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

0:00
Speaker 1: Fellow ridiculous historians. We are still riding the wave of
0:04
Speaker 1: Baja Mar. We returned recently with a two part series
0:08
Speaker 1: about pirates, and in our conversation, we realized there was
0:12
Speaker 1: no better way to continue to continue our piracy phase
0:18
Speaker 1: obsession than by returning to a classic episode about that
0:23
Speaker 1: time pirates had a government.
0:25
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were super egalitarian, those pirates. You think they
0:28
Speaker 2: think of them as bloodthirsty rape and pillagers, but in
0:31
Speaker 2: fact they were all about doing things by committee.
0:34
Speaker 1: Yeah, pretty often. They seemed to be quite progressive, especially
0:39
Speaker 1: considering the colonial powers at the time, or in comparison
0:44
Speaker 1: to those and less.
0:45
Speaker 2: You know, we did make the point in the episode
0:47
Speaker 2: that we did at Baha Maar that we're not trying
0:49
Speaker 2: to romanticize them too much because they definitely raped and
0:51
Speaker 2: pillage a plenty. They weren't just out there doing secret ballots,
0:55
Speaker 2: but they did have a pretty robust system of governments
0:59
Speaker 2: that they used in a kind of almost pirate utopia situation.
1:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's strange because it was sort of a marriage
1:08
Speaker 1: of convenience, like when a bunch of gangs will team
1:12
Speaker 1: up in a film to fight against a larger threat aliens.
1:17
Speaker 2: FBI.
1:17
Speaker 1: Yes, sure, this is the golden age of piracy was
1:21
Speaker 1: thought to be a time of lawless, terrifying, ridiculous history.
1:26
Speaker 1: But in this episode from a few years back, while
1:30
Speaker 1: we were recording at Baja Mar, we realized we were
1:34
Speaker 1: in the Bahamas, the very same place where, according to
1:39
Speaker 1: some pirates, once upon a time had a government.
1:42
Speaker 2: And we loved all this pirate talk so much that
1:44
Speaker 2: we did a bunch of resoarch that didn't even make
1:46
Speaker 2: it into our contractually obligated pirate episode. So we've got
1:50
Speaker 2: another one coming your way very soon, and then a
1:52
Speaker 2: pile that we're gonna sprinkle a little further on down
1:55
Speaker 2: the line, but we're going to talk about a pirate
1:57
Speaker 2: of the Midwest of the Great Lakes.
2:00
Speaker 1: And then we're also going to explore the Barbary Coast
2:04
Speaker 1: in depth. So stay tuned for both of those episodes,
2:08
Speaker 1: as well as a secret episode.
2:10
Speaker 2: For now.
2:11
Speaker 1: Please tune in to our classic for this weekend New
2:15
Speaker 1: Providence That time Pirates had a government. Asterisk Ridiculous Histories
2:23
Speaker 1: a production of iHeartRadio. Ridiculous Histories a production of iHeartRadio.
2:52
Speaker 2: Yoho Ho.
2:53
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as
2:56
Speaker 1: always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up
2:59
Speaker 1: for the buccaneer, the privates here of ridiculous History, super
3:03
Speaker 1: producer mister Rex Williams.
3:06
Speaker 2: Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum or something
3:12
Speaker 2: they loved, drum they did. It's a little sugary for
3:15
Speaker 2: my taste.
3:15
Speaker 1: I'm not yeah.
3:18
Speaker 2: That's true. I do like a tiki drink, though. I
3:21
Speaker 2: really like a tiki drink, and a lot of those
3:23
Speaker 2: do contain rum, but it's not like required, and it's.
3:25
Speaker 1: Mixed with so many fruit juices. And there's this presentation
3:29
Speaker 1: the equim ball. There's a great tiki bar that we
3:32
Speaker 1: always try to go to when we're in LA and
3:35
Speaker 1: we can tie. Yeah, we go to see we go
3:39
Speaker 1: to We go to this tiki bar whenever we have
3:42
Speaker 1: time in town. And it's a little place, but they
3:44
Speaker 1: serve these amazing drinks and you have to be really
3:48
Speaker 1: careful with those too, man, because I could drink like
3:51
Speaker 1: one and then I think it's time to eat trash
3:54
Speaker 1: street food and go to bed.
3:55
Speaker 2: Well, which is easy to do in LA. But also
3:57
Speaker 2: I think tiki t or tiki tie is like in
4:00
Speaker 2: the pantheon of like great American tiki bars. They invented
4:05
Speaker 2: some drink there, some form of corpse revivor or whatever
4:10
Speaker 2: it was. I mean again, I can't think of that.
4:12
Speaker 2: Robert Lamb of stuff to splow your mind is the
4:14
Speaker 2: guy that turned us onto the spot in the first place.
4:16
Speaker 2: But it's super cool if you're ever there. It's also
4:19
Speaker 2: right by the Scientology like studio backlot. It's like Scientology
4:25
Speaker 2: just sort of bought a lesser like studio. It has
4:28
Speaker 2: the gates and everything, and it's got all these billboards
4:31
Speaker 2: for their propaganda stuff. But we don't want to get
4:33
Speaker 2: sued by the Church of Scientology, so let's talk about
4:35
Speaker 2: pirates instead. Yeah.
4:37
Speaker 1: Also, also, we were very respectful when we got two
4:41
Speaker 1: or three cocktails deep and ran around and had a
4:44
Speaker 1: boot like photo shooting.
4:45
Speaker 2: For the church. So thank you. We didn't hop the
4:47
Speaker 2: gate fully.
4:48
Speaker 1: We just peek through, which is fine, which is totally fine.
4:52
Speaker 1: I'm Ben your nol and we're talking there we go
4:57
Speaker 1: when most people today in the West think of historical pirates,
5:02
Speaker 1: not modern day pirates, which are definitely thing we kind
5:05
Speaker 1: of think in terms of larger than life fiction. Long,
5:08
Speaker 1: John Silver's not the restaurant. I still don't know anyone
5:11
Speaker 1: who goes that restaurant. I don't know how they're open.
5:13
Speaker 2: I do have one near my eyes. I do not go.
5:15
Speaker 2: It's like there's a Long John Silver and a red Lobster,
5:18
Speaker 2: sort of the last bastions of like fast food seafood,
5:22
Speaker 2: you know, yeah.
5:23
Speaker 1: Yeah, oh, and then Captain D's. I don't know if
5:26
Speaker 1: that's still around.
5:27
Speaker 2: It's pronounced cap'n. It's like crunch. Okay, it's still around. Yeah,
5:32
Speaker 2: maybe I'm misconsuring my captain versus captains. Yeah, Long John
5:37
Speaker 2: Silver's and Captain D's I think famously not great, but
5:42
Speaker 2: I think they're part of one of the or at
5:44
Speaker 2: least Long John Silver is part of one of those
5:46
Speaker 2: big hospitality groups that's like owns like a bunch of
5:49
Speaker 2: other fast food restaurants. You will sometimes see a combination
5:53
Speaker 2: Long John Silvers and uh whatever. Yeah exactly, so, yeah,
6:00
Speaker 2: you're right, you're right.
6:01
Speaker 1: This is it's young brands, young brands who own so
6:04
Speaker 1: much stuff. That's that's exactly what you're talking about, nol.
6:08
Speaker 1: They they they're the same folks who own Pizza Hut, KFC,
6:12
Speaker 1: Taco Bell, and like hundreds of other things. Then Long
6:17
Speaker 1: John Silver's. Weirdly enough, you know, maybe we should do
6:21
Speaker 1: store fast food origin stories in a later episode. We're
6:25
Speaker 1: gonna get to the pirates. We're getting there with this
6:28
Speaker 1: segue long. John Silver's, the restaurant in the US is
6:32
Speaker 1: named after a character, a pirate in a beautiful novel
6:37
Speaker 1: called Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson. And when we
6:42
Speaker 1: when we think about this, when we think about pirates
6:44
Speaker 1: in the West, we think about things like Johnny Depp
6:46
Speaker 1: and Pirates of the Caribbean, or that ride at Disney,
6:50
Speaker 1: Pirates of the Caribbean, And there are Pirates of the
6:53
Speaker 1: Pancreas or Pirates of the Pancreas from It's.
6:56
Speaker 3: Ricksteil Probaly, don't insult the Pirates of the Pancress gets
6:58
Speaker 3: fair offended.
6:59
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true.
7:00
Speaker 1: He's put a lot of energy into that one. And
7:03
Speaker 1: who are we to call someone's creative baby ugly?
7:06
Speaker 2: Uh?
7:07
Speaker 3: And they're real pirates, They're not all like whitewashed like
7:10
Speaker 3: you know Disney pirates are right. I'm not going to
7:12
Speaker 3: say the next line because it is not culturally acceptable.
