Pirates: Myths vs Reality

Summary

Summary of “Pirates: Myths vs Reality” – Dan Snow's History Hit

Episode Title: Pirates: Myths vs Reality
Release Date: June 29, 2025
Host: Dan Snow
Guest: Sophie Nibs, Exhibition Curator at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich

In this episode, historian Dan Snow explores the enduring fascination with pirates, dissecting the myths perpetuated by literature and popular culture against the harsh realities of pirate life during the Golden Age of Piracy.

Introduction: A Lifelong Obsession with Pirates

Dan Snow opens the episode by sharing a personal anecdote about his childhood love for pirates, inspired by the classic novel Treasure Island. This early fascination with maritime adventures ignited his passion for historical exploration.

Dan Snow [02:56]: "I fell in love with 18th century history. I fell in love with the sea."

The Golden Age of Piracy: Historical Context

The discussion sets the stage by defining the Golden Age of Piracy, spanning roughly from the mid-1600s to the early 18th century. This era was marked by significant European expansion, intense competition for trade routes, and the lucrative opportunities that made piracy a viable, albeit risky, venture.

Sophie Nibs [14:43]: "Nations like England, who can't be bothered to spend the money on their navy, they get freelancers in, give them a little piece of paper saying, you're working."

Privateering vs. Piracy

Snow and Nibs delve into the thin line between privateering and piracy. Privateers were state-sanctioned individuals authorized to attack enemy ships, blurring into piracy when they acted beyond their commission.

Historian [14:10]: "So you've got these privateers that are furthering the kind of imperial aspirations of their nation."

The tale of Captain Kidd exemplifies this transition. Initially a privateer, Kidd's overreach and pursuit of personal gain led to his downfall and branding as a pirate.

Debunking Pirate Myths

A significant portion of the episode is dedicated to dispelling common pirate myths perpetuated by fiction:

• Walking the Plank: Contrary to popular belief, historical evidence supporting this practice is nonexistent.

  Historian [34:48]: "I will have to break it to you that walking the plank probably didn't happen."

• Parrots on Pirate Shoulders: The iconic image of pirates with parrots is largely a literary invention, popularized by Treasure Island.

  Historian [39:06]: "There may have been animals like parrots being traded, but having a tame one on your shoulder is unlikely."

• Davy Jones's Locker: Explained as a mythical resting place for drowned sailors, with no basis in pirate practices.

Lives of Notable Pirates

The episode profiles several historical figures, separating fact from fiction:

• Blackbeard: A notorious pirate whose brutal end—captured and killed with his head displayed as a warning—contrasts the romanticized versions often seen in media.

  Historian [23:07]: "Blackbeard does not retire. He was captured and killed, his head displayed as a warning."

• Mary Read and Anne Bonny: Rare female pirates who defied gender norms and played active roles in piracy, challenging societal structures of their time.

  Historian [21:11]: "They were considered very formidable fighters and active in battles, providing figures of women being able to be part of piracy and a sort of equality at sea."

Pirate Social Structure and Codes

Contrary to the hierarchical structures of navies and merchant ships, pirate crews often operated democratically. Wealth was equitably shared, and pirate codes emphasized mutual respect and compensation for injuries, offering a sense of fairness uncommon in other maritime occupations.

Historian [10:10]: "Pirate ships often had pirate codes. For example, on a pirate ship, the captain takes two shares, the quartermaster takes one and a half, and the rest is shared equally among the crew."

Pirate Economics and Operations

The economic motivations behind piracy are explored, highlighting the targeting of lucrative trade routes and commodities such as sugar, tobacco, and gold. The Caribbean's geographic fragmentation provided ideal hideouts and trading opportunities, facilitating piracy's growth.

Historian [13:02]: "Nations were competing for trade routes and resources, making piracy a potentially lucrative and appealing venture."

Pirate Tactics and Ship Operations

Pirate tactics included deceptive strategies like flying false flags to approach unsuspecting ships undetected before revealing their true identity to attack. This method maximized loot while minimizing immediate resistance.

Sophie Nibs [26:30]: "You would potentially fly the flag of the same nation as the ship you're going to capture, allowing you to get close without raising alarms."

Quick Fire Round: More Myths Dissected

In a rapid-fire segment, additional pirate stereotypes are addressed:

• Skull and Crossbones Flag: While a real symbol, variations existed and were often embellished for intimidation.

  Historian [38:41]: "Skull and crossbones flags were real but didn't all look the same. They often included skulls, daggers, and sometimes blood to intimidate."

• Ghost Ships: Originated from myths surrounding abandoned or destroyed vessels, often linked to shipwrecks or disease outbreaks.

  Historian [39:41]: "Ghost ships can arise from ships being abandoned due to disease or extreme weather, leaving them to drift endlessly."

The End of the Golden Age

The episode concludes by hinting at the decline of piracy's golden age, setting the stage for future episodes that will explore the powerful pirate Cheng Yi Sao and piracy in Asian waters.

Dan Snow [43:14]: "We'll talk about one of the most prolific and powerful pirates in the history of the world."

Conclusion: The Enduring Allure of Pirates

Dan Snow reflects on why pirates continue to captivate the public imagination. The allure lies in the promise of adventure, rebellion against societal norms, and the romanticized notion of equality aboard pirate ships. Despite the brutal realities, the sanitized version of piracy offers escapism and fascination.

