by Jamaica Rose
When do I live?
Am I from the 1580s (the time of Sir Francis Drake, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the Sea Dogs), the 1660s (the time of Henry Morgan, Port Royal, Tortuga, and the buccaneers), the 1710s (the era of Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, and the Golden Age of Pirates), or the 1810s (when Jean Lafitte and the Baratarians ruled the Gulf of Mexico)? Or some other time period?
Where did I come from?
What country was I born in? Am I French, English, Spanish, Irish, Scottish, etc.? Am I from the American colonies? Or a Spanish colony? (If you know another language, even if just a little, it could be fun to be a character from that country.) What town/city did I come from? What did I do before becoming a pirate?
Who is my family?
Are they rich or poor? Are they sailors, farmers, city people, merchants, gypsies, or members of a wandering acting troupe?
How did I become a pirate? Why?
Did pirates capture the ship I was on and invite me to join? Did I hear about a pirate crew forming up to go “on the account”? Did I stow away on a ship, not realizing it was a pirate ship?
Where am I now?
What country? Am I part of a ship’s crew? Do I live on a ship? What is my ship’s name? What kind of ship is she? Draw a picture of your pirate ship. What is my captain’s name? What is my job on the ship? Who are some of my crewmates? (Maybe some of your friends have also created pirate personas and you can be on the same crew.)
If I don’t live on a ship, do I live in town? In the jungle? On a deserted island?
Do I have any skills?
Can I read and write? Can I do a little “figuring” (adding and subtracting)? Did I go to school? Do I know how to fight? What weapons do I use? Do I sing or play an instrument? Are there any special things I can do?
How do I talk?
Is my voice rough and gravelly? Low and mysterious? Big and booming? Do I lisp, mumble, or slur my words? Do I have an accent?
What are some of the things I have done?
Have I ever stolen anything or rescued anyone? Have I been in battle? Was I at the sack of Panama with Captain Henry Morgan?
What places have I been?
Have I sailed around the world? Or maybe I’ve never even crossed the equator.
Perhaps my origins were humble. I was a poor peasant, stable boy, or overworked apprentice who wanted to go to sea to seek his fortune. Could I be the son or daughter of a rich merchant or nobleman who ran off to sea in search of adventure?
If I am a girl, did I disguise myself as a boy so I could enlist as a sailor aboard a merchant ship? It would be easy to become a pirate from there. Pirates were always looking to recruit more sailors.
Maybe I was in the army. Did the war end and I had no job to go back to? Or did I run away and become a deserter? Was I a pickpocket or thief who was caught and sentenced to be an indentured servant in the Americas? Did I later escape and run away when my master treated me badly?
Letting Your Story Grow
It’s all right to be a little mysterious at first or not to know the answers to all the questions above. It will come to you bit by bit. It might change a little or a lot, and that’s okay. The simpler your story, the easier it is to remember it.
The more you read about pirates and learn about pirate history, the more your pirate persona will grow too.
Sounding Like a Pirate
Develop your “pirate voice.” Memorize and practice some of the pirate talk in this chapter, then try telling a short story in your pirate voice.
Do you have an accent or dialect? Listen to characters with that accent and try to say things the way they do. One way to learn accents is to watch pirate movies. Imitate a character that talks as your pirate would talk. Here are some movies and specific characters to listen to for practicing accents:
English Accent
Treasure Island (1950), especially Long John Silver (Robert Newton). The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh (1963), Dr. Christopher Syn (Patrick McGoohan). Peter Pan (2003), Captain Hook (Jason Isaacs).
Irish Accent
Swashbuckler (1976), specifically Captain “Red” Ned Lynch (Robert Shaw). The Black Swan (1942), Tommy Blue (Thomas Mitchell). Darby O’Gill and the Little People (1959). Not a pirate movie, but it does include a lot of Irish accents.
Scottish Accent
Muppet Treasure Island (1996), Billy Bones (Billy Connolly).
French Accent
The Buccaneer (1958), Dominique Youx (Charles Boyer) along with other characters. Captain Blood (1935), Le Vasseur (Basil Rathbone).
Spanish Accent
The Princess Bride (1987), Inigo Montoya (Mandy Patinkin).
Become Your Pirate
Now here’s the fun part: becoming your pirate. Practice at home first, in your bedroom or backyard or in front of the mirror. Then try your character on your friends or your family (you might let your parents know what you are doing before your mom gets upset when you call her a “saucy lass”). Can you “stay in character” all through dinner? Talk with your family and answer questions as your pirate would?
You probably don’t want to bring your pirate character to school though. He or she could get you in trouble with your teachers.
After you’ve practiced a bit at home, you might go to a party (especially a pirate party) as your pirate. Or show up at a pirate festival. You will probably find being dressed as your pirate makes it easier to “be” your pirate. Try to be your pirate for the whole time. Talk and interact with people as your pirate would. Don’t talk about modern things like TV, movies, computers, or cars. Don’t talk on your cell phone. Do the things your pirate would do (within reason—no stealing, killing, or marooning allowed).
If you believe you ARE your pirate, then everyone else will believe in your pirate, too.
