And now I understand this to be a duration of about 36 hours for the tide to do this. Then the body was taken away to be buried in an unmarked grave or given over for medical dissection and study, or tarred and gibbeted or hung in chains at a different location than where the execution took place.

Here's a web site that has an account of the gibbeting of one William Jobling in 1832. The last person gibbeted in England.

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.u....uk/durham.html

This, of course, is 100 plus years after the time we are concerned with though. But I wonder if the procedure changed much in that time.

Here is another description of the gibbeting of one James Cook, also in 1832. A slightly different procedure though.

~~~~~~~~~~~

James Cook was convicted of a gruesome murder in Leicester. He was executed on Friday 10 August 1832 in front of Leicester Prison. Afterwards:

"The head was shaved and tarred, to preserve it from the action of the weather; and the cap which in he had suffered was drawn over his face. On Saturday afternoon, his body, attired as at the time of his execution,

having been firmly fixed in the irons necessary to keep the limbs together, was carried to the place of its intended suspension."

His body was to be displayed on a purpose-built gallows 33ft high in Saffron Lane near the Aylestone Tollgate.

~~~~~~~~~~~~

I have not found any detailed descriptions of Kidd's tarred and gibbeted body to know whether clothing was also present or not. And of course, Jack Rackam's and Charles Vane's bodies too. And I've also seen nothing that says their heads were shaved before tarring. So far, one can only offer conjecture based upon some much later procedures.

-Tar Bucket Bill

Patrick Hand · March 11, 2007

I always thought the idea was to dessicrate the body... and use it to warn others not to do that sorta thing..............................

Tar Bucket Bill · March 11, 2007

Yes, that was part of the idea.

However, they become rather huge spectacles of a gruesome fascination with the public. And at least by the 1830s people took tours and gathered in large numbers to see the gibbeted offenders --- by boat when near a river and such.

And also, people began to feel very sorry for the gibbeted offenders and started demanding that their poor, wretched remains be taken down and given a proper burial. Public outcry grew and in some cases began to side with the offender. Thus, the intended reaction meant by the authorities diminished very much over time and started producing some opposite reactions. So it was abolished after 1832. And of course public executions were later done away with for similar reasons I think.

As far as gibbetting, and etc. are concerned, another part of the idea was to keep punishing the offender in the afterlife by denying them a proper Christian burial. It seems people's belief about this was rather strong back then.

I think I also read something regarding gibbeting that part of the idea was to keep the offender suspended between Heaven and Earth so that their soul could not rest for the crimes they had committed.

And regarding burial, they were sometimes buried face down and in unconsecrated, unmarked graves ---- probably for similar religious beliefs and reasons.

A good website I found regarding the history of English Judicial hanging can be found at this web site. It will give you a good basic history of it with some eyewitness accounts of various aspects of it.

http://www.richard.clark32.btinternet.co.u...k/hanging1.html

As pirates, it's probably a good idea for us to try to get into the mindset of what the implications of executions and thereafter were for people of those times.

-Tar Bucket Bill

Capt. Sterling · March 12, 2007

Would love to know when and if you come across anything regarding the clothing issue during the GAoP. We're about to tar and gibbet a "body" to follow up after the hangings we do. Already we've read a bit about the tar of the period which doesn't seem to have been the black, petroleum based stuff we see around today. Seems to have been rather transparent so we really need to know what to put under it.

At the moment, we have plans of leaving My Little Friend, dressed in shirt, breeches and stockings and tarring over that. One reads a lot about folks going to the gallows in clothes made just for that occassion and then the hangman selling them afterwards. A few woodcuts show just small clothes, so maybe the sellable stuff was removed first...? One also wonders if they would have worried about a "lady" being offended by seeing a completely naked body gibbeted at any time and since the cages were displayed to be well seen as a warning... but then this is just conjecture...

The above image is shown regarding Stede Bonnet's hanging... Unfortunately I do not know the origin of it or if it is original to the time frame...

Tar Bucket Bill · March 12, 2007

I've been wondering about that image of Stede Bonnet. Where is his hair? Is it drawn tightly behind his head, or has it been shaved off? I have not read any eyewitness accounts of his execution.

There is another well known etching by Robert Dodd of a pirate about to be hanged at Execution Dock, and he is also wearing a waistcoat, frock coat and what looks like to me to be a white night cap. I don't know when the image dates though. The white night cap would be pulled down over the face just before the execution of the hanging.

If I find anything regarding clothing and the gibbeted body, I will post it here. But so far I have only those 2 eyewitness accounts of William Jobling and James Cook in 1832. Apparently they were clothed. I have seen a couple other etchings or pen and ink drawings of gibbeted bodies, and it looks like the artist drew scraps of clothing on them. I don't know the dates or the accurracy of those depictions though.

It seems to me that the culture back then was rather modest. For instance, a man in his shirt without his waistcoat was considered in his underwear, wasn't he? And I did read the other night that when women were hanged their legs were tied together around their dresses so that the dresses would not billow up and show the undergarments during the execution.

So I find it difficult to image that a totally naked body was tarred and displayed in public. However, there is the continuing humiliation part of it still to consider.

Some of the descriptions about tarring and gibbeting I have read have said that the body was stripped naked and tarred or dipped in molten pitch, etc. and put into the gibbet cage --- with no mention of putting any clothing back on the body.

I'm inclined to think that someone was stripped after execution, tarred and then at least partially reclothed. Maybe their head was even shaved before or after execution to make the tarring easier like with the James Cook gibbeting in 1832. I'm still looking for good first hand accounts though in the period we are interested in. So far --- nothing.

