The Pirate as Social Bandit

Victims of good movies and bad scholarship for years

Acts more interesting than motivations and causes

One avenue is to view them through lens of Hobsbawn’s

“Social Bandits”

Portraying pirates as predatory individuals Insulates readers from boarder socio-economic conditions

Already seen how battle for empire brought forth the privateer

Pirates also a ‘logical’ by product of 17th & 18th C progress?

I am a free Prince, and I have as much authority to make War on the whole world, as he who has a hundres Sail of Ships at Sea, and an Army of 100,000 me in the field

And this my conscience tells me Sam Bellamy?

Snivilling puppies, who allow Superiors to kick them about deck at Pleasure; and pin their faith upon a Pimp of a Parson; a squab who neither practicces nor believes what he puts upon the chuckle-headed Fools he preaches to

Historian Eric Hobsbawm describing Social Banditry

1. a “universal and unchanging phenomenon”

2. an “endemic peasant protest against oppression and poverty”

3. its goal “a traditional world in which men are justly dealt with, not a new and perfect world”

4. with a “cry for vengeance”

1.universal and unchanging phenomenon Is this a description of piracy? Common themes to date Relationship to empire

Used to help create Condemned when empire is complete

Profit motivation Position outside of communities – yet

also linked to communities Attempts to create community

2.Peasant protest against oppression and poverty

Pirates are not peasants Yet do represent a protest against

oppression and poverty We have seen how

poor treatment by captains Illegal capture and forced labor through

press gangs Low or non existent payment for work

All figured in the move to piracy

3.Traditional world in which men are justly dealt with The use of Round Robin to

share commitment Egalitarianism on board Regulations which control

behavior rather than control position or rank

Closer parity in distribution of property

4.cry for vengeance Seen in naming practices Blackbeard

‘Queen Anne’s Revenge’

Stede Bonnet ‘Revenge’

John Cole ‘New York Revenge’s

Revenge’

Also in public declarations of intended retribution

Black Bart’s flag

Pirate flags Rallying points of solidarity Most common symbol for pirates of the

‘golden age’ Both today and at the time

Symbol of pirate community Two main background colors Red or Black Red possibly the first

From the French jolly red – jolly roger Also a symbol of ‘no quarter given’

i.e. no surrender

Symbolism on flag Most common Human skull

Or “deaths head” Appropriated from

the logs of ‘legal’ captains

Shifted, in part, to a symbol of liberty

signified a fatal, yet accepted and chosen, end

Other symbols found Heart

Truth? Death? Weapon

Tool of trade Threat of violence

Hour glass Limited time – theirs and

yours Or lost time

A symbol to fear Sign of

consciousness within pirates that they were preyed upon

A mark of commonality

Symbols of commonality Pirate strong holds

Madagascar Port Royal, Jamaica Nassau, Bahamas

Another such location was Sierra Leone April 1719 Pirate Captain Thomas Cocklyn

and crew were at anchor in the Sierra Leone river

When a ship began to approach Nervous at first then they saw her “black

flag” “immediately they were easy in their minds”

Group identity and Revenge Charles Vane

“would give no quarter to Bermudians” and “cut away their masts upon account of one Thomas Brown who was detained in these Islands upon suspicion of Piracy”

Sept 1720 Black Bart Roberts “had the audaciousness to insult H.M.

Fort” avenging the execution of “their comrades at Nevis”

Roberts then sent word to the Governor that “they would Come and Burn the Town [Sandy Point] about his ears for hanging the pirates there”

Before the execution of pirates in Bermuda in January 1724

Governor Charles Hope wrote to the Board of Trade in London that he had “difficulty” gathering evidence because residents

“feared that this very execution wou’d make our vessels fare the worse for it, when they happened to fall into pirate hands”

Threats worked!

Upon capture of a ship, pirates often enquire

“into the Manner of the Commanders Behaviour to their Men, and those against whom Complaint was made” were “whipp’d and pickled”

Bart Robert’s crew had an official for this task George Wilson was “Dispencer of

Justice” Pirate Philip Lyne caught in 1726

admitted that he “had killed 37 Masters of vessels”

1719 capture of Captain William Snelgrave spent 30 days as captive on board a

pirate ship When attacked Snelgrave ordered

his men to arms They refused

Pirate quartermaster infuriated by the command

“endeavoured to beat out” Snelgraves “brains” with a pistol butt

Snelgrave’s men however cried out “for God’s sake don’t kill our

Captain, for we never had a better man”

After questions asked beating stopped

Moreover Pirate captain reprimanded quartermaster to

“remember their reasons for going a pirating were to revenge themselves on base Merchants and cruel commander of Ships”

