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New Providence: That Time Pirates Had A Government · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio.
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  Speaker 2: Yo Ho Ho.
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  Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as
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  Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
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  Speaker 1: for the buccaneer, the privates here of Ridiculous History, super
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  Speaker 1: producer mister Rex Williams.
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  Speaker 2: Yo Ho ho and a bottle of rum or something
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  Speaker 2: they loved rum they did. It's a little sugary for
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  Speaker 2: my taste.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not yeah.
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  Speaker 2: That's true. I do like a tiaki drink though. I
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  Speaker 2: really like a tiaki drink, and a lot of those
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  Speaker 2: do contain rum, but it's not like required.
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  Speaker 1: And it's with so many fruit juices. And there's this
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  Speaker 1: presentation the Equi Mall. There's a great tiki bar that
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  Speaker 1: we always try to go to when we're in La
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  Speaker 1: and we can tiki tie. Yeah, we go to see
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  Speaker 1: go to We go to this tiki bar whenever we
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  Speaker 1: have time in town and it's a little place, but
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  Speaker 1: they serve these amazing drinks and you have to be
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  Speaker 1: really careful with those two man, because I could drink
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  Speaker 1: like one and then I think it's time to eat
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  Speaker 1: trash street food and go.
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  Speaker 2: To bed well, which is easy to do. In La
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  Speaker 2: But also I think tiki t or Tiki Ti is
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  Speaker 2: like in the pantheon of like great American tiki bars.
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  Speaker 2: They invented some drink there, some form of corpse revivor
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  Speaker 2: or whatever. Maybe it was. I mean again, I don't
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  Speaker 2: think it was that. Robert Lamb of stuff to splow
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  Speaker 2: your mind is the guy that turned us onto the
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  Speaker 2: spot in the first place. But it's super cool if
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  Speaker 2: you're ever there. It's also right by these Scientology like
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  Speaker 2: studio backlot. It's like Scientology just have bought a lesser
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  Speaker 2: like studio. It has the gates and everything, and it's
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  Speaker 2: got all these billboards for their propaganda stuff. But we
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  Speaker 2: don't want to get sued by the Church of Scientology,
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  Speaker 2: so let's talk about pirates instead. Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Also, also we were very respectful when we got two
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  Speaker 1: or three cocktails deep and ran around and had a
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  Speaker 1: boot like photo shooting for the church.
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  Speaker 2: So thank you. We didn't hop the gate fully.
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  Speaker 1: We just peeked through, which is fine, which is totally fine.
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  Speaker 1: I'm Ben your Nol and we're talking there we go
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  Speaker 1: when most people today in the West think of historical pirates,
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  Speaker 1: not modern day pirates, which are definitely a thing we
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  Speaker 1: kind of think in terms of larger than life fiction.
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  Speaker 1: Long John Silver's not the restaurant. I still don't know
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  Speaker 1: anyone who goes to that restaurant. I don't know how
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  Speaker 1: they're open.
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  Speaker 2: I do have one near my eyes. I do not go.
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  Speaker 2: It's like there's a Long John Silver and a red Lobster,
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  Speaker 2: sort of the last bastions of like fast food seafood,
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  Speaker 2: you know.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, oh, and then Captain D's. Don't know if
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  Speaker 1: that's still around.
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  Speaker 2: It's pronounced cap'n. It's like crunch. Okay, it's still around. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: maybe I'm misconsturing my captain versus captains. Yeah, Long John
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  Speaker 2: Silvers and Captain D's I think famously not great, but
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  Speaker 2: I think they're part of one of the or at
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  Speaker 2: least Long John Silver is part of one of those
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  Speaker 2: big hospitality groups that's like owns like a bunch of
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  Speaker 2: other fast food restaurants. You will sometimes see a combination
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  Speaker 2: Long John Silvers and uh whatever. Yeah exactly, So, yeah,
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  Speaker 2: you're right, you're right.
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  Speaker 1: This is it's young brands, young brands who own so
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  Speaker 1: much stuff. That's that's exactly what you're talking about, Noel.
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  Speaker 1: They they they're the same folks who own Pizza Hut, KFC,
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  Speaker 1: Taco Bell, and uh, like hundreds of other things. Then
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  Speaker 1: Long John Silver's weirdly enough, you know, maybe we should
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  Speaker 1: do store fast food origin stories in a later episode. Uh,
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  Speaker 1: we're gonna get of the pirates. We're getting there with
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  Speaker 1: this segue. Long John Silver's, the restaurant in the US
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  Speaker 1: is named after a character, a pirate in a beautiful
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  Speaker 1: novel called Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson. And when
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  Speaker 1: we think about this, when we think about pirates in
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  Speaker 1: the West, we think about things like Johnny Depp and
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  Speaker 1: Pirates of the Caribbean, or that ride at Disney Pirates
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  Speaker 1: of the Caribbean. And there are Pirates of the Pancreas
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  Speaker 1: or Pirates of the Pancreas from It's Ricksteil project.
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  Speaker 3: Don't insult the Pirates of the Pancress gets fair offended.
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  Speaker 1: That's true, that's true. He's put a lot of energy
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  Speaker 1: into that one. And who are we to call someone's
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  Speaker 1: creative baby ugly.
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  Speaker 2: And they're real pirates.
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  Speaker 3: They're not all like whitewashed like you know, Disney pirates
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  Speaker 3: are right. I'm not going to say the next line
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  Speaker 3: it is not culturally acceptable.
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  Speaker 1: So so, Noel, when you and I were talking about this,
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  Speaker 1: when we knew it might end up being a two
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  Speaker 1: parter or we're going to see how it goes. But
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  Speaker 1: what do you think of when you hear the word pirate,
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  Speaker 1: like historical pirates, not modern day Somali pirates.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think of what we were sort
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  Speaker 2: of joking about at the top of the show. I
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  Speaker 2: think of peg legs and parrots and you know, rum
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  Speaker 2: and body rhymes and and sword fights, walk the plank,
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  Speaker 2: CAP's hook, all that kind of stuff. But also I
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  Speaker 2: do think of like a crew, you know, like like
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  Speaker 2: like a like a like a captain in charge of
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  Speaker 2: a crew, and I guess modern day pirates like that
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  Speaker 2: will perhaps hijack ships, cargo ships. I mean, it really
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  Speaker 2: was a lot of that, you know, uh, basically heists
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  Speaker 2: on the on the high seas.
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  Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, one hundred percent nailed it. These comedic takes
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  Speaker 1: on pirates in fiction, these romanticized takes, they can be
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  Speaker 1: a lot of fun, but parts of those tropes don't
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  Speaker 1: line up with real world pirates. Today, we're asking whether pirates,
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  Speaker 1: these tremendously anti authoritarian criminals, whether they actually made a
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  Speaker 1: government of their own. You see this reference in video games.
