Seafaring Sunday: A Tribute To Pirate Mothers

It's Mothers' Day in the U.S. and Canada and your humble hostess is celebrating with a strep throat and a bruised pelvis. No relation. But I know of two lovely mothers who had it far worse than yours truly. Far worse.

Anne Bonny and Mary Read went to jail for piracy in Kingston, Jamaica pregnant. Back in the day, a lady could not be hanged while she was with child so the pirates "plead their bellies" at trial and went back to what were no doubt pristine and comfortable accommodations in the Kingston jail to await delivery.

Mary died, of "fever", before giving birth. Anne, on the other hand, simply disappeared from history. It is thought that her wealthy father, then living in South Carolina, paid the Jamaican governor to extricate his daughter and his grandchild from the British and bring them home safe. But that is just speculation.

Happy Mothers' Day ladies (and gentlemen - I know a couple of you, too). Enjoy, celebrate and relax. Each and every one of you deserves it. I'm for a glass of champagne.

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Jolly

Ahoy, Brethren! First of all, forgive me for my tardiness on the post. It has been a long but extremely fruitful day and, though just this side of exhausted, I am feeling rather fulfilled. So here, a word for our usual Saturday shindig to match my mood: jolly.

The word, of course, means happy but back in the early 19th century and before "jolly" was an adjective applied to attractive, rotund people. Jack Aubrey would surely have been described in middle age as jolly. Your humble hostess has another word for sailors of similar fairness but I won't be using it here. Nautically speaking, however, jolly found more than one niche.

A jolly boat was a craft smaller than a cutter but built by the same design. Averaging four feet in the beam and twelve feet in length she was easy to carry aboard ship and good for hard work, like washing, scraping and painting in blue water.

Jolly jumpers is another name for cloud scrapers; sails set above the moon-rakers, so high it would take a right seaman to reef and let out their kind.

The word also described men and by the 18th century was the usual term among Royal Navy sailors for soldiers. A tame jolly was a militiaman. A royal jolly was a marine. One wonders how the marines felt about this application.

Finally, or should I say last but not least, there is the Jolly Roger. That ubiquitous pirate flag that so many pirates never flew. The story goes that the name is a corruption of the French jolie rouge which literally translates as "pretty red" and referred to the red flag flown aboard ships infected with plague or other contagions. The French are subtle like that. Whether or not the theory is true has yet to be proven but, being French, I stick with it for purely poetic reason.

Happy Saturday, mates. Tomorrow, a special Mothers' Day addition of Seafaring Sunday for all my U.S. sisters celebrating our designated day.

Booty: Tools Of The Trade

Navigation is no small feat. A hundred minute details have to be tended to upon the water to ensure that any ship, large or small, makes it safely to her designated destination. In fact, it's a wonder that Washington Irving's lyrical vision of travel on the seas ever became a reality. So much can go wrong that it boggles the mind. And I'm not just talking about the past here, mates.

This article from Yahoo! News is a good and abject lesson on what not to do in a boat of any kind. An English gentleman, whose name is mercifully withheld, decided last month to take his motor boat along the British coast from Medway to Southampton. His plan, which seems simple enough on the face of it, was to keep the land to his right and thus navigate safely from point A to point B. I know I don't have to tell you that it doesn't quite work that way.

Our intrepid mariner made it out into the estuary of the Thames and then things went wrong. Mistaking the Isle of Sheppey for the coast proper, he began to circle the 36 mile island repeatedly until his motor ran out of fuel and his boat ran aground. When the coastguard arrived they found, I do not hesitate to say most probably to their amusement, that the gentleman had only a road map to navigate by. Robin Castle of the local lifeboat station is quoted in the article as saying:

It seems he didn't have the usual maritime charts or navigational equipment.

British understatement is breathtaking sometimes. At any rate, no one was hurt - not even the boat - but pride must have at the very least stung. I have to hope that this gentleman has learned his lesson and that at least some rudimentary study in navigation will be attempted prior to any further maritime adventures. Or maybe he'll just bring along an old Thomas' Guide next time and figure more pages means better information.

