Pistoleer: Pirates
Page 36
15. What were the Trained Bands?
16. How important was Robert Rich to the Reform Party?
17. Why was Lunsford so hated by Londoners?
18. What is the timeline of US and Canadian colonies?
1. Where can I read about the non-fiction events and characters?
First try "bcw-project.org", the robust and well organized British Civil War website.
If you can't find it at BCW then do a keyword search on Google. If a relevant BCW or Wikipedia article is listed, then other articles in the list will also be relevant. If not, then add more keywords and search again.
2. How can I tell which characters are historic and which are fictional?
As a rule of thumb, if the character is a Parliamentarian, has a title, or a military rank of captain or above, then they are historic and so are their families. If the character is a member of the Wellenhay clan, or goes unnamed, they are fictional.
3. What was a Pistoleer? (for more info see the Appendix of Book One)
Pistoleers were mounted infantry. They rode lighter, cheaper horses, wore only enough armour to protect chest and back, and were more likely to carry a multipurpose axe than a cavalry sabre. Their main weapons were pistols, not lances, although many also carried a carbine ... a short musket. They evolved in the protestant Dutch army because that army was short on cavalry.
During a large battle they were often kept back as a strategic reserve, but before the battle they would be used as couriers, scouts, and skirmishers. The weakness of the Pistoleers was that normal pistols were single shot, and reloading them on a moving horse was slow work. For this reason pistoleers carried more than one gun, and one of them would be a Dragon. A Dragon was a blunderbuss pistol ... a scatter gun ... the sawed off shotgun of the era. During the British Civil war, companies of Pistoleers were called 'flying squads'.
4. What was a Bermudan?
A Bermudan is a fore-aft type of sailing rig, sometimes called a Marconi rig. There is one triangular sail in front of the mast and another behind the mast. Modern sloops are Bermudan rigged, which makes it currently the most common rig on small sailing boats. It was invented by the Dutchman Jacob Jacobsen who had been shipwrecked on Bermuda. It was related to the Dutch mutton-chop rig (a lateen rig using a fixed, raked spar serving as both mast and spar).
Its great advantage was how close it could sail to the wind. Down wind the sails behave like all other sails, but close to the wind they behave like airplane wings and give forward 'lift'. When sailing across a wind the boat can sail faster than the wind. From Bermuda the rig spread around the world and revolutionized sailing.
5. What are the oldest continuous European settlements in the New World?
In Caribbean Islands: 1496 Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, Island of Hispaniola
In Central America: 1510 Nombre de Dios, Panama
In North America: 1519 Veracruz, Mexico
On the Pacific Coast: 1519 Panama City, Panama
In South America: 1521 Cumana, Venezuela
In the USA & territ.: 1521 San Juan, Puerto Rico
In Portuguese Empire: 1532 Sao Vicente, Brazil
In the USA states: 1565 Saint Augustine, Florida
In the British Empire: 1583 Saint John's, Newfoundland
In the French Empire: 1599 Tadoussac, Quebec
In the British Islands: 1609 St. George, Bermuda
In the original USA: 1610 Hampton, Virginia
In New Netherlands: 1614 Albany, New York
Other places mentioned in this book:
1620 Plymouth, Massachusetts (Mayflower)
1624 Old Road, Saint Christopher Island (St. Kitts)
1628 Bridgetown, Barbados
1634 St. Mary's City, Maryland
1636 Providence, Rhode Island
6. When folk fled from 17th century Britain, where did they go?
Individuals who were on the run often headed for the Netherlands, either to the Dutch north or the Spanish south.
Republicans, democrats, and protestant religious groups who were escaping persecution, or fleeing due to the doomsday prophesies of the era usually headed for New England.
Catholics who were escaping persecution headed for France or Spain if they were wealthy, or for Maryland if they were poor.
Debt slaves, criminals, profiteers, as well as royalists escaping persecution usually headed for the Virginias and Carolinas.
Note that this pattern of immigration seeded the American Civil War two hundred years later.
