← Ridiculous History
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- [00:00]
Ben
Fellow ridiculous historians, we are still riding the wave of Baha Mar. We returned recently with a two part series about pirates. And in our conversation we realized there was no better way to continue to continue our piracy phase obsession than by returning to a classic episode about that time pirates had a government.
- [00:26]
Noel
Yeah, they were super egalitarian, those pirates. You think they think of them as bloodthirsty raping pillagers, but in fact, they were all about doing things by committee.
- [00:35]
Ben
Yeah, pretty often they seem to be quite progressive, especially considering the colonial powers at the time are in comparison to those.
- [00:45]
Noel
And lest you know, we did make the point in the episode that we did at Baha Mar that we're not trying to romanticize them too much because they definitely raped and pillaged aplenty. They weren't just out there doing secret ballots, but they did have a pretty robust system of government that they used in a kind of almost pirate utopia situation.
- [01:05]
Ben
Yeah, it's strange because it was sort of a marriage of convenience, like when a bunch of gangs will team up in a film to fight against a larger threat, whether it's aliens or the FBI. Yes, sure, this is the golden age of piracy was thought to be a time of lawless, terrifying, ridiculous, ridiculous history. But in this episode from a few years back, while we were recording at Baja Mar, we realized we were in the Bahamas, the very same place where according to some pirates, once upon a time had a government.
- [01:43]
Noel
And we loved all this pirate talk so much that we did a bunch of research that didn't even make it into our contractually obligated pirate episode. So we've got another one coming your way very soon and then a pile that we're gonna sprinkle a little further on down the line. But we're gonn about a pirate of the Midwest of the Great Lakes.
- [02:00]
Ben
And then we're also going to explore the Barbary coast in depth. So stay tuned for both of those episodes as well as a secret episode. For now, please tune in to our classic for this weekend, New Providence. That time pirates had a government asterisk.
- [02:21]
Sophia Donner
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
- [02:27]
Kel Penn
Hey everyone, it's Kel Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. Listen to Earsay, the Audible and iHeart audiobook club on the iHeartradio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [02:56]
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- [03:27]
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- [03:29]
Ben
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- [03:32]
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- [03:47]
Noel
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- [03:56]
Public Investing Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On Public you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable index with AI. It all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year. You can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokers Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory services by Public Advisors llc, SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete Disclosures available at public.comDisclosures
- [04:58]
Ben
Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Foreign. Yo ho ho. Welcome back to the show ridiculous Historians. Thank you as always, so much for tuning in. Let's give it up for the buccaneer, the privateer of ridiculous history, super producer, Mr. Max Williams.
- [05:42]
Max Williams
Yo ho ho. And a bottle of rum or something.
- [05:48]
Ben
They loved rum.
- [05:49]
Noel
They did. It's a little sugary for my taste. I don't know.
- [05:51]
Ben
I'm not plentiful. I'm not a rum Caribbean.
- [05:54]
Noel
Yeah, that's true. I do like a tiki drink, though. I really like a tiki drink. And a lot of those do contain rum, but it's not like, required.
- [06:01]
Ben
And it's mixed with so many fruit juices. And there's this presentation, the aquarium mall. There's a great tiki bar that we always try to go to when we're in LA and we can. Tiki T. Yeah, we go to. We go to this tiki bar whenever we have time in town. And it's a little place, but they serve these amazing drinks. And you have to be really careful with those two, man. Because I do. I could drink like one. And then I think it's time to eat trash street food and go to bed.
- [06:31]
Noel
Well, which is easy to do in L. A but also I think tiki tea or tiki tai is like in the pantheon of like great American tiki bars. I think they invented some drink there. Some form of corpse reviver or whatever zombie maybe it was. I mean, I again, I don't think of that. Robert Lamb of stuff to blow your mind is the guy that turned us onto the spot in the first place. But it's super cool if you're ever there. It's also right by the Scientology, like studio backlot.
- [07:00]
Ben
Like.
- [07:00]
Noel
Yeah, it's like Scientology just sort of bought a lesser, like, studio. It has the gates and everything and it's got all these billboards for their propaganda stuff. But we don't want to get sued by the Church of Scientology. So let's talk about pirates instead of.
- [07:13]
Ben
Yeah, also, also, we were very respectful when we got two or three cocktails deep and ran around and had a bootleg photo shoot in front of the church. So thank you.
- [07:23]
Noel
We didn't hop the gate fully.
- [07:24]
Ben
We just didn't peek through. Yeah, which is fine. Which is totally fine. I'm Ben, you're Noel, and you're right, we're talking. There we go. When most people today in the west think of historical pirates, not modern day pirates, which are definitely a thing, we kind of think in terms of larger than Life fiction. Long John Silver's not the restaurant. I, I still don't know anyone who goes to that restaurant. I don't know how they're open.
- [07:49]
Noel
I do have one near my house. I do not go. It's, it's like there's a Long John Silver and a Red Lobster. Sort of the last bastions of like fast food seafood, you know.
- [07:58]
Ben
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, and then Captain D's. I don't know if that's still around.
- [08:03]
Noel
It's pronounced Captain. Just, it's like, it's like crunch.
- [08:06]
Ben
Oh, okay.
- [08:07]
Max Williams
Maybe it's still around.
- [08:08]
Noel
Yeah, maybe I'm sharing my, my captain versus Captains. Yeah, Long John Silver's and Captain Captain D's. I think famously not great, but I think they're part of one of the. Or at least Long John Silver is part of one of those big hospitality groups that's like, owns like a bunch of other fast food restaurants. You will sometimes see a combination Long John Silvers and Dairy Queens or whatever. Yeah, exactly.
- [08:34]
Ben
So, yeah, you're right. You're right. This is, it's Yum Brands. Yum Brands who own so much stuff. That's exactly what you're talking about, Noel. They're the same folks who own Pizza Hut, kfc, Taco Bell and hundreds of other things. Then Long John Silver's. Weirdly enough, maybe we should do fast food origin stories in a later episode. We're going to get to the pirates. We're getting there with this segue. Long John Silver's, the restaurant in the US is named after a character, a pirate in a beautiful novel called Treasure island by Robert Louis Stevenson. And when we think about this, when we think about pirates in the west, we think about things like Johnny Depp in Pirates of the Caribbean or that ride at Disney, Pirates of the Caribbean. And they're always. Or Pirates of the Pancreas or Pirates of the Pancreas.
