You knew about the parrots, the Jolly Roger,
and the part where they have to say "shiver me timbers," but there are a bunch of other
pirate traditions that you've probably never heard of before. And that’s sad
because these traditions are alternately cool, cruel, and downright progressive.
It seems odd that so many of our popular depictions of pirates involve eyepatches. The rate
of enucleation seems ridiculously high compared to other violent professions like gangsters and
soldiers. What is it about seafaring scallywags that ended up with so many donning eyepatches?
Would you believe that a lot of eyepatch wearing pirates actually had perfectly functional eyeballs
under those patches? That's the theory, anyway. Pirates may have gained a reputation
as eyepatch wearers not because they were forever winding up on the pointy end of a saber,
but because it was a handy way to keep your eyes adjusted to constant changes in light.
Pirates were constantly having to go below decks and then back above decks,
and when there's a battle going on, you don't want to have to wait around for your eyes to
become adjusted to the dark. When you keep one of them under an eyepatch, you've always got one
peeper ready to guide you to the part of the ship where the rum is stashed whenever the need arises.
Or maybe it was just because eyepatches are super cool, and pirates knew it. You never really know.
What could be more piratey than walking the plank? This bizarre method of murdering someone
is one of the most historically accurate facts about pirates, right? Well believe it or not,
walking the plank wasn't really a thing. In fact, there are no records of it being used
during the Golden Age of Piracy. Instead, pirates used another, much more brutal form
of execution, which is called "keelhauling." Now, in case you're not nautically inclined,
a ship's keel is the bottom part of the boat, where the two sides of the hull meet in the
middle. And "hauling" is exactly what it sounds like. It's basically a synonym for dragging. So
you can pretty easily put two and two together and figure out exactly what this practice entailed.
Keelhauling was a form of punishment that was usually fatal, in which the
unfortunate pirate would be tied to a rope, weighed down with chains or cannonballs,
and then dragged under the ship. This usually either meant drowning, or if one was lucky,
dying from blunt force injuries when smacked with great force against the hard wooden surface
of the ship’s hull. Walking the plank sounds pretty pleasant by comparison, doesn't it?
Everyone knows pirates were fond of large, golden hoop earrings,
but they weren't just a fashion statement. Pirates wore gold earrings because they were valuable,
and in the likely event of their death, they hoped that some kind person would see the earring
and use it to buy them a proper funeral. Which does rather seem like wishful thinking since
whoever killed them probably isn't going to care that much about their mortal soul.
Despite the high likelihood of dying in battle, Pirates could die in other ways from time to time.
There was always the chance that a pirate's death would happen on board his own ship,
surrounded by crewmates, or after a wreck at sea, it was also possible that his body would wash
up on the beach outside of some Christian town or another. Some pirates would even
engrave the name of their home port into their earrings in the hope they'd be returned home.
Pirates actually had other reasons for wearing earrings. Young sailors would get an earring
to commemorate the first time they crossed the equator or rounded the southern tip of
South America. And there were superstitions about them, too. Pierced ears were thought
to defend against seasickness, cure poor eyesight, and protect a sailor from drowning.
If just one of those things were true, that was worth a hole in the ear for sure.
Everyone knows that the Jolly Roger, or the black and white skull and crossbones flag,
was only flown by pirate ships. But pirates had another flag too, which was called the "bloody
red flag." If you saw the first flag, you prepared yourself to lose all your stuff and then face the
wrath of whoever your employer was. If you saw the second flag, you jumped overboard, because
you were basically dead. The bloody red flag was a sign that the pirates didn't intend to take
prisoners, and once that flag was raised, there was no longer an opportunity to surrender.
It’s an interesting little bit of trivia, but it's worth adding that not all pirates used
the skull and crossbones symbol. Some even had a boring, solid black flag instead of one with
a scary drawing on it. See, skull and crossbones designs were first used in the late 17th century
and became popular by the 1720s. However, the first pirates to actually call their
flags "Jolly Rogers" had black flags with creepy images, but they weren't your stereotypical pirate
designs. One even featured a skeleton stabbing a heart. It turns out that the Jolly Roger is way
more than just the skull and crossbones, although that's the look that has stood the test of time.
Just in case you doubted that pirates with their peg legs, parrots, and eyepatches were
progressive thinkers, here's something you might find surprising. Pirate crews were some of the
world's first truly democratic societies. Sure, the Athenians beat them to it by like a thousand
years, but democracy was still a pretty novel idea during the Golden Age of Piracy.
Before you form a mental picture of pirates as civilized plunderers in curly white wigs,
they were still outlaws who murdered and stole for a living. But on their own ships,
they had ordered societies where each man had a voice and everything was distributed fairly.
A lot of pirates were actually escaped slaves or the formerly impoverished who were used to
living in societies where the rules were skewed against them. It would've been tough to convince
men like that to join up if they thought that's how it would be for them on board.
Pirate democracies even had checks and balances.
The captain had most of the authority, but there was a quartermaster whose job it was
to hand down punishment. And matters affecting the whole crew were usually held to a vote.
That included the election of a new captain if everyone wasn't crazy about the status quo.
"The most important element of a healthy ship is trust. Trust between men. Trust between
captain and crew." Those perks helped make
piracy kind of a lucrative career path, which explains why so many guys were keen to sign up.
Here's something you probably wouldn't have guessed. Pirates pioneered the concept of
gay marriage in Western culture. There's plenty of evidence of same-sex marriage in non-Western
cultures, but in the West, it was a pirate thing long before the Supreme Court had a say.
Pirates spent a lot of time at sea, and most ships would only take on single men. Nothing kills your
swashbuckling ambition like not wanting to mess up your pretty face for the sake of your sweetheart
back home. What happens when there are a bunch of guys living together at sea for months on end?
