The Book of Pirates

by Jamaica Rose

  Makin’ Yer Own Pieces of Eight

  Now that you’ve made your own Treasure Chest, you are going to need lots of pieces of eight to fill it. Cut circles of cardboard about 1-1/2 to 2 inches in diameter. Cover them with aluminum foil or paint them silver.

  Fishing for Silver and Gold

  Back in the 1600s and early 1700s, the Spanish were happily ravaging the New World for its wealth and sending it back to Spain. The silver, gold, and other riches were sent back to Spain in fleets of ships that usually sailed once a year. The treasure ships traveled together for safety and protection from pirate attacks. But traveling in groups did not protect fragile wooden ships from the terrible might of a hurricane.

  By the summer of 1715, Spain had been at war with various European countries for a few years. Due to the number of enemy ships sailing off the Spanish coast, it had been too dangerous to send the treasure fleet across the Atlantic. However, fighting a war was expensive. The Spanish crown’s treasury was in frantic need of new funds. Once the peace treaty was signed, there was pressure for the treasure fleet to sail right away, even though hurricane season (June to November) had already begun.

  On July 24, 1715, the treasure fleet (flota) consisting of ten Spanish ships and one French ship left Havana, Cuba. Together the Spanish ships had about 14 MILLION pesos worth of silver and gold coins. There were also gold bars, gold dust, emeralds, pearls, jewelry, and precious Chinese porcelain that had been brought all the way from the Philippines.

  As was usual, the fleet headed north, hugging the east coast of Florida. For the first five days, everything went smoothly. Then, on July 29, the waves changed into long swells. Experienced sailors became worried. They knew the signs of a coming storm.

  On July 30, the winds were getting stronger. By afternoon, the waves were more than twenty feet high. The strong winds pushed the ships west, closer and closer to the Florida coast. The captain general ordered that the ships head straight into the wind to keep clear of the reefs near the coast, but the winds were too strong.

  At about 4 a.m. on July 31, the deadly hurricane struck with its full force, driving one ship after another into the reefs. The treasure ships were shattered and their crews had little chance. All the ships were lost and, of the 2,500 people aboard, about one thousand were killed.

  As daylight broke later that morning, the survivors looked around. The Florida beaches between present-day Cape Canaveral and Fort Pierce were littered with wreckage and bodies. The various ships had come ashore at different locations, often miles apart.

  For those who survived the shipwrecks, their ordeal was not over. They were stranded in a land filled with mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, alligators, wild animals, and hostile Native Americans. Most of their food, water, and medical supplies had been lost in the storm.

  Admiral Don Francisco Salmon sent a small boat with nineteen men back to Cuba for help. Ten days later they reached Havana.

  After a couple of days to prepare, several rescue ships set out. They were filled with emergency supplies, salvage equipment, and men. After they arrived at the wreck site, even more help arrived from the Spanish settlement at St. Augustine in northern Florida.

  Salvage began right away because Spain still needed that treasure. The wrecks were mostly in shallow water. By dragging the ocean bottom with nets, they were able to bring up chests of coins. Divers were sent down to recover the treasure that had escaped the nets. By early 1716, the salvagers had fished up about 80 percent of the lost treasure.

  News of the wrecks and the sunken riches spread through the Americas and Europe like wildfire, and sparking the imagination and greed of others. Pirates, privateers, and treasure hunters the world over swooped down on the Florida coast like vultures, hoping to recover some of the treasure before the Spanish could get it all.

  The pirate Henry Jennings was one of the first “vultures” to arrive. He came with three ships and three hundred men in January 1716. Rather than diving for treasure, he decided on an easier way. He and his men swooped down on a salvage camp on the beach and looted some 120,000 pieces of eight that had been brought ashore. They also stole four of the Spanish cannons.