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  Speaker 1: You see this referenced in fiction and novels and films.
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  Speaker 1: To answer this question, we have to look at something
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  Speaker 1: called the Golden Age of piracy. Depends on who you ask,
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  Speaker 1: this is from, like the mid sixteen hundred.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, Golden doo. It's funny you say that.
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  Speaker 1: Because, like so many historical ages, the name Golden Age
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  Speaker 1: of piracy doesn't become a thing until well after the
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  Speaker 1: actual age has passed.
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  Speaker 2: Now and most importantly, Ben, it's a combination Long John
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  Speaker 2: Silver's at Taco Bell, which does exist. There's a whole
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  Speaker 2: Reddit thread devoted to this wondrous thing that exists apparently
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  Speaker 2: upon the face of God's green Earth. I'll try their
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  Speaker 2: case ideas. I don't know. I don't know, Long John Silvers.
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  Speaker 2: What you do is you go to the Long John Silvers,
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  Speaker 2: get you some fish fingers, then go over to Taco
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  Speaker 2: Bell or do you a case of dia, and then
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  Speaker 2: just kind of combine them, you know, by hand.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So this time, this goldeny, Yeah, this halcion era
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  Speaker 1: is more complicated than we might initially assume, especially if
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  Speaker 1: we're only watching Disney movies about it. Not All of
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  Speaker 1: the people we call pirates originally wanted to be criminals,
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  Speaker 1: and most didn't have a weird like specific r maybe
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  Speaker 1: pirate accent. They came from all parts of Europe and
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  Speaker 1: different parts of the world. They sounded like where they
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  Speaker 1: grew up, and sometimes they got Sometimes a lot of
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  Speaker 1: times people didn't want to be pirates. The ship mutinied
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  Speaker 1: because the navies at the time really sucked, or they
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  Speaker 1: ended up getting kidnapped themselves and joining up because they
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  Speaker 1: needed a job.
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  Speaker 2: Guys, is the providence of the pirate accents? Is this
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  Speaker 2: sort of like it seems vaguely Irish or something or
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  Speaker 2: vaguely European? But is it just does it sort of
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  Speaker 2: morph due to isolation? Is that sort of the idea
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  Speaker 2: that's implied with these bizarro pirate drawls.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of a lot of times it does
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  Speaker 1: sound like it might be some kind of Irish. It's
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  Speaker 1: it's really it's a caricature of a dialect called West
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  Speaker 1: Country English, Okay, And so it comes The reason we
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  Speaker 1: have this come about is because of those works of fiction.
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  Speaker 1: Treasure Island comes out in nineteen thirty four, and then
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  Speaker 1: Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn, it's strange because we see
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  Speaker 1: it's kind of like how Santa Claus as we know
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  Speaker 1: it was made by the Coca Cola company. The pirate
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  Speaker 1: accent is a work of entertainment.
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  Speaker 2: And you bring up a really great point in this outline,
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  Speaker 2: ban it's important to establish and we're talking about this
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  Speaker 2: golden age of piracy, sometimes we're talking about the wrong thing.
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  Speaker 2: Pirates not the same as a privateer. Oh yeah, let's
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  Speaker 2: establish some terms upfront, because what allowed this profession to
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  Speaker 2: flourish was the fact that it was technically on the
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  Speaker 2: right side of the law and could be considered just
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  Speaker 2: that a profession.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really sketchy. It's kind of like I trying
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  Speaker 1: to think of a modern analogy, dude. It's kind of
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  Speaker 1: like bounty hunters, which are technically, you know, they're on
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  Speaker 1: the right side of the law. They bend the law
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  Speaker 1: pretty often. Not all pirates are created equal, Like you said, Nol,
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  Speaker 1: there were several distinct names for groups that sailed the
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  Speaker 1: High Seas, and we don't have to get into all
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  Speaker 1: the differences and details and nuts and bolts of buccaneer
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  Speaker 1: versus pirate and so on, or corsair, et cetera. But
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  Speaker 1: we do need to know the difference between privateer and pirate.
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  Speaker 1: Pirate is the most general term for outlaws on the
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  Speaker 1: high seas, oh in order maritime crimes. It comes from
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  Speaker 1: a Greek word, the purates, which means brigand, and it
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  Speaker 1: was since like the thirteen hundreds, pirate has been a
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  Speaker 1: term used for anyone who's committing crimes on the ocean,
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  Speaker 1: and usually the folks you're thinking of when we think
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  Speaker 1: of pirates, they're bandits on the water. They're violent, they
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  Speaker 1: intimidate people, they raid ships at sea, or you know,
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  Speaker 1: Viking style, they raid coastal settlements.
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  Speaker 2: Isn't that funny too? How the word then became associated
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  Speaker 2: with like bootlegging stuff, you know, like pirting music or whatever,
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  Speaker 2: or like piracy in terms of like copyright infringement. I
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  Speaker 2: wonder when that started to kind of come into being,
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  Speaker 2: and if it was just sort of like an accident
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  Speaker 2: maybe like a term that sort of took off and
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  Speaker 2: got popular, or if there is some etymological crossover there.
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  Speaker 1: I bet there's also a pr spin because remember the
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  Speaker 1: three of us are the generation where you would go
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  Speaker 1: to the movies once upon a time and you'd see
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  Speaker 1: those PSAs that were like, you wouldn't download a car,
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  Speaker 1: would you stop piracy? I think it helped the powers
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  Speaker 1: that be to compare people downloading stuff illegally to pirates
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  Speaker 1: rating ships.
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  Speaker 2: But it does look as well like the term piracy
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  Speaker 2: began to be used in its more current form due
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  Speaker 2: to some court cases, some old court cases that began,
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  Speaker 2: like in the in the eighteenth century, piracy was being
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  Speaker 2: used to describe the act of infringing on one's copyright. Nice. Yeah,
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  Speaker 2: the idea being theft. And we'll get to.
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  Speaker 1: Why that rings true a little later in our show today.
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  Speaker 1: All Right, privateers make the sexcellent point. Privateers are pirates
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  Speaker 1: with a co side, I would call them. They get
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  Speaker 1: these letters of mark kind of like it's similar to
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  Speaker 1: the patent letters or letters of patent we talked about
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  Speaker 1: snake oil. Right, So, a country's authorities in the midst
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  Speaker 1: of the big colonial powers all try to take possession
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  Speaker 1: of the land across the Atlantic. These big colonial powers
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  Speaker 1: will issue commissions to privately owned vessels, and they'll say, hey,
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  Speaker 1: if you see a ship from another country or someone
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  Speaker 1: who doesn't work for us trying to move goods, blood
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  Speaker 1: and treasure, then go get them, sick them and you've
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  Speaker 1: got our approval to do that. They were private armies,
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  Speaker 1: they were mercenary armies. Often whenever there was a war,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of letters of mark went out and a
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  Speaker 1: lot of privateers went to seek their fortune. But just
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  Speaker 1: like our pal Jesse James, you know, when the war
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  Speaker 1: ends and your only skill set is waging war, sometimes
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  Speaker 1: you just keep doing it on the other side of
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  Speaker 1: the wall.