7:16
Speaker 1: So so, Noel, when you and I were talking about this,
7:20
Speaker 1: when we knew it might end up being a two
7:23
Speaker 1: parter or We're gonna see how it goes.
7:25
Speaker 2: But what do you think.
7:27
Speaker 1: Of when you hear the word pirate, like historical pirates,
7:31
Speaker 1: not modern day Somali pirates.
7:34
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think of what we were sort
7:36
Speaker 2: of joking about at the top of the show. I
7:38
Speaker 2: think of peg legs and parrots and you know, rum
7:42
Speaker 2: and body rhymes and and and sword fights, walk the plank, cap' hook,
7:48
Speaker 2: all that kind of stuff. But also I do think
7:50
Speaker 2: of like a crew, you know, like like a like
7:53
Speaker 2: a like a like a captain in charge of a crew.
7:55
Speaker 2: And I guess modern day pirates like that will perhaps
8:00
Speaker 2: hijack ships, cargo ships. I mean, it really was a
8:03
Speaker 2: lot of that, you know, basically heists on the on
8:07
Speaker 2: the high seas.
8:08
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, one hundred percent nailed it. These comedic takes
8:12
Speaker 1: on pirates in fiction, these romanticized takes, they can be
8:15
Speaker 1: a lot of fun, but parts of those tropes don't
8:18
Speaker 1: line up with real world pirates. Today, we're asking whether pirates,
8:24
Speaker 1: these tremendously anti authoritarian criminals, whether they actually made a
8:30
Speaker 1: government of their own. You see this reference in video games.
8:34
Speaker 1: You see this referenced in fiction and novels. And films.
8:40
Speaker 1: To answer this question, we have to look at something
8:42
Speaker 1: called the Golden Age of piracy. Depending on who you ask,
8:47
Speaker 1: this is from like the mid sixteen hundred.
8:51
Speaker 2: Yeah, Golden doo. It's funny you say that.
8:53
Speaker 1: Because, like so many historical ages, the name Golden Age
8:58
Speaker 1: of piracy doesn't become a thing until well after the
9:02
Speaker 1: actual age has passed.
9:04
Speaker 2: Now and most importantly, Ben it's a combination Long John
9:09
Speaker 2: Silvers at Taco Bell, which does exist. There's a whole
9:12
Speaker 2: Reddit thread devoted to this wondrous thing that exists, apparently
9:16
Speaker 2: upon the face of God's green Earth. I'll try their
9:19
Speaker 2: case ideas. I don't know. I don't know. Long John
9:21
Speaker 2: Silver what you do is you go to the Long
9:23
Speaker 2: John Silvers, get you some fish fingers, then go over
9:25
Speaker 2: to Taco Bell or do you a case of da
9:27
Speaker 2: and then just kind of combine them, you know, by hand. Right,
9:30
Speaker 2: So this time, this goldeny.
9:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, this halcion era is more complicated than we might
9:37
Speaker 1: initially assume, especially if we're only watching Disney movies about it.
9:41
Speaker 1: Not all of the people we call pirates originally wanted
9:45
Speaker 1: to be criminals, and most didn't have a weird like
9:49
Speaker 1: specific er. Maybe pirate accent. They came from all parts
9:54
Speaker 1: of Europe and different parts of the world. They sounded
9:58
Speaker 1: like where they grew up, and sometimes they got Sometimes
10:02
Speaker 1: a lot of times people didn't want to be pirates.
10:04
Speaker 1: They ship mutinat because the navies at the time really sucked,
10:08
Speaker 1: or they ended up getting kidnapped themselves and joining up
10:13
Speaker 1: because they needed a job.
10:16
Speaker 2: Guys, is the providence of the pirate accents? Is this
10:20
Speaker 2: sort of like it seems vaguely Irish or something, or
10:23
Speaker 2: vaguely European, But is it just does it sort of
10:25
Speaker 2: just morph due to isolation? Is that sort of the
10:28
Speaker 2: idea that's implied with these bizarro pirate drawls.
10:33
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of times it does sound like it
10:36
Speaker 1: might be some kind of Irish. It's really it's a
10:39
Speaker 1: caricature of a dialect called West Country English.
10:45
Speaker 2: Okay. And so the.
10:47
Speaker 1: Reason we have this come about is because of those
10:51
Speaker 1: works of fiction. Treasure Island comes out in nineteen thirty
10:54
Speaker 1: four and then Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn. It's strange
11:01
Speaker 1: because we see it's kind of like how Santa Claus
11:05
Speaker 1: as we know it was made by the Coca Cola company.
11:08
Speaker 1: The pirate accent is a work of entertainment.
11:13
Speaker 2: Percent And you bring up a really great point in
11:16
Speaker 2: this outline ban it's important to establish when we're talking
11:19
Speaker 2: about this golden age of piracy. Uh, sometimes we're talking
11:23
Speaker 2: about the wrong thing. Pirate is not the same as
11:27
Speaker 2: a privateer. Oh Yeah's let's establish some terms upfront, because
11:33
Speaker 2: what allowed this profession to flourish was the fact that
11:38
Speaker 2: it was technically on the right side of the law
11:40
Speaker 2: and could be considered just that a profession.
11:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's really sketchy. It's kind of like I started
11:47
Speaker 1: to think of a modern analogy, dude. It's kind of
11:50
Speaker 1: like bounty hunters, which are technically, you know, they're on
11:53
Speaker 1: the right side of the law. They bend the law
11:55
Speaker 1: pretty often. Not all pirates are created equal. Like you said,
12:00
Speaker 1: there were several distinct names for groups that sailed the
12:04
Speaker 1: high Seas, And we don't have to get into all
12:06
Speaker 1: the differences and details and nuts and bolts of buccaneer
12:10
Speaker 1: versus pirate and so on or corsair, et cetera, but
12:14
Speaker 1: we do need to know the difference between privateer and pirate.
12:20
Speaker 1: Pirate is the most general term for outlaws on the
12:24
Speaker 1: high seas law in order maritime crimes. It comes from
12:28
Speaker 1: a Greek word, the purates, which means brigand, and it
12:33
Speaker 1: was since like the thirteen hundreds, pirate has been a
12:37
Speaker 1: term used for anyone who's committing crimes on the ocean,
12:42
Speaker 1: and usually the folks who are thinking of when we
12:44
Speaker 1: think of pirates, they're bandits on the water. They're violent,
12:48
Speaker 1: they intimidate people, they raid ships at sea, or you know,
12:51
Speaker 1: Viking style, they raid coastal settlements.
12:54
Speaker 2: Isn't that funny too? How the word then became associated
12:56
Speaker 2: with like bootlegging stuff, you know, like pirate music or whatever,
13:01
Speaker 2: or like piracy in terms of like copyright infringement. I
13:05
Speaker 2: wonder when that started to kind of come into being,
13:08
Speaker 2: and if it was just sort of like an accident
13:10
Speaker 2: maybe like a term that sort of took off and
13:12
Speaker 2: got popular, or if there is some etymological crossover there.
13:17
Speaker 1: I bet there's also a pr spin because remember the
13:20
Speaker 1: three of us are the generation where you would go
13:23
Speaker 1: to the movies once upon a time and you'd see
13:25
Speaker 1: those PSAs that were like, you wouldn't download a car?
13:29
Speaker 1: Would you stop piracy? I think it helped the powers
13:33
Speaker 1: that be to compare people downloading stuff illegally to pirates
13:39
Speaker 1: raiding ships.
13:41
Speaker 2: But it does look as well like the term piracy
13:43
Speaker 2: began to be used in its more current form due
13:47
Speaker 2: to some court cases, some old court cases that began,
13:51
Speaker 2: like in the in the eighteenth century, piracy was being
13:54
Speaker 2: used to describe the act of infringing on one's copyright. Nice, yeah,
13:59
Speaker 2: the idea being theft.
14:00
Speaker 1: And we'll get to why that rings true a little
14:04
Speaker 1: later in our show today. All Right, privateers make the
14:07
Speaker 1: sexcellent point. Privateers are pirates with a co sign I
14:12
Speaker 1: would call them. They get these letters of mark, kind
14:15
Speaker 1: of like it's similar to the patent letters or letters
14:18
Speaker 1: of patent we talked about snake oil. Right, So, a
14:21
Speaker 1: country's authorities in the midst of the big colonial powers
14:25
Speaker 1: all trying to take possession of the land across the Atlantic.
14:29
Speaker 1: These big colonial powers will issue commissions to privately owned
14:34
Speaker 1: vessels and they'll say, hey, if you see a ship
14:38
Speaker 1: from another country or someone who doesn't work for us
14:42
Speaker 1: trying to move goods, blood and treasure, then go get them,
14:46
Speaker 1: sick them, and you've got our approval to do that.