  More would-be looters arrived. The nearby islands of the Bahamas filled with these rogues, many of whom stayed in the area, even when they were unsuccessful in getting a share of the lost treasure. The small pirate settlement on New Providence swelled with the new arrivals. The names of some of them read like a Pirates’ Who’s Who, including Blackbeard, Benjamin Hornigold, Charles Vane, and Jack Rackham.

  Pirates in the Movies: Henry Jennings’ Raid

  The documentary True Caribbean Pirates depicts a thrilling version of Henry Jennings’ raid on the Spanish salvage camp.

  Real Pirate History to Visit:

  The 1715 Spanish Fleet Shipwreck Camp

  You can visit the site of the beach camp made by the 1715 Spanish Plate Fleet survivors. This is also the site of the salvaging efforts. The McLarty Treasure Museum is there now. They have lots of Spanish treasure on display: gold and silver coins, Chinese porcelain, jewelry, and more. There are also swords and flintlocks, along with tools left behind by the salvage crews. The museum is part of the Sebastian Inlet State Park.

  McLarty Treasure Museum

  13180 North Highway A1A

  Vero Beach, FL 32963

  772-589-2147

  www.atocha1622.com/mclarty.htm

  Pastimes for Scurvy Dogs

  Leave the Treasure to Us

  To get ready for salvaging lost treasure the next time a gold- and silver-filled galleon sinks in a hurricane, here is a game you can practice in the swimming pool.

  You will need:

  ten pennies and two dimes (or replica Spanish treasure coins)

  a swimming pool

  a grownup lifeguard

  Pennies and dimes are fine, but pieces of eight and doubloons are better. You can find replicas of these coins at many of the pirate stores and online pirate supply companies. We have a list of these at www.noquartergiven.net/merchant.htm

  Make sure you have a grownup lifeguard on hand. Throw all the coins into your pool. Throw them into the shallow end to start. See how many you can get in one dive (that means in ONE breath, just like the divers of old who retrieved sunken treasure). Dimes are worth five times as much as the pennies.

  After the first person dives, throw the coins back into the same area, and the next person takes a turn. After everyone takes a turn, add up the points to see who retrieved the most treasure. Winner is the diver with the most points.

  Add difficulty: To make a harder challenge, thrown the coins into deeper and deeper water.

  One person play: If you don’t have your crew along, you can still play. After each turn, add up your points. See if you can get better. If you can pick up all twelve coins, try doubling the amount of coins you throw. (Even if you are playing the game by yourself, make sure there is a grownup lifeguard watching you.)

  Note: When you are done, make sure you get all of your coins out of the pool. No self-respectin’ pirate would leave treasure behind. Besides, some innocent little sea turtle might come along and swallow them, and that would not be good for its digestion.

  Hoist Yer Colors

  Most people think pirates all flew the same “Jolly Roger,” a black flag with a skull and crossbones on it, but that’s not true. In the 1600s, most privateers (and some pirates) flew either their national flag or the flag of the nation that gave them their letter of marque. Privateers also flew a special pennant or streamer that identified them as a privateer. Pirates originally flew a blood red flag called the “Red Jack” or the “Bloody Flag.” The red flag meant “No Quarter Given,” or no mercy unless you surrendered immediately without a fight. Even then, there was no guarantee that you would receive good treatment.

  Cap’n Michael says:

  When it comes to pirate flags, most people don’t know jack! Let the ol’ Cap’n tell you how it really was.

  It IS a mite confus
ing, all those flags flyin’ on a vessel. Let’s see if I can clear things up a bit. First off, sailors didn’t usually call ’em flags. Instead, they called them their colours (that’s how the British spell “colors”). They had special names for different kinds of colours, depending where they were flown on the ship.

  On the stern (the back) of the vessel, they had a flagpole called an ensign staff. Flags flown from this pole were (you guessed it!) called ensigns. This is one of the two main places where pirates flew their special Jolly Roger flags. They also flew Jolly Rogers from the end of the gaff (the pole holding the top of the large sail on the last mast). From this staff, navy warships would fly a naval ensign showing the country and squadron they were in. (British navy warships had red, white, and blue ensigns for the Red, White, or Blue squadrons).