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  Speaker 2: That's exactly right. Once maybe some of the more legitimate
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  Speaker 2: prospects dried up, a lot of these folks just kind
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  Speaker 2: of went and forged their own path. Good example is
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  Speaker 2: sixteen ninety one, a guy named Thomas two, who was
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  Speaker 2: born into a British colony in what is today Rhode Island,
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  Speaker 2: took one of those charges that you mentioned, Ben, one
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  Speaker 2: of these commissions from the Governor of Bermuda for a
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  Speaker 2: privateering vessel a voyage to Africa to take over a
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  Speaker 2: French fort that was located on the Gambia River. However,
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  Speaker 2: instead of following instructions and attacking the French fort as instructed,
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  Speaker 2: he and his crew decided to sail to the Indian
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  Speaker 2: Ocean and plundered a ship, a Mughal ship which was
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  Speaker 2: that would have been what like an Indian trading vessel,
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  Speaker 2: probably loaded down with spices and all kinds of valuable
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  Speaker 2: trade goods.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of stuff that you just couldn't get
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  Speaker 1: in Europe.
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  Speaker 2: So this guy went rogue right away. He didn't like
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  Speaker 2: wait for he didn't do the job and then be like,
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  Speaker 2: you know what, I think I can do better, strike
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  Speaker 2: out on my own. He just like like, screw this,
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  Speaker 2: I'm doing the I'm gonna knock over this spice ship.
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  Speaker 1: I like to say knock over too. Yet he was
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  Speaker 1: just like, guys, who's gonna stop us? The king isn't
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  Speaker 1: here on the boat. It's us, bros. Let's hurt people.
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  Speaker 1: So privateers were crimes, right, Let's do crimes. So privateers
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  Speaker 1: were mercenaries. And the key difference again was just the
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  Speaker 1: approval of a colonial power. Oh there's one other big difference.
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  Speaker 1: Unlike out and out pirates, privateers are expected to share
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  Speaker 1: their loot with their patron government. So you can go,
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  Speaker 1: you can go rob and pillage a Spanish ship, but
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  Speaker 1: you have to go back to the nearest English governor
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  Speaker 1: and give them their cut. This is organized crime, oh absolutely.
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  Speaker 1: And for like a colonizing force like the British government.
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  Speaker 1: This sort of is a way of extending the naval reach,
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  Speaker 1: right like, and and keeping those that maybe would seek
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  Speaker 1: to overturn their supremacy at bay, right like, just because
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  Speaker 1: you know, by by promising treasure and glory and all
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  Speaker 1: that stuff, you essentially not having to pay these people
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  Speaker 1: because they're getting paid with what they get and then
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  Speaker 1: you're taking your cut, your tribute. But they're also like
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  Speaker 1: wreaking havoc on all these foreign vessels, right yeah, exactly.
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  Speaker 1: This is the this becomes a revenue stream for these
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  Speaker 1: colonial powers. For instance, in fifteen sixty eight, a privateer
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  Speaker 1: we may know named Francis Drake takes part in Back
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  Speaker 1: to the Rapper, Yes, yeah, yeah, before he got into wrap,
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  Speaker 1: even before Degrassi, he was a privateer and he was
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  Speaker 1: in the Battle of San Juan de Ulua in modern
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  Speaker 1: day Mexico, and he fought the Spanish and even though
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  Speaker 1: he did get he did get whooped. When he came
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  Speaker 1: back he had over forty thousand British pounds worth of
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  Speaker 1: gold and silver. This was great news for the crown.
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  Speaker 1: These people were called Elizabeth's Sea dogs for a while because,
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  Speaker 1: like you said, they were kind of an off the
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  Speaker 1: book's army, and they got sent around not just to
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  Speaker 1: rob resources from other colonial powers, but they also got
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  Speaker 1: sent around because the monarchy wanted to make money off
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: the slave trade.
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  Speaker 2: Yikes, this was like early days of the slave trade.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, at least in terms of you know, a
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  Speaker 2: global slave trade. So I mean these Sea Dogs and England,
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  Speaker 2: if you can imagine, really were kind of the layers
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  Speaker 2: of the groundwork for this whole, you know, despicable industry
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  Speaker 2: that would inevitably take the world by storm.
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  Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
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  Speaker 2: Man.
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  Speaker 1: And what we're saying it was a chaotic time. The
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: colonial powers were functioning like large international criminals. Indicates France, Spain, England.
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  Speaker 1: They're making them breaking alliances. They're all trying to grab
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  Speaker 1: a piece of what they called the New World. And yeah, spoiler, No,
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  Speaker 1: they didn't ask the people who already lived there for
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  Speaker 1: their opinions.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely not. And Ben, I think it's something that we've
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  Speaker 2: all seen, like in you know, whether it be certain
• 17:21
  Speaker 2: sorcery type shows or maybe historical dramas, the idea of
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: you don't steal from certain folks, right right, like if
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  Speaker 2: someone is under the protection of a certain government, you know,
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  Speaker 2: and then you maybe do go rogue and steal from
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the wrong crew because of the whole criminal nature of
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: the enterprise, let's just call it what it is. You
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  Speaker 2: could then be coming home to a real problem, having
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  Speaker 2: a price on your head.
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  Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, Yeah, and that happens throughout history. And Okay,
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  Speaker 1: so most of the pirate fiction we mentioned earlier, it's
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: based on this one period of time, just like so
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  Speaker 1: many Western films are based on Yeah, based on a
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  Speaker 1: relatively short period of time called the Wild West. Like
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  Speaker 1: we said, golden nature piracy refers to. You'll get some
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  Speaker 1: different opinions, but like anywhere from the mid sixteen hundreds
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  Speaker 1: to the seventeen thirties, pirates were rome in the ocean everywhere.
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  Speaker 1: In general, there are like three distinct periods. The buccaneers
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  Speaker 1: from sixteen fifty to sixteen eighty, those guys were more
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  Speaker 1: focused in attacking settlements and ports. And then the second
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  Speaker 1: age would be something called the pirate round. It's around
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  Speaker 1: because if you look at a map, it's a predictable
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  Speaker 1: trade route that follows maritime commerce. So whatever wherever these
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  Speaker 1: ships piled with goods are going, where places like the
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  Speaker 1: East India Company go, the pirates follow in their wake,
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  Speaker 1: sometimes with the approval of other countries, other colonial powers.