- [09:31]
Max Williams
It's Rick's project there. Don't insult the pirates of the Pancreas. He gets very offended.
- [09:35]
Ben
That's true. That's true. He's put a lot of energy into that one. And who are we to call someone's creative baby ugly?
- [09:43]
Max Williams
And they're real pirates. They're not all like whitewashed, like, you know, Disney pirates are.
- [09:47]
Ben
Right.
- [09:48]
Max Williams
I'm not going to say the next line because it is not culturally acceptable.
- [09:52]
Ben
So, Noel, when you and I were talking about this, when we knew it might end up being a two parter, we're going to see how it goes. But what do you think of when you hear the word pirate, like historical pirates, not modern day Somali pirates. Yeah.
- [10:10]
Noel
I mean, I think of what we were sort of joking about at the top of the show. I think of peg legs and parrots and, you know, rum and bawdy rhymes and sword fights, walk the plank, cap' n hook, all that kind of stuff. But also I do think of like a crew, you know, like a captain in charge of a crew. And I guess modern day pirates like that will perhaps hijack ships, cargo ships. I mean, it really was a lot of that, you know, basically heists on the high seas, right?
- [10:44]
Ben
Yeah, 100%. Nailed it. These comedic takes on pirates in fiction, these romanticized takes, they can be a lot of fun. But parts of those tropes don't line up with real world pirates. Today we're asking whether pirates, these tremendously anti authoritarian criminals, whether they actually made a government of their own. You see this referenced in video games, you see this referenced in fiction and novels and films. To answer this question, we have to look at something called the golden age of piracy. Depending on who you ask, this is from like the mid-1600s. Golden to whom? Yeah, golden to whom. It's funny you say that because like so many historical ages, the name golden age of piracy doesn't become a thing until well after the actual age has passed.
- [11:40]
Noel
Yeah. And most importantly, Ben, it's a combination Long John Silver at Taco Bell, which does exist. There's a whole Reddit thread devoted to this wondrous thing that exists apparently upon the face of God's green earth.
- [11:54]
Ben
I would try their quesadillas.
- [11:56]
Noel
I don't know if, I don't know if Long John Silver's. What you do is you go to the Long John Silver's, get you some fish fingers, then go over to Taco Bell, order you a quesadilla, and then just kind of combine them, you know, by hand.
- [12:06]
Ben
Right. So this time, this golden age, this halcyon era is more complicated than we might initially assume, especially if we're only watching Disney movies about it. Not all of the people we call pirates originally wanted to be criminals and most didn't have a weird like specific ARR matey pirate accent. They came from all parts of Europe and different parts of the world. They sounded like where they grew up. And sometimes they got. Sometimes. A lot of times people didn't want to be pirates. Their ship mutinied because the navies at the time really sucked. Or they ended up getting kidnapped themselves and joining up because they needed a job.
- [12:52]
Noel
Guys is the Providence of the pirate accent is this sort of like. It seems vaguely Irish or something, or vaguely European, but is it just. Does it sort of just morph due to isolation? Is that sort of the idea that's implied with these bizarro pirate drawls?
- [13:09]
Ben
Yeah, a lot of times it does sound like it might be some kind of Irish. It's a caricature of a dialect called West Country English.
- [13:21]
Noel
Okay.
- [13:22]
Ben
And so the reason we have this come about is because of those works of fiction. Treasure island comes out in 1934. And then Captain Blood, starring Errol Flynn. It's strange because we see. It's kind of like how Santa Claus, as we know it, was made by the Coca Cola Company. The pirate accent is a work of entertainment, 100%.
- [13:50]
Noel
And you bring up a really great point in this outline, Ben. It's important to establish when we're talking about this golden age of piracy, sometimes we're talking about the wrong thing. Pirate is not the same as a privateer. Oh, that's right. Yeah. Let's establish some terms up front, because what allowed this profession to flourish was the fact that it was technically on the right side of the law and could be considered just that, a profession.
- [14:20]
Ben
Yeah, it's really sketchy. It's kind of like. I was trying to think of a modern analogy, dude. It's kind of like bounty hunters, which are technically. They're on the right side of the law. They bend the law pretty often. Not all pirates are created equal. Like you said, Noel, there were several distinct names for groups that sailed the high seas. And we don't have to get into all the differences and details, nuts and bolts of buccaneer versus pirate and so on, or corsair, etc. But we do need to know the difference between privateer and pirate. Pirate is the most general term for outlaws on the high seas. Law and order, maritime crimes. It comes from a Greek word, pirates, which means brigand. And it was since, like, the 1300s, pirate has been a term used for anyone who's committing crimes on the ocean. And usually the folks you're thinking of, when we think of pirates, they're bandits on the water, they're violent, they intimidate people, they raid ships at sea, or Viking style, they raid coastal settlements.
- [15:29]
Noel
Isn't that funny, too, how the word then became associated with bootlegging stuff like pirating music or whatever, or like piracy in terms of, like, copyright infringement. I wonder when that started to kind of come into being and if it was just sort of like an accident, maybe like a term that Sort of took off and got popular. Or if there is some etymological crossover
- [15:52]
Ben
there, I bet there's also a PR spin, because, remember, the three of us are of the generation where you would go to the movies once upon a time, and you'd see those PSAs that were like, you wouldn't download a car. Would you stop piracy? I think it helped the powers that be to compare people downloading stuff illegally to pirates raiding ships.
- [16:17]
Noel
But it does look as well like the term piracy began to be used in its more current form due to some court cases, some old court cases that began, like in the 18th century, piracy was being used to describe the act of infringing on one's copyright.
- [16:34]
Ben
Nice. Yeah. The idea of being theft. And we'll get to why that rings true a little later in our show today. All right, privateers make this excellent point. Privateers are pirates with a cosign, I would call them. They get these letters of mark, kind of like it's similar to the patent letters or letters of patent we talked about in snake oil. Right? So a country's authorities in the midst of the big colonial powers, all trying to take possession of the land across the Atlantic, these big colonial powers will issue commissions to privately owned vessels. And they'll say, hey, if you see a ship from another country or someone who doesn't work for us trying to move goods, blood, and treasure, then go get them, sic em. And you've got our approval to do that. They were private armies, they were mercenary armies. Often, whenever there was a war, a lot of letters of mark went out and a lot of privateers went to seek their fortune. But just like our pal Jesse James, you know, when the war ends and your only skill set is waging war, sometimes you just keep doing it on the other side of the law. Guys, we live in the beautiful southeastern part of the United States, and every time spring comes, we get a lot of pollen, we get a lot of flowers, we get a lot of bugs.