14:51
Speaker 1: They were private armies, they were mercenary armies. Often whenever
14:54
Speaker 1: there was a war, a lot of letters of mark
14:57
Speaker 1: went out and a lot of privateers went to seek
15:01
Speaker 1: their fortune. But just like our pal Jesse James, you know,
15:06
Speaker 1: when the war ends and your only skill set is
15:10
Speaker 1: waging war, sometimes you just keep doing it on the
15:15
Speaker 1: other side.
15:15
Speaker 2: Of the wall. That's exactly right. Once maybe some of
15:26
Speaker 2: the more legitimate prospects dried up, a lot of these
15:30
Speaker 2: folks just kind of went and forged their own path.
15:33
Speaker 2: Good example is sixteen ninety one, a guy named Thomas two,
15:37
Speaker 2: who was born into a British colony in what is
15:40
Speaker 2: today Rhode Island, took one of those charges that you mentioned, Ben,
15:44
Speaker 2: one of these commissions from the Governor of Bermuda for
15:49
Speaker 2: a privateering vessel a voyage to Africa to take over
15:54
Speaker 2: a French fort that was located on the Gambia River. However,
15:58
Speaker 2: instead of following instructions and attacking the French forts as instructed,
16:05
Speaker 2: he and his crew decided to sail to the Indian
16:07
Speaker 2: Ocean and plundered a ship, a Moughle ship which was
16:12
Speaker 2: that would have been what like an Indian trading vessel,
16:15
Speaker 2: probably loaded down with spices and all kinds of valuable
16:20
Speaker 2: trade goods.
16:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of stuff that you just couldn't get
16:24
Speaker 1: in Europe.
16:24
Speaker 2: So this guy went rogue right away. He didn't like
16:27
Speaker 2: wait for he didn't do the job and then be like,
16:30
Speaker 2: you know what, I think I could do better, strike
16:31
Speaker 2: out on my own. He just like like, screw this,
16:34
Speaker 2: I'm doing the I'm gonna knock over this Spice ship.
16:38
Speaker 1: I like to say knockover too. Yeah, he was just like, guys,
16:42
Speaker 1: who's gonna stop us? The king isn't here on the boat.
16:47
Speaker 1: It's us, bros. Let's hurt people. So privateers were crimes, right,
16:53
Speaker 1: Let's do crimes. So privateers were mercenaries. And the key
16:56
Speaker 1: difference again was just the approval of a colone power.
17:00
Speaker 1: Oh there's one other big difference. Unlike out now pirates,
17:04
Speaker 1: privateers are expected to share their loot with their patron government.
17:09
Speaker 1: So you can go, h you can go rob and
17:12
Speaker 1: pillage a Spanish ship, but you have to go back
17:15
Speaker 1: to the nearest English governor and give them their cut.
17:19
Speaker 1: This is organized crime, oh absolutely.
17:21
Speaker 2: And for like a colonizing force like the British government,
17:24
Speaker 2: this sort of is a way of extending their naval
17:26
Speaker 2: reach right like and and keeping those that maybe would
17:30
Speaker 2: seek to uh overturn their supremacy at bay, right, like
17:35
Speaker 2: just because you know, by by promising treasure and glory
17:38
Speaker 2: and all that stuff, you essentially not having to pay
17:41
Speaker 2: these people because they're getting paid with what they get
17:44
Speaker 2: and then you're taking your cut, your tribute. But they're
17:47
Speaker 2: also like wreaking havoc on all these foreign vessels, right, yeah, exactly.
17:53
Speaker 1: This is the this becomes a revenue stream for these
17:59
Speaker 1: colonial power hours. For instance, in fifteen sixty eight, a
18:03
Speaker 1: privateer we may know named Francis Drake takes part in
18:07
Speaker 1: an excellent rapper. Yes, yeah, yeah, before he got into wrap,
18:12
Speaker 1: even before Degrassi, he was a privateer and he was
18:15
Speaker 1: in the Battle of San Juan de Ulua in modern
18:19
Speaker 1: day Mexico, and he fought the Spanish and even though
18:23
Speaker 1: he did get he did get whooked. When he came
18:26
Speaker 1: back he had over forty thousand British pounds worth of
18:31
Speaker 1: gold and silver. This was great news for the Crown.
18:36
Speaker 1: These people were called Elizabeth's sea dogs for a while because,
18:40
Speaker 1: like you said, they were kind of an off the
18:42
Speaker 1: books army, and they got sent around not just to
18:45
Speaker 1: rob resources from other colonial powers, but they also got
18:49
Speaker 1: sent around because the monarchy wanted to make money off
18:52
Speaker 1: the slave trade.
18:54
Speaker 2: Yikes. And this was like early days of the slave trade.
18:56
Speaker 2: I mean, at least in terms of you know, a
18:59
Speaker 2: global slave trade. So I mean these Sea Dogs and England,
19:05
Speaker 2: if you can imagine, really were kind of the layers
19:08
Speaker 2: of the groundwork for this whole you know, despicable industry
19:12
Speaker 2: that would inevitably take the world by storm.
19:15
Speaker 1: One hundred percent.
19:16
Speaker 2: Man.
19:17
Speaker 1: And what we're saying it was a chaotic time. The
19:20
Speaker 1: colonial powers were functioning like large international criminal syndicates France, Spain, England.
19:28
Speaker 1: They're making them breaking alliances. They're all trying to grab
19:32
Speaker 1: a piece of what they called the New World. And yeah, spoiler, No,
19:36
Speaker 1: they didn't ask the people who already lived there for
19:39
Speaker 1: their opinions.
19:41
Speaker 2: Absolutely not. And Ben, I think it's something that we've
19:43
Speaker 2: all seen, like in you know, whether it be sortain
19:47
Speaker 2: sorcery type shows or maybe historical dramas, the idea of
19:51
Speaker 2: you don't steal from certain folks, right like like if
19:56
Speaker 2: someone is under the protection of a certain government, you know,
19:59
Speaker 2: and and then you maybe do go rogue and steal
20:02
Speaker 2: from the wrong crew. Because of the whole criminal nature
20:06
Speaker 2: of the enterprise. Let's just call it what it is.
20:08
Speaker 2: You could then be coming home to a real problem,
20:13
Speaker 2: having a price on your head.
20:14
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, yeah, and that happens throughout history. And Okay,
20:19
Speaker 1: so most of the pirate fiction we mentioned earlier, it's
20:22
Speaker 1: based on this one period of time, just like so
20:25
Speaker 1: many Great Western films are based on the Yeah, based
20:30
Speaker 1: on a relatively short period of time called the Wild West.
20:34
Speaker 1: Like we said, gold nature piracy refers to You'll get
20:39
Speaker 1: some different opinions, but like anywhere, from the mid sixteen
20:42
Speaker 1: hundreds to the seventeen thirties, pirates were roam in the
20:46
Speaker 1: ocean everywhere. In general, there are like three distinct periods.
20:51
Speaker 1: The buccaneers from sixteen fifty to sixteen eighty, those guys
20:55
Speaker 1: were more focused in attacking settlements and ports. And then
20:59
Speaker 1: the second age would be something called the pirate round.
21:02
Speaker 1: It's around because if you look at a map, it's
21:05
Speaker 1: a predictable trade route that follows maritime commerce. So whatever
21:11
Speaker 1: wherever these ships piled with goods are going, where places
21:15
Speaker 1: like the East India Company go, the pirates follow in
21:18
Speaker 1: their wake, sometimes with the approval of other countries, other
21:23
Speaker 1: colonial powers.
21:24
Speaker 2: Then we also have, you know, an era that comes
21:27
Speaker 2: right after the War of Spanish Succession, which you know,
21:32
Speaker 2: it ends up leaving a ton of Anglo American sailors
21:36
Speaker 2: and these privateers looking for work. So they've got you know,
21:41
Speaker 2: we talked about that skill set, right like Jesse James
21:44
Speaker 2: and all that. They know how to sail, but they
21:46
Speaker 2: don't have an army to sail for. They don't have
21:48
Speaker 2: the co sign of a government. So they're like, not
21:51
Speaker 2: going to starve, They're going to apply their trade. Right.
21:54
Speaker 2: So in a lot in a lot of ways, these
21:56
Speaker 2: governments made their own monsters, didn't they you know what
22:00
Speaker 2: I mean, they very much did. Yeah. So these folks
22:02
Speaker 2: are now like, you know what, to the Caribbean, where
22:06
Speaker 2: we will become the titular pirates of said Caribbean or
22:10
Speaker 2: the Indian Ocean or the West African coasts. Yeah.
22:14
Speaker 1: And during each of these three periods, piracy in the
22:18
Speaker 1: Caribbean rises when conditions are right, and it fizzles out
22:23
Speaker 1: when those conditions change. So what made the Golden Age
22:26
Speaker 1: so golden?