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  Speaker 2: Then we also have you know, in an era that
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  Speaker 2: comes right after the War of Spanish Succession, which you know,
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  Speaker 2: it ends up leaving a ton of Anglo American sailors
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  Speaker 2: and these privateers looking for work. So they've got you know,
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  Speaker 2: we talked about that skill set right like Jesse, James
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  Speaker 2: and all that. They know how to sail, but they
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  Speaker 2: don't have an army to sail for, they don't have
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  Speaker 2: the co sign of a government. So they're like not
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: going to starve, They're going to apply their trade. Right.
• 19:28
  Speaker 2: So in a lot in a lot of ways, these
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: governments made their own monsters, didn't they you know what
• 19:34
  Speaker 2: I mean? They very much did. Yeah. So these folks
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: are now like, you know what, to the Caribbean, where
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: we will become the titular pirates of said Caribbean or
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: the Indian Ocean or the West African coasts. Yeah.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: And during each of these three periods, piracy in the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Caribbean rises when conditions are right, and it fizzles out
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: when those conditions change. So what made Golden age so golden?
• 20:01
  Speaker 2: For piracy?
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: First, you need a lot of unemployed, able bodied, young men,
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: people who are out of work. They're desperate to survive.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: You need a clear network of shipping and commerce, right,
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: you need prey for predators to exist. These pirates they
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: need dev guns and ships and weapons. Most importantly, there
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: has to be little to no rule of law. I don't
• 20:25
  Speaker 1: want to give a shout out to eleanor Evans over
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: a history extra who informed a lot of what we
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: know about the difference between privateers and pirates.
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and then just to your point about the Wild West,
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: that lack of rule of law is always what really
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: set things off in some of these border towns. And
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: you know, some of these kind of frontier towns, you
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: might have yourself a sheriff, you know, but that's not
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: going to be merely enough in the face of like
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: all of the lawless nests that came with that period.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: And with this we're talking about the open seas, man, Like,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: how can you police the open seas without like just
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: a constantly deployed naval force. And it's just all of
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: these cross forces and cross interests bashing against one another.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: During this time. It really was, to your point, a
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: perfect storm of badassery and frankly bad attitudes.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: Ben frankly bad attitudes and no all agreed. Colonial empires
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: were expanding across the globe, and they were often fighting
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: any number of other people, you know, native empires who said, hey,
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: we've got our own thing going on, stay away other
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: rival European powers. So it's no surprise that they weren't
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: able to watch every maritime falling sparrow. They were unable
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: to combat or even find or know about every single
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: pirate ship interdicting valuable shipments, resource and treasure. Think about it,
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: there are compelling reasons for you to be a pirate.
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: You got no laws you have to follow from a king,
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: although you do have pirate code, which we'll talk about.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: You got no overbearing nobles. You might win the lottery
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: and get tons of gold. You were also, if you
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: were a pirate, you were primarily after gold, silver and jewels.
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: But yeah, plunder just so, but you couldn't, uh, you
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: wouldn't find that often in big, big amounts. So a
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: lot of times pirates would take the cargo of a
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: ship whatever that resource might be, you know, cinnamon, peppercorns, beer, rum,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: sure rum, and then you would you would steal that
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: stuff and you would take it to resell it somewhere
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: where you knew they weren't going to squeal on you
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: to the authorities. If you are working for a navy
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: at this time, you might have been kidnapped. You might
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: have been press ganged, right, or a term that did
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: in age well people would say sometimes is shanghied. Just
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: like what's that thing where you got people drunk to
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: fix the vote?
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: Oh? What was that called a boy cooping? Coopy? The
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: hanging with mister Cooper. Yeah. Yeah, so it's kind of
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: like coopy.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Uh, these unscrupulous recruiters would get people drunk and then
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: they would have those folks wake up on you know,
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: like a Royal Navy ship.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Haha, that was a wild saturday you were for us? Yeah, exactly.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Oh man, it's true. Yeah, and then and then you've
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: been You found a really great point on world hisstory
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: dot Org that a lot of these uh you know,
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: maybe workaday pirates would just gamble away their money, you know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: gamble away their plunder. They're ill gutten gains. But then
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: you had some that actually kind of created like a network,
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: you know that like had a much more forward thinking
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: mindset and invested their doubloons correctly and invested in their
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: own fleet of ships. And that's when you get the
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: pirates of lore. Like your long John Silvery. I know
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: he wasn't real, but like a black Beard, and that
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: guy was real. He commanded like a giant crew and
• 24:06
  Speaker 2: was very organized. And it wasn't just chaos, rape and
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: pillogry and on the high seas. It was an enterprise.
• 24:13
  Speaker 2: It very much was. And let's talk a little bit
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: about their gold.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: The most sought after loot, as we said, was precious gems,
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: silver and gold, because these could be sold to a
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: dealer in a port that was low key cool with pirates,
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: pirate haven. But coins were even better because there was
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: no authority to check whether or not this was dirty money.
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: You didn't have to down yeah you did have to
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: launder money. You could just show up with coins. And
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: at this time, you know, there are a lot of
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: different sorts of denominations around and yeah, you're right, No,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: you could just melt them down if you want it.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: But we're talking about like pieces of eight silver ducats,
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: silver pesos, Spanish doubloons.
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: There were no like serial numbers or any kind of
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: way of tracking them back to the bank. That they
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: came from. There was no ink cartridge that would explode
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: when you like undid the band on them or whatever.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: There was a guy at the back of the tavern
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: or brothel who would like, bite a piece of gold.
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah, well this already golden tooth. That's terrified.
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, yeah, I know, it's funny. It just becomes
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: such a like a fun you know, cliche little trope.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean, the golden age of piracy does
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: likely refer to the gold that was a flowing as well,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: you know, because that stuff was really easy to move,
• 25:37
  Speaker 2: It could really easily be bought and sold. But also
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: let's not forget like that mogul shipping vessel that things
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: like spices, things like silk, things that were rare and
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: that you couldn't get everywhere. And there became why do
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: you think they call it the silk road Man, the
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: pirate bay. You know, like all of this stuff was
• 25:58
  Speaker 2: this underground black market that sprang up, you know, around
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: the types of stuff that these pirates were hauling in.
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, most of the time, again, they
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: weren't finding these holy grails of plunder. They were hitting
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: up ships for things like tobacco, sugar, rum, brandy wine,
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: you know, barrels of fur and lumber, and even flour.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: They would steal flower because this operation could also supply
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: the ship with much needed resources. Sometimes they would knock
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: over a ship that had very wealthy VIP pastors. They
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: would take all of those VIPs personal valuables, and they
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: would even you know, take the clothes off their backs
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: and say, I could sell this. I can make a
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: ton of money on this. They would steal food because
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: they needed to eat. They're also working vessel at sea.