- [18:05]
Noel
We do. And it gets a little hot and humid out there. And so you do end up having bugs kind of seeking cooler climbs, and then often involves climbing under your door. In my case, it was an ants at a picnic situation. But thankfully, I was able to knock those ants out of the frame.
- [18:23]
Ben
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- [18:54]
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Noel
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Noel
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- [20:09]
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- [20:39]
Public Investing Announcer
Support for the show comes from Public, the investing platform for those who take it seriously. On public, you can build a multi asset portfolio of stocks, bonds, options, crypto and now generated assets which allow you to turn any idea into an investable income index. With AI, it all starts with your prompt. From renewable energy companies with high free cash flow to semiconductor suppliers growing revenue over 20% year over year, you can literally type any prompt and put the AI to work. It screens thousands of stocks, builds a one of a kind index and lets you back test it against the S&P 500. Then you can invest in a few clicks. Generated assets are like ETFs with infinite possibilities, completely customizable and based on your thesis, not someone else's. Go to public.com podcast and earn an uncapped 1% bonus when you transfer your portfolio. That's public.com podcast paid for by Public Investing Brokerage Services by Open to the Public Investing Inc. Member FINRA and SIPC Advisory Services by Public Advisors, llc. SEC Registered Advisor. Generated Assets is an interactive analysis tool. Output is for informational purposes only and is not an investment recommendation or advice. Complete disclosures available at public.com disclosures.
- [21:45]
Noel
That's exactly right. Once maybe some of the more legitimate prospects dried up, a lot of these folks just kind of went and forged their own path. Good example is 1691. A guy named Thomas Tew, who was born into a British colony in what is today Rhode island, took one of those charges that you mentioned, Ben, one of these commissions from the governor of Bermuda for a privateering vessel, a voyage to Africa to take over a French fort that was located on the Gambia River. However, instead of following instructions and attacking the French fort as instructed, he and his crew decided to sail to the Indian Ocean and plundered a ship, a Mughal ship, which was. That would have been what, like, an Indian trading vessel? Like, probably loaded down with spices and all kinds of valuable trade goods.
- [22:43]
Ben
Yeah, a lot of stuff that you just couldn't get in Europe.
- [22:47]
Noel
So this guy went rogue right away. He. He didn't, like, wait for, like, he didn't do the job and then be like, you know what? I think I could do better? Strike out on my own. He just like, like, screw this. I'm. I'm, I'm doing the. I'm gonna knock over this, this spice ship.
- [23:01]
Ben
I like to say knock over too. Yeah. He was just like, like, guys, who's going to stop us? The king isn't here on the boat. It's us, bros. Let's hurt people.
- [23:13]
Noel
So privateers were crimes, right?
- [23:15]
Ben
Let's do crimes. So privateers were mercenaries. And the key difference, again, was just the approval of a colonial power. Oh, there's one other big difference. Unlike out and out pirates, privateers are expected to share their loot with their patron government. So you can go rob and pillage a Spanish ship, but you have to go back to the nearest English governor and give them their cut. This is organized crime.
- [23:42]
Noel
Oh, absolutely. And for like, a colonizing force, like the British government, this sort of is a way of extending their naval reach. Right. Like, and Keeping those that maybe would seek to overturn their supremacy at bay. Right. Like, just because, you know, by promising treasure and glory and all that stuff, you essentially not having to pay these people because they're getting paid with what they get, and then you're taking your cut, your tribute, but they're also, like, wreaking havoc on all these foreign vessels, Right?
- [24:14]
Ben
Yeah, exactly. This is the. This becomes a revenue stream for these colonial powers. For instance, in 1568, a privateer we may know named Francis Drake takes part in a rapper.
- [24:31]
Noel
Yes.
- [24:31]
Ben
Yeah, yeah. Before he got into rap, even before Degrassi, he was a privateer and he was in the battle of San Juan de Ulua in modern day Mexico, and he fought the Spanish. And even though he did get whooped when he came back, he had over 40,000 British pounds worth of gold and silver. This was great news for the crown. These people were called Elizabeth's sea dogs for a while because like you said, they were kind of an off the books army. And they got sent around not just to rob resources from other colonial powers, but they also got sent around because the monarchy wanted to make money off the slave trade.
- [25:16]
Noel
Yikes. This was like early days of the slave trade. I mean, at least in terms of a global slave trade. So, I mean, these sea dogs and England, if you can imagine, really were kind of the layers of the groundwork for this whole despicable industry that would inevitably take the world by storm.
- [25:38]
Ben
100%, man. And what we're saying, it was a chaotic time. The colonial powers were functioning like large international criminal syndicates. France, Spain, England, they're making and breaking alliances. They're all trying to grab a piece of what they call the new world. And yeah, spoiler. No, they didn't ask the people who already lived there for their opinions.
- [26:03]
Noel
Absolutely not. And, Ben, I think this is something that we've all seen in, whether it be sword and sorcery type shows or maybe historical dramas, the idea of you don't steal from certain folks. Right. If someone is under the protection of a certain government, and then you maybe do go rogue and steal from the wrong crew because of the whole criminal nature of the enterprise. Let's just call it what it is, you could then be coming home to a real problem, having a price on your head.
- [26:36]
Ben
Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And that happens throughout history. Okay, so most of the pirate fiction we mentioned earlier, it's based on this one period of time, just like so many great western films are based on. Golden age. Yeah. Based on a relatively short period of time called the Wild west, like we said, golden age of piracy refers to. You'll get some differing opinions, but anywhere from the mid-1600s to the 1730s, pirates were roaming the ocean everywhere. In General, there are three distinct periods. The Buccaneers, from 1650 to 1680, those guys were more focused in attacking settlements and ports. And then the second age would be something called the pirate round. It's a round because if you look at a map, it's a predictable trade route that follows maritime commerce. So wherever these ships piled with goods are going, where places like the East India Company go, the pirates follow in their wake, sometimes with the approval of other countries, other colonial powers.