They oftentimes ended up pairing off, and not simply to satisfy carnal desires.
The practice was called "matelotage," and it was about more than just a pirate's physical needs.
There was also a romantic aspect to it and a financial one, too. The two partners
would exchange gold rings and vow to share everything. When one member of the union died,
the other would inherit all of his property. It wasn’t done in secret,
either. It was encouraged in pirate society, and it was such a widespread
practice that the horrified French governor shipped two thousand prostitutes to the pirate
haven of Tortuga in the hopes of ending the practice. Evidently prostitution was
way more morally acceptable than allowing two men to be in a committed relationship.
A fascinating aspect of the pirating trade is the fact that they had a system of workers'
compensation back in the days where, for most people, getting injured on the job could mean
permanently losing your livelihood. A lot of pirate ships would grant an injured man
enough gold to last the rest of his life if the injury he suffered proved to be career-ending.
Some of the numbers have even been recorded, so we know exactly how much an injured pirate might
receive. A 1678 memoir written by former pirate Alexandre Exquemelin claimed that
a missing arm was worth 600 pieces of eight, which equals roughly $100,000 in modern money.
Of course, injuries wouldn't always end careers, and pirates were sometimes compensated for wounds
in other ways. Some would remain employed on board the ship but in less-strenuous positions. Pirates
who lost hands or legs would be given crude prosthetics like the familiar hooks and peg legs.
So why did pirates agree to such a forward-thinking policy? Well, if you knew
that a disabling injury would be compensated, you were a lot more likely to take risks,
and a ship full of pirates who were all willing to take risks was a much more effective plundering
machine. Their workers' compensation policy didn't just benefit injured men, it benefited everyone.
Stealing was pretty much the whole basis of the pirate industry. As a pirate,
you could steal from other ships, and you could steal from random people you
encountered while you were at port, but you couldn't steal from other pirates.
It was part of the pirate code, and despite what Pirates of the Caribbean would have you believe...
"You must be a pirate for the pirate's code to apply which you're not,
and thirdly, the code is more what you'd call guidelines than actual rules."
The code was very much more than just guidelines. In fact,
some of it was actually written down, as in this example from the pirate ship Royal Fortune:
"If [any pirate should] defraud the company to the value of even one dollar in plate, jewels,
or money, they shall be marooned. If any man rob another, he shall have his nose and ears slit,
and be put ashore where he shall be sure to encounter hardships."
There were other doctrines as well. On the Royal Fortune,
sneaking a woman on board was punishable by death, and gambling wasn't allowed either.
All disputes had to be settled on land, but it was totally reasonable if those disputes were
settled in a duel. Just so long as no one had to mop blood up off the deck.
People who live uncertain lives often develop superstitions to help give them a sense of control
over their fates. And pirates had pretty uncertain lives. They depended on the weather to deliver
them safely to their destination, and surviving a battle was often something that came down to luck.
It's really not very surprising that the list of pirate superstitions is long and somewhat bizarre.
Pirates often wore feathers in their hats, but it wasn't a fashion statement. Many believed
that a feather taken from a wren slaughtered on New Year's Day would protect against shipwrecks
for an entire year. It definitely sucked for the wren, but at least pirates who followed
that tradition looked dapper while doing it. Other traditions were not so aesthetically
pleasing. For example, pirates would often only get a haircut and trim their nails before leaving
port. It was thought that cutting your hair or nails during a voyage would anger the god
Neptune. You might be wondering why personal hygiene would anger the god of the oceans.
Evidently, haircuts and manicures were thought to be an offering to the goddess Proserpine. And
you didn't want to be flattering Proserpine when Neptune was the one deciding your fate.
Pirate superstition also governed the way you behaved when boarding a ship.
Case in point, it was thought to be bad luck to board a ship with your left foot first.
And once you were on board, it was especially bad luck to look back towards shore.
Hollywood loves epic battles at sea, but the truth is that pirates liked to avoid chasing ships and
exchanging fire as much as possible. Holes in your ship aren't really great for your longevity,
and pirate ships were often older and not as well-equipped as their targets.
When you think about it, it makes sense that most pirates liked to be able to grab
cargo and go without having to engage the enemy.
That means that pirates often had to resort to trickery in order to lure a victim close
enough to strike. They might raise a fake flag so they could just sail right up to their target
and not arouse suspicion. Or they might pretend to be in distress, which would lure a naïve good
Samaritan in closer. Once their target was in range, the pirates would raise the Jolly Roger,
fire a warning shot, or even board the enemy ship and make a bunch of fierce noises.
If the crew of the target ship was sufficiently freaked out, they'd surrender without bloodshed.
And most ships, with the exception of military vessels, were more than happy to surrender if
it meant saving their own necks. In fact, a lot of merchant ship captains had a special cargo
on board reserved specifically to give to pirates in the event of an attack.
This isn't exactly a tradition of pirates, per se, but it's something that was traditionally done
to pirates so we're including it as a "pirate tradition." Piracy was obviously frowned upon
by polite society, and the punishment for engaging in such a profession was pretty severe.
Not only was a pirate executed by hanging, but his body was displayed in a gibbet
while it rotted away, so that anyone who happened to see it would know that there was no mercy given
to any man who engaged in terror on the high seas.
"Had a brush with the East India Trading Company, did we, Pirate?"
"Hang him."
The gibbet was essentially an iron frame that contained the body of a recently hanged man. It
was designed so that the person's rotting corpse wouldn't fall apart prematurely. That way, lots of
people would have an opportunity to gawk. If the gibbet and its unfortunate contents did their job,
there would be fewer pirates on the high seas. But we all know how well that worked out.
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