The episode dives into the rich and often misunderstood history of piracy, tracing its evolution from the 1650s to the 1730s. Initially, European nations used privateers—pirates with official letters of marque—to attack enemy ships, especially Spanish vessels, disrupting colonial trade. As wars ended, these privateers turned into full-fledged pirates, leading to the most famous and romanticized era of piracy. This period saw the rise of legendary figures like Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read, who challenged gender norms in a male-dominated world. Pirates operated under a unique code emphasizing fairness, democracy, and crew autonomy—allowing for votes to remove or replace captains, and providing compensation for injuries. Despite this, life at sea was perilous, with high death rates from disease, shipwrecks, and violence, and many pirates were marooned or killed. The episode also addresses the mythologizing of piracy in media, particularly in shows like *Black Sails*, which dramatize both the adventure and brutality of pirate life. Historically, pirates were not just criminals but complex individuals who adapted to harsh conditions, often outmaneuvering naval forces through clever tactics and survival skills. The discussion concludes with a nod to modern piracy, noting that banditry and maritime crime persist throughout history, proving pirates remain a persistent force in human conflict. The narrative blends humor, historical facts, and personal reflections to present a balanced, engaging view of a misunderstood era.
Ahoi, welcome to Smosh Mouth, I'm Shane. I'm Meti, I'm Amanda, and we have a very special Weary Traveler on our ship with us. Today, his name is Trevor Everf's. Erg, what do you mean Weary Traveler? I'd be the captain of this ship. What? You have the most SpongeBob pirate voice. Erg, you're not the captain, that's crazy. SpongeBob me boy, I, that's the captain there. So what am I? The whore? Whoa, whoa, no, hey, don't happen, it's not happening on these ships. If a woman is around these ships, what's happening there? Whoa, she's not a captain, I wish. Right, there are a couple very famous female pirates, though, to be fair. That's true, and that's me. And that's you, okay, okay. Was was the whore, now a famous pirate. Is that, okay. I've decided, I've made my own resume. That's your lore. Look at this, I have a sword, you have a hat, you have an eye patch. Yeah, for our audio listeners, we're pirates. Yeah, fully checked out, fully dressed up. If you guys didn't get that, we are pirates. It is the week of Trevor's birthday. Yay! And because of that, and we've had this plan for like a year now, I feel like. Yeah. Talk about this. Yeah. You wanted to talk pirates. Yeah, well, I think one of the episodes that came on and we just kind of accidentally started nerding out about it a little bit. Yeah. I was like, guys, I really like pirates. We were like, whoa. And then thankfully, you know, Selena was like, well, do you want to come on and like have a dedicated episode to nerd out. So now I get to talk about pirates for like four hours, I think, slated for the day. Yeah, yeah. We have a whole day, happy birthday. Yeah. We're doing this one a bit like a Joe Rogan experience where we just go for six hours. Yeah. And that's the only way it's going to be like a Joe Rogan experience. That is the only way. Just how long it is. Yeah. That's all our adreads are for supplements, gas station rhino pills. Thank you for the sponsorship. Yeah. When did you first start loving pirates when you were a kid or an adult? I think when I was a kid, I really love pirates. I love the pirates. That carried me in my face. Yes, sorry. Hold on. Bless you. I am the bless. May you be blessed. Thank you. Yeah, I think you grew up in Idaho, yeah, you were nowhere near the ocean, you're like fuck. No, I mean, like the Pirates of the Caribbean movies, like I think I was very like target, like eight, like growing up. I love those movies. Um, there was a treasure island, of course. Treasure Island, one of my favorite books, probably my favorite book of all time. Really? Yeah, I love it. And I know for a lot of people, they read it and it's like, that's kind of a tough read. Like it is a, the book is very, I mean, it's old. Why is that a tough read? I can't remember it. It's old 18. They're just slower. Yeah. Um, and it's also like the old, like Robert Lucines, Steven's very committed to like using, like pirate, like tongue and making it very authentic. And so like a lot of the dialogue is just like, wow, it's, it's hard to understand. One time actually, I was reading that book and, um, I was like reading it to Raven before we would go to sleep at night. I was like reading it in bed. You're reading it by candlelight. Yeah. And then I was like, maybe I should have picked a different book because I'm getting to the pirate dialogue and it's like, you know, 11 at night. And like we're like about to sleep and I'm like, are you salty bastard? I'm like, please. Please. Please. Pick a different book. God. Um, I, I've read plenty of books from that era, but it is, it can be tough. Yeah. Yeah. Like I remember we were trying to read Moby Dick and stuff and I'm just like, man. Moby Dick was a tough read. What do we do in school? Moby Dick is like, yeah, okay. As far as like books go, Moby Dick is a thousand times tougher of a read than like Treasure Island. It is like a children's book. Yeah. I read a thousand leagues under the sea. Oh, yeah. It's a little bit over. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and it's like, it's cool. It's cool to be like, whoa, this was insane for the time that it was written. Yeah. But it's still just like what they find exciting is a different plot. Yeah. It's not gonna have the same twists and turns and character arcs that we're used to. It's actually crazy. Like Treasure Island. Okay. I'm gonna take off the eyepatch. Wow. I'm like my vision. Your eye works. Yeah. Wow. Actually, if you turn the lights off, I could probably see really good out of this eye because that's what you know how people do that where like if you're about to go into a dark place or you can have one eye. Isn't that? Is that, I've heard that lore about pirates. That they wore an eyepatch even though they weren't missing an eye. So that when they went under deck, they could take that off and they were adjusted to the likeness. What? I actually haven't heard that, but that would make a lot of sense. You didn't think that off. I didn't make it up. But I think I read something online where someone else had made it up. I wrote it out in a post. This is the Reddit stories. But it sounds, it makes sense to me. Yeah. Or did they wear it to be like, I'm a badass. Don't mess with me. I'm so concerned. Well, they did do a lot of intimidation. Yeah. Selena thinks maybe it's when you look through the spyglass. Why would they have the eyepatch to look through it? Multifunctional tool. So Pirates, can we give a little bit of a preface of piracy and the age of piracy? Yeah. That's very good. I'm happy to give an overview. It's so tough because I think that I really could just talk for so long. So feel free to ask questions or steer me in any direction. What's stereo? Basically, the Golden Age of Piracy was from about like 1650 to 1730. Very short. 80 years. Very short, very short. Yeah. Well, it was really like, it overlapped greatly with the period of like expansion into the new world. So that's like kind of, because the first era of the Golden Age of Piracy, it's like split into three eras. And the first era was from 1650 into like the early 1700s, and it's called the Buccaneering Era. Ooh. And so Spain, Spain was very, they were, they were early arrivers to the new world. They were in on it early. The market was bullish on the new world and colonization. And the other European nations were like, we want to get in on that. But a navy is very expensive. And also the Golden Age of Piracy overlapped with what was called the Age of Sale. And so the Age of Sale is basically when like, mastage ships became the primary method of travel and commerce and also like warfare. So all of these nations were like working on their navies very heavily. But I mean. Still in the Buccaneer era. Yeah. Yeah. The Buccaneering area. So there were what were called privateers. And basically, I mean, the journey across the Atlantic Ocean was really long. Yeah. And it was very hard to like coordinate a navy and very expensive. And so these nations, what they took to do instead was giving pirates what was called the letter of mark. And essentially, it would be like the king of England would be like, hey, here's a letter of mark. You're, you're we're going to allow you to do piracy. We won't hunt your ships. You can dock in our ports as long as you only attack ships from other nations. So don't attack any English ships. Go have your way with Spanish for like, whoever. And a lot of the nation, like a lot of European nations were war with Spain at this time. Would they, would they, would the king want some of the, you know, the booty that they take from these ships? Yeah. So they would take a percentage of whatever they put in them. But yeah, I mean, for pirates, it was a pretty sweet deal because it's like they could, you know, legally unload their goods and the king would take a percentage. But