  There was a very long flag called a pennant (also called a pendant or pendent) flown from the top of the tallest mast on the ship. Pennants might be found at the tops of other masts as well. Pirates were known to fly black pennants either with or without symbols on them. Pennants might come to a point or might be forked, with two long points on them. Pirates also flew a red pennant to show “No Quarter” (no mercy) would be given. Privateers flew a special red privateers pennant, and warships flew a variety of pennants.

  On the front of vessels, usually fastened to the bowsprit, was a flagpole called the jack staff. The national flag of their country was usually flown from this staff. Some pirates flew their national flag here. The flags flown from this flagpole were (you guessed it again) called jacks. (This is why the British national flag is often called the Union Jack).

  Of course, this was the general custom regarding flags. Pirates might have followed these customs, or they might have done whatever they wanted. They were pirates, after all.

  Vessel:

  A general term for any large craft that travels on water.

  A favorite trick of the pirates was to sail under some other flag, usually the flag of their victim. Pirates were familiar with the look of vessels from different countries. If they recognized it as a Spanish merchant ship, they would go to the flag locker, select a Spanish flag, and run it up the mast (well-equipped pirates would carry flags of all the countries sailing in the area). This was known as “flying false colors.” Lulled into a false sense of security, the Spanish merchant would allow them to approach. The custom of ships from the same country or other friendly nations meeting at sea was to exchange greetings, mail, or news of home with each other. When the pirate was close enough to attack, down would come the false colors and up would go the Red Jack.

  Bartholomew Roberts’ flagship, the Royal Fortune, and the Great Ranger are shown flying several flags, including two of Roberts’ pirate flags, an English East India Company flag, and a French national flag. In the background are eleven slave ships Roberts held for ransom.

  Bowsprit:

  A pole sticking out from the bow (front) of a vessel. It supports the small triangular sails out in front.

  Craft

  (nautical): Any ship or boat on the water.

  More rarely, pirates flew a plain black flag instead of the red. When Francis Drake raided Cartagena (on the coast of modern-day Colombia) in 1585, it was recorded that he was “flying black banners and streamers, menacing war to the death.”

  The first recorded sighting of a pirate flying the Jolly Roger was of the French filibuster Emanuel Wynne’s colors in 1700. After that time, the black flag was adopted by most pirates sailing in the Caribbean area (West Indies). They used various menacing symbols on it. This black flag had a different message than the red flag: “When they [the pirates] fight under Jolly Roger, they give quarter which they do not when they fight under the Red Flag” (Captain Richard Hawkins, 1724). Instead of a death threat, the pirates now offered mercy to all—as long as they cooperated. A victim was supposed to “strike their colors” (lower their flag) and surrender immediately.

  What happened if you didn’t surrender immediately is shown by Article 10 in the charter-party (ship’s articles) of French filibuster Captain Dulaïen:

  Article 10: If the vessels which we attack defend themselves under the black flag, and then after hoisting the red flag, they fire three times upon us, no quarter shall be given to any aboard them.

  In other words, if they resist after the red flag is raised, kill them all. A bloody flag indeed.

  Many pirate captains personalized their flags with their own individual designs. There were two reasons for this. First, they wanted their victim to know they were being attacked by a pirate, not a privateer or government vessel. You could fight back against a privateer and still expect humane treatment, because privateers had to obey laws regarding how they treated prisoners. Fighting back against pirates was much riskier. They would normally show no mercy to those who continued to resist them.

  Second, the flag identified which particular captain you were facing. It made sense that pirates would want to personalize their flags. After all, no self-respecting pirate would want to fly a flag just like everybody else’s. His flag was his signature. He would want it to be special and distinctive so everyone would know it was HIS flag. He also wanted it to be as scary as possible to strike terror into the hearts of his victims. The flags usually featured skulls, bones, bleeding hearts, or other grisly objects with special symbolic meanings. Their message was clear: “Surrender or Die!”