Snelgrave reported similar incident during capture

Pirates captured decrepit schooner belonging to the Royal Africa Company

One pirate urged it be burnt he had been ill treated while working for the RAC

Another pointed out that Burning the ship would help the company because

it was worth so little and “the poor People that now belong to her,

and have been on so long a voyage, will lose their Wages, which I am sure is Three times the Value of the Vessel”

Crew released and allowed to return to England

In July 1717, Thomas Fox, A Boston ship captain was taken by pirates who

“questioned him whether anything was done to the Pyrates in Boston Goall”

Promising that “if the Prisoners Suffered they would Kill every Body they took belonging to New England”

The prisoners were pirates of the ship Whydah One of whom was African-

American

"NOBODY CAN GIVE YOU FREEDOM. NOBODY CAN GIVE YOU EQUALITY OR JUSTICE OR ANYTHING. IF YOU'RE A

MAN, YOU TAKE IT” (MALCOLM X)

African Americans and the Sea

Expectations of predominantly white audiences

conditioned early fictional depictions of pirates of African descent. stock characters who could be conveniently killed off

Used to exploit fear and prejudice by being portrayed as particularly demonic creatures

Understanding black participation not an easy task.

“multi-culturalism” sprang not from idealistic sentiments of the "brotherhood of man”

but from a pragmatic spirit of revolt against common oppressors.

Pirates as social bandits Outlaws

less divided by national religious and racial differences

Than ‘traditional’ Europeans caught in a web of institutionalized dynastic, national, religious and racial hatreds.

Pirate crews international in composition

The crew of The Whydah included English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, and British colonials and

French, Dutch, Spaniards, Swedes, Native Americans, African-Americans and Africans

Treatment of captive Africans was unpredictable.

After a slave ship had been robbed, her human cargo sometimes left in chains freed to take what vengeance they chose on

former captors set at liberty on shore joined the pirate crew

Twenty-five blacks liberated from an unidentified "Guinea Ship“ joined the Whydah

impressed into service sold to unscrupulous colonial merchants and

captains became targets for piratical rage

Most pirates of African descent former colonial slaves Pirates Christopher Winter and

Nicholas Brown raided Jamaican sugar plantations for slaves

Judging from surnames, blacks in Blackbeard's crew were freemen born in British colonies

Having once experienced bondage

such recruits would presumably ferociously resist re-apprehension.

Freedom within pirate crew Depended on courage to seize it

Confronted by far worse prospects within 18th-century colonialism not surprising that some blacks

enthusiastically embraced “visions of invincibility, with

dreams of easy money and the idleness such freedom promised, and with the promise of a life unfettered by the racial and social ideology of the plantation system” KJ Kinkor

Although statistics are sparse at least 5000 pirates active between 1715

and 1726 perhaps 25-30% of them were black See handout

No crew described as all-white Neither race nor nationality are

mentioned in the Articles of any crew. Blacks received shares of booty and the

right to vote Rewards and incentives based on an

individual's ability to function effectively rather than on skin color.

Blacks also found as leaders of predominantly white crews

Diego de los Reyes commanded a ship operating with Dutch pirates and privateers in 1630-40’s

Ipseiodawas and John Mapoo, commanders in Henry Morgan’s 1668 expedition against Portobello, probably zambos of the Mosquito tribe

Diego Grillo, a runaway slave from Havana, commanded a ship in Morgan's expedition against Panama later defeated three separate warships sent

to take him

Leading over 1000 men in one raid, Laurens de Graff was freebooter feared by the Spanish during the 1680's

Hendrick van der Heul, one-time quartermaster of Captain Kidd, was black

Pirate quartermaster, Abraham Samuel, a former slave from Martinique retired from piracy to rule his own kingdom in Madagascar

"Caesar“ black officer entrusted by Blackbeard to ignite the ship's powder magazine in the event of defeat

One historian believes that Blackbeard himself may have been a “Tawny” mulatto

That no known pirate crew prohibited blacks from carrying firearms perhaps the bluntest possible evidence that differences in

status between whites and blacks were relatively minor.