- [27:46]
Noel
Then we also have an era that comes right after the War of Spanish Succession, which ends up leaving a ton of Anglo American sailors and these privateers looking for work. So they've got, you know, we talked about that skill set, right. Like Jesse James and all that. They know how to sail, but they don't have an army to sail for. They don't have the co sign of a government. So they're like not going to starve, they're going to ply their trade. Right. So in a lot, in a lot of ways, these governments made their own monsters, didn't they?
- [28:22]
Ben
You know what I mean? They very much did, yeah.
- [28:24]
Noel
So these folks are now like, you know what? To the Caribbean, where we will become the titular pirates of said Caribbean or the Indian Ocean or the West African coast.
- [28:35]
Ben
Yeah. And during each of these three periods, piracy in the Caribbean rises when conditions are right and it fizzles out when those conditions change. So what made the golden age so golden for piracy? First you need a lot of unemployed, able bodied young men, people who are out of work, they're desperate to survive. You need a clear network of shipping and commerce. Right. You need prey for predators to exist. These pirates, they need to have guns and ships and weapons. Most importantly, there has to be little to no rule of law. I want to give a shout out to Eleanor Evans over a history extra who informed a lot of what we know about the difference between privateers and pirates.
- [29:22]
Noel
Yeah, And Ben, just to your point about the Wild west, that lack of rule of law is always what really set things off in some of these, like, border towns and, you know, some of these kind of frontier. You might have yourself a sheriff, you know, but that's not gonna be nearly enough in the face of like all of the lawlessness that came with that period. And with this, we're talking about the open seas, man. Like, how can you police the open seas without like just a constantly deployed naval force. And it's just all of these cross forces and cross interests bashing against one another during this time. It really was to, you know, to your point, a perfect storm of badassery and frankly, bad attitudes. Ben.
- [30:06]
Ben
Frankly bad attitudes. Nola. Greed. Colonial empires were expanding across the globe and they were often fighting any number of other people. You know, native empires who said, hey, we've got our own thing going on. Stay away. Other rival European powers. So it's no surprise that they weren't able to watch every maritime falling sparrow. They were unable to combat or even find or know about every single pirate ship interdicting valuable shipments, resource and treasure. Think about it. There are compelling reasons for you to be a pirate. You got no laws you have to follow from a king, although you do have pirate code, which we'll talk about. You got no overbearing nobles, you might win the lottery and get tons of gold. You were also, if you were a pirate, you were primarily after gold, silver and jewels.
- [31:00]
Noel
Plunder.
- [31:00]
Ben
Yeah, plunder. Just so. But you couldn't, but you wouldn't find that often in big, big amounts. So a lot of times pirates would take the cargo of a ship, whatever that resource might be, you know, cinnamon, peppercorns, beer, rum. Sure, rum. And then you would steal that stuff and you would take it to resell it somewhere where you knew they weren't going to squeal on you to the authorities. If you are working for a navy at this time, you might have been kidnapped, you might have been press ganged. Right. Or a term that didn't age well. People would say sometimes is shanghaied. Just like. What's that thing where you got people drunk to fix the vote?
- [31:44]
Noel
Oh, what was that called? Oh boy.
- [31:47]
Max Williams
Cooping. Cooping.
- [31:48]
Ben
Cooping. There it is.
- [31:49]
Noel
Hanging with Mr. Cooper.
- [31:50]
Ben
Yeah, yeah. So it's kind of like cooping. These unscrupulous recruiters would get people drunk and then they would have those folks wake up on, you know like a Royal Navy ship. That was a wild Saturday. You work for us now.
- [32:09]
Noel
Yeah, exactly. Oh man, it's true.
- [32:13]
Ben
Yeah.
- [32:14]
Noel
And then, and then you've been. You found a really great point on world history.org that a lot of these, you know, maybe workaday pirates would just gamble away their money, you know, gamble away their plunder, their ill gotten gains. But then you had some that actually kind of created like a network, you know, that like had a much more forward thinking mindset and invested their doubloons correctly and invested in their own fleet of Ships. And that's when you get the pirates of lore like your Long John silver types. I know he wasn't real, but like a Blackbeard, you know that guy was real, right. He commanded like a Jewish giant crew and was very organized. And it wasn't just chaos, rape and pillagery on the high seas. It was an enterprise.
- [33:01]
Ben
It very much was. And let's talk a little bit about their gold. The most sought after loot, as we said, was precious gems, silver and gold. Because these could be sold to a dealer in a port that was low key. Cool with pirates. Pirate haven. But coins were even better because there was no authority to check whether or not this was dirty money. You didn't have to down. Yeah, you didn't have to launder money. You could just show up with coins. And at this time, you know, there are a lot of different sorts of denominations around and yeah, you're right. No, you could just melt them down if you want it. But we're talking about like pieces of eight, silver ducats, silver pesos, Spanish doubloons.
- [33:45]
Noel
There were no like serial numbers or any kind of way of, of tracking them back to the bank that they came from. There was no ink cartridge that would explode when you like undid the band on them or what.
- [33:57]
Ben
There was a guy at the back of the tavern or brothel who would like bite a piece of gold.
- [34:01]
Noel
I love that. Yeah, with his already golden tooth.
- [34:04]
Ben
That's terrifying to me.
- [34:07]
Noel
Oh gosh. Yeah, no, I know, it's funny. It just becomes such a fun, you know, cliche little trope. But yeah, I mean, the golden age of piracy does likely refer to the gold that was a flowing as well, you know, because that stuff was really easy to move. It could really easily be bought and sold. But also, let's not forget like that Mogul shipping vessel that things like spices, things like silk, things that were rare and that you couldn't get everywhere and there became. Why do you think they call it the Silk Road, man? The Pirate Bay. You know, like all of this stuff was this underground black market that sprang up, you know, around the types of stuff that these pirates were hauling in.