they could kind of just get up to their activities. Do whatever they wanted to do. And it was a way for other European nations to kind of disrupt Spain's like chokehold on the new world. Because Spain had a lot of like roots for trade. They basically, yeah, they dominated that. Yeah. They just got there very early. Okay. They were getting there very early and kind of getting like first dibs on, you know, what were they trading? Um, well, there were a lot of like things in New World like tobacco was a big one. Yeah. Um, honestly, a lot of the Spanish, they were just, I mean, they were just killing, you know, indigenous populations and a lot of like what they were getting from like South America was gold, like they were just like Spanish treasure gallons. They were just, they were just like the, the governments were effectively pirates, like everybody was pirates. Yeah. Yeah. Like everybody's stealing, but you're stealing from people who are stealing. Right. Yeah. So pirates were actually cool because they're like, we wear our name proudly, we're pirates. There is a moral argument for the fact because like obviously pirates, you know, are painted as like, oh, they're the bad guys. They're attacking people. But like the English and the Spanish and the French, they were coming over and they were just killing people and they were bringing disease like, um, Nassau actually, uh, which was a very big pirate hub, um, on new Providence Island, which is now the Bahamas. Yeah. Uh, when Spain first arrived there, they just either enslaved or killed the entire indigenous population of like new Providence Island. They brought disease and then the people that didn't die disease, they sold the slaves and used to, you know, farm plantations and sugar cane and things. So like all the colonizers were really terrible people. I'm not to say that pirates didn't also get up to their fair share of terrible things. Yeah. Um, I love pirates, but I also feel like every time I talk about it, I profess like, there were a lot of pirates that did very bad things, though, and like, Sir Francis Drake is one of the most famous like explorers and private years of all time. He was operating heavily like during the Buccaneering era. Um, and he was just a slave like he just bought and sold slaves as well. And so like a lot of these people that are renowned, I mean, he was the second guy to circumnavigate the world. And like, he's this very renowned explorer, but he's just, but also bad dude, they, they call themselves privateers, not pirates. Correct. Privateers or Buccaneers. Um, and that was really only if you had like a letter of mark.
than you're a privateer. And so yeah, during this period of all these nations being at Orr with Spain, privateers are just kind of going at it. They're plundering ships and creating little like colonies and bringing like England would send over governors. Like they took over New Providence Island, but they were kind of just having their way over in the Spanish main. - Did the Spanish have privateers in Buccaneers of their own? - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - So it was kind of like almost like a mini war happening. - Exactly, it was like, it was a lot easier for them to just send people out to be like fight each other. - Yeah, of course, do their dirty work. - Yeah, they were just trying to disrupt Spain and take their stuff and the gold that they were plundering and all that. And so that was the Buccaneering era. - That's the 1500s. - That's like 1650s right into late early 1700s. - Would Spanish privateers be called privateers? - Yeah, I mean, they probably had another name for it, but that's kind of like overall, - L privacy years. - Yeah, L private. - L privateers. - So nobody ever referred to themselves as a pirate. - No, I think not at that time. - Okay, okay. - But the pirates of the Caribbean, it's like nobody's gonna say you're a pirate. - Well, you never know. - Yeah. - Our security is so true. - A lot of the modern media that you see in the parts of like pirate history that are very romanticized is actually in what's called the post-Spanish succession period. So the war of Spanish accession ended and then there was kind of like a peace time. So in peace time, all these privateers now just defaulted back to being pirates. Like once the letters of Mark, like we're a longer war. So the English are like, well, don't attack Spanish ships and now they're just pirates again. - So they don't have a letter of Mark. They're kind of free reign of the seas. - Yeah, yeah, and so the post-Spanish accession is when you see a lot of like the very famous pirates that's when they were operating. So like your blackbeards, you know, your Calico Jack, your in Bonnie and your Mary Reed, all these very, a lot of the very famous pirates. - Your Bonnie and Mary Reed are the famous female pirates. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And that was from, it was a very short period of time. That was like 1710, they didn't do it for that long. They were around five days that they threw them overboard. - It was, it was a very short period but it was a very, that's when like a lot of the crazy exploits were happening. - In this area where there was no letters of Mark. - Yeah. And then in between the privateerian area and the post-Spanish accession was called the pirate round period. So that was like also pretty short. - Rounding up all the pirates. - Yeah, exactly. They were rounding up. - Really? - No, it was, it was named that because one of the major trade routes actually from England over into the Mughal empire. So what is now like modern day India, the British East India company, they, what pirates would sail from England down around the coast of Africa up to Madagascar and into the Indian Ocean. And that was a very popular place for pirates to operate. So plundering like British trade ships that were bringing spices over from India. - Oh. - And like Mughal treasure ships. So that was a very profitable. A lot of the most profitable pirates were operating in the pirate round. And it was just all that. - In the Indian Ocean. - Yeah, because you would just sail down around the Cape of Good Hope and South. - And what ships were they rubbing? They were rubbing East India company. - Yeah, a lot of British ships were there. And I mean, there were Spanish ships as well, like just trading with India. But then yeah, the Mughal empire was kind of the, it was like an Islamic empire that was very powerful and very wealthy. And it was basically what is now like a lot of modern day India and Bangladesh was kind of the big area. - When you say treasure ships, are you talking ships full of gold? - Yeah, I'm talking ships full of just like jewels, gold, all that stuff. - Why were they, what were they doing? Were they bringing it over somewhere? - Yeah, just trading. - It's that air is equivalent of like an armored bank truck. Like it's like we got to move this casher or this. - Exactly. - You could somehow in the fastest ways by ship. - Exactly. - 'Cause you can't like, on land that's, you're probably more vulnerable on land. - Yeah, on land there's, I mean, there's still like highway men and things in the journeys like a lot longer. You could get places so much faster by ship. And the Mughal empire was very like, they're responsible for building like the Taj Mahal. So it was like a lot of art. Like they had just a ton of wealth. And so that was the pirate round period. And a very famous pirate rounder was Henry Evry, who was known as the King of the Pirates. And he's very famous for plundering the Emperor of Mughal, his personal treasure ship. He stole it and estimated, I think at the time, like 600,000 British pounds, which the calculation is something like. - Back in the days massive. - Yeah, I mean, the calculation's like over like 200 million. Like I think it's somewhere between like 150 million pounds. - And he didn't have to, he didn't have to give any of it to anybody else other than his crew. - Yeah, correct, he made off with it. - I think something that makes like historical eras fascinating to read about is compared to modern day where like the scope of like the amount of power that governments have now with like technology. - Yeah. - Is so immense that back then though, it's like if you, and a few, like enough guys had a ship. - Yeah. - It's like you can take on the anything kind of. Like I know your chances are gonna die, but like. - Probably not, I feel like. - The thought of like something of that equivalent happening nowadays just seems so impossible. - Yeah, yeah. - Because there's no private group of people that can take on like the nation's most powerful device or your ship, you know, it's like not possible. - You take someone's ship and it could take weeks for whoever owns the ship to find out about it. - To find out and then they're already gone. And also I don't think the people on the people on their ship are fully equipped to handle a group of private tears because what are they coming on the ship with? Do they have weapons like a bunch of weapons or? - Yeah, so a lot of pirate warfare is basically, you have like, you know, your broad side cannons. And when ships would fight, usually they would come up alongside each other and they'll fire the broad sides. And then the whole point is like you kind of wanted to make the ship weak enough to then get on and board it. So once you were close enough, you would throw out the hooks, pull the ship in and then, you know, throw across the gang planks and-- - And then you would take everything on that ship back to your ship? - Well, you would fight, you know, guns and swords, take over the ship and what, sometimes you would, sometimes pirates would just take what they could carry. Sometimes they would take the ship with them if they could just-- - It's gonna say, 'cause like a certain amount of weight at a certain point, 'cause gold is heavy. - It's really heavy. - So all the people on the ship either got tossed off, killed or held prisoner. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that was another thing is like when they would take, a lot of pirates would offer survivors. Some people would just kill everyone, but-- - A lot of survivors. - Yeah, like once a ship, like once, it was very common or once you knew the pirates took control of your ship or whatever, a lot of people would just surrender outright. So if it was like a merchant ship, they'd be like, we don't wanna fight, take whatever you want and just like, please let us live. - Yeah. - Some pirates would honor that, some pirates would take the ship. Sometimes they'd be like, well, whoever wants to join our crew can and we're gonna kill the rest. - Is anybody ever, was he a kind one? - It's, I mean, it's tough to say exactly how kind one pirate or another was, but honestly, I don't know. I don't know if there's like much specifics. - Would you be a kind pirate, Trevor? - I like to think I would. I like to think I would. - It's kind of nasty. - I'd be dead. - You didn't ask. - I would be dead. - Oh, wait, you would be the one who was like the top commander guarding the gold and you would fight to the death to guard the gold, is that right? - No, I'm saying I'd probably die of some disease week one. - You're like, yeah, I'm in the ship. - Fucking die, I can and would misfire and I'd explode. - I'd just stand on the ship. - You have to wonder what's the typical survival rate of a pirate, pretty bad. - It's gotta be atrocious. - And I think it's low because you can get really, really sick. - It's also insane to think about how many ship wrecks there are in the world. If you went out on a wooden ship back in the day, it's like, you're gonna die. - I know, it was like, you were just, it was a coin flip. On whether or not you were gonna live or die, people would just get, you would get killed boarding, you'd get trapped out and send old rooms, sickness. - But just like the ocean is just a cruel mistress. - Oh my God. - No, there were literally days. - No, but like storms, like you sail the wrong day and it's just your ship is broken apart. - It's a mistress to the sides. - Yeah, who'd you wonder? - You think about how fucked up ships are nowadays. - Yeah. - And then you think about one with no electricity or plumbing. - People are still getting sick on cruises. - Yeah. - They're wiping people out, left and right. - Yeah. - Storms are dangerous, but then I mean, when all you have to propel you is wind and sails, people would like pirates could get trapped out in old rooms and they could just be sitting like literally the ship not moving and still water for weeks. - Oh. - And people would just starve. - Water, like. - And yeah. - So they're obviously, they need to dock, obviously, to get water and everything. Is their ship like commonly known? and it's like, oh, that's a problem.
pirate ship. You know how Pirates of the Caribbean? Look at this ship, see? It's got the skull on it. - Yeah. - 'Cause they would have pirate flags. - Yeah, so usually when you would, that would, you wouldn't be flying the black flag the entire time you were sailing. Generally speaking, you would want to be a little bit more incognito. And then once you were about to attack a ship, like if they were like, okay, there's a pride. - Hey, yeah. Peace and love, everybody. - Just a rainbow fly. They're like, that's going to mean something some day. But for now, it's refracted light. And they're like, not even that. That hasn't been invented yet. - That's hilarious. - Okay, so you have, you have the rounders and then we go to the peacetime. - Yeah, so the post-Spanish accession peacetime, all the pirates are now, they're just pirates. And for a lot of them, it was very like, it was more desirable than just joining a navy. Because funny enough for how bad the conditions were being a sailor. Pirates were actually like very democratic. And like the pirate code was a real thing. The very early iterations of it. It's attributed to multiple different people. Henry Every had a pirate code. But the most complete pirate code that we have access to is Bartholomew Roberts, who was a very famous pirate captain in the post-Spanish accession period. And there were some really good, it was a very, some of the very highlighted points in it were the payment system on pirate ships was very pretty even. So the captain in the quarter master would get two shares. The gunner and the bowson would, the like master gunner and the bowson would get like the bowson. - The bowson. - The bowson is essentially like sort of like third, like right hand man to the quarter master. - Okay. - Order master. And the bowson, like kind of, he spoke for like a lot of the crew, he was kind of like a representative almost. But more of a manager or like they're all, everybody has physical tasks. - Yeah, he's like a talent manager. - Yeah. And so they would get a share. - They have HR. - Sounds like the bowson is kind of HR maybe. - Well, like kind of like the quarter master in the bowson work. Because the captain had like complete control in like situations of battle. But outside of that, the quarter master was really in charge of like holding votes and paying out shares and like bringing issues to the captain. And if the crew didn't like the captain and didn't think that he was doing a good job, they could put it to a vote. And the crew would vote on whether or not they wanted a new captain. - And that was completely fine. The captain wouldn't be like, I'm going to kill you for doing that. - Yeah. I mean, if the captain was a bad person, but if, you know, - But overall, the captain could get demoted to quarter master and where master becomes. - So the captain's just like washing the deck the next one day. - The captain could get demoted. He could become a regular crew member. A lot of times if the captain did get voted out, he's probably being really awful. And they would like maroon him. Sometimes they would just straight up kill the captain. - Jack Sparrow. - A full mutiny. - Yeah, a full mutiny. - Would it be called a mutiny if they just voted him out or is that kind of a different thing? - I don't actually know like technically what would qualify as a mutiny. - I think a mutiny is like you're going against them in you. - I think you maroon them on an island or something. - A mutiny I think more so is like something done in secret and without like, like not putting it to a vote. It's like a group of people would rise up and just kill the captain without like voting on it. - Without working as a like full team, yeah. - That would suck to be marooned on an island. I think about that. - I think it'd probably be better to get shot than get marooned because definitely in my head as a kid, I definitely romanticized like just islands and stuff. - Of course. - We would go to Key West. - Sure. - We'd go to the Key West in the summer and like we'd just be out in the ocean. I'm just like this is amazing. And I would be like I could survive on a stranded island. It's like no, you're going to die. - You're just going to die a slow death. - What? No way. - It's going to be hot. - Yeah. - You're going to get dehydrated. - You're going to meet people. - So tough. - It's a deserted island. - You're going to live there like Blue Lagoon. Your hair's going to get so long. You're going to get so tan. - Oh no. This is cast away. - Yeah. But the pirate, I mean there were a lot of other really like, there was like workers comp. Like there was like- - What if you- - In Bartholomew Robert, it's like pirate- - Got a pig leg. - Yeah. If you like lost an arm or a limb like during battle or working on the ship. Yeah. They pay out like 800 like pieces of eight to be like, hey, you lost a leg in battle. Like we're going to pay you out money. And then they would pay like less if like the injury was like more minor or whatever. But- - And none of these men have like a home with families or some do. - Generally speaking, I think it was less likely- - It's probably life. - I think some people did have like, you know, there might have been some like pirate captains that would like settle down or have families or whatever. But I think it was it was not very common. - Yeah, you never see that. - Yeah, you're gone like all year round. Like how much time are they even spending on land ever? I mean not a lot. Most land wasn't safe for them. - Right. That's what I was thinking. - Yeah, they were very few. So like I said, like NASA was a big like pirate hub. Port Royal was a big pirate hub. Madagascar actually was a very - Really? - So pirate hub. - You really only hear about the Caribbean. You don't hear much about like the world. So it was a very worldwide phenomenon for the 80 years. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, Ching Chi was a Chinese pirate and she commanded like the largest pirate fleet in history. - Whoa. - And how many ships do you know? - Oh my gosh. Is this of the same era? - This is a different era. - This is like not. Yeah, this is not. I actually Selena might fact check me here on like what year she operated. I don't believe it was during like the golden age, but it was like-- - When is the golden age? - 17 or 1650 to 1730. - So the peace, the peace age, the Spanish peace age, and then it's the golden age? - I know. So the post-managed accession period was like basically the end, right at the end of piracy. Because once the nations were no longer war, then that freed up everyone's attention to be like, oh, the pirates are kind of a problem. They're like, we've been using them like as privateers. We've been like taking advantage of them existing. But now that everyone's at peace and everything in the new world is kind of settled, it's like, okay, now we should probably deal with these people that are just killing merchants and taking all of our ships and stuff. - So the golden age was before that? - Yeah, yeah. The post-managed accession was right at the end. But it's also the most romanticized. It's what you see in media a lot is the golden age of piracy. - Yeah. Why is it so old romanticized? - I think it's just those are the very famous pirates. It's when you have a lot of the exploits of Blackbeard and a lot of like, you know, people being chased. Woods Rogers was sent in to be the governor of Nassau. And he was basically like the scourge of the pirates. So right in this period, once there was like kind of peacetime, England offered like a blanket pardon. They were like, if you come in, like we'll pardon you for all of your pirate deeds. - Well, let you off, Scott, free as long as you just promise not to be a pirate again. And so a lot for a lot of pirates that have just been-- - They did it. - They were like, yeah, I'll take whatever money I have and try and go live like a normal life. - Whoa. - But then there were also a lot of pirates that, you know, they fought to the bitter end. - Yeah. - They could never. And that's like a lot of the more famous, like Bartholomew Roberts. He was, he was added right into the end. He, I believe, has the historically the most ships ever, like, captured by a single pirate. I think he captured something like over 400 ships. - Oh my god. - What? - Yeah. And his time is a pirate. And what's crazy is a lot of these like post-Spanish accession pirates, they were only operating for like a few years. - They just weren't going hard. They were going, I think Blackbeard literally only, like, was a pirate, like, and was actually out sailing for like two years. - Could you imagine how a job for two years and you're a legend forever? - Yeah. - It's, I mean, basically, we already did it. - I mean, we're legends forever, the three of us. - Yeah, for this one episode. - It makes sense, though, because you think about two years on a ship non-stop. - Yeah. - You can only go for so long before you potentially, like, die. - Yeah. - And it was tough to you, because then after the partens, then Woods Rogers employed a lot of former pirates as pirate hunters. So like Captain Benjamin Hornergold was a very famous pirate. And he became like a, he started working with Woods Rogers and started hunting pirates. And so it was kind of this like very cannibalistic thing at the end where it's like, okay, you can either remain a pirate or you can stop being a pirate or you can just start go hunting down the people you used to like bounty hunters with. That's kind of fun. Historically, there is an argument to be made. A lot of historians at like a study pirates, they do believe that if, if the pirates in the post-Spanish succession period and in this like very tumultuous time in the New World had any sort of leadership and any ability to like work together and just not be generally stupid, that there could have been a legitimate pirate empire. - Yeah. - Yeah, in the New World. Like in the Caribbean, like the English really, if all the pirates had worked together, they wouldn't have had the power to like overcome the threat of pirates as quickly as they did. - Well, there are modern
Pirates right now. - Yeah, well Pirates have been an ongoing. There's never a time they're there. They haven't existed since commerce has existed. There have been, you know, highway men and bandits and pirates like, yeah. Anytime there's been merchant goods to be plundered, there have been people to plunder them. - I remember reading a book on Cleopatra and in like one of her battles with one of her siblings, I think she was like, she enlisted a bunch of pirates to like fight in her army. - Yeah, yeah. - Oh yeah, ancient. - Epic book. - Ancient, like, but like ancient pirates are a very real thing. Like pirates are, yeah, and pirates still. Anyone, it's just a term for people who are committing crimes on the ocean. - Yeah, yeah. - That's really all it is. - There were a lot of pirates in the Mediterranean, so like off the coast of North Africa, they were called the Barbary Corsairs, was a very famous group of pirates. But yeah, I mean, we again, like the very big and well-known ones were all kind of operating in the Caribbean. But they were pirates, yeah, all thanks. - Talk to me about this female pirate that you mentioned earlier. - And, and-- - No, no. - Oh, she-- - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, how many ships was it? Did you get the number? - Yes, so she operated from 1801 to 1810. So, after-- - Oh, 1800s. - Yeah, and she was the leader of, where was it? Approximately 400 junks in between 40,000 to 70,000 pirates. - Yeah, but wait, 40,000 pirates. - 40,000 pirates. - Under one person's command. - Yeah. - What? - Correct. - She must have been awesome. - Yeah, she was. She actually, so she like basically took over the pirate fleet from like her husband. Her husband was like a pirate captain, and then he died and she took command and just like, made like, yeah, one of the greatest pirate fleets of all time, and operated and basically, I mean, for what it was is probably the closest thing to like a pirate like empire that you could have. I mean, there was like, she was basically operating unchallenged in like, you know, the Indian ocean and stuff. - How many ships, how do they communicate with each other? - Um, I mean-- - That big of a fleet. - Yeah, for that big of fleet, she probably just had a lot of like, generals and captains, and like, had like, I would imagine like, kind of hubs of command and stuff. - Kind of incredible that they, you know, sailed across the seas with no real way to communicate other than hoping to meet up. - Yeah. - No, it's crazy. Like people, you could just be like, hey man, I'm going out to like catch a prize. Like, I'll catch you on the flip side and then your buddy just never comes back. - Hey, really? - He's just gone forever. - Is that crazy? - That's how things kind of worked until like, relatively recently. - Yeah, it's great. - Like, up until like, when we were teenagers, and it was like, all right, I'm going out. It's like, there's no way to contact me until like, find a phone or something. - No way. - But like, really back then, it was like, well, if you write, great, we'll find out. It's, I was listening to a thing about Alexander the Great and his dad was murdered at like, a wedding, right? Philip the second. And it was like a crazy like, Game of Thrones type of thing where he was like stabbed in the middle of his celebration. And it was like, oh, you know, Persia was really nervous about this guy 'cause like, Greeks and Macedonia and Persia. And it was like, well, they're gonna get word about it like months later. - Yeah. - But it was even crazier 'cause there's a part where like, in another city nearby, the like, leader of that city had a messenger who was able to get to him in time to tell him like, he's been killed. And then he gives a speech to his town of like, I prophesize that a great death is going to happen. - Yeah. - And then is able to be like, oh, because I have this info before anybody else does, I can make it look like I'm predicting this is about to happen. And then news officially arrives. 