Linguistic evidence indicates that some white pirates may have seen themselves as runaway "slaves“ i.e. maroons

Pirate ship Rising Sun was also called The Murrone[sic] Galley by her crew

Two of Sam Bellamy’s vessels in 1716 were described as “maroon periaguas”

Fears that slaves might ally with pirates are evidenced by at least one Caribbean Governor's complaints that

"the negroe men...are grown soe very impudent and insulting of late that we have reason to suspect their rising, soe that we can have no dependence on their assistance but to the contrary on occasion should fear their joining with the pirates”

Hints of alliances between maroon communities and pirate bands Especially Drake, Diego Grillo and Blackbeard

Pirate crews formed alliances with unsubjugated African tribes

Letter Captain Condon left at St. Mary's Island off Madagascar warning passing vessels

"that they should use the Blacks kindly or he would be reveng'd of them“

A group of pirates settled and intermixed with the Kru tribe on the coast of West Africa in the early 1720’s

Other evidence for the status of blacks among pirates comes from court records. Traditional precedent held that servile status

could absolve an individual for crimes ordered by one "in legitimate authority“

During the 1718 trial of five captured blacks from Blackbeard's crew

Governor of Virginia asked his Council "whether there be any thing in the Circumstances of these Negroes to exempt them from undergoing the same Tryal as other Pirates”

Council replied: "that the said Negroes being

taken on Board a Pyrate vessell and by what appears equally concerned with the rest of the Crew in the Same Acts of Piracy ought to be Try'd in the same Manner; and if any diversity appears in their Circumstances the same may be considered on their Tryal"

All five tried, found guilty, and executed, Testimony implicated Tobias Knight, Secretary to

North Carolina Governor in various dealings with Blackbeard.

"they are (tho cunningly couched under the names of Christians) no other than four Negro slaves which by the Laws and Customs of all America Aught not to be Examined as Evidence; neither is their Evidence of any validity against a White Person whatsoever”

Knight

wanted it both ways guilty and hung But testimony not to be trusted

The Council agreed and nothing happened to Knight

Post 1700 In trial after trial, blacks

were placed on the same legal footing as whites

comprise an undetermined percentage of an estimated 400 pirates executed during 1716-1726.

Most went silently to the gallows with little more than Hendrick Quintor's poignant comment

"Tis a Dark Time with me”

Beyond constraints of family, church, class, and state

pirates of the 17th and 18th centuries engaged in a unique social experiment

A form of "social banditry" carried out in a maritime context

With African and African-Americans as full-fledged participants. 

Today’s lecture varies in content from PG to X rated

Women and the Sea During most of maritime history

in the western world women on board ships have been considered bad luck. did not however preclude a number

of women going to sea And a number of those women

turning pirate But before we turn to these

women Women on shore

Relatives Not often that these people get

mentioned Female sailors and prostitutes more

common But on occasion we do Ramblin’ Jack Cramer, born in 1700,

informs us “As to my mothers family; she

was a master ropemaker’s daughter” Suggesting a tie to the sea

Fuller scene of family relationships from same period comes from Edward ‘Ned’ Ward

Ward, author of the Wooden World, a Publican and journalist in eighteenth-century London

Published a series of articles on London in The London Spy compiled and published in book form in 1703

The London Spy

“The first figure that accosted us at our entrance was a female Wappineer, whose crimson countenance and double chin, contain’d within the borders of a white calico hood, and her Fiery-face look, in my fancy was like a red-hot iron glowing in a silver chafing dish.”

The landlady of the pub and the mother of two sailors.

After placing their order Ward and his companion take a seat watched as the landlady attacked her son

‘a great hulking fellow Smoaking a short Pipe of Stinking tobacco’ with a tirade of abuse

Complaining that she worked as hard anyone in the parish but she not able to

“maintain you in this lazy life you lead”

Eventually gave him six pence ordered him to look for work

After a short while alone with their thoughts Ward and his companion are roused as the

door swings open and in “steps another of the Tarpauling

Factory” Second son returning from sea

with a bag full of money The mother greats him praising him “In answer to which, he Innocently

returns this Compliment, Sure never any seafaring Son of a Whore had

ever such a good Mother as I have”

In a continuation of this domestic scene of bliss

next through the door is Betty returning sailors sweetheart

“and there was such a wonderful Mess of Slip-Slop Lick’d up”

Betty asks if he brought her anything from the voyage

“Yes, says he, I have sure. I can as soon forget the points of my Compass, as forget . . .as good as girl as ever was Kist in a Cabbin, or lost her Maidenhead in a Hammock”

Common theme throughout a sense of rough character, of

bluntness, and of a certain crudity All of which wrapped up in a lose

community

A second example of port side women seen in the case of Elizabeth Patrickson

Who was indicted by the Admiralty courts for “robbery, Murder, and other maritime offenses”

Patrickson “did take one hundred pounds English

Money and various goods; and upon Nenrico a Doctor of Law, did commit piracy, robbery and murder”

Full examination has shown that this “piracy” to place at the dock side rather than on water

Patrickson one of many women, who lived off crime in and around the docks

Often left to fend for themselves while their husbands or brothers were away Crime was the only way to make ends meet

Mary Jones had a job making umbrella’s did not make enough to pay her rent

so she stole clothing of fellow lodgers

Mary Dyer chanced upon an open door Entered and stole bed linen and bread

Discovered hiding under the kitchen table with a loaf under each arm as the family returned

Ann Wood, laundress, worked and slept in the same room as her employers Stole a kettle, three flat Irons, and twenty

linen caps Thefts quick responses to opportunity

rather than large organized plans

Susannah Flood robbed owner of a house which was on fire

Pretending to help him by saving his goods she made of with 3 guineas, 3 half-crowns and 7s.