Some people should never even look at the World's waters, much less sail upon them.

History: The General On His Deathbed

Then he crossed his arms over his chest and began to listen to the radiant voices of the slaves singing the six o'clock Salve in the mills, and through the window he saw the diamond of Venus in the sky that was dying forever, the eternal snows, the new vine whose yellow bellflowers he would not see bloom on the following Saturday in the house closed in mourning, the final brilliance of life that would never, through all eternity, be repeated.

Above is Antonio Herrera Toro's Death of Bolivar. Beneath that poignant painting is the final sentence of Gabriel Garcia Marquez' brilliant novel about Simon Bolivar's last months on Earth, The General In His Labyrinth. Bolivar, the consumate ladies' man, the original road warrior and arguably the most impressive revolutionary that ever lived (as Garcia Marquez' beautiful prose suggests) died December 17, 1830 in Santa Marta, Columbia at the age of 47.

Simon Jose Antonio de la Santisima Trinidad Bolivar y Palacios was born to a wealthy Creolo family in Venezuela on July 24, 1783. He grew to hate the Spanish overlords of his country and his continent to such a degree that he led a revolution so successful it freed half of South America. Even while he was beating back the Spanish he became the last great military leader to provide privateers with legitimate letters of marque. Until the second decade of the 19th century, Bolivarian commissions allowed men like Renato Beluche and Jean Laffite to raid Spanish shipping legally. Vain, rash, brilliant and in perpetual motion throughout his amazing life, Bolivar is one of my very few heroes.

So, of course, I was intrigued by this article from Yahoo! News sent to me by the first mate. Bolivar has returned to interest politically and historically largely because of Venezuelan Dictator Hugo Chavez' obsession with the Great Liberator. Chavez has dedicated his political "reforms" to the memory of Bolivar and frequently compares himself to the General. One of Chavez' pet theories is that Bolivar did not die of pulmonary tuberculosis, as his autopsy findings indicate, but was poisoned by former friend turned rival Francisco de Santander. And now an American has - to Chavez' mind - shown that the theory is true.

As the article indicates, Paul Auwaerter of Johns Hopkins University proposed at a medical conference last week that the cause of Bolivar's death was arsenic poisoning. According to Auwaerter, the arsenic was ingested either via contaminated water or purposeful dosing to alleviate headaches or hemorrhoids. You can read Chavez' comments on these findings for yourself but Auwaerter is clear in the article that he has concerns about his research being "misconstrued". From the article:

What I said has been taken and used for their own political means.

I have not read Dr. Auwaerter's paper on the subject. In fact I am not sure if such has yet been published. I have, however, read the published lecture of Dr.Hector O. Ventura on the cause of Bolivar's death and it comes to a very different conclusion.

Ventura's lecture was given in 2005. At the time he was Director of Cardiovascular Training at the Ochsner Medical Institutions in Buenos Aires and Professor of Medicine at Tulane University Medical Center, New Orleans. Ventura's findings are based entirely on the pre-death notes and autopsy findings of Bolivar's physician at Santa Marta, the Frenchman Prosperous Alexander Reverend.

Reverend notes on Bolivar's arrival on December 1, 1830 that "Its Excellence" was "very skinny and debilitated [in] body... hoarse voice, a deep cough... and my first impression was that he had damaged lungs..." At the autopsy, performed by Reverend himself, the doctor repeatedly refers to tuberculous deformations, calcifications and wine coloring in and of the lungs. All of these are medical signs of pulmonary tuberculosis. At no point does Reverend refer to he or any of his assistants noticing the tell-tale bitter almond smell connected at autopsy with arsenic poisoning.

I am no clinician, it goes without saying, and I would never say that the above irrefutably confirms Bolivar's cause of death. However, it is worth pointing out certain facts before anyone decides what they believe:

Most historians agree that the level of arsenic contamination in 19th century water was probably no higher, or only slightly higher, than the level of arsenic in U.S. drinking water at the end of the 20th century.