7. Who were the Black Irish?
What an excellent question to ask in an Irish Pub. In this book I mean the petite black haired Gael Irish who were an amalgamation of the pre-Roman peoples who were pushed out of England, Wales, and Scotland into Ireland by the successive waves of Celtic, Roman, Germanic, and Norman invaders of England. By the 1640's they were mostly cottagers (subsistence peasants) living in the West of Ireland.
Back when the Irish Sea and the Highland Islands of Scotland were controlled by Norwegian Vikings, the East and North coasts of Ireland were colonized by tall fair folk. The mix of blood made red hair more common, especially in port towns. The Irish ruling class were more proud of their Norman bloodlines than their Viking ones. In this book these are the Red Irish.
Under the Stuarts (a Scottish regime), waves of Scottish farmers were transplanted from the West coast of Scotland to Northern Ireland, thus creating the plantation economy of Ulster and lots of profit for the Stuarts. The Black Irish were the eventual losers of every new wave of invaders and immigrants.
The British Civil War accelerated the genocide of the Black Irish. The outcome of the Irish Confederate Wars of 1641-53 was an astounding death toll: ~ 500,000 Catholic, ~ 120,000 Protestant. A further 40,000 were exiled as slaves or soldiers. Most of the dead were peasants and the population of Ireland was halved. Put in perspective, the toll of 640,000 dead is about the same as that of the American Civil War however the USA had twenty times the population.
8. What was the difference in the colonies north and south of the Delaware?
In the south the profits from tobacco had created a plantation economy, so the Virginias and the Carolinas were almost feudal in nature with a managerial class and a forced labour class.
In New England the colonists were well educated, and a mix of religious refugees and republican political refugees. They tended to do their own thing for the good of their family and community.
The New England colonists kept the republican ideals of the British Civil War alive through to the US War of Independence, whereas the Virginia managerial class kept the royalist/feudal-slave ideals alive through to the US Civil War.
9. What was the difference between New Holland and New Netherlands?
New Holland was a republican, protestant Dutch colony that encompassed the entire north east bulge of Brazil and had its capital at Recife (the closest South American port to Africa). Through the mismanagement of the Dutch West India Company it was lost to the Portuguese in 1654.
New Netherlands was the republican, protestant Dutch colony that encompassed the area around what is now New York State and its capital was New Amsterdam (New York City) and the busiest port on the East Coast. It was eventually lost to the British in 1674 because the Dutch chose to keep their sugar plantations in Suriname instead.
10. Why are the Pilgrims of the Mayflower revered in the USA?
Only if you are related to one and are playing the ex-pat game of I-was-here-first. Actually the colonists of Saint Augustine, Florida, and San Juan Puerto Rico created the USA's earliest continuously inhabited towns sixty years before Plymouth was established..
11. How did the Pilgrim colonists clear the land for planting?
They didn't. The planting fields already existed, abandoned by native villagers who had been depopulated by European diseases. The latest research states that the natives and many Pilgrims died of Rat Catcher's fever.
12. What diseases destroyed native culture in the Amer
icas?
The Columbian Exchange brought the bubonic plague, chicken pox, cholera, common cold, diphtheria, influenza, leprosy, leptospirosis (rat catchers fever), malaria, measles, scarlet fever, smallpox, typhoid, typhus, whooping cough, yellow fever, and yaws to the New World, and the natives had no immunity to any of them.
Early Spanish Conquistador journals point out that measles was the disease that destroyed the native cultures, because it spread so quickly and killed adults but rarely children, thus leaving the children without the expertise of their elders or the know-how of their culture.
13. What was the Columbian Exchange?
Prior to the ships of the Spanish Conquistadors, the Americas had been more or less cut off from the rest of the world, much like Australia had been. The only domesticated animals in the Americas were llamas and dogs. The exchange of animals and plants changed the Americas, and the rest of the world.
To the Americas were introduced: cats (domestic), chickens, cattle, donkeys, ferrets, goats (domestic), geese (domestic), honey bees (domestic), horses, rabbits (domestic), mules, pigs, rats, rock pigeons, sheep (domestic), silkworms, and water buffalos ...
In exchange for a much shorter list: alpacas, American mink, guinea pigs, llamas, Muscovy Ducks, and turkeys.