• 26:58
  Speaker 1: They would take whatever's in the ship's medicine chest. I
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: read one really interesting story where there's like a fishing
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: boat that gets knocked over by a much larger pirate
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: ship and all they take, dude, are the hats of
• 27:13
  Speaker 1: the fishermen. The fishermen had other stuff, they have fish,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: you know, they're just a little boat of middle class fishermen.
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: But the pirates had got super drunk the night before
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and they rolled up on this boat and they said,
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: we are going to take your hats because we partied
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: too hard and we all threw our hats in the
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: water last night. So they would steal all kinds of
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: stuff you know, the stories of treasure get exaggerated a
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: little bit. They also took rope, tackle, you know, nails, sails, anchors,
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: all the stuff you need to run a pirate ship.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: But here's the question. What do you do if you've
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: got a bunch of hot items and you can't go
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to port and sell them because you're a wanted band, where.
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: Do you go? Well, you mentioned those those pirate hubs, right,
• 28:04
  Speaker 2: or those pirate havens. You know, you essentially needed what
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: you might call today a fence. You know, he needed
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: a place that would take your ill gotten booty and
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: essentially I mean hold on to it, you know, well
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: while things kind of cooled down, right and potentially then
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: move it for you. You know. But you also were
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: if you weren't in one of these sort of safe spaces,
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: you might likely have a price on your head or
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: be you know, unwanted posters and such. So you needed
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: these places that you referred to earlier ben as pirate havens.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: One such, very famous one of these was a city
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: called New Providence. Oh yeah, there goes the neighborhood, right.
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: This is located in the modern day Bahamas, and Spain
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: had claimed the island of due Providence after Crystabul Cologne
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: legendary pill quote quote discovered the New World. Eventually the
• 29:03
  Speaker 1: land changed hands and England lay claim to it. If
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: we go back to the late sixteen hundreds, there's a
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: guy named Henry Avery. Henry Avery is a privateer who
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: made a boatload get it by plundering gold and silver
• 29:19
  Speaker 1: and elephant tusk and gunpowder from these trade ships heading
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: from India to a local harbor. And he was able
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: to bribe the governor of New Providence of the English
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Bahamas at the time, a guy named Nicholas Trott, who
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: is super important by the way in Carolina's history. He said, look,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: let me give you not just some gold, not just
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: some silver, but this entire ship of elephant tusk and gunpowder.
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: And all you have to do, my bro is let
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: us operate safely here. Don't jam us up, Nick, just
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: don't jam us up.
• 29:53
  Speaker 3: No.
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: So in the sixteen ninety six, Avery successfully bribed the
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: governor Nicholas trot into establishing NASA in the Bahamas as
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a haven where the pirates could do their business freely,
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: you know, like like Amsterdam in the wire, you know,
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: like a drug free zone. But this is like a
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: crime free zone. The governors would essentially, you know, go
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: through the motions doing their due diligence and an act
• 30:26
  Speaker 2: you know, being stewards of the law, and perhaps make
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: them you know, let's call them ceremonial attempts to stop
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: or to shut down piracy. But it's really no different
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: than you know, crime syndicates paying off the police, you know,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: or anything like that. It really is just as simple
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: as that. If there's money to be made and people
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: are lacking in scruples, then these kinds of situations will
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: thrive on, you know.
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: And overtime as a result, That's what I mean when
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I say there goes the neighborhood, the place goes into decline.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: The governors are increasingly authorities on paper only, the pirates
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: are becoming more and more powerful, and the founeralal statistic
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: about this. What you need to know is there's a
• 31:11
  Speaker 1: bunch of civilian settlers and soldiers. They have a fort,
• 31:15
  Speaker 1: French and Spanish ships team up and they attack Nassau
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: first in seventeen oh three, and then a few years
• 31:21
  Speaker 1: later they come back and do the same thing in
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: seventeen oh six. So a bunch of settlers and soldiers
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: leave at this point, they cut their losses. There's a
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: heavily damaged fort left, and there are no soldiers there.
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: There's no one to enforce the laws that existed even
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: as this place was on decline. If you look at
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: the statistics, by seventeen thirteen, there were over one thousand
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: pirates in this community and they far outnumbered the four
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: hundred to five hundred people who are just regular folks.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what you might call a high of
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: scummon villainy. It's starting to fester over here, right.
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and the main city becomes home to folks like
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: black Beard. We mentioned earlier pirates like Jack Rackham, Benjamin Hornigold,
• 32:10
  Speaker 1: which is just hilarious, and Sam mak Roco was pretty cool,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: too fun to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, these guys have
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: good names and they these guys all used this island
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: as a base. At some point there were six hundred
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: pirates not just living there, but sailing from Nassau who
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: raided shipping and shipping routes and ports from the Caribbean
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: all the way up to Maine. A couple of them
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: even started calling themselves the governors of New Providence. We've
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: got a great quote from a guy named Thomas Barrow.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: He is quoted as saying that he is the governor
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: of Providence, we'll make it a second Madagascar, and expects
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: five or six hundred more men from Jamaican sloops to
• 32:54
  Speaker 1: join in the settling of Providence and to make war
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: on the French and the Spaniards. But for the English,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: they don't intend to meddle with them unless they are
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: first attacked by them.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: Okay, And this, you know, kind of worked out for
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: a time. They they came up with all name. I
• 33:13
  Speaker 2: wonder if this is where the Jolly Roger came from.
• 33:15
  Speaker 2: Probably now that probably wasn't something that was more a
• 33:17
  Speaker 2: flag you'd fly at sea. But they did come up
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: with a sort of you know name for their new institution,
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: the Republic of Pirates, because those two things go hand
• 33:26
  Speaker 2: in hand, you know, law and order and governance and piracy.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: It did avoid attacking British vessels though, right, don't poke.
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: The bear word did get out about New Providence becoming
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: the safe haven for pirates looking to have a good
• 33:42
  Speaker 2: yoho ho and you know, kick back with some RUMs
• 33:44
  Speaker 2: and all that stuff. And it was also a place
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: that would essentially serve as a recruiting ground, right.
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this place launched some careers in the world
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: of piracy. It was mostly run by a group of
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: real hard cases who were collectively called the Flying Gang.
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: The Flying Gang is a team up that comes from
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: a heist. In seventeen fifteen, the Spanish treasure fleet sank
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: during a hurricane off the coast of La Florida, and
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: when a pirate named Henry Jennings learned that the ships
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: had sank, he devised a plan along with people like
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Hornegold who he mentioned, Samuel Bellamy who he mentioned,
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: and a guy named Charles Vain, and he said, look,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: the Spanish are going to try to salvage this. They're
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: going to try to pull the gold out from these
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: sunken ships. We're going to be there and we're going
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: to steal the treasure from the salvagers. They eventually call
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: themselves the Flying Gang. And I'm trying very hard not
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: to write parody lyrics for the Flying Gang to the
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: tune of the Crying Game. But that's how you know,
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: that's how colonial powers were. They don't want no more
• 34:52
  Speaker 1: of the Flying Gang. And to your point about people
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: starting a career, Edward Teach aka Blackbeard. He gets start here,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: so does Jack Rackham, whose pirate namer street name was
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: Catlico Jack, and a lot of other people, including some
• 35:08
  Speaker 1: female pirates like Mary Reid and a body.