Historian [41:13]: "People love pirates for different reasons—adventure, excitement, escaping societal norms. The sanitized version appeals to people more than the brutal reality."

---

This episode effectively separates the romanticized image of pirates from their historical counterparts, providing listeners with a nuanced understanding of piracy's true nature and its lasting impact on popular culture.

Transcript

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[Dan Snow]

When I was a child, I was given a beautiful blue hardback book with a wonderful illustration on the COVID Inside was the story of a boy who finds himself on a ship seeking a distant island with a map and a promise of treasure. He was befriended on that journey by a charismatic veteran sailor, an old sea dog. His name was Long John Silver. I loved it. The allure of the unknown, talkative parrots, hushed conversations on the Orlok deck, brigands on the high seas terrorising other mariners. Friendship and loyalty between lovable rogues, danger and discovery. I disappeared into that world so far beyond my everyday I first heard words like forecastle and musket and stockade and mutiny and marooned. I fell in love with 18th century history. I fell in love with the sea.

[Sophie Nibs]

The book that captured me, of course.

[Dan Snow]

Well, it was Treasure Island.

[Long John Silver]

I'll say this sir, I know every seaman in these ere parts like the palm of his hand. Did you know Captain Billy Bones? Bones? He was a pirate.

[Dan Snow]

From Orson Welles to Kermit the Frog, Treasure island has been adapted over 50 times for the silver screen and countless radio dramas. I play many of them in the car to my kids. To this day I've seen wonderful theatre productions, most recently in Lancaster, an outdoor theatre. And that's not surprising, because since it was published over 180 years ago, we have been obsessed with pirates. This ship cannot be crewed by two men. You'll never make it out of the bay. Sam. I'm Captain Jack Sparrow. Savvy?

[Long John Silver]

Join my crew and postpone the judgment. 100 years before the master.

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No one maroon gets away with it.

[Long John Silver]

Kill Jim and you'll have to kill me. Kill Gonzo and you'll have to kill me. Kill squat and Mr. Bimbo and you'll have to negotiate strenuously.

[Dan Snow]

These pirate movies are usually set in what is referred to really as the Golden Age of Pirates. It ran roughly from the mid-1600s to the early 18th century. And these are stories of usually men who live outside the law. The Robin Hoods of the seas. Romantic rebels, underdogs. They defy authority. They forge a new way to live in a world of hierarchy and constraint. And we've always been drawn to that. The big question, though, of course, is how much were these real pirates? Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, James Morgan. How much were they like the characters we know from the movies? Well, for the next four weeks on, Dan Snow's History hit right here on this podcast you're going to find out. Every Monday, we'll be dropping a new episode of our pirates series that delves into the real history of piracy. From debunking a few of the myths that just aren't true, I will have.

[Historian]

To break it to you that walking the plank probably didn't happen.

[Sophie Nibs]

Oh, no. Did they have pirates on their shoulders?

[Historian]

Probably not. Very likely.

[Sophie Nibs]

Has anyone ever actually found any buried pirate treasure?

[Historian]

There is an example of Captain Kidd burying some treasure and it was actually dug up and used as evidence against him.

[Dan Snow]

To tales of the most formidable pirates you've maybe never heard of.

[Cheng Yi Sao]

Cheng Yi Sao ends up running thousands of ships and tens of thousands of men.

[Dan Snow]

So, as ever, folks, the history is better than the fiction. You're gonna love it. Shake out those reefs, make fast those sheets and let's double man the helm. We're going there. This is episode one, Pirates the Myths versus the reality. As you all know, I'm obsessed with maritime history. Anything to do with the seas, the Navy, pirates.

[Sophie Nibs]

I'm there. So, of course, my favourite museum in.

[Dan Snow]

London is the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich. This is the only place on the earth where you can see the very jacket, the very coat that Nelson was wearing when he was struck by that fateful bullet at the Battle of Trafalgar on the quarter deck of HMS Victory. This is my happy place. And they've got an incredible exhibition here, which I really recommend you visit because you don't have to have kids to enjoy Pyro. No, you don't. So, in fact, it really is an excellent exhibition and we've teamed up with them to make this series. In that exhibition, you'll be able to see and learn more about the things that we cover in this episode and the ones coming over the next few weeks. Right now, I'm going to have a little chat with the exhibition curator, Sophie Nibs, whose favourite thing when we were recording the series was just to take great pleasure from debunking my favourite and slightly cliched ideas and myths about pirates.

[Sophie Nibs]

So if we just walk through the exhibition and it is fabulous. But I got lots of questions. I want to just drill down on this, because we come to pirates so much like a cultural idea, through movies, through books, through song, our conception of pirates as they exist, which are sort of 18th century, sailing tall ships around the Spanish Main, you know, the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico, stealing things. There is accuracy there that is based on reality.

[Historian]

It is absolutely based on reality. I mean, there were pirates and they were active in and around the Caribbean. They were active elsewhere as well. What's happened is that through this kind of curiosity and fascination with pirates, there's been embellishment through popular culture representations. And so what we think we know about pirates, if you dig down into it, there is some truth to that. The layers sometimes get a bit obscured and maybe a little bit embellished for entertainment purposes. And just through trying to make things exciting.

[Sophie Nibs]

Well, that's what we do. That's what we do. That's what we do with medieval knights. Well, yeah, let's stick on this kind of Caribbean piracy of the Age of Sale. The idea that they're swashbuckling rebels, there's a bit Robin Hood going on in there.

