Report on the Real Pirates Exhibit, St. Louis Science Center

[Daniel]

On the way back from Washington DC, I got to spend 90 minutes in the Real Pirates exhibit at St. Louis Science Center, seeing real artifacts that Barry Clifford's team brought up from the Whydah wreck. Regrettably, no photos allowed. In no particular order, here's what I saw.

1. The bell. Not your little ship's bell like I saw on the St. Lawrence II. Big mofo, easily a foot across, and I'll bet it weighs over fifty pounds.

2. A wide variety of cannons: a Danish six pounder, an English "long three," and a four pounder. The three carried round shot and all kinds of different bar shot: some dumbell shaped, some with full-size balls each end, and some with hemispheres. No expanding shot, grapeshot, or canister was shown. Shot wadding also was found; it looks like wood, but I assume it's just been solidiifed after centuries on the ocean floor.

3. Pewter spoons and plates, some marked with Masonic symbols. The exhibit says that Jacobites used Masconic symbols, so there's another point for the pirates-were-Jacobites crowd. Looks like my long-held view that pirates were basically non-political may be plain wrong.

4. No whole swords, but several hilts. Surprise: only one cutlass hilt, but three smallsword/rapier hilts! And yes, that same hilt that in the book is identified as a cutlass is identified in the sxhibit as a rapier or smallsword. The cutlass hilt was bone, and had that humpbacked look you see on a lot of the old Hounslow hangers from the previous century. Brass fittings on the cutlass hilt were surprisingly bright.

5. Several cufflinks and a big bent kilt pin, but still no earrings.

6. A shoe sole, very narrow, small enough to have been a woman's or a child's. No boots.

7. A lead sounding weight. The books don't give you the idea of how big these things are; I would guess eight inches long, an inch and a half at the bottom, and must have weighed at least ten pounds if it was real lead. The bottom was indeed concave to hold sticky tallow so the pirates would know what kind of sea floor it was.

8. Several pistols, including a magificent Louis XIV pistol, but mostly too damaged after years on the ocean floor for me to tell anything useful about them.

9. A magnificent ship model of the Whydah. Basic three-mast design with lateen mizzen that you would expect for that time, very bluff-bowed, showing no sails bent on. A very curious design of the wheel: the tiller is on the open quarterdeck with the wheel just forward of it, and the rope drum aft of the wheel. This means that you can't stand behind the wheel; the rope drum is in the way. You would either have to stand forward of the wheel, facing aft, or (which I figure is likelier) stand to the side of the wheel facing forward, probably with another helmsman on the other side of the wheel to assist. Model also shows something that looks like a globular lantern hanging from a line over each side. The mainstay is not connected directly to the mainmast; instead, it splits into about a dozen little lines, each secured to the edge of the maintop.

10. A few slave artifacts were still aboard, including manacles. I almost cried at the sight of the first one, because the manacles were so small they appeared sized for children; on second glance, they might have been big enough for adults. The manacles were connected to an unbending iron bar, very close together; if all of them were actually occupied, the occupants would have been literally sitting in each other's laps. There was also a device called a "branding needle," but so small I doubt any useful branding could actually have been done with it; maybe it was used for tattooing? There was an honest-to-God branding iron too, shaped like a plus or X, but I think it was from Jamaica, not the Whydah.

11. Overall the quality of the reconstruction was pretty good. I disagreed with some of the captions. One said that pirates baording a prize would have carried boarding pikes; with your hands occupied I doubt a boarding pike would have been practical. The section on the slave trade was msotly accurate, but inaccurately said that Africans attacked slave forts to free their brethren. Yes, Africans attacked slave forts, but it was for the same reason Europeans attacked each others' slave forts: to take the slaves and other wealth and use them for their own ends. It also suggested that pirates didn't use slaves, but they ignored Henry Morgan's articles specifying buccaneers' compensation in terms of slaves. Aside from that, though, they did a pretty good job.

[Capt. Bo of the WTF co.]

I saw this in Chicago last summer, and we are planning to go to the Science Center during Blondie's vacation the first week of August. I hear they also have an awesome Lego room and Warren is ready to go NOW! Anyone interested in meeting up there and boarding the exhibit in garb? I'll be checking in here from the college campus from time to time, so "just lemme know if you wanna go..." we are riding Amtrack from Sedalia to Forest Park and taking the shuttle to the planetarium, cheper than driving and I don't have to dodge all the traffic either!