The list of plants is far larger. Here are the commercially important plants from the Americas: amaranth (as grain), arrowroot, avocado, common beans (pinto, lima, kidney, etc.), bell pepper, cashew, chia, chicle, chili peppers, coca, cocoa, maize (corn), manioc (cassava, tapioca, yuca), papaya, peanut, pineapple, potato, pumpkin, quinoa, rubber, squash, strawberry, sunflower, sweet potato, tobacco, tomato, vanilla, and zucchini (courgette)
14. How was Bermuda settled?
Bermuda was discovered in 1503 by the Spanish, and was on their charts by 1511. It was known as the Island of Devils and visited frequently for water but never settled. In 1607 the Virginia Company established a colony at Jamestown, Virginia. In 1609 seven ships left England under George Somers with settlers and supplies to relieve Jamestown. They were separated by a storm and the flagship, the Sea Venture, was taking on water so Somers drove it on a Bermuda reef to save it and the passengers.
They stayed 10 months, starting a new settlement and building two small ships to sail to Jamestown. (William Shakespeare's play The Tempest is thought to have been inspired by William Strachey's account of this shipwreck.) The crown allowed the Virginia Company to colonize it. In 1612, the English began an intentional settlement, which makes St. George's the oldest continually inhabited English town in the New World. In 1615, the colony was passed to a new company, the Somers Isles Company, which the Earl of Warwick controlled.
15. What were the Trained Bands?
Since Britain was an island most kings kept only a small standing army but reserved the right to call up militia. In pre-Norman times these militias were known as fyrds, and each nobleman was responsible for answering a levy with a certain number of fyrdmen. By the era of muskets they were called Trained Bands and were organized by county and commanded by each county's Lord Lieutenant.
Training could be made compulsory for all freeholders, householders, and their sons. In times of emergency there could be a larger call up of men by each county sheriff called the Posse Comitatus, which was for every able bodied man between 16 and 60.
The weakness of the trained bands compared to volunteer companies was that the trained bands considered themselves a defensive force and therefore were reluctant to travel out of their own county.
16. How important was Robert Rich to the Reform Party?
The Earl of Warwick ... Robert Rich was the Reform Party. His grandfather, a commoner lawyer, became one of the richest men in England because he was the Chancellor in charge of Henry VIII's takeover of the Catholic Church and the dissolution of the monasteries. He obviously profited from the dissolution because he went from being a middle class lawyer to owning 70 manors in Essex and countless properties in London and a power at the Tudor court.
Robert's father purchased aristocratic blood by buying the title Earl of Warwick. Robert and his younger brother Henry were tutored by the great Puritan minister John Preston, and that led them to be strong supporters of Puritans for their lifetimes. Robert inherited the wealth and the title in 1619, while Henry became a favourite of Queen Henrietta Maria, and she arranged for him to become the Earl of Holland. Henry remained a royalist (perhaps at Robert's request) and became the diplomat between the pro-Spanish king's court and his anti-Spanish brother.
As a young man Robert ran a fleet of privateer ships, with the result that he and his wealth became involved in almost every company created for colonization ventures. He used corporate solutions in his innovations, ventures, and management. He formed the Providence Company to gain the king's patent to form a colony on a strategic island off the coast of Nicaragua ... an island that his privateers had been illegally using as a hiding place for a decade.
The Providence Company became his main company and was used for many different ventures. The list of shareholders and officers of this company included his leading reform Lords, and his leading reform Members of Parliament. The case has been made that the company was synonymous with the Reform Party, the party that collared an absolute monarch, executed the king's main councilors (Strafford and Laud), and went on to control the parliament, the army, and the navy.
What did Robert get out of this? When he began he was an anti-Spanish lord who owned a fleet of privateers and had shares in almost every English colony and trading company. Being made Lord Admiral of the Navy made all of his ventures more profitable.
17. Why was Lunsford so hated by Londoners?
Sir Thomas Lunsford was a violent young man who fled England to the wars in the Germanies to escape punishment for almost murdering his wealthy cousin Thomas Pelham. His exploits indicate that he may have been a psychopath, and therefore very useful to a king who was fighting rebels in all of his kingdoms. For a short time he was the commander of the garrison at the Tower of London, and he was called on to quell protests and punish protesters.