- [34:54]
Ben
100%. Yeah. Most of the time. Again, they weren't finding these holy grails of plunder. They were hitting up ships for things like tobacco, sugar, rum, brandy, wine, barrels of fur and lumber, and even flour. They would still flour because this operation could also supply the ship with much needed resources. Sometimes they would knock over a ship that had very wealthy VIP passengers. They would take all of those VIPs, personal valuables and they would even take the clothes off their backs and say, I could sell this. I can make a ton of money on this. They would steal food because they needed to eat. They're also a working vessel at sea. They would take whatever's in the ship's medicine chest. I read one really interesting story where there's a fishing boat that gets knocked over by a much larger pirate ship. And all they take, dude, are the hats of the fishermen. The fishermen had other stuff. They had fish. You know, they're just a little boat of middle class fishermen. But the pirates had got super drunk the night before and they rolled up on this, on this boat and they said, we are going to take your hats because we partied too hard and we all threw our hats in the water last night. So they would steal all kinds of stuff. The stories of treasure get exaggerated a little bit. They also took rope, tackle, nails, sails, anchors, all the stuff you need to run a pirate ship. But here's the question. What do you do if you've got a bunch of hot items and you can't go to port and sell them because you're a wanted man? Where do you go?
- [36:50]
Noel
Well, you mentioned those pirate hubs, right, or those pirate havens. You know, you essentially needed what you might call today a fence. You know, you needed a place that would take your ill gotten booty and essentially, I mean, hold onto it, you know, while things kind of cool down, right, and potentially then move it forward. But you also were, if you weren't in one of these sort of safe spaces, you might likely have a price on your head or be unwanted posters and such. So you needed these places that you referred to earlier, Ben, as pirate havens. One such very famous one of these was a city called New Providence.
- [37:35]
Ben
Oh yeah, there goes the neighborhood, right? This is located in the modern day Bahamas. And Spain had claimed the island of New Providence after Cristobal Colon, legendary pill, quote unquote, discovered the New World. Eventually the land changed hands and England lay claim to it. If we go back to the late 1600s, there's a guy named Henry Avery. Henry Avery is a privateer who made a boatload get it by plundering gold and silver and elephant tusk and gunpowder from these trade ships. Ships heading from India to a local harbor. And he was able to bribe the governor of New Providence of the English Bahamas at the time, a guy named Nicholas Trott, who is super important, by the way, in Carolina's history. He said, look, let me give you not Just some gold, not just some silver, but this entire ship of elephant tusk and gunpowder. And all you have to do, my bro, is let us operate safely here. Don't jam us up, Nick. Just don't jam us up.
- [38:42]
Noel
No. So in 1696, Avery successfully bribed the governor, Nicholas Trott, into establishing Nassau in the Bahamas as a haven where the pirates could do their business freely, like Hamsterdam in the wire, like a drug free zone. But this is like a cross crime free zone. The governors would essentially go through the motions, doing their due diligence and being stewards of the law. And perhaps make some, let's call them ceremonial attempts to stop or to shut down piracy. But it's really no different than crime syndicates paying off the police or anything like that. It really is just as simple as that. If there's money to be made and people are lacking in scruples, then these
- [39:39]
Ben
kinds of situations will thrive 100% and over time as a result. This is what I mean when I say there goes the neighborhood. The place goes into decline. The governors are increasingly authorities on paper only. The pirates are becoming more and more powerful. And I found a cool statistic about this. What you need to know is there's a bunch of civilian settlers and soldiers. They have a four port, French and Spanish ships team up and they attack nassau first in 1703, and then a few years later, they come back and do the same thing in 1706. So a bunch of settlers and soldiers leave at this point. They cut their losses. There's a heavily damaged fort left and there are no soldiers there. There's no one to enforce the laws that existed even as this place was on decline. If you look at the statistics, by 1713, there were over 1,000 pirates in this community. And they far outnumbered the 400 to 500 people who were just regular folks.
- [40:42]
Noel
Yeah, this is what you might call a hive of scum and villainy. It's starting to fester over here, right?
- [40:49]
Ben
Yeah. And the main city becomes home to folks like Blackbeard. We mentioned earlier, pirates like Jack Rack, Benjamin Hornigold, which is just hilarious. And Samuel Jack Racko's pretty cool.
- [41:02]
Noel
Too fun to say.
- [41:03]
Ben
Yeah, yeah, yeah. These guys have good names and these guys all use this island as a base. At some point, there were 600 pirates, not just living there, but sailing from Nassau who raided shipping and shipping routes and ports from the Caribbean all the way up to Maine. A couple of them even started calling themselves the Governors of New Providence. We've got a great quote from a guy named Thomas Barrow. He is quoted as saying that he is the governor of Providence and will make it a second Madagascar and expects five or six hundred more men from Jamaican sloops to join in the settling of Providence and to make war on the French and the Spaniards. But for the English, they don't intend to meddle with them unless they are first attacked by them.
- [41:53]
Noel
Okay. And this, you know, kind of worked out for a time. They came up with a whole name. I wonder if this is where the Jolly Roger came from. Probably not. It probably was its own thing that was more a flag you'd fly at sea. But they did come up with a sort of, you know, name for their new institution, the Republic of Pirates, because those two things go hand in hand, you know, law and order and governance and piracy. It did avoid attacking British vessels though, though, right? Don't poke the bear. Word did get out about New Providence becoming the safe haven for pirates looking to have a good yoho ho and, you know, kick back with some rums and all that stuff. And it was also a place that would essentially serve as a recruiting ground, right?
- [42:38]
Ben
Oh, yeah. This place launched some careers in the world of piracy. It was mostly run by a group of real hard cases who are collectively called the Flying Gang. The Flying Gang is a team up that comes from a heist. In 1715, the Spanish treasure fleet sank during a hurricane off the coast of La Florida. And when a pirate named Henry Jennings learned that the ships had sank, he devised a plan along with people like Benjamin Hornigold, who he mentioned, Samuel Bellamy, who he mentioned, and a guy named Charles Vane. And he said, look, the Spanish are going to try to salvage this. They're going to try to pull the gold out from these sunken ships. We're going to be there and we're going to steal the treasure from the salvagers. They eventually call themselves the Flying Gang. And I'm trying very hard not to write parody lyrics for the Flying Gang to the tune of the Crying Game. But that's how colonial powers were. They don't want no more of the Flying Gang. And to your point about people starting a career career, Edward Teach, AKA Blackbeard, he gets his start here. So does Jack Rackham, whose pirate name or street name was Calico Jack, and a lot of other people, including some female pirates like Mary Reed and Anne Bonny.
