I just finished watching Pirates: Behind the Legends on the National Geographic Channel, and I learned a few things. For instance, Jack Sparrow was based on a real pirate John Ward, who went by the nickname Jack and had a tattoo of a swallow on his arm that his mentor and friend was unfamiliar with and called it a sparrow instead.
I knew the terms privateer and pirate were two different things, but always thought buccaneer was just a synonym for pirate. Not so. A buccaneer is the marine version of pirates, who do a lot of their raiding on land, pillaging, kidnapping, etc. A pirate attacks anything that moves on the water and a privateer is commissioned by the government to attack ships of enemy nations and have to share the booty they capture with the government.
They also said Treasure Island was loosely based on the real pirate story of William Kidd, the only pirate known to have actually buried any treasure. He is said to have buried it on Gardiners Island, a privately owned island at the end of Long Island.
One of the most powerful pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy was actually a woman, Grace O'Malley, who ruled much of the western part of Ireland for up to 40 years and actually had an audience with Queen Elizabeth I to petition her to release her son, who had been captured and imprisoned by a pirate hunter employed by the queen. Her plea succeeded in freeing her son.
Black Bart: I always thought this was a fictional character, most closely tied to the American West, due mainly, I guess, to A Christmas Story, where Ralphie fights off Black Bart and his minions with his trusty BB gun. But Black Bart was a pirate, perhaps the most successful pirate ever, having captured an estimated 400 ships in his brief 3 year career. A lot of these ships were unarmed fishing vessels of very little value other than provisions for his men. Black Bart's real name was Bartholomew Roberts, which he adopted when the merchant ship he was a deck hand on was captured by pirates and he was forced into joining them. His real name was John Roberts, but, like a lot of other pirates, he changed his name to Bartholomew to throw off the authorities.
In short order, he took to the pirate lifestyle because the life of a deck hand on a merchant ship was a life of drudgery and low pay. Six weeks after his capture, his captain led an ill-fated raid on an African town to kidnap its mayor to hold him for ransom. The raiding party was ambushed and slaughtered. Roberts, who stayed on board the ship, was elected captain by the remaining sailors (another thing I learned is that pirate captains were often elected by the crew if they thought the current captain wasn't doing a good enough job). He immediately ordered a raiding party to seek vengeance on their slain captain and they attacked the fort that protected the town, easily taking it over, and then ransacked the town. Thus, his legend was born.
It was an 8 part series and I highly recommend it.
I knew the terms privateer and pirate were two different things, but always thought buccaneer was just a synonym for pirate. Not so. A buccaneer is the marine version of pirates, who do a lot of their raiding on land, pillaging, kidnapping, etc. A pirate attacks anything that moves on the water and a privateer is commissioned by the government to attack ships of enemy nations and have to share the booty they capture with the government.
They also said Treasure Island was loosely based on the real pirate story of William Kidd, the only pirate known to have actually buried any treasure. He is said to have buried it on Gardiners Island, a privately owned island at the end of Long Island.
One of the most powerful pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy was actually a woman, Grace O'Malley, who ruled much of the western part of Ireland for up to 40 years and actually had an audience with Queen Elizabeth I to petition her to release her son, who had been captured and imprisoned by a pirate hunter employed by the queen. Her plea succeeded in freeing her son.
Black Bart: I always thought this was a fictional character, most closely tied to the American West, due mainly, I guess, to A Christmas Story, where Ralphie fights off Black Bart and his minions with his trusty BB gun. But Black Bart was a pirate, perhaps the most successful pirate ever, having captured an estimated 400 ships in his brief 3 year career. A lot of these ships were unarmed fishing vessels of very little value other than provisions for his men. Black Bart's real name was Bartholomew Roberts, which he adopted when the merchant ship he was a deck hand on was captured by pirates and he was forced into joining them. His real name was John Roberts, but, like a lot of other pirates, he changed his name to Bartholomew to throw off the authorities.
In short order, he took to the pirate lifestyle because the life of a deck hand on a merchant ship was a life of drudgery and low pay. Six weeks after his capture, his captain led an ill-fated raid on an African town to kidnap its mayor to hold him for ransom. The raiding party was ambushed and slaughtered. Roberts, who stayed on board the ship, was elected captain by the remaining sailors (another thing I learned is that pirate captains were often elected by the crew if they thought the current captain wasn't doing a good enough job). He immediately ordered a raiding party to seek vengeance on their slain captain and they attacked the fort that protected the town, easily taking it over, and then ransacked the town. Thus, his legend was born.
It was an 8 part series and I highly recommend it.
