HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2024-05-02T09:59:42.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Hell on high water: the rise and fall of the golden age of piracy
items: Anne Bonny and Mary Read: the deadly female pirate duo
items: The golden age of piracy: when pirates ruled the waves
items: Did all pirates fly the Jolly Roger?
items: Was walking the plank a real pirate punishment?
items: X marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure?
items: Did any real pirates wear eyepatches or have peg legs?

Hell on high water: the rise and fall of the golden age of piracy
type: item
date: 2023-05-22T07:02:32.000Z
creator: Dr Rebecca Simon
subject: General Early Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Pirates
description: The golden age of piracy saw waves of rogue sailors terrorising the Atlantic world from 1670 to 1730. But what, asks Rebecca Simon, drove this period of maritime pillage and plunder?
encoded: Listen to a version of this article: In August of 1720, a pirate named Captain Bartholomew Roberts led an attack on a British merchant ship out of Boston. According to the Boston News-Letter, the pirates stripped the sailors of their money and effects (weapons, tools and jewellery) and stole the ship’s artillery and gunpowder. Survivors claimed that the pirates were “cursing, swearing, damning and blaspheming to the greatest degree imaginable”. The pirates knew that if they were captured, they would publicly hang, but they paid no heed to these consequences. They claimed that “if it should chance that they should be attacked by any superior power or force which they could not master, they would immediately put fire with one of their pistols to their powder and all go merrily to hell together”. There were hundreds, if not thousands, of incidents like this during the golden age of piracy – a 60-year period when organised piracy flourished in the Caribbean, East Indies and along the North American seaboard. Pirates have plied their trade throughout history, but most of them were so-called privateers, working for kingdoms and governments to attack enemies and bring wealth back home. The 17th century saw a new breed of pirate emerge: men (and sometimes women) who plundered ships entirely for their own gain. On the podcast | Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy What were the pros of piracy in the 17th century? While piracy was a dangerous world, where anyone caught was almost guaranteed to hang, but the life appealed to many people. Pirate ships were extremely diverse. Crews were made up of men and women from Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Germany, North America, India and China. Christians, Jews and Muslims sailed together – sometimes alongside freed or escaped enslaved people from Africa. Pirate ships were places where people could escape social persecution, and their crews had often chosen piracy over careers in th…

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Anne Bonny and Mary Read: the deadly female pirate duo
type: item
date: 2022-01-19T16:35:45.000Z
creator: Dr Rebecca Simon
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Pirates
description: Dr Rebecca Simon explores the lives of Anne Bonny and Mary Read – the deadly female pirate duo who plundered their way to infamy
encoded: In November 1720, a pair of women named Anne Bonny and Mary Read took the stand in Spanish Town, Jamaica, accused of piracy in the Caribbean. Their surviving victims, Dorothy Thomas and Thomas Spenlow, recounted harrowing attacks in which the women fired their pistols at will, struck people with their cutlasses, swore, cursed, and even fought with their shirts open, revealing their bare breasts. The fact that the two women were said to fight harder and deadlier than their male pirate crewmates was shocking enough for the jury to convict them almost immediately. But who exactly were these women, and how did they end up being two of the most notorious pirates of the 18th century? Unfortunately, much of their early existence is a mystery, with virtually no information about their lives before they entered piracy in August 1720. The only account comes from Captain Charles Johnson’s book A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates –a collection of pirate biographies published in 1724. However, the book is largely fiction, with very little fact. Anne Bonny and Mary Read’s biographies are no different, and may be the most fictitious of them all. Read more | The golden age of piracy: when pirates ruled the waves? Johnson gives their early lives parallel origin stories: they were both illegitimate children raised as boys to avoid social scandal as bastard daughters. Anne then eschewed 18th-century female societal roles by running away with a sailor, James Bonny, to become a pirate. After several years at sea, they landed at Nassau on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas, and separated. Anne subsequently spent much of her time in taverns wooing sailors and pirates until she met Captain John (Jack) Rackham. Read more | Blackbeard: the life, death and 'burning beard' of Edward Teach Mary apparently had a similar story in that she joined the British Army in Flanders disguised as a young man. She then seduced and married a fellow soldier, b…