- [43:59]
Max Williams
Yeah. In case you guys are wondering, I'm over here on Assassin's Creed Wikipedia searching all these names, because all these people are in Assassin's Creed 4 Black Flag. So it's kind of good. Bit of nostalgia for me right now.
- [44:12]
Ben
That's awesome, man. Yeah. I wasn't the biggest fan of the maritime aspects of Assassin's Creed, but what a great universe they built. And I enjoy a couple of the games having that museum mode where you can just walk around and look at buildings. Oh, yeah, I think that's the one set in Italy. Anyway, here's the idea. These guys, they do their heist. The pirates take their wealth, and Hornigold and his pal Thomas Barrow establish a new community on this island on New Providence. And they set out to create a legitimate pirate republic. Guys, we live in the beautiful southeastern part of the United States. And every time spring comes, we get a lot of pollen, get a lot of flowers, we get a lot of bugs.
- [45:01]
Noel
We do. And it gets a little hot and humid out there. And so you do end up having bugs kind of seeking cooler climes and then often involves climbing under your door. In my case, it was an ants at a picnic situation. But thankfully, I was able to knock those ants out of the frame.
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Ben
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Noel
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- [45:50]
Ben
That's P E s--I-e.comhistory for an extra 10 percent off.
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- [48:03]
Ben
And like you said, no, honestly, a lot of these guys could be subjects to their own episodes. You know what you need to know here is somewhere in a mostly neglected part of the Caribbean that didn't have a huge population at the time, some of the areas most dangerous people put aside their typical rivalries for a common cause. It's an Avengers of Maritime Crime, you know, heist on the high seas and they start attacking everyone except the the British at first, right?
- [48:34]
Noel
So by 1713, the War of that War of Spanish Succession. That's hard to say. Spanish Succession.
- [48:41]
Ben
That's what the war was about.
- [48:42]
Noel
I know, it's just literally about too many sounds about pronouncing. It was over, it had wrapped up. Thankfully, they figured it out. They figured how to pronounce it. But many of these British privateers didn't get the memo. We take for granted how many movies are spoiled by the existence of smartphones. There's that thing. But even just in general, in a thriller of some kind, how easy would it be for someone just to have googled a thing or to have the correct directions? They didn't get lost or for someone to be able to warn them. In these days, it was even worse. It would take months sometimes for word to reach individuals who are out in remote areas, especially during wartime. So a lot of these privateers, they did not get the news that the war was over. This is the kind of thing you hear about all the time in historical situations where perhaps an action is taken, often a tragic action, due to not realizing the circumstances had completely changed 100%.
- [49:42]
Ben
Man, I'm glad you bring that up, because it reminds me of that Japanese soldier who didn't know World War II had entered ended for decades and decades. Also, people who were enslaved in the US who didn't learn about emancipation for quite some time. The travel of information, the frictionless travel of information, is probably one of the biggest wins of recent humanity or the thing that is going to spell the end of civilization. Maybe both. Maybe both.
- [50:14]
Noel
And so a lot of these privateers either didn't get the news or wouldn't accept it, didn't think that it was true. So they slipped further and further into piracy, which actually led to a lot of new blood kind of being pumped into New Providence. Right, to join that pirate republic and cause just an absolute boom in the numbers of pirates that were hanging out there.
- [50:44]
Ben
Yeah, exactly. And. And now New Providence is becoming a boom town, and it's not as unified as it was. This place was only around, by the way, for a very short amount of time, a little over a decade. And over time, these pirates of New Providence, they stopped giving British ships a hall pass. A lot of these guys who were former privateers, like, working for England, start attacking any ship they would, what, British or not, at their height, they're giving themselves titles like commodore. They're commanding fleets of ships, and they can go toe to toe with the Royal Navy. Sometimes they can even outgun it, which is a huge deal, because the Royal Navy is the big dog on campus at this point.
- [51:30]
Noel
That's right. And this starts to make me think of again, perhaps I'm thinking more along the lines of some fiction, but this is when you start to see things like in Game of Thrones, the Golden Compass, or what, like these, like, armies for hire, or even what we have now today with the Wagner group, you know, over there in Ukraine or in Russia, the idea that an independent group could become so large as to rival an official military. And even though, you know, right now they're at odds, there could come a time where for enough money, maybe you could hire some of these pirate crews to do your bidding. You know, who knows?
- [52:08]
Ben
Yeah. And at this point, you know, King George is starting to get a little beefed up because it was easy, easy to ignore the crimes of these pirates as long as they weren't attacking the British themselves. But the British government was starting to get really concerned. They say piracy is so out of control that we're not getting British settlers into these colonies. And if the land is unpopulated, our foreign rivals may take it over. This is not a sustainable situation. So George makes it a decision. He contacts a former privateer and makes him governor, Woods Rogers. And he says, rogers, I want you to go over to New Providence, go over to this hive of scum and villainy and tell them that I will give them a pardon. I will give them an act of grace, a king's pardon. This one is called the Proclamation for Suppressing of pirate.
- [53:10]
Noel
Right. September 5, 1717. Pirates would receive amnesty, be forgiven of their trespasses. That includes murder, just so long as they surrendered by the next January 5th of 1718. So it's like a lot of blind eye kind of mentality, isn't it?
- [53:29]
Ben
Yeah.
- [53:29]
Noel
It's like we're going to let you continue to operate outside the law, but we need you to agree that we're putting a clock on this because this isn't going to work forever for everyone. Right?
- [53:39]
Ben
Yeah. They said, look, you will totally free pass. You guys, we've had fun, we've made some friends, we've plundered some ships, we've had some laughs, but as long as you surrender by this date, by January 5, 17, 18 later, they kicked the can down the road, then it's all good. And woods was the right guy for this job because he was a former privateer and slave trader. He spoke the cultural language of the pirates. Pirates. And he did convince a lot of them to take a square life. A lot of pirates accepted a pardon, but some refused to give up the game, notably folks like Jack Rackham and Edward Teach. The problem was these guys. To your point, they were living on borrowed time. Either the Royal Navy or local authorities would get them soon enough. The party couldn't go on forever, ever. And we'll tell you what happened there. But before we do, let's get to the heart of the question for today's episode, was New Providence really a pirate government? Kinda, yeah, kinda. I mean, they had people with specific jobs. They were organized crime. Right. So the Mafia has a hierarchy. They've got specific duties, they've got a code. Code. What's the Mafia code? It's not omerta that's code of silence, right?