[Dan Snow]

The fashion is fabulous.

[Sophie Nibs]

Is that a Victorian idea? Is this Robert Louis Stevenson? When do we see that all emerging?

[Historian]

It's definitely got roots in Treasure Island, Robbie Louis Stevenson's book. Definitely. Some of those ideas come a little earlier. There's a book that's very influential in terms of what we understand about pirates, which was a 1724 publication called a General History of Pirates, which is published under the name of Captain Johnson. And there's a nice little mystery there as well, in that we don't actually know who Captain Johnson was. For a while, people thought he might be Daniel Defoe. It's probably more likely he was a Newspaper publisher called Nathaniel Mist, who got into some legal trouble, needed to make some money and realized that pirates sell. So you've got this book that collects pirate biographies from real stories of piracy and real reports of piracy. But what's interesting about it is it comes with these illustrations and the illustrations are very detailed and sometimes potentially quite over dramatic or they're a little bit embellished. But you see pirates with these tricorn hats and the multiple pistols and the sort of sashes and flowing shirts that we now come to associate with them. There would have been some reality in this. But equally he's trying to sell books. So you have these slightly embellished biographies sitting alongside these really vivid and exciting illustrations. So that's where it seems to start from a visual point of view. And that's the 1720s, that's 1724.

[Sophie Nibs]

Properly contemporary, really early.

[Dan Snow]

That's the golden age of piracy, you might say.

[Historian]

Absolutely.

[Sophie Nibs]

An exciting source.

[Historian]

Yes, yes.

[Sophie Nibs]

Let's come on to Robert Louis Stevenson and Treasure island only because I have a particular fondness in that. And when I walked around your exhibition, I had a kind of Proustian moment. I saw some of the illustrations from that, the copy that I had as a child that was published in the early 20th century. How would you describe Robert Louis Stevenson's approach to piracy?

[Historian]

Well, firstly, I don't think you're alone and I think that a lot of people found their sort of joy of pirate adventure through Treasure island, which is why we felt it was really important to have that in the exhibition, the book itself. So it was published in 1883 and Robbie Louis Stevenson creates this world of kind of adventure and excitement and danger and sort of brings together all of the different aspects of why we love pirates, which I think is why it's such a sort of influential book.

[Sophie Nibs]

I'm interested in the social structure 18th, 19th century, because this is an idea that young men and some women can go and achieve almost gentry status. They become captains and lords in their own realm. And there's something in that strict hierarchy of that period that's very alluring and exciting.

[Historian]

Absolutely. I mean, in terms of society at the time, as you say, very kind of strict rules, strict gender rules, gender norms, also class structure, very strict at that time as well. And a sort of real rising kind of moral, this idea of kind of moral code and wrong and right and so being able to escape all of that. There's talk about women joining pirate crews and things that are not as common, but there are stories and even if those were stories. It's still inspiring to sort of children and people reading about this idea of freedom and the pirate structure in terms of the financial structure. If you're talking about the navy in a traditional sense, it's still got that very strict sort of class hierarchy in terms of who earns what and how people are rewarded for their labor. On a pirate ship, you've got the captain takes two shares and the quartermaster takes a share and a half, but then the rest of it is shared equally amongst the crew of up to kind of 50 pirates or something, which is actually, at the time quite unheard of to have that sort of almost equal structure for everybody and everyone's labour being seen as equal. And that's a very appealing idea if the structure that you're living under is. Feels a bit unfair, perhaps.

[Sophie Nibs]

And as you mentioned, women, also people of colour. There's opportunities for advancement in pirate.

[Historian]

Absolutely hugely multicultural crews on board ships at that time and also on board pirate crews. Absolutely.

[Sophie Nibs]

When I saw those illustrations from the 1912 Howard Pyle's book of Pirates, I was struck by things getting more flamboyant, aren't they?

[Historian]

Yeah, I mean, Howard Pyle is a really strong visual reference. I mean, Howard Pyle was an illustrator first and foremost, so his depictions of pirates are, as you say, kind of fantastical and colorful. And there's sashes and billows, you know, everyone seems to be in a breeze. You know, everything's billowing and everything's very kind of romantic, if you like. And you can see how his book was fiction, but it's written in a way that people read it as a historical sort of fact, largely because he used real names in real places. And so then when he embellishes those stories, people aren't quite sure what's real and what isn't, which is why it sort of lends itself to. To Pirates of the Caribbean. And when you start to look at pirates on the silver screen, a lot of costume designers do kind of reference that book because it is just really visually appealing. They look great. They look like they're off to have an adventure. And so all of those kind of hoops and sashes and pistols and things that then really just jumps onto the silver screen. Kind of as Hollywood's taking off in 20s and 30s and 40s, we're sort of finding them jumping from the page to the screen.

[Sophie Nibs]

Yeah. And as we discussed earlier, they just.

[Dan Snow]

Look having a great time.

[Sophie Nibs]

When you see an image of that period from Henley Royal Regatta, they're pretty buttoned up and they look uncomfortable and hot.

[Historian]

You know who you'd be having a better time with, don't you? Yeah, absolutely.

[Sophie Nibs]

You want to roll with that crew. So, Sophie, that's the myth. That's the vibe. It's the vibe we all still go with at Halloween and fancy dress and all that kind of thing. But what's the reality? Let's dig into it.

[Dan Snow]

Take us back to the golden age piracy.

[Sophie Nibs]

When was that?