22:27
Speaker 2: For piracy?
22:28
Speaker 1: First, you need a lot of unemployed, able bodied young men,
22:32
Speaker 1: people who are out of work. They're desperate to survive.
22:35
Speaker 1: You need a clear network of shipping and commerce. Right,
22:40
Speaker 1: you need prey for predators to exist. These pirates they
22:43
Speaker 1: need dev guns and ships and weapons. Most importantly, there
22:47
Speaker 1: has to be little to no rule of law. I
22:50
Speaker 1: don't want to give a shout out to eleanor Evans
22:53
Speaker 1: over a history extra who in formed a lot of
22:57
Speaker 1: what we know about the difference between privateers and pirates.
23:00
Speaker 2: And then just to your point about the wild West,
23:02
Speaker 2: that lack of rule of law is always what really
23:05
Speaker 2: set things off in some of these border towns, and
23:08
Speaker 2: you know, some of these kind of frontier towns. You
23:10
Speaker 2: might have yourself a sheriff, you know, but that's not
23:14
Speaker 2: going to be merely enough in the face of like
23:16
Speaker 2: all of the lawless nests that came with that period.
23:19
Speaker 2: And with this we're talking about the open seas, man, Like,
23:23
Speaker 2: how can you police the open seas without like just
23:27
Speaker 2: a constantly deployed naval force. And it's just all of
23:31
Speaker 2: these cross forces and cross interests bashing against one another.
23:35
Speaker 2: During this time, it really was, you know, to your point,
23:38
Speaker 2: a perfect storm of badassery and bad frankly bad attitudes.
23:44
Speaker 1: Ben frankly bad attitudes, and all agreed colonial empires were
23:48
Speaker 1: expanding across the globe, and they were often fighting any
23:52
Speaker 1: number of other people, you know, native empires who said, hey,
23:56
Speaker 1: we've got our own thing going on, stay away other
23:59
Speaker 1: right European powers. So it's no surprise that they weren't
24:04
Speaker 1: able to watch every maritime falling sparrow. They were unable
24:08
Speaker 1: to combat or even find or know about every single
24:12
Speaker 1: pirate ship interdicting valuable shipments, resource and treasure. Think about it,
24:17
Speaker 1: there are compelling reasons for you to be a pirate.
24:20
Speaker 1: You got no laws you have to follow from a king,
24:23
Speaker 1: although you do have pirate code, which we'll talk about.
24:25
Speaker 1: You got no overbearing nobles. You might win the lottery
24:29
Speaker 1: and get tons of gold. You were also, if you
24:33
Speaker 1: were a pirate, you were primarily after gold, silver and jewels.
24:37
Speaker 1: But yeah, plunder just so, but you couldn't You wouldn't
24:42
Speaker 1: find that often in big, big amounts. So a lot
24:46
Speaker 1: of times pirates would take the cargo of a ship,
24:50
Speaker 1: whatever that resource might be, you know, cinnamon, peppercorns, beer, rum, sure, rum,
24:56
Speaker 1: and then you would you would steal that stuff and
25:00
Speaker 1: you would take it to resell it somewhere where you
25:03
Speaker 1: knew they weren't going to squeal on you to the authorities.
25:07
Speaker 1: If you are working for a navy at this time,
25:10
Speaker 1: you might have been kidnapped. You might have been press ganged, right,
25:13
Speaker 1: or a term that didn't age well people would say
25:16
Speaker 1: sometimes is shanghaiede. Just like, what's that thing where you
25:20
Speaker 1: got people drunk to fix the vote?
25:22
Speaker 2: Oh? What was that called? Oh, boy, cooping, cooping, coopy
25:26
Speaker 2: there it is hanging with mister Cooper.
25:28
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so it's kind of like coopy. Uh, these
25:31
Speaker 1: unscrupulous recruiters would get people drunk and then they would
25:38
Speaker 1: have those folks wake up on you know, like a
25:41
Speaker 1: Royal Navy ship. Haha, that was a wild Saturday you
25:45
Speaker 1: were for us?
25:46
Speaker 2: Yeah exactly, Oh man, it's true. Yeah, and then and
25:53
Speaker 2: then you've been You found a really great point on
25:55
Speaker 2: World history dot org that a lot of these uh
25:58
Speaker 2: you know, maybe workaday pirates would just gamble away their money,
26:03
Speaker 2: you know, gamble away their plunder, their ill gutten gains.
26:07
Speaker 2: But then you had some that actually kind of created
26:10
Speaker 2: like a network, you know that like had a much
26:13
Speaker 2: more forward thinking mindset and invested their doubloons correctly and
26:18
Speaker 2: invested in their own fleet of ships. And that's when
26:21
Speaker 2: you get the pirates of lore like your long John
26:25
Speaker 2: silver types. I know he wasn't real, but like a Blackbeard,
26:27
Speaker 2: and that guy was real. He commanded like a giant
26:31
Speaker 2: crew and was very organized. And it wasn't just chaos,
26:35
Speaker 2: rape and pillotry and on the high seas. It was
26:37
Speaker 2: an enterprise. It very much was.
26:40
Speaker 1: And let's talk a little bit about their gold. The
26:43
Speaker 1: most sought afterloot, as we said, was precious gems, silver
26:47
Speaker 1: and gold, because these could be sold to a dealer
26:52
Speaker 1: in a port that was low key cool with pirates,
26:55
Speaker 1: pirate haven. But coins were even better because there was
26:59
Speaker 1: no thought already to check whether or not this was
27:02
Speaker 1: dirty money. You didn't have to down yeah you did
27:05
Speaker 1: have to launder money. You could just show up with coins.
27:08
Speaker 1: And at this time, you know, there are a lot
27:10
Speaker 1: of different sorts of denominations around and yeah, you're right, No,
27:14
Speaker 1: you could just melt them down if you want it.
27:17
Speaker 1: But we're talking about like pieces of eight silver, ducats,
27:20
Speaker 1: silver pesos, Spanish, the blues.
27:22
Speaker 2: There were no like serial numbers or any kind of
27:25
Speaker 2: way of tracking them back to the bank that they
27:28
Speaker 2: came from. There was no ink cartridge that would explode
27:32
Speaker 2: when you like undid the band on them or whatever.
27:35
Speaker 1: There was a guy at the back of the tavern
27:37
Speaker 1: or brothel who would like, bite a piece of gold.
27:39
Speaker 2: I love it. Yeah, well there's already golden tooth that's
27:42
Speaker 2: terrified to me. The metal in your mouth. Oh gosh, yeah,
27:46
Speaker 2: I know, it's funny. It just becomes such like a
27:49
Speaker 2: fun you know, cliche little trope. But yeah, I mean,
27:53
Speaker 2: the golden age of piracy does likely refer to the
27:57
Speaker 2: gold that was a flowing as well, you know, because
28:00
Speaker 2: that stuff was really easy to move, It could really
28:04
Speaker 2: easily be bought and sold. But also let's not forget
28:08
Speaker 2: like that mogul shipping vessel that things like spices, things
28:13
Speaker 2: like silk, things that were rare and that you couldn't
28:16
Speaker 2: get everywhere, And there became why do you think they
28:19
Speaker 2: call it the silk road man, the pirate bay. You know,
28:23
Speaker 2: like all of this stuff was this underground black market
28:26
Speaker 2: that sprang up, you know, around the types of stuff
28:30
Speaker 2: that these pirates were hauling in.
28:32
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Yeah, most of the time, again, they
28:36
Speaker 1: weren't finding these holy grails of plunder. They were hitting
28:42
Speaker 1: up ships for things like tobacco, sugar, rum, brandy wine.
28:46
Speaker 1: You know, barrels of fur and lumber, and even flower.
28:51
Speaker 1: They would still flower because this operation could also supply
28:59
Speaker 1: the with much needed resources. Sometimes they would knock over
29:04
Speaker 1: a ship that had very wealthy VIP pastors. They would
29:07
Speaker 1: take all of those VIP's personal valuables, and they would
29:12
Speaker 1: even you know, take the clothes off their backs and say,
29:15
Speaker 1: I could sell this. I can make a ton of
29:17
Speaker 1: money on this. They would steal food because they needed
29:21
Speaker 1: to eat. They're also a working vessel at sea. They
29:24
Speaker 1: would take whatever's in the ship's medicine chest. I read
29:28
Speaker 1: one really interesting story where there's like a fishing boat
29:32
Speaker 1: that gets knocked over by a much larger pirate ship
29:35
Speaker 1: and all they take, dude, are the hats of the fishermen.
29:39
Speaker 1: The fishermen had other stuff. They have fish, you know,
29:42
Speaker 1: they're just a little boat of middle class fishermen. But
29:47
Speaker 1: the pirates had got super drunk the night before and
29:51
Speaker 1: they rolled up on this boat and they said, we
29:55
Speaker 1: are going to take your hats because we partied too
29:58
Speaker 1: hard and we all threw our hats in the water.