Pirates’ Dictionary
Ahoy: A call used in hailing, as in “Ship ahoy!”
Armada: Spanish term for a fleet of warships.
Articles: A contract or treaty among the crew of a ship, or of several ships working together, drawn up and signed before going out on the account.
Avast!: Stop! Hold! Cease! Stay! It means to immediately stop whatever you are doing.
Batten down the hatches: Hatches were openings in the deck to cargo holds below. In rough weather, tarpaulins (tarred cloths; also called tarps) were stretched over these openings, and small pieces of wood (battens) were wedged in along the sides to keep them in place.
Belay (or “Belay that”): To stop whatever you are doing. To belay a line means to wrap the loose end about a pin in the railing.
Belly timber: Food, especially meat.
Bilged upon her anchor: When a ship’s anchor pierces its own hull.
Careenage: A place for careening a ship, usually a sheltered bay or cove, to make repairs.
Clap in irons: To chain someone up.
Crimp: Someone who swindles or kidnaps seamen.
Davy Jones’ Locker: Essentially, the bottom of the sea. Davy Jones was an evil spirit living in the sea. He received dead sailors in his “locker.”
Doubloon: A gold Spanish coin.
Execution Dock: The place where pirate hangings usually took place in London. It was on the banks of the Thames River, near the Tower of London.
Fireship: A special vessel loaded with explosives and flammable goods, ignited, and set adrift towards the enemy.
Flota: Fleet (in Spanish); usually refers to the Silver Fleet that annually returned to Spain with acquired treasure from the New World.
Flotilla: A small fleet.
From the sea: The answer a pirate ship in open waters would give when asked where they come from.
Gibbet: a wooden scaffolding from which bodies of executed criminals were displayed as a warning to others.
Handsomely: Done carefully, smartly.
Jack: A small flag, usually flown at a ship’s bow, to show nationality or act as a signal.
Kill Devil: A favorite pirate name for rum.
Land ho!:
Land has been sighted (can also be “Ship ho!”). This is the report from the lookout. From the deck, he is asked “Where away?” and he will then give direction: “Dead ahead,” “On the starboard bow,” etc.
Letters of marque: A commission, usually granted by the government, to the commander of a merchant ship or privateer allowing him to cruise against and make prizes of enemy ships and vessels. In return, he was expected to return a set portion of any prizes to the crown.
Lubber (landlubber): An awkward, clumsy oaf, or a green, not-too-bright sailor.
Man-of-war: A warship.
Mate: A companion, fellow worker. Derived from a word meaning “meat,” it originally referred to those who shared food. Later, it became the title of an officer, the one who saw that the captain’s orders were carried out.
No prey, no pay: Pirate version of the phrase “No purchase, no pay” (see Purchase).
No quarter given: No mercy (quarter) is to be shown, no prisoners will be taken. A red flag meant no quarter given and was intended to strike terror into the hearts of the pirates’ victims.
On the account: A term for going out a-pirating. Actually, it originally meant that no wages were to be paid, and there would be no compensation until plunder was taken. Originated with the privateers.
Pieces of eight: A Spanish coin of silver. It was worth eight reales.
Purchase: Payment in the form of loot, as in the saying “No purchase, no pay,” used by the privateers.
Prize: Usually refers to a captured ship. If a pirate calls a lady this, it is to be sure that he has been checkin’ her out.
Punishment of Moses: A flogging of “Forty stripes, less one, on the bare back,” or thirty-nine lashes.
Quarter: Means that mercy will be shown if the pirate’s victim surrenders. It meant the sparing of lives and possibly freedom (or ransom) after the pirate was through taking what he wanted. A black flag (Jolly Roger) meant that quarter would be offered.
Road: A partly sheltered place to anchor.
Salmagundi: (Various spellings.) A favorite meal of the buccaneers; basically a stew of anything at hand, including anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, and limes.
Scurvy: As an adjective, it means sorry, contemptible, good for nothing. As a noun, it was the name for a disease caused by the lack of fresh food in a sailor’s diet.
Sea artists: Specialists aboard ship, such as navigators, sailing masters, carpenters, surgeons, and gunners.
Shantyman: A crewmember who sings and composes songs (often rude) for the enjoyment of his mates.
Shiver me timbers: (Fictional in origin.) A phrase of surprise or shock. It refers to the effect of a cannonball on the oak timbers of the ship. A cannonball blast would send showers of large splinters (6 inches or longer), which would be more deadly than the cannonball itself (especially due to death by infection). The splinters are called shivers.
Sloop: The favorite pirate vessel of the early 1700s. It had a bowsprit (a pole like a mast sticking out straight in front) almost as long as the rest of the ship. With this bowsprit, a sloop could carry a vast spread of canvas. It could go fast and sail in shallow water. It was great for quick hit-and-run attacks.
Spanish Main: Central American and northern South American coast held by the Spanish and often raided by buccaneers.
Strike the colors: To bring down a ship’s flag as a sign of surrender.
Swag: Loot, plunder, stolen goods.
The Sweet Trade: Another term for piracy, buccaneering.
Swivel: Short for “swivel gun.” A gun mounted usually on the ship’s railing, on a pivot, so it can be swung from side to side.