In another form of theft women fleeced the gullible or foolish

One salesman testified against Sarah Lynch worker in a clothing shop

“I went in after my hat; they shut the door, and pulled up their clothes and wanted me to do with them, and the prisoner unbuttoned my breeches, and took the bag of money out of my pocket”

Actions , falsely offering sexual services, leads us to most commonly discussed water front women

Prostitutes

“Strumpets and trulls” as Ned Ward referred to them

Were to be found in every port around the Atlantic

In London during the 17th and 18th Centuries Ratcliffe Highway in Wapping was a common location

‘a continual street, or filthy straight passage, with alley of small tenements of cottages builded, inhabited, by sailors and victuallers’

Polyglot community Women from most European nations

Flemish women were popular during the early eighteenth century with a reputation for sexual expertise

as well as women from Africa and Asia According to Daniel Defoe many

prostitutes were, like women criminals, in the ‘business’ to supplement their income

“This is the reason why our streets are swarming with strumpets. Thus many of them rove from bawdy house to service, and from service to bawdy house again”

Most Prostitutes in port cities like London downtrodden victims of society

Facing the danger, disease, and violence of both the city and the occupation they found

themselves in Not all where without some level of

control A young man named Francis Place was

apprenticed in 1780 working for a leather breeches maker in

London

Place’s new master had three daughters

1. The eldest a common prostitute

2. The second was kept by the captain of an East Indiaman “in whose absence she used to amuse herself as such women ususaly do”

3. The youngest had pleasant lodgings where she was visited by a gentleman

Non of these women were married

For the officer and other wealthier men a different group of women offered their

services Prostitutes who worked away from

the ports and could be contacted in theatres or pleasure gardens

In the 1740s John Harris an employee of the Shakespeare’s Head A tavern in Covent Garden frequented

by Sea Captains and directors of the East Indian Company

Began compiling a list of such women

So popular – eventually published as Harris’s List of Covent-Garden Ladies or

Man of Pleasure’s Kalendar 1758 edition sold 8000 copies

Inside were details of the Ladies and where to meet

Mrs. Grafton, who lived near Union Stairs in Wapping informed people that

“her chief and best customers are Sea officers, who she particularly likes, as they do not stay long at home, and always return fraught with love and presents”

Mrs. Grafton is “a comely woman, about forty, and

boasts she can give more pleasure than a dozen raw girls. Indeed she has acquired great experience in the course of twenty years, in natural philosophy, in the University of Portsmouth”

“five shillings is her price, and she earns it with great industry”

A days pay for a senior captain 20 shillings

A Sea Captain could also find a companion described with nautical terms

One such example is Miss Devonshire of Queen Anne Street East who is of

“a fine fair complexion, love tinctured cerulean eyes, fine teeth, and genteel good figure; a charming partner in a dance, a very good companion by the fireside, and dearly loves a charming glass”

And now for the X rated section

“many a man of war hath been her willing prisoner, and paid a proper ransom;

her port is said to be well guard by a light brown chevaux-de-freize, and parted from Bumbay by a very small pleasant isthmus

The entry is rather straight; but when once in, there is very good riding; and when they have paid port customs, they are suffered to slip out very easily

Though generally followed by a salute from Crown-point, which hastens their departure by causing the floodgates to open commodiously”

“She is so brave, that she is ever ready for an engagement, cares not how soon she comes to close quarters, and loves to fight yard arm and yard arm and be briskly boarded;

she is best pleased when her opponent is well armed, and would despise any warrior, who had not two stout balls to block up her covered way, and did not carry metal enough to leave two pounds behind him”

With the prostitutes who plied their trade in London and other port cities of the Atlantic world

There was many a tearful farewell in ports across the land

As a ship was preparing to sail the Blue Peter flag was hoisted

The signal for all men to return to ship

One example

Not all farewells took place as detailed in the preceding image a second scene by the same artist shows one series of alternatives

However, not all sailors were allowed to leave the ship Shore leave was not a right