30:00
Speaker 2: Or last night.
30:01
Speaker 1: So they would steal all kinds of stuff, you know,
30:04
Speaker 1: the stories of treasure get exaggerated a little bit. They
30:07
Speaker 1: also took rope, tackle, you know, nails, sales anchors, all
30:12
Speaker 1: the stuff you need to run a pirate ship. But
30:16
Speaker 1: here's the question. What do you do if you've got
30:19
Speaker 1: a bunch of hot items and you can't go to
30:24
Speaker 1: port and sell them because you're a wanted band.
30:26
Speaker 2: Where do you go? Well, you mentioned those those pirate hubs, right,
30:30
Speaker 2: or those pirate havens. You know, you essentially needed what
30:33
Speaker 2: you might call today a fence. You know, he needed
30:36
Speaker 2: a place that would take your ill gotten booty and
30:39
Speaker 2: essentially I mean hold on to it, you know, well
30:43
Speaker 2: while things kind of cooled down, right, and potentially then
30:47
Speaker 2: move it for you, you know. But you also were
30:50
Speaker 2: if you weren't in one of these sort of safe spaces,
30:55
Speaker 2: you might likely have a price on your head or
30:58
Speaker 2: be you know, un wanted posters and such. So you
31:01
Speaker 2: needed these places that you referred to earlier ben as
31:04
Speaker 2: pirate havens. One such, very famous one of these was
31:09
Speaker 2: a city called New Providence. Oh yeah, there goes the neighborhood, right.
31:16
Speaker 1: This is located in the modern day Bahamas, and Spain
31:19
Speaker 1: had claimed the island of New Providence after Crystabaul Cologne
31:24
Speaker 1: legendary pill quote unquote discovered the New World. Eventually, the
31:29
Speaker 1: land changed hands and England lay claim to it. If
31:33
Speaker 1: we go back to the late sixteen hundreds, there's a
31:37
Speaker 1: guy named Henry Avery. Henry Avery is a privateer who
31:41
Speaker 1: made a boatload get it by plundering gold and silver
31:45
Speaker 1: and elephant tusk and gunpowder from these trade ships heading
31:49
Speaker 1: from India to a local harbor. And he was able
31:54
Speaker 1: to bribe the governor of New Providence of the English
31:58
Speaker 1: Bahamas at the time, a guy named Nicholas Trott, who
32:01
Speaker 1: is super important by the way in Carolina's history. He said, look,
32:05
Speaker 1: let me give you not just some gold, not just
32:08
Speaker 1: some silver, but this entire ship of elephant tusk and gunpowder.
32:12
Speaker 1: And all you have to do, my bro is, let
32:15
Speaker 1: us operate safely here. Don't jam us up, Nick, Just
32:18
Speaker 1: don't jam us up.
32:19
Speaker 2: No. So in sixteen ninety six, Avery successfully bribed the
32:26
Speaker 2: governor Nicholas trot into establishing Nassau in the Bahamas as
32:31
Speaker 2: a haven where the pirates could do their business freely.
32:36
Speaker 2: You know, like Hamsterdam in the wire, you know, like
32:40
Speaker 2: a drug free zone, but this is like a crime
32:44
Speaker 2: free zone. The governors would essentially, you know, go through
32:48
Speaker 2: the motions doing their due diligence and an act, you know,
32:53
Speaker 2: being stewards of the law, and perhaps make some you know,
32:59
Speaker 2: let's call them ceremonial attempts to stop or to shut
33:03
Speaker 2: down piracy. But it's really no different than you know,
33:06
Speaker 2: crime syndicants paying off the police, you know, or anything
33:09
Speaker 2: like that. It really is just as simple as that.
33:12
Speaker 2: If it might be made and people are lacking in scruples,
33:16
Speaker 2: then these kinds of situations will thrive one.
33:19
Speaker 1: Hundred percent, you know, and overtime as a result. That's
33:23
Speaker 1: what I mean when I say there goes the neighborhood,
33:25
Speaker 1: the place goes into decline. The governors are increasingly authorities
33:30
Speaker 1: on paper only. The pirates are becoming more and more powerful,
33:34
Speaker 1: and the federalal statistic about this. What you need to
33:36
Speaker 1: know is there's a bunch of civilian settlers and soldiers.
33:39
Speaker 1: They have a fort, French and Spanish ships team up
33:43
Speaker 1: and they attack Nassau first in seventeen oh three, and
33:46
Speaker 1: then a few years later they come back and do
33:48
Speaker 1: the same thing in seventeen oh six. So a bunch
33:51
Speaker 1: of settlers and soldiers leave at this point they cut
33:54
Speaker 1: their losses. There's a heavily damaged fort left, and there
33:59
Speaker 1: are no souls there. There's no one to enforce the
34:02
Speaker 1: laws that existed even as this place was on decline.
34:07
Speaker 1: If you look at the statistics, by seventeen thirteen, there
34:11
Speaker 1: were over one thousand pirates in this community and they
34:15
Speaker 1: far outnumbered the four hundred to five hundred people who
34:18
Speaker 1: are just regular folks. Yeah, this is what you might
34:22
Speaker 1: call a high of scummon villainy. It's starting to veester
34:25
Speaker 1: over here, right, Yeah, and the main city becomes home
34:30
Speaker 1: to folks like black Beard. We mentioned earlier pirates like
34:33
Speaker 1: Jack Rackham, Benjamin Hornegold which is just hilarious, and Sam
34:39
Speaker 1: Jay Rock was pretty cool, too fun to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
34:42
Speaker 1: these guys have good names and they these guys all
34:45
Speaker 1: used this island as a base. At some point there
34:49
Speaker 1: were six hundred pirates not just living there, but sailing
34:52
Speaker 1: from Nassau who raided shipping and shipping routes and ports
34:57
Speaker 1: from the Caribbean all the way up to Maine. A
35:00
Speaker 1: couple of them even started calling themselves the governors of
35:04
Speaker 1: New Providence. We've got a great quote from a guy
35:07
Speaker 1: named Thomas Barrow. He is quoted as saying that he
35:12
Speaker 1: is the governor of Providence, will make it a second Madagascar,
35:15
Speaker 1: and expects five or six hundred more men from Jamaican
35:19
Speaker 1: sloops to join in the settling of Providence and to
35:22
Speaker 1: make war on the French and the Spaniards. But for
35:25
Speaker 1: the English, they don't intend to meddle with them unless
35:29
Speaker 1: they are first attacked by them.
35:31
Speaker 2: Okay, And this, you know, kind of worked out for
35:35
Speaker 2: a time. They they came up with all name. I
35:39
Speaker 2: wonder if this is where the Jolly Roger came from.
35:41
Speaker 2: Probably not, I probably wasn't something that was more a
35:43
Speaker 2: flag you'ed fly at sea. But they did come up
35:45
Speaker 2: with a sort of you know name for their new institution,
35:49
Speaker 2: the Republic of Pirates, because those two things go hand
35:52
Speaker 2: in hand, you know, law and order and governance and piracy.
35:57
Speaker 2: It did avoid attacking British vessels though, right, don't poke
36:01
Speaker 2: the bear. Where it did get out about New Providence
36:04
Speaker 2: becoming the safe haven for pirates looking to have a
36:07
Speaker 2: good yoho ho and you know, kick back with some
36:09
Speaker 2: RUMs and all that stuff. And it was also a
36:12
Speaker 2: place that would essentially serve as a recruiting ground. Right.
36:15
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this place.
36:17
Speaker 1: Launched some careers in the world of piracy. It was
36:20
Speaker 1: mostly run by a group of real hard cases who
36:23
Speaker 1: are collectively called the Flying Gang. The Flying Gang is
36:27
Speaker 1: a team up that comes from a heist. In seventeen fifteen,
36:31
Speaker 1: the Spanish treasure fleet sank during a hurricane off the
36:35
Speaker 1: coast of La Florida. And when a pirate named Henry
36:40
Speaker 1: Jennings learned that these ships had sank, he devised a
36:44
Speaker 1: plan along with people like Benjamin Hornegold who we mentioned,
36:48
Speaker 1: Samuel Bellamy who he mentioned, and a guy named Charles Vaine,
36:51
Speaker 1: and he said, look, the Spanish are going to try
36:54
Speaker 1: to salvage this. They're going to try to pull the
36:56
Speaker 1: gold out from these sunken ships. We're going to be
36:59
Speaker 1: there and we're going to steal the treasure from the salvagers.