Arsenic poisoning to the point of death is usually accompanied by symptoms of vomiting, seizure and hallucinations, none of which were reported by Reverend.

Bolivar, like so many men who have changed the course of history (Julius Caesar, Martin Luther, Napoleon Bonaparte) suffered from lifelong and intractable constipation. In the 19th century, arsenic was a prescribed antidote for that unfortunate symptom of straining at the stool: hemorrhoids. (Forgive me if that was more than you wanted to know about any of the gentlemen mentioned in that paragraph).

Pulmonary tuberculosis was a widespread and easily recognized disease at the time of Bolivar's death. Reverend is referred to as a shrewd and astute clinician by Ventura. There is no reason to believe that the doctor didn't know what he was looking at.

Tuberculosis tends to run in families. Both of Bolivar's parents died of pulmonary tuberculosis and it is well documented that the Liberator contracted the disease as a boy, probably after his mother became ill.

What's my point? I have several but there's no reason to elongate this post. And so, Brethren, I will leave it up to you. Death by arsenic poisoning? An unfortunate family propensity toward pulmonary disease? Murder? Or a life so full of movement from one battle to another, one goal to another, one woman to another that the body simply gave out? Something to ponder of a Thursday afternoon.

Ships: The Workhorse Of The 19th Century

Even lubbers have heard the term "brig" in reference to a type of ship. The word gets thrown around in ersatz nautical speech just like it was a given that we all know what we're talking about. The question at that point becomes, do we?

Originally known as a brigantine, the two masted sailing ship we know today was originally used by Mediterranean corsairs. She was, in that early incarnation, lateen rigged on both masts, with only one cross tree each. Her serviceability, shallow draft and speed made her perfect for the work of pirating. But what was attractive to freebooters was also attractive to the burgeoning merchant mariners of the time. Soon enough European shipbuilders began turning out their own forms of the weatherly ships. By 1800, there were four kinds of brig sailing the waters of the world, from coastal routes to blue water.

The foremost type of brig, shown at the header of this blog, is the brigantine proper. She is ship or square rigged on her foremast with her main carrying a fore-and-aft mainsail and square topsails. This rigging makes her not only fast but agile and her shallow draft, between 7 and 11 feet, allows her to maneuver in inlets and rivers that large frigates would have no chance of sailing into. By the early 1700s her type was the first choice of pirates in waters surrounding the Americas, Europe, Africa and in the Indian Ocean. By the mid-1700s, the merchant marine had joined the pirates and larger brigs were hauling goods in most of the areas mentioned.

Another type of brig, used predominantly in Europe, was the snow. Shown at the header of this post she was brig rigged with the exception of a four-sided staysail right aft on her main. The snow was heavier and more fat-bottomed than the brig proper. This sacrifice of speed for cargo area made her impractical for pirates and privateers. She was a merchant ship all the way.

The third evolution of this type of vessel was the hermaphrodite rigged brig or simply the hermaphrodite brig. These ships, developed late in the 1700s, were not uncommon around the world but were best suited to relatively sheltered sailing where winds could come from any direction with unpredictable results. The hermaphrodite did well in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean but she thrived in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. A hermaphrodite was simply a shallow draft brig, square rigged on her foremast and fore-and-aft rigged on her main. She was surprisingly fast in all weathers and could sail closer to the wind than any square-rigged vessel regardless of size. No wonder the privateers of the early 19th century loved her.

A purely Mediterranean version of the brig was originally known as a polacre and came to be known as a polacca in some countries. She shipped pole masts - not the stepped variety seen on almost all sailing ships that allow for tops and crosstrees. Setting or reefing her single square sails must have been quite a challenge.

By the end of the Napoleonic Wars the brig in all her incarnations was in almost universal service. Many navies used her for training, while the British and in particular the Americans put her to work hunting pirates, thus fighting fire with fire. And the brig continued to thrive, used for various duties until as late as the first decade of the 20th century.