[Historian]

1650 to around 1730s. Sort of what people refer to as the golden age of piracy.

[Sophie Nibs]

And let's do the big history for a second. Why the Caribbean? Why that era?

[Historian]

So at that time, you've got a huge European expansion of empire around the Americas, Africa, and Asia. But you've got these competing powers who are looking for resources, colonies, and competing for trade routes, competing for control of trade routes. So you've got a huge rise in maritime trade and these very powerful nations all competing for the same things. And so at that time, it was possible to make your fortune and to kind of go out to sea and to be involved in that. And it becomes a very appealing and potentially financially lucrative thing to be involved in those trades, which is where you start to see piracy start to peak. Because as much as you can be part of the navy and you can be legitimately involved in finding those resources and making money, you can also go and steal it. And so a lot of the piracy is around the same trade routes, and it has its roots in a legal side of it, which brings us into the idea of privateering.

[Sophie Nibs]

Nations like England, who can't be bothered to spend the money on their navy, they get freelancers in, give them a little piece of paper saying, you're working.

[Dan Snow]

For us, and then they just basically go do parts.

[Historian]

Yeah, it's kind of you're legitimately employed by a nation, let's say, as you said, England would have employed somebody to go and capture ships from other nations that were competing. So it might be that you were sent to the Indian Ocean to capture French ships, for example, and your payment would be that you were able to keep what was on board that ship, which was often astronomical in terms of value and far exceeded what you would have earned if you had been part of the navy. And so the appeal of that is quite high. It's a dangerous thing to get involved in, but the appeal and the payoff is potentially very high. So you have these privateers that are furthering the kind of empiric aspirations of their nation.

[Sophie Nibs]

It's only a short hop from there.

[Dan Snow]

To doing it without the ticket without.

[Sophie Nibs]

The piece of paper.

[Historian]

Precisely. This brings in Captain Kidd, who we actually feature in the exhibition. We have his privateering license from 1695. He's issued with a privateering license. He's sent to capture French ships. He finds himself with not enough to do and not enough money to make, and he captures an Armenian ship which is flying under a French flag. He angers the East India Company and the local authorities in that area. News travels back to Britain and his financial backers all want to distance themselves from. From him. And so, because he sort of swayed away from what he was told strictly to do and started trying to gain money for himself in other ways, he gets called a pirate and he's hunted down. He's actually put to death in 1701 and he's hanged and his body's actually displayed as a sort of warning to other people to not stray into piracy. It's hung heading out towards sea on the shores of the Thames, and it's displayed there for a number of years as a sort of warning to other people who might want to be involved in piracy. So you've got this kind of movement, movement from legitimately being involved in this trade and then actually realising that piracy might hold a little bit more in terms of reward financially, and then that puts you in danger of being captured and ultimately put to death. So it's a risky thing to get involved in, but potentially very lucrative.

[Sophie Nibs]

And just so people are aware that the Caribbean thing, which might feel like not one of the world's most dynamic economic regions today, that was where it was going on because of sugar, particularly all these islands growing fast, not sugar. It was the wonder crop of the era. So there is money pouring from the Caribbean up towards Europe?

[Historian]

There absolutely is, yes. In terms of tobacco, in terms of sugar, in terms of things that weren't being grown in Europe, but were absolutely seen as commodities and seen as things that people wanted to trade and make huge amounts of money from.

[Sophie Nibs]

And also geographically, there's lots of little havens to nip into, lots of little islands and also lots of different jurisdictions, which is a bonus because you can slide between. There are Danish islands, there are French islands, Spanish islands, English islands.

[Dan Snow]

It's messy.

[Sophie Nibs]

And you can see how, in the cracks, pirates can thrive.

[Historian]

Yes. You don't have sort of one coast of a mainland, you have these coves, you have places that you can hide, you have places that you can wait to attack and also escape, capture yourself. And also opportunities to stop off and to trade locally, so to fill up on supplies. And because as much as it's about getting gold and spices, it's also about feeding your crew and staying afloat on board your ship.

[Sophie Nibs]

And there's a price on your head on the French island, the Dutch island might trade with you or whatever.

[Historian]

Precisely. It's a kind of complex system and.

[Sophie Nibs]

Because of the vast wars of the 17th, 18th centuries, you've presumably got a big pool of people that have been militarily trained so they can navigate, they can sail and they can also fight.

[Historian]

Yes, that's absolutely true. You have in the late 1600s and early 1700s, you have these conflicts which meant that people were joining up into the Navy and they were being trained privateers also being used at this time as well. And then once those conflicts are over and the Navy is disbanded, you've got these very highly trained crews who haven't got other means of making money. They're not offered up other opportunities, they're not offered a kind of severance package. They just kind of said thank you very much and goodbye. So you've got these people who want to find a way to continue to earn money. Piracy does provide an opportunity for some of those people.

[Dan Snow]

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[Sophie Nibs]

Okay, tell me about some of the actual people. Some of us might have heard their names. They've been mythologized. Tell me about some of these actual pirates that really did exist.