'Cause it takes months for like, the world to find out about like massive things. It's so crazy, like you think about like, if like, when JFK was assassinated, if it took like a month for everyone to find out about it. - But it did. - Well, no, but I'm saying, I'm saying imagine if like, that's how things were, but it's like, oh, did you hear the president got shot? Two months ago, it's like, oh, my God, what? Like. - Could you imagine if like, you had a family and your, you know, your partner went off sailing. - Mm-hmm. - Years. - Like, where's Greg? Well, he went off sailing, and he's been and, and he's doing his whole pirate thing. - He's been doing this pirate thing. - I slept with the neighbor. - You know, he had a letter of mark at one point, but now he doesn't. - I told him. - I told him to get an apprenticeship with the blacksmith, but he just didn't want to do it. He wanted to go be pirate. I told him get a stable job. Maybe join, if you want to be at sea, join a merchant ship. - He wants to hang out with his friends 24/7. - What am I supposed to do? - He wanted to go hang out with Charles Vane, the cool kid on the block. - Charles Vane. - I think pirates just had the best branding in history. Like, the names are cool, the look is cool. I know a lot of it's been polished up over time. Like, I know they probably didn't look and sound. Like, we know them as, it's so colorful and so like vibrant in how it's portrayed, but I'm like, I know it was all dirty and shitty. - Yeah. - Oh shit. - It was probably the grossest shit. - Those pirates were dirty, but there is, there is actually a lot of like, there were pirates that were very like, gaudy. I mean, very, Jack Rackham is a very famous pirate. - Body meaning like covered in jewels and things. - Yeah, and his nickname, he's called Calico Jack. Oh yeah, yeah. - Calico Jack, yeah. - Oh Jack. - Because of just all the crazy clothes he wore. Like he just wore really beautiful, like colorful clothing, like big coats, like Gucci Slime. (laughing) - Bro, got the Gucci Slime. - This guy's gonna die. He's wearing Gucci Slime on a ship. - Did he have like, was he like draped and like, linen like-- - Velvet? - Street, big. - Velvet, that was so hot. - Big capes and cloaks, big plumed hats. Like that was what like lots of jewelry. They say that pirates, like a lot of pirates were like, a lot of expensive like gold, jewelry and bangles. So if they died at sea and their bodies washed up on shore, they whoever found them would like have like money to give them like a proper burial. They would like, what a crazy reason to wear expensive clothes. - They would like etch their names until like pieces of the jewelry they wore so that like if someone washed up, they'd be like, I want to, but like this is where I'm from or where I want to be buried. - Wait, I can't side no. I really want like really, really like two pairs of nice jewelry that I can etch that I can like pass on. I've always thought about that, like engraving really nice pieces of jewelry that I can pass on forever and ever. - Yeah, what did you and Greg, where are you gonna engrave on it? Should do something. - Bitch. - Yes, bitch. - Love you woman. - Love you woman. - Well, we found this skeleton. Here, there's a necklace here. It just says bitch on it. - Tall bitch. I know who that is. - The most famous pirate, tall bitch. - It says Barry, this tall bitch and Portugal. - Tall bitch and Portugal. - Okay. - I have a beast. I don't know. I just always thought about like engraving my name on really nice pieces of jewelry and passing it on and on. - That'd be awesome. - You would have an heirloom. - Yeah, an heirloom. - It might be a pirate. - I mean, I'm obsessed with this. So you told me to read the Amina book. Amina El-Sarafi. - Oh yeah, that book is awesome. - I love that book. It's about a female pirate. And the second book just came out of hers. - Yes. - She wrote it, I have it. Tapestry of fate, I'm going to read it. But like, that book is all about a female pirate who's retired and has to go back and save her daughter. And I was like, damn. - Yeah. - It's cool that it falls in the fantasy of like-- - It's really fun. - 'Cause that's more-- - It's pirate fantasy, but it's more like-- - What ocean is that? - It's more like Mediterranean. Yeah, yeah. Like-- - Gorgeous colors and foods and-- - I love pirate and just like ocean as a setting, right? Like, it's such a fun. Like, I know it's nowhere realistic, but a part of the Caribbean is just so fun. Like, there's something so-- 'Cause the ocean is so mysterious. - Yeah. - So people who are operating there, I think that's what makes it fun is that, like, there's skirmishes and battles happening out on the ocean, but they are all so outmatched by the environment. - By the environment. - And that makes it so fun. They're at the whim of that. They're like, we can only go if the wind permits it. We're only a float if the ocean allows us to. Like, that makes it so fun. - Yeah. - No, I love pirate media. - Man and I, did we talk about this on the show, maybe brought it up, but Black Sails. - Yep. - The pirate show. - I watched, I don't think I finished Black Sails, but I watched a lot of it. - It's so good. - I love that show. - It might be my favorite show of all time. - Whoa. - I think it's so intense. - It's so good. - So it incorporates all so many of the very famous. So the concept of the show is it's basically like a fictional, well, like a prologue. To Treasure Island. So it follows Captain Flint. 'Cause in Treasure Island, like the protagonist or the main characters like Long John Silver and Jim Hawkins, and they're trying to find Captain Flint's treasure. So Black Sails follows Captain Flint. And like the story of how he became a very like famous, like infamous pirate. 'Cause Captain Flint wasn't like a real pirate. But in the show, they have all. - No, he was like, he was married. He had a family and he didn't really want to do that. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was like a former like a naval cop. And there were a lot of like former like navy men that became pirate. - Makes sense 'cause you need a lot of training and you need a ship. Like that's, it was kind of the perfect storm to create this, it's not like people could just be like, "Oh, I'm just gonna grab a ship and go." It's like that's such a, - And like on, like I was talking about earlier, the pirate code, like,
Conditions like as far as like being on a ship and being paid like conditions on pirate ships generally were better Like in the in like the British Navy like the captain had like final authority on anything you could never question him The pay was set and it wasn't based on like how much you actually plundered Because like pirates were given out like equal shares And so it's like you only had a certain amount and so like when the war ended and like a lot of these like Navy guys Like losing their jobs or whatever. It's like yeah, go go be a pirate. Yeah, that show is so good It's also heartbreaking. It is a brutal They I think it the reason I love that show so much is because it does have like all these famous pirates and from what I know like and have like read Like they're pretty like accurate to like what they're like personalities and how they would be But it just shows piracy in all of it's like really cool like Significent like sailing the seven seas and then also the really awful terrible Groose some parts and it just kind of paints it a very complete picture, but it's like the best depiction of what we think It's kind of one of the only pirate shows though. It's not I know yeah, probably an expensive thing to make. Yeah, yeah There's a scene in the show where they show like keel hauling Do you know like what keel hauling is it sounds familiar? Is that a way of killing someone? It's like a torture way of torturing or killing someone, but basically what you would do is you would tie someone up by like their hands and feet Ah, and then drag them underneath the ship. Yeah, and so like Pirate so you must not have watched that far because they show they'd show this nope It is nope because there's barnacles that go like on the bottom like on the whole of a ship and they're sharp and hard And so they would pull people and drag them underneath the ship and their bodies would just get like Shredded on barnacles like while being essentially drowned and they show it because I knew what it was, but seeing it depicted in the show I was like that might be like one of the worst thing you can do to a reason. I'm glad I didn't get that far I guess it was Insane watching it happen in that show. There's so many moments too. I've just like where I'm just like hand over mouth Like oh, it's such a while. I watched a couple episodes. Um, it would for like two seasons, right? I'm like I see oh really yeah, it's a long show, but it is like front to back the writing is incredible Actors so good the captain Flynn. Yeah, what else does he done? He's a British. I think so yeah. No, he's incredible I'm gonna play this game where I go. Do you so do you have a favorite pirate? Do I have a favorite pirate? That's such a good question. Good question. Yeah. Hey little pirate boy. Good question I think that you didn't like that. I'm a little pirate boy. I I'm a little sorry pirate man. Iron. Thanks. A vast I really love so there's a There was kind of a group of pirates that that like all ran together. Um, the like flying gang and it was like black beard and Charles Vane and Anne Bonny Mary Calico Jack. They all kind of ran together. I really love and like a high-pouse. Yeah, but out on the Exactly like a high-push girl. Kind of on the ocean. It's actually like what's up? I'm black beard and No, I really love Anne Bonny and Mary read. I think they're so like badass I think in a time when like women truly were like just treated so terribly. That's what I meant. I think beginning because this is 1600 or this 1700s. Yeah, this 1700s. Um, and yeah, I guess just for like two like women to be known as some of like the fiercest like how did they? Do you know how they ended up becoming pirates? Yeah, so I believe Anne Bonny, if I remember correctly, she was like born and they thought like There they're like early a lot of pirates are early lives aren't super well known. Basically, she was like born in England and then brought to America kind of like secretly Um, and was