Bo

[Fox]

3. Pewter spoons and plates, some marked with Masonic symbols. The exhibit says that Jacobites used Masconic symbols, so there's another point for the pirates-were-Jacobites crowd.

The whole Masons/Jacobites thing is debateable (and has been debated... extensively... with no firm conclusions). I'm interested though that there were more than one item with Masonic symbols - I was only aware of the one plate. Of course, it's quite possible that it was a former owner that was a Mason rather than a pirate. FWIW, the only image I've seen of "Masonic" symbolism (on the aforementioned plate) hasn't entirely convinced me - it's a bit crudely done for a group who apparently took their symbolism very seriously. I'd like to see the other pieces.

Bear in mind too that not all Jacobites were Masons, or vice versa, so the presence of a small amount of Masonic symbolism is not really evidence of piratical Jacobitism.

Looks like my long-held view that pirates were basically non-political may be plain wrong.

Is anyone entirely non-political?

11. Overall the quality of the reconstruction was pretty good. I disagreed with some of the captions. One said that pirates baording a prize would have carried boarding pikes; with your hands occupied I doubt a boarding pike would have been practical. The section on the slave trade was msotly accurate, but inaccurately said that Africans attacked slave forts to free their brethren. Yes, Africans attacked slave forts, but it was for the same reason Europeans attacked each others' slave forts: to take the slaves and other wealth and use them for their own ends. It also suggested that pirates didn't use slaves, but they ignored Henry Morgan's articles specifying buccaneers' compensation in terms of slaves. Aside from that, though, they did a pretty good job.

Bear in mind that the director of the Whydah exhibit is one of the foremost advocates of the "black men were free on pirate ships" argument...

[Bos'n Cross]

i must say i had some difficulty when i worked the exhibit in norfolk trying to explain to people that pirates didnt necessarily mean freedom. Whats worse is it ended up getting me in a big argument with a woman from the smithsonian..... she went so far as to say that there WEREN'T ANY black pirates, so i not only then had to convence her that there were, but tthheenn go through the whole bit about not everyone treating them the same....twas a difficult morning, but i was quite proud at the end....makes me wonder what it takes to be a historian for the smithsonian.........

[Dutchman]

"Bear in mind that the director of the Whydah exhibit is one of the foremost advocates of the "black men were free on pirate ships" argument... "

do you mean Barry Clifford or the National Geo rep?

I wonder if he ever saw this wood carving? *edit* not that a wood carving can be taken as gospel either

https://pyracy.com/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=viewimage&img=3155

even better, I wonder....... nevermind.

https://pyracy.com/index.php?app=gallery&module=images&section=viewimage&img=3156

[callenish gunner]

Aye lads so many so called experts tend to disregard facts that don't agree with their own opinions ...They have a problem if it might make them look a fool and they will fight you tooth and nail to try to prove you wrong regardless of the documentations of the opposing points of view.

[Bos'n Cross]

she tried her best, ill give here that...........tis a shame, i feel like people dint even try sometimes...oh well................dutch........no matter what aannyyonnee says...its pc........though not "pc"...but i dont care about the latter.....next time ill only wear rags about my bottom........

[Fox]

do you mean Barry Clifford or the National Geo rep?

I meant Ken Kinkor.

The trouble with being an historian (or indeed a "so called expert") is that everything one says or writes is open to argument. Let's be very clear about this: it would be impossible for anyone to write about every single example of XYZ, and to offer every single possible interpretation of those examples - if we tried, nothing would ever be published. All that can be done is to offer a viewpoint and provide fact-based evidence to back that up. I don't think any worthwhile historian would ever claim that theirs is the only valid interpretation of the past, and just because an historian doesn't cite every available fact but concentrates on those that fit their argument doesn't mean that they are wilfully suppressing contrary evidence.

For example, what Kinkor says, in a nutshell, about black pirates is that in many cases it was possible for a black person to reach a higher social standing aboard a pirate ship than in almost any other situation in the Anglophone world at that time, but he also notes that there are examples of pirates treating black people very badly indeed.

I would suggest, in all seriousness, that anyone who thinks they can do better should give it a try.

Exactly what's wrong with that particular woodcut would depend on where it is supposed to be depicting...