• 35:11
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and in case you guys are wondering, I'm over
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: here on Assassin's Creed Wikipedia searching all these names because
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: all these people are in Assassin's Creed for black Flags.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: So it's kind of good been in nostalgia for me
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: right now.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: That's awesome, man.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And I you know, I wasn't the biggest fan
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: of the maritime aspects of Assassin's Creed, but what a
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: great universe they've built, and I enjoy I enjoy a
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: couple of the games having that museum mode where you
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: can just walk around and look at buildings. Oh yeah,
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I think that's the one set in Italy. Anyway, here's
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: the idea. These guys they do their heist. The pirates
• 35:45
  Speaker 1: take their wealth and Horne Gold and is pal Thomas
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: Barrow establish a new community on this island, on New Providence,
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: and they set out to create a legitimate pirate republic.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: And like you said, nol, honestly, a lot of these
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: guys could be subjects to their own episodes. You know,
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: what you need to know here is somewhere in a
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: mostly neglected part of the Caribbean that didn't have a
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: huge population at the time, some of the area's most
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: dangerous people put aside their typical rivalries for a common cause.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: It's an avengers of maritime crime, you know, heist on
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the high seas and they start attacking everyone except the
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: British at first.
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: Right, So by seventeen thirteen, the war of that war
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: a Spanish succession. I mean, that's hard to say Spanish successions.
• 36:45
  Speaker 2: That's what the war was about. I know, it's just
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: literally about too many h sounds. It was over, it
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: had wrapped up. Thankfully, they figured it out, they figured
• 36:53
  Speaker 2: out how to pronounce it. But many of these British
• 36:56
  Speaker 2: privateers didn't get the memma we'd take for granted, like
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: how many movies are spoiled by the existence of smartphones?
• 37:05
  Speaker 2: You known, problem, there's that thing, but even just like
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: in general, like in the thriller of some kind, like
• 37:10
  Speaker 2: how easy would it be for someone just to have
• 37:12
  Speaker 2: googled a thing or to have the correct directions that
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: didn't get lost or you know, for someone to be
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: able to warn them. You know, in these days it
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: was even worse. You know, they would take months sometimes
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: for word to reach individuals who were out in remote areas,
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: especially during wartime. So a lot of these privateers, they
• 37:29
  Speaker 2: did not get the news that the war was over.
• 37:33
  Speaker 2: This is the kind of thing you hear about all
• 37:34
  Speaker 2: the time, you know, in historical situations where perhaps an
• 37:38
  Speaker 2: action is taken, often a tragic action, due to not
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: realizing the circumstances had completely changed.
• 37:45
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Man, I'm glad you bring that up,
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: because it reminds me of that Japanese soldier who didn't
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: know World War two had ended for decades and decades. Also,
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: people who were enslaved in the US who didn't learn
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: about emancipation for quite some time. The travel of information,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the frictionless travel of information, is probably one of the
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: biggest wins of recent humanity or the thing that is
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: going to spell the end of civilization maybe both maybe maybe.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: And so these you know a lot of these these
• 38:20
  Speaker 2: these uh, these privateers either didn't get the news or
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: wouldn't accept it, didn't didn't think that it was true.
• 38:27
  Speaker 2: So they, you know, slipped further and further into piracy,
• 38:31
  Speaker 2: which actually led to a lot of you know, new
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: blood kind of being pumped into New Providence right to
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: join that pirate republic and and causes an absolute boom
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: uh in in the numbers of pirates that were hanging
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: out there. Yeah, exactly.
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: And now New Providence is becoming a boom town and
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: it's not as unified as it was. Uh this this
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: place was only around, by the way, for a very
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: short amount of time, all over a decade. And over time,
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: these pirates of New Providence, they stop giving British ships
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: a hall pass. A lot of these guys who are
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: former privateers, like working for England, start attacking any ship
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: they want, British or not. At their height, they're giving
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: themselves titles like Commodore. They're commanding fleets of ships, and
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: they can go toe to toe with the Royal Navy.
• 39:25
  Speaker 1: Sometimes they can even outgun it, which is a huge
• 39:27
  Speaker 1: deal because the Royal Navy is the big dog on
• 39:31
  Speaker 1: campus at this point.
• 39:33
  Speaker 2: That's right, And this starts to make me think of
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: again perhaps some thinking more along the lines of some fiction.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: But this is when you know, you start to see
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: like things like in Game of Thrones, the Golden Compass
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: or whatever like these, like armies for hire or even
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: we have now today with the Wagner group, you know
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: over there in the Ukraine or in Russia. The idea
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: that an independent group could become so large as to
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: rival a an official military. And even though you know
• 40:05
  Speaker 2: right now they're at odds, there could come a time
• 40:07
  Speaker 2: where for enough money, maybe you can hire some of
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: these pirate crews to do your bidding. You know who knows.
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And at this point, you know, King George is
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: starting to get a little beefed up because it was
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: easy to ignore the crimes of these pirates as long
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: as they weren't attacking the British themselves. But the British
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: government was starting to get really concerned. They say, piracy
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: is so out of control that we're not getting British
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: settlers into these colonies, and if the land is unpopulated,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: our foreign rivals may take it over. This is not
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: a sustainable situation. So George makes the decision. He contacts
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: a former privateer and makes some governor Woods Rogers, and
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: he says, Rogers, I want you to go over to
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: New Providence, go over to this high of a scumonbility
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: and tell them that I will give them a pardon.
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: I will give them an act of grace, a king's pardon.
• 41:08
  Speaker 1: This one is called a Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: Right September fifth, seventeen seventeen, pirates would receive amnesty, be
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: forgiven of their trespasses that includes murder, just so long
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: as they surrendered by the next January fifth of seventeen eighteen.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: So it's like a lot of blind eye kind of mentality,
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: isn't it. It's like, we're gonna unless you continue to
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: operate outside the law, but we need you to agree
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: that we're putting a clock on this because this isn't
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: gonna work forever for everyone, right.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is look, you will totally free pass you guys.
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: We've had fun, we've made some friends, we've plundered some ships,
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: we've had some laughs. But as long as you surrender
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: by this date by January fifth, seventeen eighteen, later they
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: kicked the can down the road, then it's all good.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: And Woods was the right guy for this job because
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: he was a former privateer and slave trader. He spoke
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: the cultural language of the pirates, and he did convince
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: a lot of them to take a square life. A
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: lot of pirates accepted a pardon, but some refused to
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: give up the game, notably folks like Jack Rackham and
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: Edward Teach. The problem was these guys, to your point,
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: they were living on borrow time. Either the Royal Navy
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: or local authorities would get them soon enough. The party
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: couldn't go on forever. And we'll tell you what happened there,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: But before we do, let's get to the heart of
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: the question for today's episode. Was New Providence really a
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: pirate government?