raised in secret as like a girl because they I think like it was something where like her her father whoever like they wanted her to be a boy And so they brought her to America, but then she ended up like running off with like a guy that was a pirate. Oh, and I believe it's a similar story to Mary read like kind of just like group held against her father. Um, I believe Mary read actually grew up and she pretended to be a boy for like a lot of her early life And that just kind of led her to to being a pirate and continuing that facade But they ended up, yeah, meeting on a ship and they sort of found out like Not by accident. I think they kind of just clocked each other that they were like, oh, like you're a girl, too Girl, what's up girl? Oh my god. Oh my god. Yeah. Are you crazy? This is awful what I'm doing. They were probably so cool. Were they How vicious of pirates were they? They were pretty I mean they were pretty Pretty vicious. There's a story that I love where Mary read had like this one. I think like it was like the ship's carpenter He was kind of like her little boy toy and he got into it with like another person on the crew and if pirates had disputes This is actually like in Bartholomew Roberts code But it was like you wouldn't fight on the ship if you had something to settle you'd settle it like in a duel on land So like pistols and swords has to be on land. Yeah, you don't fuck up the ship. Yeah, you don't and so yeah, of course Of course got to protect the ship. Yeah But yeah, Mary read like the carpenter that she liked He like got into it with this other guy and they were gonna duel and Mary was like, don't worry. Don't worry a little guy I got you and she went out on the beach and like dueled this guy for him and like just Just slaughtered this other pirate for her little like That is a strong ass woman. Yeah, she's like I got you. Did she kill him with a gun or a sword? Oh, her hands. I don't know if my eyes might a shot him with the gun finished him off with the sword I feel like a nice one to combo. Yeah, when when your gun only has one shot Just cut off his head at the end. I mean you got to remember the gun only has one shot Yeah, you got to make it count. I'm like the liver. It's like well. Oh, dammit One of my favorite and Bonnie stories actually and it's And Bonnie and Mary read in Calico Jack They were they'd taken a prize and they were but they were getting hunted by pirate hunters So this was kind of at the end of You know, piracy was sort of coming to an end and they went into kind of this cove like where they'd like been safe before and All the crew just started drinking getting super wasted and Bonnie and Mary were like if something happens like these pirate hunters We're on our tail like we have to be ready like I shouldn't be drinking sure enough. They get found and Basically and Bonnie and Mary were like fighting to the bitter end But everyone on the ship was drunk. It's like surrendered And so they all got captured and brought back to England like for trial and And Bonnie's last words to Calico Jack Because he like surrendered and her last words to him were if you had fought like a man You'd need to be hanged like a dog. She basically was like she business like this is what you get for being a little looking Oh, what that tattooed on my chest. Yeah, that's sick like literally like raw as hell Damn wait, that was Mary read or that was that was So so how did an Bonnie die? We don't know So there's a lot a lot of their fates are probably mysterious, huh a lot of pirates kind of faded So she was supposed to be hanged, but then she and it's not known again. Like there is no death record for an Bonnie or Mary read Because they claimed to be Old women still alive. Yeah, Delmond Louise I think it there They they they claim to be pregnant and so the English like wouldn't hang a woman if she was pregnant And so it's not like we don't have death records We don't know if they actually went through with it or if like they think that they were pregnant I don't know they're a pirate they're probably lying. I don't know and Bonnie was like with she like had like romantic relationships with Calico Jack That's something that was like known But I mean pirates were very free people and Bonnie also was like I'm pretty sure like doing Mary. They were all doing Mary You're on the ocean and Bonnie was doing Mary. Look listen. You're on a ship. Yeah, you're on a ship You got like a few options. It's like all right. We're all gonna and doing what when you say doing you on the show They're all doing each other. I love it. I think it's incredible Amanda. They are fucking on the ship This is why I want to be a pirate. It's essentially a nudist colony. You're there's all If you watch black sales, there's so much boob and penis. It's crazy. Yes That's why I loved it. I need to finish it. They are not they don't hold back on the fact and it's like it's real Like they were just like hang it like if the pirates were going on shore They were spending their money drinking and at brothels and then they spend all their money It's like all right. We got a new prize. We heard tell of a new ship. We're gonna go on. They're living. I I think it's always funny like with history It's like the scope of it is like you're going off with this group of people and this is the same with like armies back in the day Yeah, it's like you're going off and you're gonna be gone free
years, you're probably not going to come home. It's like, you're probably going to have sex with whoever's around, like that's probably what's going on, like promise ring on any of these motherfuckers. Yeah, it's like, dude, the Spartans went out to fight for years. What do you think they're doing? Yeah. I mean, they got bigger things to worry about. Yeah, like each other's penis. Yeah, they're like, let me see you. What size are you? Like, bro, let me get a look at your sword. Yeah. No, put your armor on and take your time. It's like you're going to, you could die at any moment. You're hanging out, like come on. You're going to have sex. What was able to last on these ships for a really long time? Yeah. I'm pretty sure Rum just generally was. It's what they were brewing, like, with sugar. That's why all the pirates were drinking rum. That might be one of the drunkest periods of human history. People were drunk all the time. Yeah. I want to say it was 1830 that in the States, there was the peak of drinking. And they say it was something like people averaged like five shots of whiskey a day. I don't know. I mean, there was nothing else. And it was like that last. It was like a safety thing too. It's like, that's why in Rome, right? Pretty much everything they drink was alcoholic. Yeah. Because it was like, that's how you kept it safe from bacteria. Am I wrong about this? But isn't IPA India Paleo? Didn't they? It didn't mean to be as hoppy, but they had to keep it lasting for, like, it on the ship. So they had to add more hops to it to make it last. That's why it's called India Paleo. I don't know anything. I don't know. I don't like IPAs. I love IPAs. So I like IPAs. I think a lot of these beers that were created, like IPAs, Sowers, they were created out of necessity. Yeah. Because it makes it last, right? Yeah, but I think-- It's kind of the same with like anything fermented. I feel like was originally just so it's like, yes, this stays safe. But Rome is, Rome is because of the spices and the teas. Yeah. But we're never going to have a lot of, we're going to have like, someone in the comments can be like alcohol expert here. Yeah, alcohol expert. And it's just because they're drunk. Alcohol expert here, so basically-- I'm sipping on some Captain Morgan spiced rum right now. Oh, yeah. Let me tell you right now. Captain Morgan's person. I could, I, I, Captain and Coke. It happened in college, and I can never go back to it ever again. Yeah. It was like my thing. It was never a rum, like I like rum, but I never, it was never like my thing. I don't know why. It was that in Bacardi. I don't know why. Oh, Bacardi 151. My mom used to growing up when I was younger. My mom would, um, she would do Diet Coke. Because we only like had Diet Coke, and that was really drink Diet Coke. Yeah. She would do Diet Coke and rum, and she called it a skinny pirate. That's like, yeah. It's good. One time when I was a kid, I like went into like, uh, I saw like a Diet Coke. And I was like, ooh, Diet Coke, I'm going to have a sip. Like, I knew it was my mom's, and I tasted it. And I was like, oh, that he's disgusting. Yeah. Probably rum. But without later, it was-- Let me say though, I will-- As I said, I can't do rum and Coke again. I randomly did one. Like, I had a rum and Coke two years ago, and I was like, this is delicious. Yeah. It's kind of delicious. It's very sweet. Only with spice. I can only do a rum and Coke with spice from now. Same. Do white rum and Coke is like-- Same. Same, same, same. I wouldn't know. I don't do them that. I haven't had that that much. There was not a real pirate. Sorry, I'm not a real pirate. I guess you can't be part of the flying gang, sorry, buddy. Sorry, buddy. That's a really cool name, the flying gang. Yeah. Were there other names for like-- Probably. Big groups of pirates. Yeah, yeah. There were other pirates, like I said. There was a flying gang. There were the Barbary