by Travers, Tim
Illustrations 1–37, 67, 70–72, 78, 81–91, 97–100 and 103 are the work of American illustrator, writer and teacher, Howard Pyle (1853–1911). It is Howard Pyle more than any other individual who established and imprinted on the modern mind what a pirate looks like and how he should behave. His illustrations are romantic and unrealistic, but they established what we now think of as the genuine pirate image during the golden age of piracy from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century and beyond. For this reason many of his illustrations have been reproduced in this book.
1 ‘A pirate as imagined by a Quaker gentlemen.’
2 ‘A typical pirate.’
3 ‘Band of armed pirates.’
4 ‘A pirate takes aim.’
5 ‘A pirate is shot.’
6 ‘Pirate Bold and ship.’
7 ‘A Pirate at the wheel.’
8 ‘A pirate stands over his victim.’
9 ‘A typical pirate.’
10 ‘A pirate captain surveys the deck.’
11 ‘Captain Scarfield.’
12 ‘Flirting on deck.’
13 ‘Beach scene.’
14 ‘Marooned pirate.’
15 ‘Rescue on its way.’
16 ‘Stabbed in the back.’
17 ‘Buried treasure.’
18 ‘Pirates carrying treasure.’
19 ‘Discovered treasure.’
20 ‘Pirates make off with treasure.’
21 ‘Examining treasure.’
22 ‘Captain Mayloe shot Captain Brand through the head.’
23 ‘She would sit quite still, permitting Barnaby to gaze.’
24 ‘Burning the ship.’ Pirates did often burn the ships they captured, partly in order to prevent their victims from sailing off and revealing where the pirates were, and what they had done. The crews of these captured ships were normally allowed to land or row away.
25 ‘Pirates used to do that to their Captains now and then.’
26 ‘So the pirate treasure was divided.’ Dividing up treasure among a pirate crew was an important process, in which care was taken to make each share as equal as possible. Some skilled members of a pirate crew, including the captain, surgeon, gunner, and carpenter, would be given more than one share.
27 ‘Colonel Rhett and the pirate.’
28 ‘The pirate’s Christmas.’
29 ‘He lay silent and still, with his face half buried in the sand.’
30 ‘There Cap’n Goldsack goes, creeping, creeping, creeping, looking for his treasure down below!’
31 ‘He had found the captain agreeable and companionable.’ In the late seventeenth century many colonial governors were sympathetic to pirates, happy to share the spoils. This picture shows the pirate Thomas Tew being entertained by New York Governor Benjamin Fletcher in the 1690s.
32 ‘How the buccaneers kept Christmas.’
33 ‘A pirate fighting it out.’
34 ‘The burning ship.’ Fire was always a grave threat, and precautions were taken on all ships to prevent this happening. Pirates usually operated at trade routes fairly close to land because that was where merchant ships were to be found, so crews could normally get ashore if there was a fire.
35 ‘Pirates fighting.’
36 ‘Dead men tell no tales.’ Some pirate captains did murder their victims. This was especially the case in the nineteenth century, when one pirate captain in 1824 told his men ‘dead cats don’t mew’, obviously instructing his crew to kill their captives.
37 ‘Daughter of Captain Keitt.’
38 Execution of Stede Bonnet. Stede Bonnet was hung in Charles Town, South Carolina in 1718. Bonnet was an unlikely pirate, being a middle aged plantation owner from Barbados. Bonnet holds a posy of flowers, a common touch with the condemned at hanging, and he is executed using the short rope drop, which took some time to produce death.
39 Cape Corso Castle. A depiction of Cape Coast Castle on the West African coast, where Roberts’ large crew were tried, and some of them hung, in 1722. Cape Coast Castle was a Royal African Company factory where African slaves were held before being shipped to their destinations.
40 A wounded Spaniard shot by Capt Low’s crew. This scene depicts an event after a Spanish ship was captured off Honduras by Captain Low. One of the Spanish sailors jumped into the water to escape but was recaptured. He begged for mercy but one of the pirates made him kneel down, and placing the muzzle of his gun in the Spaniard’s mouth, pulled the trigger.
41 Captain Anstis’ mock trial. This mock trial, which took place in 1722, on an island off Cuba, reflected the pirates’ attitude toward the justice system of the day. Some pirate humour and some pirate fear both seem to be part of this trial, which was fully reported by Captain Charles Johnson.
42 A symbolic representation of a pirate captain. Note the fashionable clothes, wig and three cornered hat. Also the gentleman’s rapier sword and flintlock musket.
43 Different versions of pirate flags. Two of the flags were designed by the pirate captain Bartholomew Roberts – the lower left flag has Roberts standing on two of his opponent’s skulls – A Bahamian’s head and a Martinican’s head.
44 Buccaneers attack a Spanish ship in a cannon duel. Normally, buccaneers preferred to take a ship by surprise or by boarding rather than in a fire fight, because Spanish fire discipline was often superior.