He did this with such murderous intent and brutal violence, that parliament petitioned the king to have him removed. Pamphlets were printed that encouraged the rumours that he was a brutal sadist who ate children. Although the charge of cannibalism may have been false, the other charges were well founded.
18. What is the timeline of US and Canadian colonies?
While reading this list keep in mind that most of these colonies started out with a few ships visiting them each year. Newfoundland was the exception as 500 boats annually were fishing for cod around Newfoundland by 1600. It is likely that these fishing boats explored the coastlines for other fishing grounds and traded with the natives for furs. Newfoundland was by far the most valuable of England's colonies and remained a colony until 1949.
Pre-1492 Portuguese, English, and Basque fishermen fish in the banks east of Iceland (and perhaps the grand banks of Newfoundland)
1493 - La Isabela colony on northern Hispaniola
1526 - Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón tries to settle in South Carolina
1527 - Fishermen are using the harbor at St. John's, Newfoundland and other places on the coast
1538 - Failed Huguenot settlement on St. Kitts in the Caribbean (destroyed by the Spanish)
1541 - Failed French settlement at Quebec City (Cartier and Roberval)
1559 - Failed Spanish settlement at Pensacola, Florida
1562 - Failed Huguenot settlement in South Carolina (Charlesfort-Santa Elena site)
1564 - French Huguenots at Jacksonville, Florida (Fort Caroline)
1565 - Spanish settle Saint Augustine, Florida
1566 - Spanish in South Carolina (Charlesfort-Santa Elena site)
1570 - Failed Spanish settlement on Chesapeake Bay (Ajacán Mission)
1579 - Sir Francis Drake claims New Albion.
1583 - England formally claims Newfoundland (Humphrey Gilbert)
1585 - Failed E
nglish settlement on Roanoke Island, North Carolina (Lost Colony).
1598 - Failed French settlement on Sable Island off Nova Scotia
1604 - Acadia - French (Nova Scotia)
1605 - Port Royal - French (Nova Scotia)
1607 - Jamestown - English (Virginia)
1607 - Popham Colony - English (Maine)
1608 - Quebec - French
1610 - Cuper's Cove - English (Newfoundland)
1610 - Kecoughtan - English (Virginia)
1610 - Santa Fe - Spanish (New Mexico)
1611 - Henricus - English (Virginia)
1612 - Bermuda - English (Atlantic Ocean)
1615 - Fort Nassau - Dutch (Albany, NY)
1615 - Renews - English (Newfoundland)
1618 - Bristol's Hope - English (Newfoundland)
1620 - St. John's - English (Newfoundland)
1620 - Plymouth Colony - English (Massachusetts)
1621 - Nova Scotia - Scottish
1622 - Maine Colony - English
1623 - St. Kits - English (Caribbean)
1623 - Portsmouth - English (New Hampshire)
1623 - Stage Point - English (Massachusetts)
1623 - Dover - English (New Hampshire)
1623 - Pannaway - English (New Hampshire)
1623 - New Castle - English (New Hampshire)
1623 - Fort Nassau - Dutch (New Jersey)
1624 - Governors Island - Dutch (New York)
1625 - Tortugas - French Pirates (Caribbean)
1625 - Cape Breton - Scottish (Nova Scotia)
1625 - New Amsterdam - Dutch (New York)
1626 - Salem - English (Massachusetts)
1627 - Barbados - English (Caribbean)
1628 - Nevis - English (Caribbean)
1630 - Massachusetts Bay Colony - English
1630 - Pavonia - Dutch (New Jersey)
1631 - Saint John - English (New Brunswick)
1632 - Antigua - English (Caribbean)
1632 - Montserrat - English (Caribbean)
1632 - Williamsburgh - English (Virginia)
1633 - Fort Hoop - Dutch (Connecticut)
1633 - Windsor - English (Connecticut)
1634 - Maryland Colony - Irish
1634 - Wethersfield - English (Connecticut)