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: Kind of? Yeah, kind of.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: I mean they had people with specific jobs, like they
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: were organized crime, right, So the mafia has a hierarchy,
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: they got specif duties.
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: They've got a code.
• 43:02
  Speaker 1: What's the mafia code. It's not Omeerta, that's code of silence, right.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: Oh, it's a I don't know. I just know Cosinostra.
• 43:11
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I always thought Omeerica kind of was
• 43:13
  Speaker 2: the mafia code, but maybe there's another one. Awesome.
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but they had like they had these rules and
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: just like the mafia, the pirates said, we need a
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: code of behavior that will reduce internal conflict and maximize
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: profits at the same time, you can find great examples
• 43:33
  Speaker 1: of real pirate code. We got one from a guy
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: named bartholomewle black bart Roberts in seventeen twenty two. He
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: and his crew made a set of laws that are
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: pretty they're pretty interesting. Just put a few of these
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: on here. They're not all of them, but one of
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: the ones that might surprise a lot of people is voting.
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: Everybody got to vote on the ship except hostages.
• 43:57
  Speaker 3: And jump back in one more time with Assassin's Cree.
• 44:00
  Speaker 3: Bartholomew black Bart Roberts is actually the secret villain of
• 44:04
  Speaker 3: Assassin's Creed four spoilers.
• 44:06
  Speaker 2: He is, oh a.
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: Spoiler for a game that came out of one a
• 44:08
  Speaker 3: PS three.
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: Next, you're gonna tell me what happened at at Ford Theater?
• 44:14
  Speaker 2: Oh god, yeah no, but.
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, he's uh, he is I forget what his role is.
• 44:18
  Speaker 2: He's the sage.
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I saw that name and I had to
• 44:22
  Speaker 3: jump in here.
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: I'm going away now. No, let's give it. Let's do
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: a max with the facts that seeking in the phone
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: and he's fallen knowledge. It's just for you right now
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: here with the fact.
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, there we go. People could vote. You
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: had actually more of a shage an individual on a
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: pirate ship than you did in a Royal navy.
• 44:52
  Speaker 2: Pretty interesting, right, I mean, yeah, there was a certain
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: amount of equity right in this arrangement where everyone was
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: someone on an equal playing field. It's very interesting. I mean,
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: I'm sure in practice, maybe I don't know, I've actually heard,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: you know, I think that's a mus in history class.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: May have done an episode on this back in the
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: day when I was the producer of that show. And
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: I do feel like they really took this stuff very seriously.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: The idea of equality. You know, it wasn't just on paper.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: It wasn't like it wasn't a do as I say,
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: not as I do. You know, everyone lived by this code.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: One hundred percent, man, and they were surprisingly progressive in
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: some ways. They also said in a lot of pirate code.
• 45:34
  Speaker 1: They said, don't steal from coworkers, you know what I mean,
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: don't hoard stuff from the crew, don't rob. If you
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: rob a fellow pirate, you're gonna have your nose and
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: your ears split, and then we'll throw you ashore on
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: like the worst island we can find. They said, no gambling.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, this is oddly wholesome until you think about it.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: They had a curfew. They said every night you got
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: at eight pm, you got to put out all the
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: lights and candles. They said, if any of the crew
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: want to sit around and drink, they have to do
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: it on the open deck without lights. And it's not
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: because they were worried about their bedtime. It's because lights
• 46:10
  Speaker 1: would help you identify a ship at sea.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the other you know, there's
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: another term like that cut of your jib, Right, that
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: was one the idea of I like the cut of
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: your jib refers to the cut of the sail on
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: a certain ship, so that you could be identified at sea.
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: That's how you knew you that was a friend, you know,
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: or a friendly Right. I always assumed the jib meant
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: like jaw or something like that, But no, not the case.
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: And this is the case too. The idea of those
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: lights being a really important identifier. Next we have this
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: is a very piratey one. I would argue, stay ready
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: to fight. It runs me that Russell crow bit on
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: South Park where he's fighting around the world, you know,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: like singing songs and so and so and fought and
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: round the world. That's fairy. Yeah, always be ready for
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: a fight. Each man shall keep his piece, cutlass, and
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: pistols at all times, clean and ready for action.
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: We don't know what it's gonna pop off, you know
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: what I mean. Stay frosty, stay sharp, five by five.
• 47:15
  Speaker 1: They also have workers comp They had an early version
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: of workers compensation. If you were crippled, or you lost
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: a limb, or you had another very serious injury in
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: your service with your pirate crew, you would get eight
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: hundred pieces of eight and if you were less, if
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: you were hurt less, egregiously, you would get a corresponding
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: amount of money. That's pretty cool. There are many places
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: and industries that don't bother doing that today, so that
• 47:45
  Speaker 1: might surprise some people, some of us with stereotypes about pirates.
• 47:49
  Speaker 1: We're not saying they're good people.
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: We know that.
• 47:53
  Speaker 1: Pirate code also said, hey, the captain isn't necessarily a dictator.
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: We on the ship can all take vote, and if
• 48:00
  Speaker 1: we don't like the captain or a leader, we can
• 48:02
  Speaker 1: vote them out. And again a lot of these guys
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: are coming from the tyranny of working for merchant ships
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: or the Royal Navy. This is super duper freedom for them.
• 48:13
  Speaker 1: So from seventeen oh six to about seventeen eighteen, these scalleywags,
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: I would argue, they really did form, if not a government,
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: a political entity because they adapted pirate code of the
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: sea to become sort of the by laws of their
• 48:31
  Speaker 1: haven in New Providence. And they were also they were
• 48:35
  Speaker 1: oddly progressive in terms of race relations for the time.
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, that's another thing that always kind of had me
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: a little bit flummoxed, you know, in addition to the
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: whole workers comp thing. I mean, they really were like
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: some of the early kind of labor rights activists. It's
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: very very interesting. Another very interesting feature of the Republic
• 48:58
  Speaker 2: of Pirates, to your point, that was the fact that
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Africans were considered equal members of the crew. And it's
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: so interesting because we talked about how those privateers or
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: originally right that was a big early form of slave trade.
• 49:14
  Speaker 2: It would seem that what evolved and became maybe the
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: less lawful version of those pirateers that were operating outside
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: of the rule of law were in fact much more
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: humane than those operating under the rule of life.