[Historian]

So I've mentioned Captain Kidd already, who existed and was quite a prolific pirate in and of himself. Obviously there's Blackbeard and Blackbeard is an interesting character because he did definitely exist. Some people like to think he was born in Bristol, but again, not really. No Bristolians, like yes. I mean precisely. I mean a lot of the interesting things around pirates is that we know that certain people existed, but the details of their existence always become a little fuzzy and a little contested through their very nature. I mean, pirates didn't keep diaries. Pirates were not notoriously good at Record keeping. So in terms of where they were born and exactly what they did, it always becomes a little complex. But somebody like Blackbeard, for example, did definitely exist. He was definitely a prolific pirate, but he does turn up in popular culture in various disguises or inspires other characters, which is an interesting notion in of itself. There's also two pirate figures which have received quite a lot of focus recently, who are Mary Read and Anne Bonny, who were two female pirates, which would be very, very rare. There was also this idea that women being on board a ship at this time would have been considered by some to be bad luck. And it just wouldn't have been a space in which women would have been very often sort of part of being on a pirate crew or any crew that they were able to join a pirate crew. And they were actually considered to be very kind of formidable fighters and very active in terms of. Of the battles that they were in. And they're interesting in that sense. And they do provide this kind of figure of women being able to be part of something like this and something that maybe a bit of equality on board a pirate ship. That wouldn't necessarily have happened on land. They were both captured in the end, but they weren't put to death because both of them claimed to be pregnant at the time that they were captured. One of them died in prison, but the other one actually retired in, we believe, maybe went to North Carolina and sort of maybe saw at her old age. So there's also this example, sort of example of actually managing to retire as a pirate, which is not something that's commonly done.

[Sophie Nibs]

Yes, because I learned from your exhibition that Blackbeard certainly did not retire.

[Historian]

No, Blackbeard did not retire. Blackbeard was captured and his head was actually displayed. There was quite a common thing of. Once you captured a pirate, if you were hunted down as a pirate, a, you would meet quite a violent death. But also there was this desire to use your violent death as a bit of a cautionary tale, let's say, to. To anyone who might want to be a pirate. And so he is captured and killed and his head is actually displayed on the bowspit of a ship as a sort of trophy, but also as a kind of. This is what's going to happen to you if you are a pirate. There's a similarly grisly end for a pirate called Bartholomew Roberts, who was known to be incredibly brutal. He captured a ship that was carrying enslaved people at the time, and he killed a huge number of them. And after this time, he was Then hunted down. It was news of this kind of got back, sadly, largely. Probably not due to. Due to his brutal treatment of those people, but actually due to the kind of fact that he'd interrupted trade.

[Sophie Nibs]

He'd messed up your property.

[Historian]

Yes. I mean, it was horrific in many senses. But he was captured. It goes that his crew was maybe asleep on board the ship or were potentially drunk at the time, and they were able to sneak up on his ship. And there was a very kind of bloody battle in which Bartholomew Roberts throat is shot out with a large piece of grapeshot. And they are big pieces. We've got one on display actually, in the exhibition. And when you see the size of it, it gives you a sense of the kind of brutal death that he met because his pirate crew didn't want him to be used as a cautionary tale. They actually took his body and threw it overboard. So his body was never recovered. But his crew was rounded up and put on trial and many of them were found guilty of piracy and put to death.

[Sophie Nibs]

But it does sound like from your book from the 1720s, that even then, even contemporary with this happening, there was something slightly inspiring or glamorous about those pirates. I mean, were those figures that you've talked about, were stories of them circulating?

[Historian]

In terms of the stories of the adventure, I think that's sort of where that first fascination lies. It's a little bit like people, in a way. I mean, in terms of people wanting to listen to stories about crime and this kind of true crime fascination that we have today, let's say. So this idea of a. I think the sort of horror and the violence of it, there is an appeal there to a degree, in terms of your distance from what you're safely reading about it at home. You're not involved in it. And there's something kind of interesting around that for people. But on top of that, there is something about the stories of things that happen in the high seas. You know, this thing that's got, you know, the sea is out there, you know that these things are happening, but it's a little bit distance from you. You're sitting at home and reading about it in this book that you've bought and it's about these places that you've heard of as you were talking about the Caribbean earlier. You know, we're talking about these places that you know are out there, but you've not experienced them yourself. You don't know what it's like to be sailing around a Caribbean island. And so to hear stories of these often Violent adventures, but, you know, these kind of adventures that are going on out there, there's something about the escapism of that that clearly captures the public's imagination, which is why that book has been published numerous times over and over and over and over again.

[Sophie Nibs]

And I wonder if it's a little bit like the way that we find Fraud Case is quite fascinating when they involve Goldman Sachs partners. Because sometimes the rest of us think it's sort of mildly amusing that the richest among us are getting taken for cleaners.

[Dan Snow]

I'm sure there's these cargoes full of.

[Sophie Nibs]

Enslaved people or sugar or tobacco. They belong to incredibly wealthy people.

[Historian]

They do. And often taken by force. Well, I mean, if you're talking about the movement of enslaved people, obviously in that sense, a contemporary view of that would be different to what it was at the time. But I think that you're looking at European nations that are actually going in and enslaving people, but also stealing natural resources and taking land. And so there is a sort of. You mentioned this idea of the kind of Robin Hood aspect of it, and I. I think that does play. Whether that's now a more contemporary reading is a little bit difficult to tell. I think that might be that we look at that now in a sort of moral sense, which is how what you see in some films and some kind of more contemporary readings. But, you know, there probably was an aspect of that historically, too.

[Dan Snow]

So how does piracy work?

[Sophie Nibs]

How do they do it in the 18th century? I mean, you mentioned these shipping lanes. Do you sort of wait off, for example, the north coast of Cuba, and knowing that all the ships have to pass that way to get to Europe, or is it going alongside people in port? How does it work?