Corsairs. But I mean, there were a lot of like-- It made sense to kind of roll with a crew, you know? Yeah. You had like a group of like-minded individuals. And they weren't all sailing together all the time. They were just like-- Right. So it's like Blackbeard might be off on the other side of the world. Yeah. And then if they're-- But then, you know, there would be times when they would like coordinate. If there was like, you know, a treasure like a Spanish treasure fleet. They might be like, hey, we got tell. There's going to be these-- There's like a big treasure galleon. And there's two, you know, big worships guarding it. Let's get the gang together. And we'll all go out and like try and make this happen. Did these like famous ones like Blackbeard? Did they only operate around the Caribbean? Or did they travel around the whole world? Um, they mostly operated in the Caribbean. I think sometimes they would go-- As pirates would also, they'd go up and down the coast of like America as well. Yeah, yeah. Like North America, pillaging and plundering colonies. This is kind of a crazy question. But like, where do they get their ships? Um, solid question. You know what I mean? Like, they have all these ships. Is it just they started with one ship that they had? And then they kind of stole other ships and it became part of their fleet. Yeah, I think that was mostly it. It was like they would like one someone would have a ship, would buy a ship, whatever. They would be a merchant, turn pirate. However, they got their ship or like a naval ship that then they have. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then yeah, you would, you would put like plunder other ships. If they had a nicer ship, you could take it for your own. Or you could just like use like the money that you got to like repair and upgrade your ship. Um, but yeah, a lot of it was just taking other people's stuff. Are you interested in knowing where like shipwrecks are to this day? Like, are there any famous shipwrecks that you're super interested in? And not that I'm super interested. I know there are like very famous shipwrecks and that you can like, I'm pretty sure that like you can do dives and they found like old like Spanish treasure galleons and stuff. I don't think discovering new ones all the time. Like there are a countless amount of shipwrecks. Yeah. And pirates would like they would plunder ship wrecks. That's like something like if a ship like they had diving. How? How? So. Because without the modern, modern gear. Well, they had, they had old diving gear like back in the days. In the 1700s. So they had diving bells. And basically to, to my knowledge, um, what you, there was basically like a giant like metal thing. And you would drop it in the water. And it would go down because it was really heavy and it would trap air inside of it. And so then you would go down essentially with this diving bell. And then you would take a breath and then swim around. And then you'd like go back up for air into like this diving bell that they'd lowered down. It essentially like free dive with a little bit of oxygen down. That is terrifying. First of all, the bends, you know, they're like going. Yeah, but they're pirates. They're just built different. What the hell? They can just handle that. Like when you free dive and then you go up that quickly, I guess they weren't, they obviously weren't down there that long. If you're down there, yeah. I think also like, I think also they're not going down massive depths. It has to be that they could probably see 40 feet max. Yeah. Around the Caribbean islands, like and stuff, like in the Spanish main. There was a lot of like, you know, shallow shipwrecks. And that's a reason also that there were shipwrecks. Like you would go into shallow waters and there might be jagged rocks that like you didn't see or whatever. Or going over another shipwreck. Like that was one thing in the show. In black sails that they depict is the British actually scuttled a bunch of ships in like the harbor of Nassau so that the pirates couldn't sail through. So when they went to sail their ships, they just hit these other ships under. Wow. Pretty, pretty genius. I mean, that's what they say is the Bermuda Triangle. Not not shipwrecks, but it's actually they're like, oh, Spooky Bermuda Triangle. All these ships always go down. But it's actually like a formation of volcanoes or or crazy reefs in the center of it. And it's like a almost like a, what is that called a whirlpool? Yeah. Situation. So it's not like it's haunted or spooky. It's just what's underneath. And then ships always wreck there. It's just an ocean. Yeah. So I remember reading once that they were like, we think black beards treasure is buried like in South Carolina. And I was like, that's what? Crazy. Because like, as you said, they go up and down the coast. But it's like, I wonder how much buried treasure there is just out there in the, in on land. Yeah. Well, so there's actually, there was only one actual recorded historical instance of a pirate burying treasure. It was William Kidd and he essentially used it as a bargaining chip. So he was a privateer technically and he sailed around the coast of Africa. And he was supposed to be like not plundering British ships, but so much of the commerce in that area was like British ships and the British like East India company. And so his crew got restless there like we see all these stacked British ships and like we want to like take them as a prize. And he William Kidd had basically done kind of a shady deal with some magistrates and like like.
members of like government in England to be like, "Hey, we'll like kind of give you a secret letter of mark almost and like you just pay us like kind of under the table, like some money that like from the ships that you plunder." But then like William kids crew was threatening to mutiny him. And so he's like, all right, well, I just got to attack an English ship now. And so he got all this treasure. But then the English were after him. And so he buried his treasure to basically when he brought, when he like insurance. Yeah, to be like, "Well, if you kill me, like you won't know where my treasure is." So smart. And then they killed him anyway. Yeah, so now his treasure's just buried somewhere. Could be, if he was being honest, yeah. His treasure's here. Oh, right, that's why they killed them. So there's likely, by that logic, why would most pirates bury their treasure? It's most likely the only treasure that's hidden up in the world is the ship wrecks. Yeah, I think realistically pirates were like, they were using the money that they were earning. And for like a lot of the like more successful pirates, like either they were dying or like Henry every, he just disappeared. Yeah, he just disappeared. After his like huge prize, he disappeared. And like we don't really know what happened to him. But it's actually a lot of the very common kind of pirate tropes come from Treasure Island. And Robert Lewis Stevenson. Even the pirate voice is not like a, that comes from the Treasure Island movie, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. The pirates probably were like, hanging out just like talking like this. Yeah, yeah. I think like in black sales, it's probably like the way that they taught. Like I think they do it. Just like anyone else. Talked about that a little bit. Nothing super crazy though. Yeah, no, they don't talk like super priority. It's more of just a specific. There wasn't like a pirate accent. Like yeah, it's just like they all were British people. Yeah, exactly. But it's made up an entire language essentially. Yeah, I mean, he made up like X marks the spot on a treasure map, that was like buried treasures. Oh, the best thing ever is. Most, I feel like so many tropes do come from fiction. Yeah, and it's funny because he was just like kind of fascinated with pirates. And they're the one, I can't remember the guy who wrote it, but a lot of the kind of stuff that we have, like the first hand accounts of pirates comes from a book called The General History of Pirates, I think. But the party line on it is sort of like, it is embellished in that book as well. Like there are things, and it's like, okay, like that might not have happened. There was embellishment happening, but it is like kind of the most like cohesive, like kind of representation of like first hand accounts. That's where we get like Bartholomew Roberts pirate code is like, was like, you know, recorded there. Yeah, no, I think just like in general, there's, it's hard to know exactly what things were like. I think we have a pretty good picture, but when something in real life, 'cause I truly think that pirates in real life were crazy. Like so much of it is based in truth, and so it's hard like for us to be like, okay, how do we separate like the truth from the embellishment? 