45 Title page of Esquemeling’s The Buccaneers of America, first published in Amsterdam in 1678. Several other versions followed. Esquemeling is important for his first hand accounts of two of Henry Morgan’s expeditions, and for his knowledge of the buccaneers.
46 Esquemeling’s vision of a typical French buccaneer on Hispaniola. There were two kinds of buccaneer – those who hunted wild bulls and cattle in a two man operation, and those who hunted wild boars in teams of five or six men.
47 This is the buccaneer fort constructed on Tortuga by the French adventurer LeVasseur, in the 1640s. He ironically named it his ‘Dove Cot’. Interestingly, the fort incorporates the latest ‘bastion trace’ outline, useful against cannon.
48 Henry Morgan’s raid on El Puerto del Principe, Cuba. The buccaneers took the town, but found only 50,000 pieces of eight, since the Spanish were forewarned. Morgan also forced the inhabitants to produce and slaughter 500 cattle for the buccaneers, who were often short of food.
49 Portrait of the buccaneer Roche Brasiliano, a Dutchman, but named thus because of his long residence in Brazil. He raided along the coast of Central America, capturing several ships. He hated and tortured Spanish prisoners. But he spent all his plunder on alcohol and women.
50 Morgan’s capture of Panama City in 1671. The buccaneers defeated the Spanish defenders of Panama City in a set battle outside the city, and then plundered Panama and surrounding area for several weeks. Panama was probably set on fire by some of the inhabitants.
51 William Dampier, painted around 1697. Dampier was a buccaneer but also an acute observer of nature, and published his observations in a number of volumes. The books were readable, satisfied the public’s desire for knowledge about the world, and made Dampier famous.
52 A map of the Americas from Dampier’s book, A New Voyage Round the World (1697). It was in this area that the buccaneers perated and raided. Dampier himself joined some of these raids, but also circumnavigated the world.
53 Dampier’s map of the world from his A New Voyage Round the World (1697). The map shows that Dampier was vague about North America, but that he knew South America and the Pacific, and in a later voyage he explored parts of Australia.
54 Hanging a pirate in the eighteenth century at Execution Dock, Wapping, London. At the time, hanging was a slow, unpleasant death due to the ‘short drop’ which did not break the neck of the condemned. Here, the chaplain, or ‘ordinary’, tries to elicit a last speech of repentance from the pirate.
55 A woodcut of the execution of one of Avery’s crew in 1696. Bodies of the condemned were placed between the high and low water marks of the River Thames
to signify the authority of the High Court of the Admiralty.
56 A copy of the first page of the 1700 piracy act of William III. This act allowed a seven man jury of officials or naval officers to be assembled anywhere in the world in order to try pirates and execute them if guilty.
57 A well known pirate, Charles Vane gained fame by refusing to accept Woodes Rogers’ offer of a pardon in the Bahamas in 1718. Vane escaped by using a fire ship at night, and then pirated for two years, meeting up once with Blackbeard before being caught and hung in 1720.
58 Captain Charles Vane.
59 A report of the trial of the pirate Stede Bonnet and his crew at Charles Town in 1718. Bonnet was unusual in being a gentleman and man of means, who reportedly became a pirate in order to escape his wife. He was no mariner, and was hung along with most of his crew in 1718.
60 This pirate captain was known as ‘Calico’ Jack Rackam, due to his penchant for wearing white calico clothes. Rackam was not a very successful pirate, but gained posthumous fame for having two women pirates in his crew, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. He was easily captured, and tried and hung in Jamaica in 1720.
61 This picture shows the front page of the very lengthy report of the trial of Captain Jack Rackam and his crew, published in Jamaica in 1721. The report also contains the separate trial of the two women pirates in his crew, Anne Bonny and Mary Read.
62 A portrait of Anne Bonny (or Bonn), who served on Captain Jack Rackam’s ship. She abandoned a husband on New Providence in order to run away with Rackam, and became his lover. She was captured and tried along with Rackam, but was spared execution because she was pregnant. She then disappears from history.
63 A portrait of Mary Read, who served on Captain Jack Rackam’s ship. She had allegedly previously served in the army, which helped when she fought a duel with a sailor who threatened her lover. She was captured and tried along with Rackam, but was spared execution because she was pregnant. She died in prison.
64 Captain Bartholomew Roberts, one of the most successful pirates. In his last battle in 1722, he dressed in a crimson waistcoat and trousers, a hat with a red plume, and wore a gold chain and diamond cross. He was killed in this battle against the Royal Navy, and thrown overboard as he had requested.
65 Captain Bartholomew Roberts again depicted in fine clothes. He carries a cutlass and a brace of pistols in a sash, as was normal. Roberts was unusual in not drinking alcohol, and in demanding strong discipline in his large crew.