- [55:03]
Noel
Oh, it's the. I don't know. I just know Cosa Nostra. I don't know. I always thought Omerta kind of was the Mafia code, but maybe there's another one.
- [55:13]
Ben
Awesome. Yeah. But they had these rules, and just like the Mafia, the pirates said we need a code of behavior that will reduce internal conflict and maximize profits at the same time. You can find great examples of real pirate code. We got one from a guy named Bartholomew Black bart Roberts. In 1722, he and his crew made a set of laws that are pretty. They're pretty interesting. Just put a few of these on here. They're not all of them, but one of the ones that might surprise a lot of people is voting. Everybody got a vote on the ship except hostage.
- [55:54]
Max Williams
And jump back in one more time with Assassin's Creed. Bartholomew Black Bart Roberts is actually the secret villain of Assassin's Creed 4.
- [56:01]
Ben
Spoilers.
- [56:02]
Max Williams
He is. Oh, a spoiler for a game that came out on one PS3.
- [56:06]
Ben
Next you're gonna tell me what happened at Ford Theater.
- [56:10]
Max Williams
Oh, God. Yeah. No, but, yeah, he's. He is. I forget what his role is. He's the sage. Yeah. So I saw that name and I had to jump in here. I'm going away now.
- [56:22]
Ben
No, let's give it. Let's do a Max with the facts. Who's that sneaking in the phone? It's Max, and he's full of knowledge.
- [56:32]
Noel
Just for you right now. Here it comes.
- [56:34]
Ben
It's Max with the facts. But, yeah. Yeah, there we go. People could vote. You had actually more of a say as an individual on a pirate than you did in a Royal Navy.
- [56:48]
Noel
Pretty interesting, right? I mean, yeah, there was a certain amount of equity, right, in this arrangement where everyone was somewhat on an equal playing field. It's very interesting. I mean, I'm sure in practice, I don't know, I've actually heard, I think, Stuff youf Miss in History class may have done an episode on this back in the day when I was the producer of that show. And I do feel like they really took this stuff very seriously. The idea of equality, you know, it wasn't just on paper. It wasn't. It wasn't a Do as I say, not as I do.
- [57:20]
Ben
Everyone lived by this code 100% man. And they were surprisingly progressive in some ways. They also said, in a lot of pirate code, they said, don't steal from coworkers. You know what I mean? Don't hoard stuff from the crew. If you rob a Fellow pirate, you're gonna have your nose and your ears split, and then we'll throw you ashore on the worst island we could find. They said no gambling, weirdly enough. This is oddly wholesome until you think about it. They had a curfew. They said every night you got to. At 8pm you got to put out all the lights and candles. They said if any of the crew want to sit around and drink, they have to do it on the open deck without lights. And it's not because they were worried about their bedtime. It's because lights would help you identify a ship at sea.
- [58:09]
Noel
Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the. You know, there's another term like that cut of your jib. Right? That was one the idea of. I like the cut of your jib refers to the cut of the sail on a certain ship so that you could be identified at sea. That's how you knew that was a friend or friendly. Right. I always assumed that jib meant, like, jaw or something like that. But no, not the case. And this is the case, too. The idea of those lights being a really important identifier. Next, we have.
- [58:40]
Ben
Have.
- [58:41]
Noel
This is a very piratey one, I would argue. Stay ready to fight. It reminds me of that Russell Crowe bit on. On south park where he's fighting around the world. You know, like singing songs and something. Something fought around the world. That's very piratey.
- [58:58]
Ben
Yeah, yeah.
- [58:58]
Noel
Always be ready for a fight. Each man shall keep his peace. Cutlass and pistols at all times. Clean and ready for action.
- [59:06]
Ben
We don't know when it's gonna pop off. You know what I mean? Stay frustrated, Frosty. Stay sharp. Five by five. They also had workers comp. They had an early version of workers compensation. If you were crippled or you lost a limb or you had another very serious injury in your service with your pirate crew, you would get 800 pieces of eight. And if you were hurt less egregiously, you would get a corresponding amount of money. That's pretty cool. There are many places and industries that don't bother doing that today. So that might surprise some people. Some of us with stereotypes about pirates, we're not saying they're good people. We know that pirate code also said, hey, the captain isn't necessarily a dictator. We on the ship can all take a vote, and if we don't like the captain or a leader, we can vote them out. And again, a lot of these guys are coming from the tyranny of working for merchant ships or the Royal Navy Navy. This is super duper Freedom for them. So from 1706 to about 1718, these scallywags, I would argue they really did form, if not a government, a political entity, because they adapted pirate code of the sea to become sort of the bylaws of their haven in New Providence. And they were oddly progressive in terms of race relations for the the time.
- [60:35]
Noel
Absolutely. That's another thing that always kind of had me a little bit flummoxed. You know, in addition to the whole workers comp. Thing, I mean, they really were like some of the early kind of labor rights activists. It's very, very interesting. Another very interesting feature of the Republic of Pirates, to your point, Ben, was the fact that Africans were considered equal members of the crew. And it's so interesting because we talked about how those privateers originally was a big early form of slave trade. It would seem that what evolved and became maybe the less lawful version of those pirateers that were operating outside of the rule of law were, in fact, much more humane than those operating under
- [61:24]
Ben
the rule of law. I mean, yeah, imagine you're attacking a ship as a pirate crew, and you come to find that it is not. It is not just loaded with cinnamon and pantaloons and rum, but there are also enslaved people on there. You can be kind of a hero if you're one of the folks who say, look, the captain, all you other guys, we're going to rob you blind. You who were enslaved, you can be free. You can join us. That's a hard thing to say no to, and we know that saying. Several people of American Indian or of African background became pirate captains in their own right. One of the most famous is a guy called Black Caesar. Look, okay, so weirdly progressive. Pirates were surprisingly weirdly progressive. Back to our boy. Governor Woods Rogers arrives in Nassau. He's got the king's pardon. He's pitching to people. One dude accepts, and he doesn't just accept. Benjamin Hornigold says, okay, I'll stop being a pirate. And Roger says, well, you're a special case, my friend. He says, hey, Ben, if you want a new job, why don't you become a traitor and help me hunt down all your buddies? And so Hornigold, like, that goes from being a pirate to a pirate hunter. And he's chasing down all of his former colleagues. Anyone who doesn't take the king's pardon,
- [63:01]
Noel
man, put his money where his mouth is. Yeah, this is. What do you call it?