37:03
Speaker 1: They eventually called themselves the Flying Gang. And I'm trying
37:07
Speaker 1: very hard not to write parody lyrics for the Flying
37:11
Speaker 1: Gang to the tune of the Crying Game. But that's
37:14
Speaker 1: how you know, that's how colonial powers were. They don't
37:17
Speaker 1: want no more of the Flying Gang. And to your
37:20
Speaker 1: point about people starting a career, Edward Teach aka Blackbeard.
37:25
Speaker 1: He gets his start here, so does Jack Rackham, whose
37:29
Speaker 1: pirate namer street name was Calico Jack. And a lot
37:33
Speaker 1: of other people, including some female pirates like Mary Reid
37:35
Speaker 1: and a body.
37:37
Speaker 3: Yeah, and in case you guys are wondering, I'm over
37:38
Speaker 3: here on Assassin's Creed Wikipedia searching all these names because
37:42
Speaker 3: all these people are in Assassin's Creed for black Flags.
37:45
Speaker 3: So it's kind of good been in nostalgia for me
37:48
Speaker 3: right now.
37:49
Speaker 2: That's awesome, man.
37:50
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I you know, I wasn't the biggest fan
37:52
Speaker 1: of the maritime aspects of Assassin's Creed, but what a
37:55
Speaker 1: great universe they've built. And I enjoy I enjoy a
37:59
Speaker 1: couple of the games having that museum mode where you
38:02
Speaker 1: can just walk around and look at buildings. Oh yeah,
38:04
Speaker 1: I think that's the one set in Italy.
38:06
Speaker 2: Anyway, here's the idea.
38:08
Speaker 1: These guys they do their heist, the pirates take their
38:11
Speaker 1: wealth and Horne Gold and is Pal Thomas Barrow establish
38:16
Speaker 1: a new community on this island, on New Providence, and
38:20
Speaker 1: they set out to create a legitimate pirate republic. And
38:32
Speaker 1: like you said, no, honestly, a lot of these guys
38:35
Speaker 1: could be subjects to their own episodes. You know what
38:39
Speaker 1: you need to know here is somewhere in a mostly
38:41
Speaker 1: neglected part of the Caribbean that didn't have a huge
38:45
Speaker 1: population at the time, some of the area's most dangerous
38:48
Speaker 1: people put aside their typical rivalries for a common cause.
38:53
Speaker 1: It's an avengers of maritime crime, you know, heist on
38:57
Speaker 1: the high seas and they start attacking everyone except the
39:01
Speaker 1: British at first.
39:02
Speaker 2: Right, So by seventeen thirteen, the war of that War
39:07
Speaker 2: of Spanish succession. That's hard to say Spanish successions. That's
39:11
Speaker 2: what the war was about. I know, it's just literally
39:13
Speaker 2: about too many esh sounds. It was over, it had
39:16
Speaker 2: wrapped up. Thankfully, they figured it out, they figured out
39:19
Speaker 2: how to pronounce it. But many of these British privateers
39:23
Speaker 2: didn't get the memo we take for granted, like how
39:26
Speaker 2: many movies are spoiled by the existence of smartphones, You know,
39:31
Speaker 2: many problem there's that thing, but even just like in general,
39:34
Speaker 2: like in the thriller of some kind, like how easy
39:37
Speaker 2: would it be for someone just to have googled a
39:38
Speaker 2: thing or to have the correct directions they didn't get lost,
39:42
Speaker 2: or you know, for someone to be able to warn
39:43
Speaker 2: them you know, in these days it was even worse.
39:46
Speaker 2: You know, they would take months sometimes for word to
39:49
Speaker 2: reach individuals who were out in remote areas, especially during wartime.
39:53
Speaker 2: So a lot of these privateers, they did not get
39:56
Speaker 2: the news that the war was over. This is the
39:59
Speaker 2: kind of thing you hear about all the time, you know,
40:00
Speaker 2: in historical situations where perhaps an action is taken, often
40:05
Speaker 2: a tragic action due to not realizing the circumstances had
40:09
Speaker 2: completely changed.
40:10
Speaker 1: One hundred percent. Man, I'm glad you bring that up,
40:13
Speaker 1: because it reminds me of that Japanese soldier who didn't
40:17
Speaker 1: know World War two had ended for decades and decades. Also,
40:22
Speaker 1: people who were enslaved in the US who didn't learn
40:25
Speaker 1: about emancipation for quite some time. The travel of information,
40:30
Speaker 1: the frictionless travel of information, is probably one of the
40:33
Speaker 1: biggest wins of recent humanity or the thing that is
40:37
Speaker 1: going to spell the end of civilization.
40:40
Speaker 2: Maybe both, maybe both maybe, And so these you know,
40:44
Speaker 2: a lot of these these these uh, these privateers either
40:48
Speaker 2: didn't get the news or wouldn't accept it, didn't didn't
40:51
Speaker 2: think that it was true. So they, you know, slipped
40:55
Speaker 2: further and further into piracy, which actually led to a
40:59
Speaker 2: lot of you know, new blood kind of being pumped
41:03
Speaker 2: into New Providence right to join that pirate republic and
41:08
Speaker 2: causes an absolute boom in the numbers of pirates that
41:12
Speaker 2: were hanging out there.
41:13
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, And now New Providence is becoming a boom
41:17
Speaker 1: town and it's not as unified as it was. This
41:21
Speaker 1: place was only around, by the way, for a very
41:24
Speaker 1: short amount of time, a little over a decade. And
41:27
Speaker 1: over time, these pirates of New Providence, they stopped giving
41:31
Speaker 1: British ships a hall pass. A lot of these guys
41:35
Speaker 1: who were former privateers like working for England, start attacking
41:39
Speaker 1: any ship they want, British or not. At their height,
41:42
Speaker 1: they're giving themselves titles like Commodore. They're commanding fleets of ships,
41:47
Speaker 1: and they can go toe to toe with the Royal Navy.
41:51
Speaker 1: Sometimes they can even outgun it, which is a huge
41:53
Speaker 1: deal because the Royal Navy is the big dog on
41:57
Speaker 1: campus at this point.
41:59
Speaker 2: That's right, And this starts to make me think of again,
42:02
Speaker 2: perhaps some thinking more along the lines of some fiction,
42:05
Speaker 2: but this is when you know, you start to see
42:08
Speaker 2: like things like in Game of Thrones, the Golden Compass
42:11
Speaker 2: or whatever, like these like armies for hire, or even
42:14
Speaker 2: we have now today with the Wagner group, you know
42:17
Speaker 2: over there in the Ukraine or in Russia, the idea
42:22
Speaker 2: that an independent group could become so large as to
42:26
Speaker 2: rival a an official military. And even though you know
42:30
Speaker 2: right now they're at odds, there could come a time where,
42:33
Speaker 2: for enough money, maybe you could hire some of these
42:35
Speaker 2: pirate crews to do your bidding. You know who knows.
42:38
Speaker 1: Yeah, And at this point, you know, King George is
42:41
Speaker 1: starting to get a little beefed up because it was
42:44
Speaker 1: easy to ignore the crimes of these pirates as long
42:48
Speaker 1: as they were attacking the British themselves. But the British
42:53
Speaker 1: government was starting to get really concerned. They say, piracy
42:56
Speaker 1: is so out of control that we're not getting British
43:00
Speaker 1: settlers into these colonies, and if the land is unpopulated,
43:05
Speaker 1: our foreign rivals may take it over. This is not
43:10
Speaker 1: a sustainable situation. So George makes the decision. He contacts
43:14
Speaker 1: a former privateer and makes some governor Woods Rogers, and
43:20
Speaker 1: he says, Rogers, I want you to go over to
43:24
Speaker 1: New Providence, go over to this high of Scumonbility, and
43:28
Speaker 1: tell them that I will give them a pardon I
43:31
Speaker 1: will give them an act of grace, a king's pardon.
43:34
Speaker 1: This one is called a Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates.
43:39
Speaker 2: Right September fifth, seventeen seventeen, pirates would receive amnesty be
43:44
Speaker 2: forgiven of their trespasses that includes murder, just so long
43:49
Speaker 2: as they surrendered by the next January fifth of seventeen eighteen.
43:54
Speaker 2: So it's thinking a lot of blind eye kind of mentality,
43:57
Speaker 2: isn't it. It's like, we're going to unless you can,
44:00
Speaker 2: need to operate outside the law, but we need you
44:03
Speaker 2: to agree that we're putting a clock on this because
44:06
Speaker 2: this isn't gonna work forever for everyone, right, Yeah.
44:09
Speaker 1: They said, look, you will totally free pass you guys.
44:13
Speaker 1: We've had fun, we've made some friends, we've plundered some ships,
44:17
Speaker 1: we've had some laughs. But as long as you surrender
44:20
Speaker 1: by this date, by January fifth, seventeen eighteen, later they
44:24
Speaker 1: kicked the can down the road, then it's all good.