'Cause I think that so much of the crazy stuff is also true. Yeah. Do you wish that you were a pirate? No. God no. Had to have sucked so badly. I don't think there's a pirate. So you're just like, you're just an admirer from afar, you just enjoy the history of it. I would love to be able to like live on a pirate ship like with God mode turned on, where I'm like invincible, like in a video game, like I can like, I'm in creative mode, like I can just kind of get up and fly around, but like to see like an actual like naval battle or pirate sporting ship, I'd probably be the biggest thing ever. I would never, yeah, I wouldn't, there's no time in history that I'd want to go actually like live in, right? No matter who you are in those eras, but it's like if you could travel and have like a protective bubble around you and just be an observer of any era. It's like fun to like, would that be the era that you pick? For sure. Yeah, if I could have a protective bubble just observe an era of history, I would love to have seen the pirates. What about you? I don't know if I would pick that just like as a woman, but then. But you're not like actually there or seen. If you have a protective bubble and you get to go and just observe any moment in history. Ancient Egypt. Okay. That was it. Which time in ancient Egypt? Um. It was around for so long. I know. Isn't it crazy that Cleopatra's closer to our time than she was to ancient like the pyramids being built? I don't think I'd want to be around the pyramid time. Not the pyramid time. I feel like Pharaoh's Cleopatra, like, I don't know what, what, what era that is. There's so many. It was like, it's like 4,000 years. Early, early pyramids really built. That feels like a lot of. You're thinking closer to a part of labor to watch. You're thinking closer to Cleopatra time. Yeah, more, I want to like be involved in the politics and the royalty and the traditions that they have and the like almost like the superstitious like where that all came about. And it's like, I'm really, really into that. I would be really into that. But again, I am really into Pirate Times because I'm into like sailing and like my pup and my uncle both were sailors. My pupa had like a pretty, pretty big size ship sailboat that he had that my sisters used to go on all the time. And like, I'm really into that era. But I feel like I just, I wouldn't want to miss out on that era of Egypt. Yeah, yeah. What about you? Man, I do think ancient history just sounds so cool to see ancient Greece, ancient Persia. Peace. Just to see things like, to go back like really far, like I would love to see like Mesopotamia, a Syria, like there's just like old civilization. There was a museum in LA, I forget the museum, but they had a whole Mesopotamia exhibit. And it was epic. And H and I went and they uncovered stones with specific Mesopotamia like the uniform and everything. Yes. And it was like, they broke down what it was saying. And it was like such an epic exhibit. And then also to like see like Aztec, Inkin, Mayan, like-- Oh, yeah. Because just ones where it's like we, we can't decipher pretty well what life was like, but to really go and like see it. And also, I think like what I would love is any ancient history, and probably any time in history, is to go and just like chill on a random street and just see people like living a daily life. Because I think we have this, we portray things as being so different, right? It's like, no, people were like, we are human, right? To go back as far as you could, right? Because they'd say I think it's like, I remember reading once. It's like, if you went back 50,000 years and took a baby from back then and brought them to the modern era and raised them that they would be indistinguishable as far as personality, then that might be off. But it's like the human brain has been this way for a long time. It's not like 50,000 years ago. We were different. It's like, no, that was, they were humans. So it's like to just see, and then to be able to understand the language, if I'm like in this fictional thing that I believe. Well, like we're in a bubble that-- We get the transletters, that translates, that does everything. And to just like hang out and see like someone's daily life. And they can't see you. And they can't see me. No. But I can interact with the drinks and food. OK, so you can go into your dreams. I get to drink their alcohol. And your boots and go in and be like, let me just do it. No, I would kill to be able to be like, what's their food like? I don't know. All would be good. What's the nicest dish from that era that I can have? It's so interesting. What's it like? How, like, give me a side-by-side, like, give me a McDouble, and then whatever they were eating. And like, who has it better? And the ability to give them a McDouble? Yeah. And watch this. Oh, my God. I have gotten a message from God. Wow, this was incredible. Like, you knew so much. I mean, I didn't doubt you, but I learned so much. Thank you. This is awesome. Thank you, Trevor, so much. Thank you for having me. No, this was lovely. I love-- I love nerding out about pirates specifically. But about history in general. I'll come talk about anything, bro. Yeah, you really are, like, well-versed. Yeah. Come to me on for the Greco-Persian Wars. Fuck yeah. Oh, you know, I love that. History, part two. I love that shit. Yeah. That's the stuff I was learning about recently. Well, Hell yeah, Happy Birthday. Thank you. Thank you. Happy Birthday. Thank you for giving us this gift of pirate knowledge for your birthday. Time. It's so beautiful. I love sharing-- I love sharing beautiful and enriching conversations with my friends. Me too. Me too. Yar. Argg. All right. All right. Bye. See you later.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The episode explores the history of piracy, from the Buccaneering Era to the post-Spanish succession period, highlighting how pirates operated under official letters of marque before turning into unregulated "pirates" during times of peace.
Notable pirates like Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack are discussed, emphasizing the role of women in piracy and the democratic, often egalitarian structures of pirate crews, including voting mechanisms and fair share systems.
The romanticized image of pirates in media is contrasted with the harsh realities of life at sea, including high mortality rates, shipwrecks, disease, torture, and the brutality of pirate warfare, while also acknowledging the complex moral context of colonial-era conflict.
Summary:
The episode dives into the rich and often misunderstood history of piracy, tracing its evolution from the 1650s to the 1730s. Initially, European nations used privateers—pirates with official letters of marque—to attack enemy ships, especially Spanish vessels, disrupting colonial trade. As wars ended, these privateers turned into full-fledged pirates, leading to the most famous and romanticized era of piracy.
This period saw the rise of legendary figures like Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read, who challenged gender norms in a male-dominated world. Pirates operated under a unique code emphasizing fairness, democracy, and crew autonomy—allowing for votes to remove or replace captains, and providing compensation for injuries. Despite this, life at sea was perilous, with high death rates from disease, shipwrecks, and violence, and many pirates were marooned or killed.
The episode also addresses the mythologizing of piracy in media, particularly in shows like *Black Sails*, which dramatize both the adventure and brutality of pirate life. Historically, pirates were not just criminals but complex individuals who adapted to harsh conditions, often outmaneuvering naval forces through clever tactics and survival skills. The discussion concludes with a nod to modern piracy, noting that banditry and maritime crime persist throughout history, proving pirates remain a persistent force in human conflict.
The narrative blends humor, historical facts, and personal reflections to present a balanced, engaging view of a misunderstood era.
FAQs
The Golden Age of Piracy spanned from approximately 1650 to 1730, overlapping with the era of European colonization and naval expansion. It was divided into three phases: the Buccaneering Era, the Pirate Round period, and the post-Spanish succession period.
Privateers were privately sanctioned sailors authorized by a government to attack and plunder ships from enemy nations, usually during times of war. They operated under a 'letter of marque' and were legally permitted to do so, unlike pirates, who acted without government approval and were considered outlaws.
Yes, notable female pirates include Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Calico Jack’s connections. They were active during the 1700s and challenged the male-dominated maritime world, often leading crews and engaging in daring exploits despite societal restrictions.
The pirate code was a set of rules governing behavior on pirate ships, promoting democracy. Crew members had voting rights, shared plunder equally, and could vote to remove or demote a captain. It emphasized fairness, with roles like the quarter master and bowson managing ship operations and crew welfare.
Pirates often provided better conditions than sailors in the navy, with equal shares of plunder and some forms of medical care. Injured crew members were compensated, and the pirate code allowed for crew votes to remove or replace a captain, showing a level of democratic participation.
Pirates operated worldwide. While the Caribbean was a major hub, they also plagued trade routes in the Indian Ocean—such as the
Chat with AI
Loading...
Pro features
Go deeper with this episode
Unlock creator-grade tools that turn any transcript into show notes and subtitle files.