[Historian]

I think you would largely avoid port in the sense that that is quite a dangerous place. You risk capture, potentially. So it would normally be somewhere. I think this idea of waiting, as you say, sort of waiting somewhere where, you know, people are passing is definitely a tactic that was used. But one of the things that's interesting as well is that it would be about hiding in plain sight. So you would potentially fly the flag of the same nation of the ship that you're going to capture, for example. And that would allow you to get up quite close to them. They wouldn't see you as a risk. They wouldn't be sort of defensive. And then at the last minute, you would then potentially raise the Jolly Roger and show your true color and let them know that you mean business. So it's not always kind of going in all guns blazing, if you like, and showing that you're a pirate. Early door, sometimes it would have been about sort of following a ship for a little while, waiting until you're potentially at a time when there aren't any other people around and you're able to sort of sneak up on them. And so then it's last minute, then saying, oh, you know, by the time that you've realized it's a pirate ship, it's a little bit too late.

[Sophie Nibs]

And I guess the other thing, you can't just tell a pirate ship at first glance because merchant ships were armed.

[Historian]

Oh, absolutely.

[Sophie Nibs]

Sort of sliding scale. You could sail into port with your cannon on deck. No, no, we're just trade sugar.

[Historian]

And a pirate ship was largely no different to any other ship at the time. Because we do get that question a bit in terms of, you know, what was pirate ship like? And actually the answer is like any other ship that would have been sailing at that time, I mean, pirates often would steal the ships that they ended up using, because rather than take a ship and unload the cargo, you just take the whole thing. It's far easier just to take everything than it is to start picking and choosing what you want to load onto your own ship. So as you say, yeah, I mean, ships that have been armed, it was necessary to as defense against piracy or competing nations anyway. So having pistols and blunderbusses and things like that does not necessarily mark you out as a pirate ship at all.

[Sophie Nibs]

And then where do you sell that cargo once you've stolen it? Is it a matter of, again, that jurisdiction so going somewhere which will look more generously upon you having nicked something from their enemies?

[Historian]

Yes, absolutely. I mean, you would know what ports you would be able to take that to. People aren't necessarily going to ask questions if you are trying to sell them spices or things that they would want. Sometimes they would have stolen gold or currency that was actually. I mean, at the time, the Spanish dollar was kind of considered to be a relatively global currency. Pieces of eight. So precisely, that's where the pieces of eight comes from. It was eight realis, which means that when you needed change, you would actually physically split the coin into these pieces, which is where this piece of eight comes from. So again, another one of those things that has a basis in reality. So, you know, sometimes it was things that you could just spend and use. But if it were talking kind of silks or dyes, indigo being something that was very sought after, then you would take that on land and you would trade it sometimes even not just selling it for currency, but actually, I mean, you might trade it for things that you needed on board the ship as well. There's a lot of kind of bartering and trading around at this time. So it wouldn't have necessarily been unusual for a ship to come in and trade for goods.

[Sophie Nibs]

Has anyone ever actually found any buried pirate treasure?

[Historian]

There is an example of Captain Kidd burying some treasure, right. Which we know he did, which supposedly he buried some treasure, and it was actually dug up and used as evidence against him. So he tried to hide his treasure, but it got dug up. But the story is that there's still some left that no one has ever found. That's the lovely sort of embellishment part of it. And wherever you choose to land on the fact and fiction of that, I like to think it's out there somewhere.

[Sophie Nibs]

So for all the billions of images, most of which I've read to my kids, of sandy beaches and digging and treasure boxes, it all derives from that.

[Historian]

One story that seems to be where it comes from. Oh, my gosh. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't keep digging, but it's sadly not as prolific as we might have hoped.

[Dan Snow]

Okay, just checking.

[Sophie Nibs]

You've mentioned ships full of enslaved people is one of the targets of pirates. Sometimes they would kill those people, but other times, more than thinking they would encourage them to join, they'd recruit those enslaved Africans to join their crew.

[Historian]

There are examples of this. Anytime that a pirate ship captured another ship, there was a possibility to maybe join the pirate crew. If you were considered to be a strong and able crew member, then there might be an opportunity to escape to be part of their crew. As you say, slave traders is kind of massively active at this time and many nations being very actively involved in it. So when pirate crews would capture those ships, there are largely examples of those people potentially being thrown overboard or killed. There are examples of opportunities where people who had been formerly enslaved or had been on slave ships would have been given opportunities to join pirate crews. We don't have lots of lists of their names or examples of their lives, but we have a character called Black Caesar who is thought to have been on board a ship with Blackbeard at one point. He's thought to have hailed from West Africa originally. His ship was captured and he joined a pirate crew and became relatively successful, as is the nature of whose histories are recorded at this time. His story is potentially a conflation of a few other black African pirates active at this point time, but there are definitely Examples when you sort of see lists of pirate crews and trial records and things like that of names of people who definitely would have been from around that area, if you were somebody who had escaped enslavement, then going on land would have been incredibly dangerous. The risk of being recaptured was very, very high. And so the opportunity to piranha pirate crew potentially was liberation for some people and meant that they were able to be an equal part of the crew and a way to escape.

[Dan Snow]

This is Dance Knows History. There's more on this topic coming up.

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[Sophie Nibs]

There's been a bit of a fashion recently talk about how pirates actually were really interesting social reformers. There was a rough form of democracy on board the ship. Is a lot of that us projecting back or is there evidence of that at the time?