[capn'rob]

Has anyone read anything about Jacob Cohen Henriques or his brother, Moses Cohen Henriques. Moses Cohen was said to have taken the largest dollar value in silver from the Spanish. He later became an advisor to Morgan. There was also Samuel Palache. These were all Sephardic Jews that were retaliating for the Inquisition. They were in the New World when the Inquisition began or like others were "conversos" who maintained their religeon secretly. I've been reading a book by Edward Kritzler called "Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean" and finding it very interesting.

[MarkG]

3. Pewter spoons and plates, some marked with Masonic symbols. The exhibit says that Jacobites used Masconic symbols, so there's another point for the pirates-were-Jacobites crowd.

The whole Masons/Jacobites thing is debateable (and has been debated... extensively... with no firm conclusions). I'm interested though that there were more than one item with Masonic symbols - I was only aware of the one plate. Of course, it's quite possible that it was a former owner that was a Mason rather than a pirate. FWIW, the only image I've seen of "Masonic" symbolism (on the aforementioned plate) hasn't entirely convinced me - it's a bit crudely done for a group who apparently took their symbolism very seriously. I'd like to see the other pieces.

Bear in mind too that not all Jacobites were Masons, or vice versa, so the presence of a small amount of Masonic symbolism is not really evidence of piratical Jacobitism.

Looks like my long-held view that pirates were basically non-political may be plain wrong.

Is anyone entirely non-political?

11. Overall the quality of the reconstruction was pretty good. I disagreed with some of the captions. One said that pirates baording a prize would have carried boarding pikes; with your hands occupied I doubt a boarding pike would have been practical. The section on the slave trade was msotly accurate, but inaccurately said that Africans attacked slave forts to free their brethren. Yes, Africans attacked slave forts, but it was for the same reason Europeans attacked each others' slave forts: to take the slaves and other wealth and use them for their own ends. It also suggested that pirates didn't use slaves, but they ignored Henry Morgan's articles specifying buccaneers' compensation in terms of slaves. Aside from that, though, they did a pretty good job.

Bear in mind that the director of the Whydah exhibit is one of the foremost advocates of the "black men were free on pirate ships" argument...

In the 18th century, a high percentage of gentlemen were Masons so Masonic designs were likely to show up regardless of sympathies.

I don't know about attacking with boarding pikes but that would be the best weapon to keep boarders from coming over the rail.

Mark

[Daniel]

The exhibit also gives prominent place to Hendrick Quinton, who was Bellamy's sailing master IIRC, and who was a free black man originally from the Netherlands. I have no evidence againstthat. I agree with Kinkor that at least some Africans or African Americans were treated equally in some pirate ships; certainly more equally than they would have been anywhere else in the European world. I merely object to the generalization that pirates in general didn't own slaves, and to the continuing efforts to excuse and ignore African kingdoms' role in cooperating with the white slave traders.

[Calico Jack]

"I merely object to the generalization that pirates in general didn't own slaves, and to the continuing efforts to excuse and ignore African kingdoms' role in cooperating with the white slave traders"

Really, a great trouble amongst human beings, whether professional historians, amateur historians, or non-historians, is forgetting to use the word "some," or even the word "this." There is a vast world of difference between the statements "this pirate freed slaves," and "some pirates freed slaves," and of course "pirates freed slaves." Similarly the troubles between "this pirate ship had gear with masonic symbols," "some pirates might have been masons," and "pirates were masons."

Usually it comes about because we have an idea seeking proof, rather than evidence seeking an idea. Want to prove that pirates were a political movement rebelling against the social institutions of the time? Find evidence that one was, and you're off and running. Want to prove that pirates were merely criminals solidly entrenched in the broader social structure of the day [albeit at the bottom]? Find evidence of one and....

Did some pirates free blacks from slave ships who were willing to sign articles? Yep. Did some pirates take slaves from slave ships as captured goods for use or sale? Yep. Did some pirates burn slavers with their "cargo" aboard as not monetarily worth the effort? Yep. What does that prove about "pirates?" Only that like any other criminal, their reasons and methods would vary. By time. By location. By origin. By person.

Are there broad trends viewable across all of the pirates of the GAoP? Sure. They [almost] all used ships of some sort. Except them as used boats. And a few that were wreckers. And....