66 Captain Bartholomew Robert’s crew drinking at the slaving port of Old Calabar in 1721. The drink would have been rum or brandy. However, Roberts’ pirates fought a battle with the local inhabitants here, and then set fire to the town.
67 ‘Extorting tribute from the citizens.’ The prelude to torture, when pirates forced individuals to confess where their valuables could be found. This incident relates to the sack of Cartagena by buccaneers and the French in 1697.
68 Portrait of Henry Morgan. Technically not a pirate, Morgan launched several raids on Spanish towns, the most famous being the raid on Panama. Esquemeling writes that Morgan’s buccaneers cruelly tortured many prisoners in these towns in order to find and seize their valuables.
69 Morgan fights his way out of Lake Maracaibo, which was blocked by a fort and three large Spanish ships. Morgan used fire ships and boarding to deal with the Spanish ships, and trickery to steal past the fort at night.
70 ‘Jack followed the Captain [Blackbeard] and the young lady up the crooked path to the house.’
71 ‘He led Jack up to a man [Blackbeard] who sat upon a barrel.’
72 ‘The combatants cut and slashed with savage fury.’ When pirates boarded a ship, the fight was often violent, but also usually short. Blackbeard was killed in 1718 in a ship board struggle, and the fight was bitterly contested with cutlass and pistol.
73 The famous pirate Blackbeard (or Edward Teach) engaged in a fight for his life against Lieutenant Maynard of the Royal Navy. The fight took place in Ocracoke creek, North Carolina, in 1718. Blackbeard sustained many wounds before being cut down by a Royal Navy sailor.
74 After Blackbeard and his small crew were killed or captured, Lieutenant Maynard had Blackbeard’s head cut off, and displayed it from his bowsprit. Allegedly, Maynard threw Blackbeard’s body overboard, at which point the body swam around Maynard’s ship.
75 A 1696 broadside or printed sheet of a ballad celebrating the piratical life of Henry Every (Avery). These sheets preserved the memory of Avery and this one presents him as a pirate who made his own future and fortune.
76 A government authorised version of the trial of six of Every’s (Avery’s) men. The first trial acquitted these crewmen. But in a second trial, one was spared and turned state’s evidence, while the other five were hung as pirates.
77 Avery is presented here as the king of Madagascar. In fact, although he did put in to Madagascar on his way to the Red Sea, he was far from becoming the king of the island. A more likely king of Madagascar was the trader John or James Plantain.
78 ‘Kidd on the deck of the Adventure Galley.’ William Kidd is here portrayed as an evil pirate, although there is some debate as to whether Kidd was actually a pirate or not.
79 William Kidd is here portrayed turning from good to evil. Historians are divided as to whether Kidd became a pirate, or tried to remain a privateer. The two major ships which Kidd took sailed under French passes, which permitted Kidd to take them legally. However, he was tried and hung in 1701.
80 Some of the most notorious pirates were hung and then placed in iron chains at a location where all ships’ crews entering or leaving the River Thames would see them. Here, it is William Kidd hanging at Tilbury Point in 1701.
It must be admitted that L’Olonnais was not alone in his cruelty, since a pattern developed in the Caribbean as other Europeans, often French, and generally deeply imbued with a hatred of the Spanish, did much the same. There was the infamous Montbars, from Languedoc in France, who is said to have read a book in his youth about the cruelty of the Spanish to the natives of the Americas. Montbars therefore practiced the same toward all Spaniards he caught. His nickname was the ‘Exterminator’, and he was known for cutting open the stomach of his victim, nailing one end of his intestines to the mast, and, by applying a burning torch to the backside of the unfortunate individual, making him run and dance to his death. Another unpleasant pirate was Roche Brasiliano, a Dutchman, who operated out of Jamaica, and who had sailed with L’Olonnais in the late 1660s. Brasiliano raided along the coast of Central America on his own behalf, and succeeded in capturing a number of ships, which he brought into Port Royal, Jamaica. One unpleasant trait of Brasiliano’s was to roast alive those Spaniards who would not show him where their hog yards were located. Another aspect of Brasiliano’s violent behaviour, according to Esquemeling, was that when drunk he:
…would roam the town like a madman. The first person he came across, he would chop off his arm or leg, without anyone daring to intervene, for he was like a maniac. He perpetrated the greatest atrocities possible against the Spaniards. Some of them he tied or spitted on wooden stakes and roasted them alive between two fires, like killing a pig…
Indeed, alcohol, together with gambling and brothels, soon took care of most pirate plunder, whether obtained by Brasiliano or any other pirate of the time. Esquemeling wrote that his own master would buy:
…a whole pipe of wine, and, placing it in the street, would force everyone that passed by to drink with him; threatening also to pistol them in case they would not do it. At other times, he would do the same with barrels of ale or beer. And, very often, with both his hands he would throw these liquors about the streets, and wet the clothes of such as walked by, without regarding whether he spoiled their apparel or not, were they men or women.7