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The golden age of piracy: when pirates ruled the waves
type: item
date: 2022-01-17T12:05:08.000Z
creator: Dr Rebecca Simon
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Pirates
description: Dr Rebecca Simon answers key questions about an era when bands of buccaneers menaced the high seas
encoded: What and when was the Golden Age of Piracy? It was a period of time when piracy was most active within the Atlantic world – primarily the Caribbean, North America, Britain, Europe and the west coast of Africa, writes historian Dr Rebecca Simon, an expert in early modern piracy. Piracy’s golden age can really be divided into three main periods: in the 1670s and parts of the 1680s, buccaneers of the Caribbean, mostly French pirates, fought over different land territories and were more land-based than sea-based. Then, there were the British pirates in the Indian Ocean in the 1690s. Here, we see figures such as Henry Every and Captain Kidd, both of whom disrupted trade between the British and Indian Mughals. The third period – and the one that most people associate with piracy’s golden age – took place between c1713 and c1730, during which time there were large organised bands of pirates. It was in this last period that the famous pirates most people have heard of were operating: Blackbeard, Charles Vane, Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, Captain Hornigold and so on. It’s also the time when the pirate republic at Nassau, on the island of Providence in the Bahamas, was established. Read more | Famous pirates: The most notorious and despicable from history Piracy in the 1600s was mainly the product of contested ownership of plantation colonies in the Caribbean, particularly between the British and the Spanish, who were constantly at odds over who should control different regions. A main area of contention was Jamaica, which became known as one of the most successful plantation islands in the West Indies, mostly because of sugar cultivation. With so many political issues and battles taking place, the British and Spanish were unable to police piracy in the same way they had previously. Read more | The real pirates of the Caribbean: your guide to Nassau’s pirate republic The War of the Spanish Succession (1701–14) was another factor in the rise of activity. During the con…

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Did all pirates fly the Jolly Roger?
type: item
date: 2022-01-17T11:23:41.000Z
creator: Dr Rebecca Simon
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Pirates
description: It may be the most famous of pirate flags, but there were others that pirates used too, says historian Dr Rebecca Simon
encoded: When we think of famous pirates, we sometimes think of a black flag adorned with a skull and crossbones, flying high above their ship. This is close to reality, but there were many other different types of pirate flags. During the 17th century, for instance, pirates sailed under a plain red flag (the ‘bloody flag’), and by the turn of the 18th century, some ships also began to sail under a plain black flag. These soon came to take on two different meanings: red meant that pirates would give no quarter (mercy), while black meant that pirates would give quarter. Listen | Dr Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy. Plus, how accurate are pop culture portrayals of pirates? By the 1710s the red flag had pretty much gone out of fashion and was almost entirely replaced by the black flag, which became known as the Jolly Roger. This itself sported many different designs, one of the most common versions depicting a bloody heart alongside a devil holding a trident. Read more | Everything you need to know about the golden age of piracy However, the first iteration of the skull and crossbones flag put into widespread use was designed by the pirate Captain ‘Calico Jack’ Rackham, who created an image of a skull above a pair of crossed cutlasses. This became the most popular emblem, and by the mid-18th century the skull and crossbones flag was used exclusively. The symbol, simply meaning ‘death’, can also be found on headstones, and in later maritime logbooks next to the names of deceased crew members. This content is part of our series of pirate myths – read the rest in the series: Did any real pirates wear eyepatches or have peg legs? Was walking the plank a real pirate punishment? X marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure? What is the origin and meaning of the pirate expression ‘shiver me timbers’? Did most English pirates really talk with a West Country accent? This content first appeared in the December 2021 issue of BBC Histor…

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Was walking the plank a real pirate punishment?
type: item
date: 2022-01-17T11:22:39.000Z
creator: Dr Rebecca Simon
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Pirates
encoded: A horrific, but morbidly fun, practice shown in films such as the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise involves unfortunate victims being forced to walk along a plank of wood positioned over the edge of a ship, usually leading to them falling overboard and drowning. Real-life pirates did not use this as a method of punishment, however. Instead, many pirates’ victims – including people forced into piracy to replace deceased crew, or hostages taken during battle – were tied up and kept below deck, where they were subject to beatings and (in extreme cases) disfigurement. Listen | Dr Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy. Plus, how accurate are pop culture portrayals of pirates? Marooning was also a form of punishment, reserved for victims whom the pirates deemed to be little threat on land. If a person refused to join the pirate crew but swore to stay quiet, they would be left stranded on an island with a bottle of water, a bottle of gunpowder, a pistol and a single bullet. This content is part of our series of pirate myths – read the rest in the series: Did any real pirates wear eyepatches or have peg legs? X marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure? Did real pirates fly the Jolly Roger? What is the origin and meaning of the pirate expression ‘shiver me timbers’? Did most English pirates really talk with a West Country accent? This content first appeared in the December 2021 issue of BBC History Revealed