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, imagine you're attacking a ship as a
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: pirate crew, and you come to find that it is
• 49:38
  Speaker 1: not It is not just loaded with you know, like
• 49:42
  Speaker 1: cinnamon and pantaloons and rum, but they're also enslaved people
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: on there. You can be kind of a hero if
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: you're one of the folks who say, look, all the captain,
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: you know, all you other guys, we're gonna rob you,
• 49:59
  Speaker 1: blind you, you who were enslaved. You can be free,
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: you can join us. That's a hard thing to say
• 50:05
  Speaker 1: no to. And we know that several people of American,
• 50:09
  Speaker 1: Indian or of African background became pirate captains in their
• 50:14
  Speaker 1: own right. One of the most famous is a guy
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: called Black Caesar. And look, okay, so weirdly progressive pirates
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: were surprisingly weirdly progressive. Back to our boy, Governor Woods
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: Rogers arrives in Nassau. He's got the king's pardon. He's
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: pitching to people. One dude accepts, and he doesn't just accept.
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Hornigold says, okay, I'll stop being a pirate, and
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Rogers says, well, you're a special case, my friend. He says, hey, ben,
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: if you want a new job, why don't you become
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: a trader and help me hunt down all your buddies,
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: and so Horni Gold like that goes from being a
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: pirate to a pirate hunter and he's chasing down all
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: of his former colleagues, anyone who doesn't take the King's pardon.
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: Man put his money? Where is not this? Yeah? This
• 51:08
  Speaker 2: is uh what do you call it?
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: In case y'all were wondering, Horni Gold is very much
• 51:12
  Speaker 3: a villain in Assassin's Creed Black Flow.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Oh good, I was gonna ask.
• 51:16
  Speaker 3: He starts off the game. Actually he's like one of
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: your mentors. But no, it changes and you actually have
• 51:21
  Speaker 3: to hunt him down at some point.
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: He's a pill. He's a pill in real life too.
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: But he didn't get everybody. He got around ten other
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: salty dogs. On the morning of December the twelfth of
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen. Nine of those fellas were Yeah, they were executed.
• 51:43
  Speaker 1: They were killed yeap for piracy. And you wonder if
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: they got captured. I couldn't find the answer to this.
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: Maybe someone can help us. If those pirates got captured
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: and they recanted their crimes, could they take the king's
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: pardon right before they were executed?
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 52:00
  Speaker 1: I don't know, but like you said, no, our buddy
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: Benjamin Hornegold doesn't get everybody. The pirate hunters don't get
• 52:08
  Speaker 1: everyone in New Providence. A lot of folks get away,
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: Charles Vaine, Blackbeard. They go on to pursue their villainous
• 52:14
  Speaker 1: careers elsewhere in the Caribbean. And just like that, after
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: eleven very strange years, the Republic of the Pirates is gone,
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: and overall, as conditions change, the fortunes of the pirates
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: in general decline in the mid seventeen twenties, and they
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: never became as powerful as they were for that brief
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: time in the seventeen tens. And along the way, you know,
• 52:42
  Speaker 1: a lot of those guys can't live that demanding life
• 52:45
  Speaker 1: as they age. But if they were smart, buccaneers and
• 52:49
  Speaker 1: pirates and smugglers and privateers all had invested their gains.
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: And so now these guys, a lot of them were
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: no longer criminals. They owned plantations, they owned legit businesses,
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: and there seemed to be a rule of imperfect law
• 53:05
  Speaker 1: spreading throughout the Caribbean. And that's kind of that's kind
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: of the story, but it is.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: It's so interesting. It's like we started with all of
• 53:14
  Speaker 2: this pillage and violence, and I'm gonna come back to
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: this thing that I think we were both taken by.
• 53:21
  Speaker 2: The legal version of piracy is almost like is much
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: more of a free for all than this version, at
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: least of the illegal version, right, I don't know. It's fascinating,
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: and there's a lot.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: Of there's a lot of stuff we found for tangents
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: and trivia that we might save for a future episode.
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: I think we'll call the Day now.
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: Oh, one fact, we can say the eye patch wasn't
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: always to cover up a damaged eye, because there were
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: no electric lights and it could be dangerous to have
• 53:51
  Speaker 1: a lot of lights inside a wooden ship. Often the
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: eye patch was used to keep one eye in the dark,
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: so that when you suddenly ran below deck, you could
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: take the patch off and your eye would already be
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: used to low light.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: Way. Yeah, that's alway. That's literally just taught me something
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: brand new. I assumed it was maybe for like sharpshooting,
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: you know, yeah, maybe, But I love this idea that
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: it was to help, you know, have your eye quickly
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: already adjusted to the dark. That's very interesting.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Or else they were all just very bad at not
• 54:25
  Speaker 1: hitting things with it.
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: Who knows, Yeah, who knows.
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: We can't wait to uh, we can't wait to explore
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: more strange, ridiculous things with you folks. We want to
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: give a big, big thanks to our super producer and
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: assassins create consultant, mister Max Williams and Noel. I gotta
• 54:45
  Speaker 1: I gotta tell you, I gotta ask you too. If
• 54:49
  Speaker 1: you had been press ganged into the Royal Navy and
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: a pirate ship came by and robbed your ship and said, hey,
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: do you want.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: To join with us? What would you do? Pee pee
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: a little probably, and then just say whatever you say, sirs,
• 55:11
  Speaker 2: I'll be your stooge, I'll be your I'll be your schmi,
• 55:15
  Speaker 2: play nice until you can get the shore. Right. Yeah,
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: I'd probably be a bit of a smi figure. I
• 55:21
  Speaker 2: remember Schmi.
• 55:21
  Speaker 1: That was from Pirates of the Caribbean, right, believe Peter Pan,
• 55:26
  Speaker 1: Peter Pan.
• 55:27
  Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
• 55:28
  Speaker 1: Another another we could maybe do an episode on Peter
• 55:32
  Speaker 1: Pan because that is a messed up origin story as well.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: Sorry for another day though. Yeah. I think it's called
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: what Finding Neverland? I think that's the book about it.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: It's very very sad, but yeah, man, thank you for this.
• 55:46
  Speaker 2: This pirate's romp Ben who, by the way, has also
• 55:50
  Speaker 2: served as the research executive on this particular episode. So
• 55:55
  Speaker 2: much cool stuff in the world of piracy and I
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: literally learned like six new things today.
• 56:00
  Speaker 1: So thank you and big big thanks to Jonathan Strickland.
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: Oh wait he only gets one. Keep that part in
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: next uh, big big, big big thanks of course. Chris
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: Arrassio deceives jeffco Alex Williams who composed this slap and
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: bop and big thanks to you.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: Noel looks like, I don't know.
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: I think maybe we stick with podcasting for now before
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: we stick a little pirate.
• 56:24
  Speaker 2: Tammy pirate radio. Let's try that. We'll see next time. Puts.
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 56:38
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.