[Historian]

I think, as with most things in the pirate story, a bit of both. And you do see in terms of the structure of pay and how people are rewarded for their labor, that's far more sort of equitable structure than would have been common at the time. They did have compensation for people who were injured. Obviously, being physically injured or disabled as an active sailor would have been potentially the end of your career. So they would have been taken care of, but also they would have been financially compensated, if you like, for that. And there were kind of pirate codes in terms of the way that they would behave on board and that sort of thing. But they were still brutal. If you weren't as part of their crew, then they would still throw you overboard and various other things. So there was still a kind of brutality to it and a disregard for.

[Sophie Nibs]

Human life, the sort of rough and ready punishments. I mean, this was an era of punishment at sea because the Navy is famous for its punishments. But things like keelhauling in Treasure island we have someone who's been marooned. Is there evidence for any of that?

[Historian]

Yes, there is. I will have to break it to you that walking the plank probably didn't happen.

[Sophie Nibs]

Oh, no.

[Historian]

And I'm sorry about that. But in terms of violent punishments. Absolutely. If you went against your crew, if you didn't get actively involved in a battle, for example, marooning, relatively common, just throw you off the ship, you're not useful to anyone. People would be thrown overboard. The punishments tended to be sort of quick and violent. You might be killed if you were involved in a conflict with your crew members, for example, or if you'd shown cowardice. People being tied onto the ship and dragged along. And largely speaking, if someone was not of use to you, you would just maroon them. You would just throw them off your ship.

[Sophie Nibs]

You have to go through a lot of trouble keelhauing someone. As someone who's passed a lot of ropes under hulls in my time. So you tie someone's feet and hands and then attach ropes different side and just drag them underneath the boat from one side to the other, Right?

[Historian]

Yes. It's a very violent and brutal thing to do. It doesn't seem to be a common. A common occurrence.

[Sophie Nibs]

It's not just holding your breath. You also apparently get all these terribly scraped by the barnacles on the hull. So it's a very bloody and unpleasant affair. What do we know about their eating, their medical. I mean, similar to just merchant ships and ships of war at the time. Or is there something different about Paris?

[Historian]

No, I think, again, you know, when we're looking at the story of pirates, it's common. So say, what do pirates eat and what do pirates. A lot of it is, as we've said, some of them are very highly trained sailors. So it's things like getting up early in the morning, taking care of the ship, taking care of the sails, preparing food. There'd be somebody who would be in charge of preparing food. Food would be very basic, often things that, you know, could last for a long time. So preserved meats and things like that, biscuits, often not very well preserved meats, but. And, you know, you had the same risks of disease and injury that you had anywhere else. I mean, scurvy being something that would be a problem in terms of malnourishment and being out to sea for a long time, injuries, infected wounds, that sort of thing. I mean, you would have somebody who. Who would sort of tend to the wounded and a mixture of some helpful medical interventions and some less helpful medical interventions, which would be Again, common at that time. So it was a similar life to life on board any other ship. And actually sometimes quite strict in the sense that we've got examples of pirate codes, one being attributed to Bartholomew Roberts, who we've spoken about, which suggests that you go to bed at 8 o' clock and that you can't gamble, because if you gamble, that's likely to cause conflict and you're allowed to fight other people, but not each other. And also it's a distraction, potentially from what you should be getting up to. And if you're drinking after everyone else has gone to bed, that's allowed, but you need to do that up on deck so as not to disturb the people who are sleeping. So actually, as much as we like to think of them as these kind of rebellious characters, they're going to bed at 8 o' clock and getting up.

[Sophie Nibs]

Early, just speaking my language.

[Dan Snow]

Early to bed, early to rise.

[Sophie Nibs]

You'll capture a juicy prize. I would have loved that aspect of it.

[Dan Snow]

What about, did anyone get away with it?

[Sophie Nibs]

I guess by the nature of it.

[Dan Snow]

Many of the pirates that we know.

[Sophie Nibs]

About, the ones that crossed swords with.

[Dan Snow]

The legal system, did anyone get away.

[Sophie Nibs]

With it and retire tons of money and go and live happily ever after?

[Historian]

You've got Captain Morgan, who is better known now as the face of a rum brand, but he's involved in sort of a gray area of privateering, pirating, but largely a pirate. And he retires and goes to Jamaica and he. He actually uses the money that he's made and buys a sugar plantation which is worked on by enslaved people. That's where he sees out the rest of his days. So you do have examples of that. It's not as common as you say. I mean, the ones that got away with it are probably the ones whose names we've never heard of because they would have slipped back into obscurity.

[Sophie Nibs]

Well. Or transition to respectability. Yes. I was a trader out in the Caribbean.

[Historian]

Well, absolutely. I mean, if you look at the fact that you've got these handful of pirate captains that we know of, but they're the head of a crew of 50 people. Some of those people would have been captured and put to death. And we have trial records from the National Archive which show the names of some of these people, but some of these people were acquitted as well. So those people, as you say, probably would have just then maybe gone and found a slightly less risky employment.

[Sophie Nibs]

Okay, so if we reach that exciting time of the podcast, we're going to do the Quick Fire round. I'VE got questions I need answering here. Skull and crossbone flag.

[Dan Snow]

Is that a real thing?