Surprisingly versatile and capable of almost anything if maintained and handled correctly, the humble brig was the unquestionable workhorse of the 19th century. If your family emigrated from somewhere in Europe, in fact, you may very well have a brig to thank for their safe journey. And that is something far more amazing than one simple word could ever encompass.

People: The Pirate Patriot Of Taiwan

War Junks in China's Anson's Bay by E. Duncan, 1834 (source)

We talked about Cheng Chih Lung, one of the founding fathers of the great Chinese pirate confederations, back in February. Cheng had the balls to meddle in Manchu politics and was summarily divested of his head for the trouble. His son, a young man who went by the lyrical names of Kuo Hsing Yeh or Koxinga, took up where Cheng left off.

Born in 1624 in Nagasaki, Japan, Koxinga was not immediately embraced by his freebooting father. His mother was Japanese and there is no real documentation of her status in relation to Cheng. She may have been one of his wives but it is more likely that she was a concubine or prostitute. Given the enmity between the Chinese and Japanese, Cheng appears to have been slow to warm to his offspring.

Once he did recognize Koxinga, however, the young man was instructed in every aspect of the family business. When his father was executed in 1646, Koxinga was ready to step up. Since the Manchu - on Cheng's unfortunate urging - had taken over Hsiamen and Fukien province, once the seat of Cheng's power, Koxinga pulled up stakes and moved his operation to Taiwan. Because of his obviously bitter hatred for the Manchu, Koxinga was followed not only by his pirates but by the remaining supporters of the now outlaw Ming Dynasty.

Koxinga went into full rebel mode, attacking and sinking (not just holding for ransom as was customary) Manchu junks, both merchant and navy. His pirates blockaded the Yangtse River at the Pacific Ocean, cutting off the Manchu seat of power, Nanking, from all trade by water.

In 1649 he began a campaign to retake his father's homeland, the island of Hsiamen (now Amboy Island) south of modern Hong Kong. He succeeded in 1650, and used the island as a base once again while maintaining his presence in Taiwan. He took back most of Fukien province, driving the Manchu out completely by 1651. The Manchu in Nanking threw up their hands and called their considerably less powerful navy off. For ten years Konxinga ruled the South China Sea as the head of the largest pirate confederation in China.

By 1659, Koxinga was following in his father's footsteps on more scores than just piracy. Approached by Ming rebels, he agreed to lend his support to their attempt to drive the Manchu out of Nanking and take back China. He sent his ships, laden with arms and Ming soldiers, up the Yangtse River. Word had been leaked to the Manchu Emperor, however. Koxinga's ships were trapped and destroyed with all aboard killed or scattered. The Ming rebellion was dead, and Koxinga's pirates had suffered heavy losses in ships, men and arms.

The Manchu, now on the offensive, took back Fukien province and breached Koxinga's island stronghold at Hsiamen. The pirate prince pulled out, and limped back to his base in Taiwan. Finding that the Dutch were making inroads into Taiwanese trade, Koxinga turned his back on the Manchu and began a campaign against the new European enemy.

He had a good deal of success, managing to keep the Dutch from colonization and keeping himself at the head of a powerful pirate operation. Though he never returned to China proper, his revamped fleet ranged from China to Japan making Koxinga and his pirates wealthy. He died of natural causes in 1683, a successful, respected sea raider.

To this day, Kuo Hsing Yeh, known as Koxinga, is considered a national hero in Taiwan. He is somewhat of a Robin Hood figure, and is remembered as both a defender of indigenous culture and a master of the sea.

Seafaring Sunday: Escalating Tensions

USS Wasp vs HMS Frolic October 1812 (source)

May 1, 1810: in retaliation for continued disrespect of America's Navy abroad, the U.S. closed her waters to all armed British and French ships. This action remembered the short lived and naval only Quasi-War with France as well as addressing the issue of British impressment of American seaman. The U.S. Navy had standing orders to sink or take as prize any ship that ignored the ban. Tensions continued to escalate with Britain, leading eventually to the War of 1812.