- [63:06]
Max Williams
In case y' all were wondering, Hornigold is very much a villain in Assassin's Creed. Black Flood, oh, good.
- [63:12]
Ben
I was gonna ask.
- [63:13]
Max Williams
He starts off the game, actually. He's like one of your mentors. But no, it. It changes. You actually have to hunt him down at some point. He's a pill.
- [63:22]
Ben
He. He's a pill in real life, too,
- [63:24]
Noel
but he didn't get everybody. He got around 10 other salty dogs. On the morning of Dec of 1718, nine of those fellas were. Yeah, they were executed. They were killed.
- [63:41]
Ben
Yeah, for piracy. And you wonder if they got captured and I couldn't find the answer to this. Maybe someone can help us. If those pirates got captured and they recanted their crimes, could they take the king's pardon right before they were executed? I don't know. I don't know. But like you said, Noel, our buddy Benjamin Hornigold doesn't get everybody. The pirate hunters don't get everyone in New Providence. A lot of folks get away. Charles Vane, Blackbeard. They go on to pursue their villainous careers elsewhere in the Caribbean. And just like that, after 11 very strange years, the Republic of the Pirates is gone. And overall, as conditions change, the fortunes of the pirates in general decline in the mid-1720s. And they never became powerful as they were for that brief time in the 1710s. And along the way, a lot of those guys can't live that demanding life as they age. But if they were smart, buccaneers and pirates and smugglers and privateers all had invested their gains. And so now these guys, a lot of them were no longer criminals. They owned plantations, they owned legit businesses. And there seemed to be a rule of imperfect law spreading throughout the Korea, Caribbean. And that's kind of the story, but it is crazy.
- [65:06]
Public Investing Announcer
It's.
- [65:07]
Noel
Man, it's so interesting. It's like we started with all of this pillage and violence, and I'm gonna come back to this thing that I think we were both taken by the legal version of piracy is almost like. Is much more of a free for all than this version, at least of the illegal version. Right? I don't know. It's fascinating.
- [65:30]
Ben
And there's a lot of. Of. There's a lot of stuff we found for tangents and trivia that we might save for a future episode. I think we'll call it a day now. Oh, one fact we can say. The eye patch wasn't always to cover up a damaged eye because there were no electric lights, and it could be dangerous to have a lot of lights inside a wooden ship. Often the eye patch was used to keep one eye in the dark, so that when you suddenly ran below Deck, you could take the patch off and your eye would already be used to low light. No way. Yeah, that's the way.
- [66:05]
Noel
It literally just taught me something brand new. I assumed it was maybe for like sharpshooting, you know. Yeah, maybe. But I love this idea that it was to help, you know, have your eye quickly already adjusted to the dark. That's very interesting.
- [66:18]
Ben
Or else they were all just very bad at not hitting things with.
- [66:23]
Noel
Who knows?
- [66:23]
Ben
Yeah, who knows? We can't wait to explore more strange, ridiculous, ridiculous things with you folks. We want to give a big, big thanks to our super producer and Assassin's Creed consultant, Mr. Max Williams. And Noel, I gotta. I gotta tell you, I gotta ask you too. If you had been press ganged into the Royal Navy and a pirate ship came by and robbed your ship and said, hey, do you want to join with us? What would you do?
- [66:58]
Noel
I'd pee. Pee a little probably. And then just say, whatever you say, sirs. I'll be your stooge. I'll be your shmee.
- [67:12]
Ben
Play nice until you can get to shore.
- [67:13]
Noel
Right, yeah, I'd probably be a bit of a shmee figure.
- [67:17]
Ben
I remember shmee. That was from Pirates of the Caribbean, right?
- [67:20]
Noel
I believe. Peter. Peter Pan.
- [67:23]
Ben
Peter Pan, that's right. That's right. Another. Another classic. We could maybe do an episode on Peter Pan because that is a messed up origin story as well. Story for another day though.
- [67:34]
Noel
Yeah, I think it's called what Finding Neverland I think is.
- [67:38]
Ben
Oh, that's right.
- [67:39]
Noel
Yeah, the book about it. It's very, very sad. But yeah, man, thank you for this, this pirates romp, Ben, who, by the way, has also served as the research research executive on this particular episode. So much cool stuff in the world of piracy that I literally learned like six new things today.
- [67:56]
Ben
So thank you and big, big thanks to Jonathan Strickland. Oh, we are. He only gets one. Keep that part in next. Big, big, big thanks. Of course, Chris Derassio deceives Jeffco Alex Williams, who composed this slap and bop. And big thanks to you, Noel. Looks like. I don't know. I think maybe we stick with podcasting for now before we get a full pirate.
- [68:20]
Noel
Hear me pirate radio. Let's try that. We'll see you next time. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite show shows.
- [68:44]
HomeServe Announcer
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- [69:15]
Kel Penn
Hey everyone, it's Kel Penn. I'm inviting you to join the best sounding book club you've ever heard with my podcast, Hearsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club. Every episode I nerd out with amazing guests and dive into the best new audiobooks available on Audible. It's the book club for your ears. The Listen to Earsay, The Audible and iHeart Audiobook Club on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts.
- [69:44]
Sean Duffy
I'm U.S. transportation Secretary Sean Duffy. The Sound of a Seatbelt it's one of the most important sounds in our car. It means everyone is ready and everyone is safe. The more our kids see us put on our seatbelts, the more natural it is for them to put theirs on too. Make it a priority. Buckle up every time. Hear the sound. Make it a habit. Paid for by nhtsa.
- [70:14]
Sophia Donner
This is Sophia Donner from OK Storytime this Summer. Find your next obsession on Prime Video and listen. We're not saying you need another obsession, but there could be a lot worse ones. Steamy romance, addictive love stories and and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice, so why not watch them a third time off campus? Elle, the Love Hypothesis and more Slow Burns Second Chances Chemistry you can feel through the screen and it makes you wish you were actually in that movie. We've got binge worthy series can't miss movies. Perfect for when you're ignoring your own problems or procrastinating as one does. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on prime. This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.