  One of the few flag designs that is well documented is that of Captain John Thomas Dulaïen. He surrendered to French authorities in 1729 and accepted the king’s pardon. The illustration below is from the French archives. It shows the Jolly Roger that Captain Dulaïen flew from his ship as well as his bloody red “no quarter” flags.

  There are a lot of opinions about which flags the various pirate captains flew. Very few of the original pirate flags still exist. Many pirates were proud of their flags and viewed them as a symbol of their freedom. They usually destroyed their flags rather than risk them being captured.

  Jolly Roger of French filibuster Captain John Thomas Dulaïen along with his bloody red “no quarter” flags, flown aboard his vessel Le Sanspitie (Without Pity).

  An account of the capture of one of Bartholomew Roberts’ vessels describes the attitude of the pirate crew toward their colors. “The colours were thrown over-board, that they might not rise in Judgment, nor be display’d in Triumph over them.”

  Of the few flags that were captured, most were not preserved. Eyewitness accounts were often vague: “The pyrate flag was a deaths head.” (A death’s head could be a skull, a skull with crossbones below it, a skull with other symbols next to it, etc.) Sometimes eyewitness accounts conflicted, or they might have been mistaken about whom the flag belonged to.

  British Admiralty records give us the first actual account of a pirate captain’s flag. Captain John Cranby of the HMS Poole engaged the infamous French pirate Emanuel Wynne off the Cape Verde islands in the year 1700. Captain Cranby chased Wynne’s vessel into a cove at Brava Island, where he thought he had Wynne trapped, but a group of Portuguese soldiers came to Wynne’s aid and he managed to escape. Captain Cranby described Wynne’s flag as “a sable (black) ensign with cross bones, a death’s head and an hourglass.”

  Cap’n Michael says:

  There’s been all kind’s o’ tales about where they got the name “Jolly Roger” fer a pirate flag. Maybe the old Captain can shed a bit o’ light on the subject.

  A lot of the early buccaneers were Frenchmen, and they liked to call their bloody red flag the joli rouge (pretty red), which some believe is the origin of the name “Jolly Roger.” Another tale gives a famous southern Indian pirate the credit. His name was Ali Raja and he flew a red flag as well. The English sailors started calling him and his flag the Ally Roger, which over time could easily have turned into the Jolly Roger. Now me own favorite theory has ta do with a bit of English slang. Our nickname for the devil was “Old Roger,” and we’d often draw him as a skeleton or some such. Old Roger was used as
part of the design of many a pirate flag. And so a Jolly Roger would have been a happy devil. Which sounds ta me like an appropriate description for the sort of mischief that us pirates got into.

  Anyway, whatever the truth of it, the name stuck, and pirate flags are still called Jolly Rogers to this day.

  Bleeding Hearts and Winged Hourglasses: Pirate Flag Symbols and Their Meanings

  Pirates liked to decorate their flags with many different symbols. But I bet ya didn’t know that those symbols all had special meanings. Below we explain the various symbols, and what pirates were “saying” with them.

  Arm holding a knife or sword: We are powerful fighters, ready to fight and kill.

  Axe: Destruction.

  Black spot: Our victims are marked for death, doomed. (The idea of a “black spot” seems to have come from the book Treasure Island. There is no record of historical pirates using this symbol.)

  Blazing cannonballs: The terror of battle, destruction.

  Crossbones: You (our victims) can die any time. Soon you will be nothing but bones.

  Goblet raised: A toast to Death.

  Grim Reaper: A skeleton or hooded figure holding a curved blade on a handle (scythe). The Spirit of Death. Death has come for you.

  Heart: Heartache and sorrow.

  Heart dripping blood: You will have a slow, agonizing death; torture.