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X marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure?
type: item
date: 2022-01-17T11:21:53.000Z
creator: Dr Rebecca Simon
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Pirates
description: Captain William Kidd famously claimed to have sequestered his riches in a hidden location, but did pirates really leave their ill-gotten gains on random beaches?
encoded: There is a long-standing idea that pirates buried their treasure and left maps enabling them to find it later. However, this is a myth. The origins of this commonly held belief stem from a story concerning the pirate Captain William Kidd (c1655–1701), who tried to escape a spell of imprisonment by writing a letter to the governor of New York and Massachusetts, Lord Bellomont, claiming that he had buried a cache of gold and jewels on Gardiner’s Island, just off the coast of New York. Read more | Blackbeard: the life, death and 'burning beard' of Edward Teach Somehow, newspapers got wind of the story and rumours of Kidd’s riches spread like wildfire. However, the search was unsuccessful – there was nothing to be found. Years later, it would serve as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous novel Treasure Island, only serving to perpetuate the myth further. Listen | Dr Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy. Plus, how accurate are pop culture portrayals of pirates? The reality is that pirates had no reason to bury their treasure. In fact, the word ‘treasure’ often did not mean gold and jewels at all; rather, it usually referred to other valuable items, ranging from textiles and spices to various wines and spirits. Read more | Everything you need to know about the golden age of piracy The majority of pirates had short lives at sea and needed to get wealthy quick, so they plundered goods and sold them on land in order to repair and restock their ships, hire new crew, support their families, or buy plenty of food and women’s company. Burying these items would have only led to lost goods and likely death before they could be recovered. So, while it makes for a fun story, the reality of ‘buried treasure’ is as fiction as Treasure Island. This content is part of our series of pirate myths – read the rest in the series: Did any real pirates wear eyepatches or have peg legs? Was walking the plank a real pirate punishment? D…

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Did any real pirates wear eyepatches or have peg legs?
type: item
date: 2022-01-17T11:20:29.000Z
creator: Dr Rebecca Simon
subject: Georgian
subject: Period
subject: Stuart
subject: Pirates
description: Were one-legged pirates a common site on the high seas, or are they a myth of pop culture?
encoded: Some pirates did sport eyepatches, but not for the reason most people think. The popular misconception is that pirates wore eyepatches so they could already have one eye adjusted to the dark when they went below deck during battle. Indeed, there have been several experiments to see whether the practice works, including those carried out by the US Navy during WW2, and by the TV series MythBusters in 2007, although these were inconclusive. Regardless, there is no historical evidence to suggest that eyepatches were ever worn for this purpose, and instead, the reality is actually far simpler: patches were used to cover an empty eye socket if the eye was lost to injury. Furthermore, most areas below deck already had natural light courtesy of portholes and lanterns, so it is unlikely there was ever total darkness anyway. Listen | Dr Rebecca Simon responds to your questions on the 17th-century golden age of piracy. Plus, how accurate are pop culture portrayals of pirates? What about peg legs? So-called ‘peg legs’ may have been a reality on pirate ships due to the high risk of injuries, but again, there are no eyewitness accounts to suggest anyone wore them. Just like the pirate trope of buried treasure, the popular use of eyepatches and peg legs stems from Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, , in which Long John Silver has both. Read more | Everything you need to know about the golden age of piracy As well as his friend, poet William Henley (who had his left leg amputated due to tuberculosis of the bone), the author was also likely inspired by veterans of the American Civil War, whom he met while travelling around the US. Many of the soldiers were disfigured and therefore had to use the items in their daily lives. Thus, the connection between pirates, eyepatches and peg legs was born. This content is part of our series of pirate myths – read the rest in the series: Was walking the plank a real pirate punishment? X marks the spot: did pirates bury their treasure? Did …

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