44:26
Speaker 1: And Woods was the right guy for this job because
44:30
Speaker 1: he was a former privateer and slave trader. He spoke
44:34
Speaker 1: the cultural language of the pirates, and he did convince
44:38
Speaker 1: a lot of them to take a square life. A
44:42
Speaker 1: lot of pirates accepted a pardon, but some refused to
44:46
Speaker 1: give up the game, notably folks like Jack Rackham and
44:49
Speaker 1: Edward Teach. The problem was these guys, to your point,
44:53
Speaker 1: they were living on borrow time. Either the Royal Navy
44:57
Speaker 1: or local authorities would get them soon if the party
45:00
Speaker 1: couldn't go on forever. And we'll tell you what happened there,
45:03
Speaker 1: But before we do, let's get to the heart of
45:06
Speaker 1: the question for today's episode. Was New Providence really a
45:11
Speaker 1: pirate government?
45:13
Speaker 2: Kind of? Yeah, kind of. I mean they.
45:17
Speaker 1: Had people with specific jobs, like they were organized crime, right,
45:22
Speaker 1: So the mafia has a hierarchy, They've got specific duties,
45:27
Speaker 1: they've got a code. What's the mafia code. It's not Omerta,
45:30
Speaker 1: that's code of silence, right.
45:32
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a I don't know, I just know Cosinostra.
45:36
Speaker 2: I don't know. I always thought America kind of was
45:38
Speaker 2: the mafia code, but maybe there's another one. Awesome.
45:43
Speaker 1: Yeah, but they had like, they had these rules, and
45:46
Speaker 1: just like the mafia, the pirates said, we need a
45:49
Speaker 1: code of behavior that will reduce internal conflict and maximize profits.
45:55
Speaker 1: At the same time. You can find great examples of
45:59
Speaker 1: real pirate code. We got one from a guy named
46:02
Speaker 1: bartholomewle black bart Roberts. In seventeen twenty two. He and
46:07
Speaker 1: his crew made a set of laws that are pretty
46:11
Speaker 1: they're pretty interesting. Just put a few of these on here.
46:13
Speaker 1: They're not all of them, but one of the ones
46:16
Speaker 1: that might surprise a lot of people is voting. Everybody
46:19
Speaker 1: got a vote on the ship except hostages.
46:23
Speaker 3: And jump back in one more time with Assassin's Creed.
46:26
Speaker 3: Bartholomew Black Bart Roberts is actually the secret villain of
46:29
Speaker 3: Assassin's Creed. For spoilers, he is the oh a spoiler
46:33
Speaker 3: for a game that came out of one A PS three.
46:35
Speaker 1: Next, you're gonna tell me what happened at at Ford Theater?
46:40
Speaker 3: Oh got yeah, No, but yeah he's uh he is,
46:43
Speaker 3: I forget what his role is. He's the stage. Yeah,
46:46
Speaker 3: so I saw that name and I had to jump
46:48
Speaker 3: in here. I'm going away now.
46:51
Speaker 2: No, let's give it. Let's do a max with the
46:53
Speaker 2: facts that second in the phone fallen lolge it's just
47:02
Speaker 2: for you right now fast.
47:07
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, there we go. People could vote. You
47:11
Speaker 1: had actually more of a say as an individual on
47:14
Speaker 1: a pirate ship than you did in a Royal Navy.
47:17
Speaker 2: Pretty interesting, right, I mean, yeah, there was a certain
47:20
Speaker 2: amount of equity right in this arrangement where everyone was
47:25
Speaker 2: somewhat on an equal playing field. It's very interesting. I mean,
47:29
Speaker 2: I'm sure in practice, maybe I don't know I've actually heard,
47:32
Speaker 2: you know, I think that's stuff humans in history class
47:35
Speaker 2: may have done an episode on this back in the
47:37
Speaker 2: day when I was the producer of that show. And
47:39
Speaker 2: I do feel like they really took this stuff very seriously.
47:43
Speaker 2: The idea of equality. You know, it wasn't just on paper.
47:46
Speaker 2: It wasn't like it wasn't a do as I say,
47:48
Speaker 2: not as I do. You know, everyone lived by this code.
47:51
Speaker 1: One hundred percent man, and they were surprisingly progressive in
47:56
Speaker 1: some ways. They also said in a lot of pirate code.
48:00
Speaker 1: They said, don't steal from coworkers, you know what I mean,
48:03
Speaker 1: don't hoard stuff from the crew. Don't rob. If you
48:06
Speaker 1: rob a fellow pirate, you're gonna have your nose and
48:08
Speaker 1: your ears split, and then we'll throw you ashore on
48:12
Speaker 1: like the worst island we can find. They said, no gambling.
48:16
Speaker 1: Weirdly enough, this is oddly wholesome until you think about it.
48:19
Speaker 1: They had a curfew. They said, every night you got
48:22
Speaker 1: at eight pm. You got to put out all the
48:24
Speaker 1: lights and candles. They said, if any of the crew
48:27
Speaker 1: want to sit around and drink, they have to do
48:29
Speaker 1: it on the open deck without lights. And it's not
48:32
Speaker 1: because they were worried about their bedtime. It's because lights
48:36
Speaker 1: would help you identify a ship at sea.
48:38
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was the like you know,
48:41
Speaker 2: there's another term like that cut of your jib, Right,
48:46
Speaker 2: that was one the idea of I like the cut
48:48
Speaker 2: of your jib refers to the cut of the sail
48:51
Speaker 2: on a certain ship, so that you could be identified
48:54
Speaker 2: at sea. That's how you knew you that was a friend,
48:57
Speaker 2: you know, or a friendly Right. I always assumed that
49:00
Speaker 2: you meant like jaw or something like that, But no,
49:02
Speaker 2: not the case. And this is the case too. The
49:05
Speaker 2: idea of those lights being a really important identifier. Next
49:09
Speaker 2: we have this is a very pirty one. I would argue,
49:12
Speaker 2: stay ready to fight. It runs me of that Russell
49:17
Speaker 2: Crow bit on South Park where he's fighting around the world,
49:21
Speaker 2: you know, like singing songs and something some and fought
49:25
Speaker 2: and around the world. That's very praty. Yeah, yeah, always
49:28
Speaker 2: be ready for a fight. Each man shall keep his
49:30
Speaker 2: piece cutlass and pistols at all times, clean and ready
49:34
Speaker 2: for action.
49:35
Speaker 1: We don't know what it's gonna pop off, you know
49:37
Speaker 1: what I mean. Stay frosty, stay sharp, five by five.
49:41
Speaker 1: They also have workers cop They had an early version
49:44
Speaker 1: of workers compensation. If you were crippled, or you lost
49:49
Speaker 1: a limb, or you had another very serious injury in
49:52
Speaker 1: your service with your pirate crew, you would get eight
49:55
Speaker 1: hundred pieces of eight and if you were less, if
49:59
Speaker 1: you were hurt less, egregiously, you would get a corresponding
50:04
Speaker 1: amount of money. That's pretty cool. There are many places
50:08
Speaker 1: and industries that don't bother doing that today, so that
50:10
Speaker 1: might surprise some people, some of us with stereotypes about pirates.
50:15
Speaker 1: We're not saying they're good people.
50:17
Speaker 2: We know that.
50:18
Speaker 1: Pirate code also said, hey, the captain isn't necessarily a dictator.
50:24
Speaker 1: We on the ship can all take a vote, and
50:26
Speaker 1: if we don't like the captain or a leader, we
50:28
Speaker 1: can vote them out. And again a lot of these
50:31
Speaker 1: guys are coming from the tyranny of working for merchant
50:34
Speaker 1: ships or the Royal Navy. This is super duper freedom
50:38
Speaker 1: for them. So from seventeen oh six to about seventeen
50:41
Speaker 1: eighteen these scallywags, I would argue they really did form,
50:46
Speaker 1: if not a government, a political entity because they adapted
50:51
Speaker 1: pirate code of the sea to become sort of the
50:55
Speaker 1: by laws of their haven in New Providence. And they
50:59
Speaker 1: were also very they were oddly progressive in terms of
51:03
Speaker 1: race relations.
51:04
Speaker 2: For the time. Absolutely, that's another thing that always kind
51:07
Speaker 2: of had me a little bit flummoxed, you know, in
51:10
Speaker 2: addition to the whole workers comp thing. I mean, they
51:13
Speaker 2: really were like some of the early kind of labor
51:15
Speaker 2: rights activists. It's very very interesting. Another very interesting feature
51:22
Speaker 2: of the Republic of Pirates, to your point, Bend, was
51:26
Speaker 2: the fact that Africans were considered equal members of the crew.
51:30
Speaker 2: And it's so interesting because we talked about how those
51:32
Speaker 2: privateers or originally right that was a big early form
51:38
Speaker 2: of slave trade. It would seem that what evolved and
51:42
Speaker 2: became maybe the less lawful version of those pirateers that
51:47
Speaker 2: were operating outside of the rule of law were in
51:50
Speaker 2: fact much more humane than those operating under the rule
51:54
Speaker 2: of life.