Tar: A sailor. It comes from the use of tar to saturate the sailors’ overclothes to make them water resistant. Also, tar from the lines stained their hands and clothes.
Vice-Admiralty Courts: Courts set up by the British government to hear and try maritime offenses.
Watch: On a regular ship, the crew is divided into two watches (like teams), one of which sails while the other is sleeping or resting. Each period of duty (which generally lasts four hours) is also called a watch. Pirate ships might or might not have used this system of watches. [Not to be confused with a timepiece].
Weigh (as in “weigh anchor”): To raise a vessel’s anchor prior to departure.
But I WANNA Sign the Articles!
The Boy Who Had to be a Pirate
John King was just an ordinary boy living with his mother until a fateful event occurred that would change his life forever...
At least his life was ordinary until he met the charismatic pirate captain Samuel “Black Sam” Bellamy. John was traveling with his mother from the island of Jamaica to another British colony on Antigua aboard the sloop Bonetta.
The voyage was uneventful until November 9, 1716. According to the captain’s log, that was the day they were attacked and captured by Samuel Bellamy and his crew of pirates. Bellamy tied his sloop, the Marianne, alongside the Bonetta and spent fifteen days thoroughly ransacking the vessel. The passengers aboard the Bonetta may have been horrified by their ordeal, but young John King was thrilled. He was fascinated by the colorful pirates and especially by their charismatic leader. After some of the Bonetta’s crew decided to join the pirates, John was determined to become a pirate himself.
The pirates were probably amused by the young boy who followed them around and insisted that he wanted to be a pirate, too! But they never took him seriously until one day he demanded that Captain Bellamy let him join his pirate crew. Bellamy was reluctant to let such a young boy (John was reported to be between 8 and 11 years old at the time) join his crew. But John declared that he would kill himself if anybody tried to stop him. When his mother protested and tried to interfere, he threatened her as well.
Bellamy must have admired the boy’s spirit and show of defiance. He changed his mind and decided to let the boy aboard the Marianne. John made history that day, becoming one of the youngest boys ever known to have signed the articles and joined a pirate crew.
But his career as a pirate was short-lived. He lasted less than three months before he met his end. A few months after taking John aboard, Captain Bellamy captured the slave ship Whydah and transferred himself and part of his crew aboard, including John King. After taking several prizes, Bellamy decided it was time to head home. Bellamy’s small pirate fleet headed north for Maine, but Bellamy never made it. The Whydah was wrecked off the coast of Cape Cod when she violently ran aground during a storm. As the Whydah capsized, canons and other articles broke loose and crashed across the deck. John was hurled so violently across the deck that his leg bone was impaled in a pewter teapot. Then one of the ship’s cannon came crashing down upon him. It was the end.
How do we know this, you might ask? Because they found John’s leg bone inside his silk stocking with his shoe. It was concreted together with the teapot under that same cannon. It must have been a horrible way to die. Sometimes, it just doesn’t pay to defy your mother.
Notorious Ladies of the Sea
Not all pirates were men and boys. Some were women, and even a few were teenage girls. We know about ten to twenty female pirates, depending on how you define them (some might be considered privateers or smugglers instead, and a couple might be hoaxes). Who knows how many more women pirates were disguised as men and never discovered or how many women pirates were lost in history? Let’s take a look at the ones we know about.
Alfhild (also recorded as Alwilda, Alvida, or Altida)
Alfhild was a Scandinavian princess who some say lived around 450 CE while others say it was after 850 CE. The Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus told her story, though it’s not certain if she truly existed. According to Grammaticus, she was a princess who decided to became a pirate rather than marry Prince Alf of Denmark against her will. She first commanded an all-female crew, and then was later elected by a male crew to be their leader. Meanwhile, Alf had gone in his ship to look for her. In a true fairy-tale ending, Alf’s ship and her ship battled at sea.
He won the battle, and they got married. She gave up piracy to stay home and give birth to a daughter. Whether or not she was happy with this arrangement, the stories don’t say.
Bonny, Anne
Anne was the daughter of a lawyer who left Ireland to settle in South Carolina. Anne grew up willful and wild, and later married the sailor James Bonny against her father’s wishes. James started hanging out with pirates, which is when Anne met the notorious “Calico Jack,” aka Captain John Rackham (see below). She joined Jack’s crew disguised as a man. Mary Read later joined the crew (see Read, Mary). In 1720, they were captured and brought to trial. The male members of the crew were hanged. Anne and Mary “pleaded their bellies” because they were pregnant. A pregnant woman was not hanged until after her baby was born. It’s unknown what happened to Anne after the trial. Some people think her rich father paid the officials to let her go free.
Name: John Rackham
Alias: Calico Jack
Dates: active as a pirate as early as 1718; hanged in 1720
Country: England
Ship: William
Flag: Rackham’s flag was said to be a grinning skull above a pair of crossed cutlasses. It was “pirated” by Disney as the flag of the Black Pearl in the Pirates of the Caribbean films. There are no eyewitness accounts of which flag Rackham flew, so we can’t say for sure this design was his.