I saw an article about keelhauling and realized I don’t know much about pirates (those on the sea, not the internet) beyond what I’ve seen in movies. Tell me your most interesting pirate facts. Mythical or historical.
The real Dread Pirate Roberts has been retired fifteen years and living like a king in Patagonia.
Their favorite letter is “arrrgh”.
Nay, it be the ‘X’ that marks the spot.
It’s actually P.
Without letter P, they’re irate.
That may be true, but their first love is always the ‘C’.
There was no one standard pirate flag. Different pirates used different flags, often with similar themes (black, skull, etc). The idea was to be intimidating: it was cheaper and easier if your target gave up without a fight.
Most pirate careers were very short. Blackbeard was only active for about 2-3 years.
Also, Stede Bonnet, the “Gentleman Pirate”, is a true story, heavily fictionalized by the HBO show Our Flag Means Death (recommended viewing), of a wealthy man who literally had a midlife crisis in which he left his wife and kids, bought a boat, and became a terrible (as in very bad at pirating) pirate but who ended up sailing with Blackbeard himself. A fun story that’s worth a read.
I loved the show, but never would have guessed it was based on reality. Great facts!
VERY loosely based, but yeah, at times shockingly real!
Not pirates specifically, but some say that the legend of mermaids comes from lonesome martine travelers seeing dugongs for the first time.
When pirates got earrings, they would pay $1 for each one, which is where the term buccaneer came from.
When a pirate crew captured a merchant or government vessel, it was common for the crew of the captured vessel to not give a care and even join the pirates, seeing the pirate life as preferable. For this reason, pirates did not automatically eliminate their captured people, as the threat of resistance in some form was unlikely.
Buccaneers got their name by hunting game animals to extend their provisions and smoking the meat in a hide tent called a boucan.
pirates usually wear eye patches so one of their eyes are used to the dark while the other is used to the light.
they switch patches to easily get accustomed to caves.
Or, as I’ve heard it, moving above and below decks regularly.
Pirates kind of had a workers compensation program as I’ve been told.
Loss of certain body parts was payable with the amount varying by which part was affected.
U got compensated for damages. Most pirate contracts ive read u had a choice of coin or slaves as compensation. And some contracts even gave half a vote to the slaves.