51:54
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, imagine you're attacking a ship as a
52:00
Speaker 1: pirate crew and you come to find that it is
52:04
Speaker 1: not it is not just loaded with you know, like
52:08
Speaker 1: cinnamon and pantaloons and rum. But they're also enslaved people
52:15
Speaker 1: on there. You can be kind of a hero if
52:18
Speaker 1: you're one of the folks who say, look, all the captain,
52:22
Speaker 1: you know, all you other guys, we're gonna rob you
52:24
Speaker 1: blind you who were enslaved. You can be free, you
52:28
Speaker 1: can join us. That's a hard thing to say no to.
52:32
Speaker 1: And we know that several people of American, Indian or
52:36
Speaker 1: of African background became pirate captains in their own right.
52:41
Speaker 1: One of the most famous is a guy called Black Caesar.
52:44
Speaker 1: And look, okay, so weirdly progressive pirates were surprisingly weirdly progressive.
52:51
Speaker 1: Back to our boy, Governor Woods Rogers arrives in Nassau.
52:55
Speaker 1: He's got the king's pardon. He's pitching to people. One
52:58
Speaker 1: dude accepts. He doesn't just accept. Benjamin horne Gold says, okay,
53:03
Speaker 1: I'll stop being a pirate, and Rogers says, well, you're
53:08
Speaker 1: a special case, my friend. He says, hey, ben, if
53:12
Speaker 1: you want a new job, why don't you become a
53:14
Speaker 1: trader and help me hunt down all your buddies. And
53:18
Speaker 1: so horne Gold like that goes from being a pirate
53:23
Speaker 1: to a pirate hunter, and he's chasing down all of
53:26
Speaker 1: his former colleagues, anyone who doesn't take the king's pardon.
53:30
Speaker 2: Nah, put his money? Where's not this? Yeah? This is in.
53:35
Speaker 3: Case you'all were wondering. Horn of Gold is very much
53:38
Speaker 3: a villain in Assassin's Creed Blackflow.
53:41
Speaker 2: Oh good, I was gonna ask.
53:42
Speaker 3: He starts off the game. Actually he's like one of
53:44
Speaker 3: your mentors. But no, it changes.
53:47
Speaker 2: You actually have to hunt him down at some point.
53:50
Speaker 2: He's a pill. He's a pill in real life too.
53:53
Speaker 2: But he didn't get everybody. He got around ten other
53:59
Speaker 2: salty dogs. On the morning of December twelfth, of seventeen eighteen.
54:04
Speaker 2: Nine of those fellas were.
54:07
Speaker 1: Yeah, they were executed. They were killed, Yeah, for piracy.
54:12
Speaker 1: And you wonder if they got captured. I couldn't find
54:16
Speaker 1: the answer to this. Maybe someone can help us. If
54:18
Speaker 1: those pirates got captured and they recanted their crimes, could
54:22
Speaker 1: they take the king's pardon right before they were executed?
54:25
Speaker 2: I don't know.
54:26
Speaker 1: I don't know, but like you said, no, our buddy,
54:30
Speaker 1: Benjamin Hornigold doesn't get everybody. The pirate hunters don't get
54:34
Speaker 1: everyone in New Providence. A lot of folks get away
54:36
Speaker 1: Charles Vain Blackbeard. They go on to pursue their villainous
54:40
Speaker 1: careers elsewhere in the Caribbean, and just like that, after
54:45
Speaker 1: eleven very strange years, the Republic of the Pirates is gone.
54:50
Speaker 1: And overall, as conditions change, the fortunes of the pirates
54:55
Speaker 1: in general decline in the mid seventeen twenties, and they
55:00
Speaker 1: it never became as powerful as they were for that
55:02
Speaker 1: brief time in the seventeen tens. And along the way,
55:08
Speaker 1: you know, a lot of those guys can't live that
55:10
Speaker 1: demanding life as they age. But if they were smart,
55:14
Speaker 1: buccaneers and pirates and smugglers and privateers all had invested
55:20
Speaker 1: their gains. And so now these guys, a lot of
55:22
Speaker 1: them were no longer criminals. They owned plantations, they owned
55:25
Speaker 1: legit businesses, and there seemed to be a rule of
55:29
Speaker 1: imperfect law spreading throughout the Caribbean. And that's kind of
55:34
Speaker 1: that's kind of the story.
55:35
Speaker 2: But it is it's so interesting. It's like we started
55:40
Speaker 2: with all of this pillage and violence, and I'm going
55:44
Speaker 2: to come back to this thing that I think we
55:45
Speaker 2: were both taken by the legal version of piracy is
55:49
Speaker 2: almost like as much more of a free for all
55:52
Speaker 2: than this version, at least of the illegal version, right,
55:56
Speaker 2: I don't know. It's fascinating, and there's a.
56:00
Speaker 1: Lot of there's a lot of stuff we found for
56:03
Speaker 1: tangents and trivia that we might save for a future episode.
56:07
Speaker 1: I think we'll call the Day now. Oh, one fact,
56:09
Speaker 1: we can say the eye patch wasn't always to cover
56:12
Speaker 1: up a damaged eye, because there were no electric lights
56:16
Speaker 1: and it could be dangerous to have a lot of lights.
56:19
Speaker 2: Inside a wooden ship.
56:21
Speaker 1: Often the eye patch was used to keep one eye
56:24
Speaker 1: in the dark, so that when you suddenly ran below deck,
56:28
Speaker 1: you could take the patch off and your eye would
56:31
Speaker 1: already be used to low light.
56:32
Speaker 2: Way. Yeah, that's always. That's literally just tabby something brand new.
56:36
Speaker 2: I assumed it was maybe for like sharp shooting, you know, yeah, maybe,
56:40
Speaker 2: But I love this idea that it was to help,
56:43
Speaker 2: you know, have your eye quickly already adjusted to the dark.
56:45
Speaker 2: That's very interesting.
56:47
Speaker 1: Or else they were all just very bad at not
56:51
Speaker 1: hitting things with it.
56:52
Speaker 2: Who knows, Yeah, who knows.
56:54
Speaker 1: We can't wait to We can't wait to explore more strange,
56:58
Speaker 1: ridiculous things with you, folks. We want to give a big,
57:01
Speaker 1: big thanks to our super producer and Assassin's Create consultant
57:06
Speaker 1: mister Max Williams and Noel I gotta I gotta tell you.
57:11
Speaker 1: I gotta ask you too. If you had been press
57:15
Speaker 1: ganged into the Royal Navy and a pirate ship came
57:19
Speaker 1: by and robbed your ship and said, hey, do you
57:24
Speaker 1: want to join with us?
57:25
Speaker 2: What would you do? Peep pee a little probably, and
57:31
Speaker 2: then just say whatever you say, sirs. I'll be your stooge,
57:39
Speaker 2: I'll be your I'll be your Schmie. Play nice until
57:42
Speaker 2: you can get the shore, right. Yeah, I'd probably be
57:44
Speaker 2: a bit of a Shmi figure.
57:46
Speaker 1: I remember Schmi that was from Pirates of the Caribbean, right,
57:49
Speaker 1: believe Peter Pan, Peter Pan.
57:53
Speaker 2: That's right, that's right.
57:54
Speaker 1: Another another we could maybe do an episode on Peter
57:58
Speaker 1: Pan because.
57:58
Speaker 2: That is a messed up or story as well. Story
58:02
Speaker 2: for another day. Yeah. I think it's called what Finding Neverland?
58:07
Speaker 2: I think that the book about it. It's very very sad,
58:10
Speaker 2: but yeah, man, thank you for this. This pirate's romp Ben,
58:14
Speaker 2: who by the way, has also served as the research
58:18
Speaker 2: executive on this particular episode. So much cool stuff in
58:22
Speaker 2: the world of piracy, and I literally learned like six
58:25
Speaker 2: new things today, so thank you.
58:27
Speaker 1: And big big thanks dude, Jonathan Strickland, Wait heally gets one,
58:32
Speaker 1: keep that part.
58:32
Speaker 2: In thanks, big big, big thanks of course.
58:35
Speaker 1: Chris Arrassio deceives, Jeffco, Alex Williams who composed this slap
58:39
Speaker 1: and Bob and big thanks to you.
58:42
Speaker 2: Noel looks like, I don't know.
58:46
Speaker 1: I think maybe we stick with podcasting for now before
58:48
Speaker 1: we stick full.
58:49
Speaker 2: Pirate gamy pirate radio. Let's try that. We'll see next
58:53
Speaker 2: time puts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
59:03
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
59:06
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
59:09
Speaker 2: Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.