Particularly during time of war For those who remained on board

it was the custom to allow wives to visit the ship Along with the wives came

prostitutes Brought out by enterprising

boatmen hoping sailors would pay their fare

Often prostitutes outnumbered wives Though to satisfy naval

laws all were classed as wives

Women would share hammocks

And by many accounts dance and drink as much as any in the tavern

As the Blue Peter rose Sailors returned And these women had to leave

But what of those who didn’t? Suzanne Stark researched female

sailors Using captains logs, ships musters,

and contemporary newspapers found details of 20 women who

served in the Royal Navy between 1650 and 1815

examples

William Brown (female name not known)

Joined navy around 1804 After a row with Husband

Served for several years on the Queen Charlotte

1815 discovered to be a woman Report on her life at sea given in

the Annual Register September 1815

“She is a smart, well-formed figure, about five feet four inches in height, possessed of considerable strength and great activity; her features are rather handsome for a black, and she appears to be about twenty six years of age. . . in her manner she exhibits all the traits of British Tar and takes her grog with her late messmates with the greatest gaiety”

He unveiling as a woman did not stop her career

Later in the same year visited Somerset Place Navy and Pay Office

to collect prize money earned while aboard the Queen Charlotte

Returned to the ship at the end of the year – still under her assumed name

Ships muster from December 31, 1815 to February 1, 1816 reads

“William Brown, AB, entered 31 December, 1815, 1st Warrt.,” AB = Able bodied seaman

Mary Lacy, born January 1740, Wickham, Kent, England

Age 19 disguised herself as a man in order to run away from home undetected.

Assumed name William Chandler joined the Royal Navy in 1759 as a carpenter's servant on the Sandwich.

1763 started an apprenticeship in Portsmouth dockyard

Received her shipwright's certificate in 1770 1771 resigned from the Navy due to

rheumatism

“A Petition was read from Mary Lacey setting forth that in the year 1759 she disguised herself in Men’s Cloaths and enter’d on board His Maj. Fleet, where having served til the end of the war, she bound herself apprentice to the Carpenter of the Royal William and having served Seven Years, then enter’d as a Shipwright in Portsmouth Yard where she has continued ever since.”

“Resolved, in consideration of the particular Circumstances attending this Woman’s case, the truth of which has been attested to by the commissioner of the Yard at Portsmouth, that she be allowed a Pension equal to that granted to Superannuated Shipwrights”

Awarded her a pension of £20 a year

Hannah Snell

June 2, 1750 In a London pub,

a young marine stunned his fellow soldiers

announcing that "he" was really a woman in disguise.

For two years Hannah Snell had concealed her true sex

Serving in a regiment of the Royal Marines. Sailed to India through great storms Fought in mud-filled trenches at the siege of

Pondicherry and injured in the battle. Having recovered from the revelation,

Hannah's mates encouraged her to make the most of her extraordinary story

Suggested that she request a pension from the head of the English army, the Duke of Cumberland.

Hannah approached the Duke on 16 June 1750 while he was reviewing troops in St. James's

Park. Surprised by the figure standing before

him, the Duke accepted a petition from Hannah

Within days, news of Hannah's exploits had trickled into the London press

Public clamored for more information Eager to profit from this notoriety, Hannah

sold her story to the London publisher, Robert Walker.

Her appearances on stage in uniform caused a sensation

November 1750, the Royal Chelsea Hospital officially recognized Snell's military service and granted her a lifetime pension.

She lived for another forty years, marrying twice and raising two sons

And finally female pirates

History Channel Version of the two most famous Bonny and Read

Followed by a brief recap of life according to Johnson

Anne Bonny Mary Read

Anne Bonny

Born in Cork, Ireland Illegitimate Passed off as a boy Trained as clerk Eventually taken to

Carolina Married a sailor Kicked out of house Went to sea Fell in love with a

pirate

Mary Read

Born in England Illegitimate Passed off as her

brother Dressed as a boy Hired out as a footboy Joined army Married fellow soldier Husband Died Went to sea Captured by pirates

Rackam and Bonny along with several other pirates stole a sloop called the William

One of boats they took contained Read dressed as Man

Eventually read is revealed and the two continue as pirates

Rackam small time pirate of no notoriety until linked with two female pirates

Governor sent out ships to capture Rackam

Captain Barnet came across sloop

Following a brief fight Barnet and crew boarded the

William Mary Read and Anne Bonny

were the only two to remain on deck

Male pirates were hung Bonny permitted to see Rackam on

day of execution “if you had fought like a man you

would not have to die like a dog” Two women also convicted Both ‘pleaded their bellies’ Mary Read died in jail Anne Bonny???

Possibly headed to Carolina married James Burleigh

had 8 children and died in 1782 at age 84