[Historian]

It was a real thing, but they didn't all look exactly the same, so. So we've got a number of different designs. Largely speaking, they're going to have skulls, they're going to have daggers, sometimes they have blood. It's generally anything that can be considered a little bit scary.

[Sophie Nibs]

So you're trying to intimidate the crew and presumably just make them surrender straight away?

[Historian]

Yes. And an hourglass to remind them that, you know, time is ticking.

[Sophie Nibs]

Wow. Parrots. What's going on? Do they have parrots on their shoulders?

[Historian]

This largely comes from Long John Silver in Treasure Island. There may have been been animals like parrots that were being traded, but in terms of having a tame one on your shoulder, probably not very likely.

[Sophie Nibs]

Davy Jones's Locker. What's that?

[Historian]

So Davy Jones is a kind of colloquial term for a sea devil and Davy Jones's Locker, rather than being a kind of actual locker, or is the idea of where the souls of drowned people go and potentially kind of shipwrecks and this slightly kind of ghostly, mythical place where those who met their end at sea. Sea Find themselves.

[Sophie Nibs]

Ghost ship. Why is a ghost ship a thing?

[Historian]

There is a notion of a ship with damaged sails that can never kind of reach. If your sails are damaged, then you can't sail and you potentially can't get into port. So it would suggest that you're going to meet a sticky end. And so the idea of these ghostly ships that sort of circle forever and can never come into port has sort of arisen in the public imagination.

[Sophie Nibs]

But there are examples in, so the Black Death, so much earlier period ships on which everyone sort of dies of horrific diseases. No one left to man. So you would ships just found sort of floating about?

[Historian]

Absolutely, yes. If you had an infectious disease on board or. Or there was extreme weather or something had happened, then you might find that the crew all die, in which case this ship might kind of continue sailing and then be discovered. There might have been an example where the ship would have been abandoned. So if a pirate crew had captured a ship and they had taken that ship, thrown the crew overboard and just abandoned their own ship as well. So there's also these stories of thinking, you know, is this the mystery of an empty ship?

[Sophie Nibs]

You know, the black spot? Tell me there was the black spot.

[Historian]

The black spot comes from Treasure Island.

[Sophie Nibs]

Oh, my goodness.

[Historian]

And it's another thing that we have Stevenson to thank for or blame for when we find out that it's not the exciting truth.

[Sophie Nibs]

My daughter gave my son the black spot once in a non ironic way. She just did this bit of coloring and then just gave him this thing. It was the black spot. I was so happy.

[Historian]

See Inspire them young.

[Sophie Nibs]

So you've immersed yourself in this exhibition. What have you learned about our obsession with pirates by the end of it? Why do we keep choosing them from this sort of random historical time period to inspire us and obsess us?

[Historian]

I suppose what I've learned actually is there's not really one answer to that which sounds like something forget about on my part. But what's interesting is that that people seem to love pirates for lots of different reasons. And everyone's got a pirate that they're particularly interested in or a story they'd like to know more about. But one of the things that really seems to come up for people when we talk about this exhibition is what's true and what's not. And they want to know about the myths. And when you tell them that those myths are not true, you see the disappointment in their faces. And it's this idea that pirates represent adventure and excitement and possibility and escaping a sort of boring existence and a chance to go out to sea and earn your fortune wearing a fabulous outfit, obviously. And that seems to be the thing that appeals to people, this sort of sanitized version of what they actually got. We don't look too much at the brutal reality. That's not what we're interested in. We're interested in escape, of being part of a crew, of being part of something. And also this idea of maybe a little bit of a Robin Hood esque kind of stealing from the rich to feed the poor. Maybe just the balance a little of who has what and escaping that societal norm.

[Sophie Nibs]

Well, Sophie, thank you very much indeed. You'll be joining us later in the series to talk about the end of the golden age of pirates. See you soon.

[Historian]

See you soon. Thank you.

[Dan Snow]

Thank you everyone. Thank you for listening to this episode. Remember, we'll be dropping episodes of this series every Monday over the next month, so make sure you hit follow in your podcast player. You would not want to miss one. No, no, no, because you're going to want to stick around for the next episode in this series. If you thought the stories of Blackbeard and the Pirates of the Caribbean were wild, I mean, just you wait for the fleets. Yes, the fleets, the floating kingdoms. We're going to talk about one of the most prolific and powerful pirates in the history of the world.

[Cheng Yi Sao]

The European navies begin to have a presence in Asian waters. If you come up against a pirate of the caliber of, say, Cheng Yi Shao, you have an organization that is vast and powerful. But you, as a European naval officer, you're operating at the logistical limit of your capabilities.

[Dan Snow]

So join me next Monday to discover more about piracy in the South China Seas, how it operated differently to piracy in the Caribbean, and hear about the incredible story of her life, from poverty to extraordinary power. See you next time folks. Thank you so much to you for listening to this episode of Dan Snow's History it we could not make this podcast without you.

[Sophie Nibs]

That's actually true.

[Dan Snow]

So make sure if you want to keep it going, that is to hit follow in your podcast player right now, you'll get new episodes dropped into your podcast library automatically. By the power of tech, you can listen anywhere you get your pods, Apple, Spotify, even BBC sounds. Imagine a world. Just imagine, you never miss an episode of this podcast.

[Sophie Nibs]

I mean it's there.

[Dan Snow]

The technology makes that possible. That could be your reality right now.

[Sophie Nibs]

If you hit follow.

[Dan Snow]

See you next time.

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