I'm interested in what you found about the tar too. I have some Pine Tar and it's more of a dark brown color. I tarred a piece of hemp twine with it and it is a rather transluscent dark brown on the twine. It doesn't quite cover it completely opaque. Does this sound the same to you?

-Tar Bucket Bill

Capt. Sterling · March 12, 2007

I've been wondering about that image of Stede Bonnet. Where is his hair? Is it drawn tightly behind his head, or has it been shaved off? I have not read any eyewitness accounts of his execution.

Odds seem more in favor of the thought that he may have worn a wig, which was pretty much the fashion, instead of his own hair, rather than that he was shaved prior to his execution. In order to obtain a better fitting wig, men would shave or wear their own hair closely cropped...

Silver Steele · March 12, 2007

I've been wondering about that image of Stede Bonnet. Where is his hair? Is it drawn tightly behind his head, or has it been shaved off? I have not read any eyewitness accounts of his execution.

Odds seem more in favor of the thought that he may have worn a wig, which was pretty much the fashion, instead of his own hair, or that he was shaved prior to his execution. In order to obtain a better fitting wig, men would shave or wear their own hair closely cropped...

Here is a quote regarding Bonnet's execution off of the history of Bonnet that I have been working on. "Bonnet's wig was removed and the noose lowered over his head. Major Stede Bonnet died at the end of a rope, being shoved off the tail of a cart. For four days following his body hung from the gallows. His remains were then buried in the mud at the low tide mark. Execution records from South Carolina state that Bonnet was 48 the day he was hanged."

Additionally regarding his burial at the low tide mark another source states that he was buried in the swamp in an unknown location as he was afraid of his wife searching him out. Another explanation regarding the burial at low tide mark is that sometimes after they were chained to the post for three tides, they were buried face down at the low tide mark.

As for sources regarding Bonnet being bald at the time of execution. Hmm.. well.. I know it came from one of the following, but at this exact moment... I can not tell you.

* Mainwaring, Sir Henry, Of the Beginnings, Practices and Suppression of Pirates, London

* Rankin, Hugh F. Pirates in Colonial North Carolina, State Dept. of Archives & History, Raleigh, NC 1965

* Rhett, Robert Goodwyn, Charleston, an Epic of Carolina, Garret Massie, Richmond, VA 1940

* Hacke, William A Collection of Original Voyages, London 1699

* Howell, T.B. State Trials, vol. XV, London 1812

* Johnson, Capt Charles A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates, London, 1724

* Cordingly, David Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates, New York 1996

* Seitz, Don C. Under the Black Flag: Exploits of the Most Notorious Pirates, New York, 1925

* Ellms, Charles The Pirates Own Book, 1837

* Paschal Jr., Herbert R. A History of Colonial Bath, Edwards & Broughton Company, Raleigh NC, 1955

* Moore, David D. A General History of Blackbeard the Pirate, the Queen Anne's Revenge and the Adventure, Tributaries, 1997 v. 7, p 31-35

* Stockton, Frank R. Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts, New York, 1898

* Calendar of State Papers, Colonial Services, America and the West Indies, Preserved in the Public Record Office. Edited by Cecil Headlam. London: Cassell & Co. Ltd. , 1930-1933

* Boston News-Letter, 1704 - 1726, Boston, Massachusetts

* Boston News-Letter, November 11, 1717, Boston, Massachusetts [1]

* The South-Carolina Gazette, Friday, October 3, 1718

* Bonnet Captured at Cape Fear, Charleston Reproductions, 3rd Ed., Charleston, SC. 1996 (Original edition 1972)

* Burney, James History of the Buccaneers of America [1816] London, University Press

* Woodbury, George The Great Days of Piracy in the West Indies [1951] New York, Norton & co.

* Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, volume 1717-18, no. 5563 [3]

* Lawrence The Lower Cape Fear in Colonial Days, [1965] Chapel Hill, University of North Carolina Press

* Ellms, Charles The Pirates Own Book [1837]

* Population Census of Barbados 1715 - 1716

* Parish of Christ Church, Marriage and Baptismal Records, Barbados 1688 - 1715

* Aix-en-Provence. Centre des archives d'outre-mer. AN Col C8A 22 (1717) f°447. 10 décembre 1717 Charles Mesnier, Intendant of Martinique

* July 5, 1717, CSPCS Vol 29, #635

* Deposition of Thomas Knight, contained in a letter from Gov. Hamilton, Jan. 6, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #298. ii

* Deposition of Richard Joy, contained in a letter from Gov. Hamilton, Jan 6, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #298. i

* Letter from Gov. Hamilton, Jan. 6, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #298. (Occurrence Late Nov or early Dec. 1717)

* Deposition of Henry Bostock, contained in a letter from Gov. Hamilton, Jan 6, 1718 CSPCS Vol. 30, #298. iii.

* Letter from Lt. Gov. Bennett, Bermuda, May 31, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #551

* Letter from Gov. Johnson, South Carolina, June 18, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #556

* Letters from Carolina, August 19, 1718, CSPCS Vol. 30, #660.

* Deposition of David Herriot, 1719

* Captain Ellis Brand of the HMS Lyme in a letter (July 12, 1718) to the Lords of Admiralty, as appeared in Moore, 1997

* The Boston News-Letter, No. 739, June 9 -16, 1718, p.2, col. 1

The "biography" on Bonnet that I have been working on can be found HERE And please forgive the spelling errors. I'm in the process of redoing the entire site.

Fox · March 12, 2007

If it helps any , the description of Bonnet's execution can't have come from any of the following: