People: The Portuguese Poet

In the general vernacular of piratical events, the 1660s and '70s were the decades of Henry Morgan and his Jamaica buccaneers. Thumbing their nose at Spanish might, these men pounced on the Spanish Main whose strongholds had been weakened by the Frenchmen from Tortuga. They were a new breed of plunderer, successful, brutal, and facing very little in the way of obstacles on land or sea.

The truth of the matter is that Spain tried to turn the tables on Morgan during this very era and the spearhead of their privateering ventures was a man of Portuguese descent who would style himself the new Morgan. Brash, volital and at first surprisingly successful, Manuel Rivero Pardal would take up the flag against Protestant heresy on the high seas in the name of the Queen Regent of Spain.

Where Rivero came from - aside from Portugal - is open for debate. Philip Gosse lists him in The Pirate's Who's Who as "the vapouring admiral of St. Jago", which may give posterity its only clue to the pirate's origin. Stephan Talty, in his wonderful biography of Morgan Empire of Blue Water, fleshes out the elusive Rivero magnificently going so far as to call him the Don Quixote of pirates:

Rivero, at least, tilted at more than windmills and sailors' shacks. He'd taken the war to the English. He was attacking at will; he was exploiting the isolation of the Jamaican settlers; he was clearly as daring and independent as any of the privateers, not waiting for orders from Madrid. It was as if [the Jamaican buccaneers] were facing a Spanish double of Henry Morgan.

Rivero was setting up a new world order where sea captains holding a Spanish letter of marque and reprisal did not have to sit in port waiting endlessly for new orders from Spain. Orders which, it must be noted, might never come at all. They could strike when the English ship was at hand; they could ask forgiveness rather than permission. Rivero's bravado was the perfect foil for English hubris. After the sack of Portobelo, it was the shot in the arm that Spanish morale needed.

The latter day Don took his first English prize in the form of Mary and Jane, a former privateer commanded by a Dutch ex-patriot known as Captain Bart. Using the classic ruse, Rivero's San Pedro y la Fama flew English colors until she was within earshot. At that point, Rivero called out "Defend yourself, dog. I come as a punishment for heretics!" With that Fama opened fire. There was little Mary and Jane could do and, after a few cannon volleys and more than one casualty to the English crew, Bart struck. Rivero allowed many of the English sailors to row back to Jamaica with the word that he was on the hunt and then he sailed off to Santiago de Cuba with his prize in tow.

For a short period in 1670, no more than six months really, Rivero became the scourge of Jamaica. He attacked merchant ships and made raids along the shore of the island, taking not only goods but prisoners for ransom as well. He even left a written challenge to Morgan himself, saying he craved "that Morgan would come out upon the coast and seek me, that he might see the valour of the Spaniards."

The plantation owners on the outskirts of Port Royal worked themselves into a frenzy and demanded that Governor Modyford recall their hero and ersatz savior, Henry Morgan. The now Admiral had been whiling away his hours on his own large estate after "peace" with Spain had been declared.

Morgan and his men were, of course, all too happy to oblige and set off to punish the Spanish for sending their scourge. Rivero seemed to have it in for Morgan personally - something Morgan could not know at the time - for he left poetry, albeit bad, that addressed his spleen at a certain "monster":

I am the defender against this monster
I have been confirmed Captain of these coasts.
By Saint Peter, I wast the first.
My name alone is enough
To make the sea
And all these barbarians
Tremble.


Unfortunately not only for Morgan and Rivero, but for history as well, the two like-minded commanders would never meet and fight it out man to man. Coming into a quay off Cuba in hope of finding respite from a gathering storm, Rivero's Fama was surprised by Captain John Morris' Dolphin. The two ships recognized one another and engaged immediately. Almost as soon as the firefight began, Rivero's men panicked. While standing on deck exhorting his sailors to return to their posts, Rivero was caught in the neck by a musket ball. He fell, and bled out quickly, dying while all around him desperately tried to run away from what he had so eagerly sought throughout his career in the Caribbean.

Doctor Richard Browne would later write of Rivero in sarcastic terms, calling him that "vapouring captain" who was fond of "burning houses and robbing the people and sent that insolent challenge to Admiral Morgan."

A sad ending for a man who, even if half-mad, as Talty implies knew how to "die like a conquistador" and even a poet.

Header: Pirates! by Howard Pyle via Wikimedia

Ships: Small but Mighty

On August 21^st in the year of our Lord 1607, a group of Englishmen began construction on the first vessel built by Europeans in the New World. She would make her maiden voyage on the Kennebec River in what was then Massachusetts Territory and is now the sovereign state of Maine. Her builders would name her Virginia, after Elizabeth I, and her type would be recorded as a pinnace. Exactly what sort of pinnace, for there were several over the course of history, is open to debate. Two possibilities stand out in particular, so let us explore them both.

The first type of pinnace built by Europeans would probably be more recognizable to modern historians as a small galleon. This sturdy, useful vessel was originally built by the Dutch, who called her a pinas. These ships were used mostly for the merchant round from the British Isles, around the Iberian Peninsula into the Mediterranean and back. You can see a modern replica here.

According to the Chatham Dockyard website, the first pinnace of the galleon class built in England was named Sunne and launched in 1586. Shipwrecked evidence leads to the conclusion that the British may have been the first country to use the galleon-built pinnace as a warship. An English pinnace, probably from the early 17^th century and carrying 12 matching cannon, was found in 2009.

This type of ship-rigged, three masted vessel was also popular with the buccaneers of the Caribbean during the age of Laurens de Graff and Henry Morgan. Its shallow draft and light construction – the ships were often made of pine, which may be the origin of their name – made them ideal from men who were more interested in plundering on land than sailing on wave.

Another type of pinnace was being built in the same era, and its small frame and ease of design make it a more likely candidate as a descendant of Virginia. These were a sturdy ship that must more properly be called a boat and resembled the illustration at the header. Rowed with eight oars or propelled by sails on one or sometimes two masts, this pinnace would become a staple among large ship’s boats in the Great Age of Sail.

These smaller pinnaces were most often used as a tender by larger ships. They were utilized for provisioning, as mail packets, to run men or messages between ships at sea and to carry parties of men ashore when necessary. They were extremely popular with smugglers in Europe and their construction may in part have influenced the pirogue, built in the American south and used for much the same purpose.

This second type of pinnace, a smaller, lighter, less cumbersome invention, was probably what the Puritans at the mouth of the Kennebec River put together in 1607. It was only a matter of time, however, until larger ships were turned out from dockyards along the Atlantic coast. Still, the small but mighty pinnace continued and is still in use today.

Header: An American Pinnace in Virginia 1584 by Seth Eastman c 1850 via Wikipedia

Booty: Come Hell or High Water

So it looks like the good folks at Diageo, the company that makes and distributes Captain Morgan's Rum, are going to make the odd jumble of artifacts found over a year ago in Panama's Chagres River the remains of Henry Morgan's fleet.  And that, as this oh so well researched article from the Huffington Post lets us know, is just about that.

I've gnashed my teeth over this before so I won't trouble the Brethren with the many, many reasons why we are rushing to judgement by naming the artifacts as Morgan's.  I have yet to see an article that mentions carbon or any other reliable form of dating of these items.  As an old archaeologist that grinds my bones but, basically, what we have here is corporate sponsored history.  And those cannon and stuff are Morgan's, come hell or high water.

Click over to the article, which is basically just a mish-mash of quotes from other equally reliable news sources (Fox News and Popular Mechanics figure in the mix), if you are so inclined.  The only thing I can personally vouch for there are the pictures; those, it must be said, are quite lovely.

Header: The Ruyter map of the West Indies c 1747 via Wikimedia

Home Ports: An End to the Wickedest City

On June 7, 1692, all Hell broke loose in what was at the time said to be the "very seat of Satan".  Virtually the entire island of Jamaica was rocked by an earthquake that today would be considered off the scale.  And the worst damage came to the town of Port Royal which, in almost Biblical fashion, quite literally sank into the sea.

According to those who lived through the disaster, the weather had been hot and literally without a breeze for several weeks.  When I lived in Southern California, we often referred to these kinds of conditions as "earthquake weather" and Port Royal's unfortunate experience seems to hold true to that superstition.  Even here in Alaska, our earthquakes tend to come as the weather warms; the devastation of Anchorage in 1964 occurred in an unusually warm spring.

If you click on the contemporary broadsheet above, it is easy to see how the earthquake mangled the city selectively.  Areas closer to the port were built on sandy ground which liquefied during the unbearably long six minute earthquake.  Houses collapsed, people were pulled down into the newly formed quicksand, and violent geysers of sand and water erupted hurling wreckage, animals and people up into the air only to send them crashing back to the rolling earth again.  Further back, on what could be called the high ground of the city - indeed High Street, the home of most of Port Royal's elite merchant class, was located there - a limestone bedrock prevented the liquefaction of the earth.  One can see that some homes, despite being built of brick in the English fashion, remained standing.  Three forts, including Morgan's Fort at the far right, also survived.

As the water receded from the sand, being pulled back toward the Caribbean to unleash the next round of terror, people were literally trapped in the now hardened sand.  Stephan Talty in his engrossing account of the life of Henry Morgan Empire of Blue Water quotes an eye witness:

That watery hiatus closed again the next moment, catching hold of some people by the Leg, of others by the middle of the Body, and of others some by the Arm, etc., detaining them in dismal torture, but immovably fixed in the ground, till they, with almost the whole Town besides, sunk under Water. 

And, as the anonymous writer noted, the "Water" was the next horror to hit Port Royal.  The tsunami that hurtled over those who were still alive was three stories high and traveling at an estimated sixty miles an hour.  Ships, becalmed in the harbor due to the recalcitrant weather, were forced up onto land.  In a happy accident Talty tells us that one, HMS Swan, fell upon the city but managed to remain upright.  Over two hundred citizens clamored aboard her and were saved from the following sea. 

Finally the lower part of the city simply collapsed into Port Royal Harbor.  Homes, storage warehouses, churches, people and livestock sank like stones.  Many were trapped in the structures with which they had sunk but many others floated up to the surface of the harbor. Over the course of the following week, corpses bobbed listlessly in the harbor, slowly rotting in the unrelenting heat.

Pestilence and anarchy fell over the city.  Port Royal, once labelled the "wickedest city in the world" for the number of pirates and whores who called it home, became even more wicked after the wrath of God apparently struck her down.  Once again it was the buccaneers, who had fallen out of favor now that Port Royal was full of "respectable" merchants trading in luxury goods, sugar cane, rum and human chattel, who gave the city a bad name.  Edward Ellyn, the receiver general of Jamaica, wrote home to England about the post-disaster environment that surrounded the survivors:

... Most of the seaman, English and Spaniards, contented themselves with what was floating in the water, tho' some instantly entered and riffled standing houses.  But the following nights and days those villains... robbed all houses, broke in pieces all scriptores, boxes, trunks, chests of drawers, cabinets and made spoil of all of value in the town, threatening to kill several inhabitants, if any durst be so hardy as to say, "This house is mine."  Our enemies could not have treated us worse than the seamen.

Even Cotton Mather, that scion of Puritan self-righteousness, saw fit to put his two cents in.  Calling the Jamaica earthquake an omen, he wrote "Behold an accident speaking to all our English America."  Get right with God, he said, or face the same fate.

Many of the British in Jamaica chose to head for home, or the North American mainland, rather than deal with the wreckage.  Others, in true colonial spirit, simply moved up and over.  They rowed across the bay and began to rebuild, eventually founding the city of Kingston.  Others clung stubbornly to Port Royal, but the great pirate capital would never be the same.  Today she is a tourist attraction more than anything else; a beloved sort of Mecca for those who crave the closeness of things touched and roads walked on by our buccaneer ancestors.

But what of Henry Morgan, arguably the most famous of Port Royal's citizens?  Dead and buried almost four years prior to the earthquake, Morgan's coffin spewed forth from the earth during the six minute tremor.  Carried out to sea, it was lost for ever in the blue waters.  And maybe that was the way it should have been all along.

Header: English broadsheet reporting the effects of the 1692 Jamaica earthquake via Wikimedia  

People: The Pirate Governor

For those who study the histories of seafaring and piracy, the story of Henry Morgan quitting the buccaneering life and becoming the Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica seems very novel indeed.  A wicked, cruel man by any account, Morgan turned his ferocity on the men with whom he had once sailed, and hanged old mates not long after shaking their hands.  Another, and lesser known pirate-turned-Governor went in the opposite direction, harboring pirates and protecting them from his own Danish government.  Or so it would seem.

Adolph Esmit was a real person.  We know from records on the island of St. Thomas, now part of the U.S. Virgin Islands, and from Waldemar Westergaard's exhaustive The Danish West Indies under Company Rule that Esmit was Governor of the island from 1683 to 1684 and then again from 1687 to 1688.  According to The Pirate's Who's Who by Philip Gosse, Esmit was also a freebooter in his own right, and something of a rebel to boot.

Other than his birth in Denmark and his travels to the Danish West Indies in the late 1670s, there is very little information about Esmit's early life.  He was married to a woman named Charity who some historians speculate may have been an English Puritan.  Regardless of her religious background, Charity was willing to separate from her husband and plead his case for inauguration as Governor of St. Thomas in Copenhagen.

Esmit probably started out as an able seaman aboard merchant ships sailing for the Danish West India Company.  Eventually, it seems, he was captaining his own slave ship.  It was not unusual for slavers to turn pirate and there are hints that is exactly what Esmit and his crew did.  In need of a home port, he put in at St. Thomas some time in 1682 where his brother Nicolai was Governor.

By land, Esmit seems to have become very popular with the largely English population of the island.  He was a big spender, making local merchant's happy.  Within a year of his arrival at St. Thomas, he began to foment an uprising against his brother's leadership and eventually managed a sort of bloodless rebellion.  Adolph ousted Nicolai and, with Charity's aforementioned help, managed to secure an official inauguration as Governor in 1683.

Henceforth, St. Thomas became a buccaneer haven.  Governor Esmit would welcome fugitives from other island governments, harboring them and claiming that he had libeled their ships and goods when other Governors complained.  A particular case in point was that of Point Goave buccaneer Jean Hamlin who took refuge from Jamaican Governor Lynch at St. Thomas.  When asked, Esmit refused to release either Hamlin or his ship to the English.

It appears that Esmit even built and fitted out ships specifically for piracy on the high seas.  Whether or not he distributed letters of marque is in question, but his actions soon drew not only local attention but that of the Danish government.

A replacement Governor, Gabriel Milan, arrived at St. Thomas in 1684.  Rather than packing Esmit off to Denmark as he had been ordered, he imprisoned the former pirate and tried to extort money from him.  How Esmit managed to wriggle out of this sticky situation is unclear, but by 1687 he was again the official Governor of St. Thomas.

At this point, Esmit's renown as a friend of local buccaneers began to erode his credibility with the Danish government and, probably through the auspices of the Danish West India Company, Esmit was again deposed.  This time he was returned to Copenhagen to give an account of his service and, most probably, to face a prison sentence or worse.

Though history does not say exactly how, Adolph Esmit managed to avoid this final reckoning.  According to Westergaard, who calls Esmit "shift, shrewd, vain and at times boastful," the old buccaneer managed to escape to Courland, a small Duchy near Lithuania.  Here he and his wife may have lived out their days under aliases.  What actually became of the, beyond that, can be left only to educated speculation and/or fictional fantasy.  I'll let you chose for yourselves, Brethren.

Header: Iron Men and Wooden Ships, woodblock print by E.A. Wilson

People: The Curious Captain Condent

Christopher Condent is a name that gets tossed around a fair amount when discussing the Golden Age of Piracy. Condent, apparently another native of that great breeding ground of sailors, Devon, has his story told with the same consistency we find in tales of bigger names like Blackbeard, Roberts and Morgan. From Charles Ellms to Philip Gosse, all the high points in Condent’s life are hit consistently. Does this mean that they all occurred as they have come down to us? No, but it certainly makes them a bit more creditable.


In The Pirate’s Who’s Who, Philip Gosse does not give a date of birth for Condent. As he was quartermaster aboard a New York merchant when Governor Woodes Rogers sailed into New Providence in 1718, it is probably safe to place his natal year some time in the 1690s. It is a consistent point in Condent’s story, regardless of who is telling it, that his anonymous captain saw fit to hightail it out of the Bahamas when privateer-turned-pirate-hunter Rogers showed up. This is probably a good indication that the New York “merchant” was already a practicing pirate at the time.

According to Gosse and Ellms, the ship was not a happy one. A Native American aboard her had been mistreated by other crew members and, in his rage, decided to take his revenge by blowing up the ship. The sloop had a fair amount of black powder aboard – another good but not altogether telling indication of piratical activity. The injured sailor locked himself in the powder magazine with intent to ignite the powder and blow up the ship. Condent took it upon himself to curtail the man’s plans, jumping into the hold through a hatch and dispatching the malcontent with a pistol shot to the face.

The rest of the crew, still obviously harboring a grudge, hacked the man’s body to pieces. Both Goss and Ellms tell us that the gunner went so far as to remove the man’s heart from his chest cavity, boil or roast it and serve it up for supper. This consistently retold vignette has a curious ring of truth if for no other reason than it is never thoroughly explained. Why eat a man’s heart? The answer, one imagines, might be why not.

After this bloody episode morale seems to continue to flag aboard the merchant-cum-pirate. An English prize, Duke of York, is taken in the Atlantic and a dispute over something to do with it splits the crew down the middle. The captain and his faction take the prize and sail away, while the remaining crewmen elect Condent their new captain.

Condent sets a course for the Cape Verde Islands and manages to take a number of small ships from the “salt fleet”. Next he is cruising near the island of St. Jago where he takes a Dutch ship. He likes this vessel more than his old sloop and trades up, naming her Flying Dragon and hoisting a black flag decorated with three skulls and crossed bones.

Heading back to the New World, Condent begins cruising off Brazil, taking Portuguese ships and torturing their crews. His ruthlessness earns him a reputation but he is clever enough to continue taking prizes in the area by pretending to be a harmless and friendly English merchant. Eventually his tactics earn him a firefight with a Portuguese warship, and Gosse tells us that Flying Dragon is lucky to escape.

Condent sets a course for the Indian Ocean and arrives at the island of Johanna near Madagascar. Here he runs into the former crew of Captain John Halsey who died in 1716. These men were probably happy to join Condent, and Flying Dragon proceeded to take more than one East Indiaman, using the nearby Ile Sainte-Marie as a base of operations.

It appears that the greatest prize of Condent’s piratical career was a galley carrying the Viceroy of Goa. What became of the official is not mentioned, but Gosse indicates that Condent and company took their prize to Zanzibar where “they plundered her of a large amount of money.”

Back home on Sainte-Marie, Condent seems to have second thoughts about piracy. He pays off his men, some of whom chose to settle on the island. Condent and a few others petition the French Governor on Mauritius for a pardon. The Governor is amenable as long as the pirates will break up their ship when they arrive on his island. This they do and they are allowed to settle down. Christopher Condent, now on the straight and narrow, courts and marries the Governor’s sister-in-law.

“A few years later,” Gosse says in summing up his entry on Condent. “The captain and his wife left the island and sailed to France, settling at Saint Malo, where Condent drove a considerable trade as a merchant.”

A rare and curiously happy ending to the story of another brutal freebooter.

Header: Replica of Christopher Condent’s flag via Black Flag Trading Co.

History: The Second Sack of Cartagena

The city known as Cartagena de Indias located in modern Venezuela was one of the most heavily fortified ports on the Spanish Main by the mid-17th century. It was from here that Spain sent her treasure fleets off to Europe crammed with gold, silver and jewels from mines in the interior of South America. Since the giant treasure ships only sailed two or three times a year, most other European nations drooled at the thought of the stockpiles of wealth that must have accumulated behind the city’s stone walls.


War has always afforded the strong the opportunity to amass wealth, and when the War of the League of Augsberg sailed from Europe into Caribbean waters, the French had wealth on their mind. The conflict, which lasted a comparatively short nine years, pitted France against England, the Netherlands and Spain in particular. The French holdings in the West Indies rallied against their most formidable foes in the area, with Saint Dominique’s governor Jean Du Casse relying heavily on the aid of Petit Goave’s boucaniers.

Of course, French as well as English buccaneers had been terrorizing the Spanish Main for over 30 years by the time the war began. They had a clear strategy of raid, pillage and retreat that succeeded to the point that Spain’s ability to defend herself was breaking down. Refusing the right to legal trade with anyone but the mother country to her colonies meant that Spain’s towns and cities in the New World were poorly armed and often poorly manned as well. As Juan Perez de Guzman, who witnessed Henry Morgan’s raids on Central America, noted “[the Spaniard’s] firearms are few and bad, in comparison of those the enemy brought, for ours are Carbins, Harquebusses and Fowling pieces, but few Muskets.” On the other hand the French were well armed, and exceedingly expert, with the most up-to-date muskets available to them.

Any weakness should be exploited in war, and Louis XIV saw his chance to pounce on what could potentially be a windfall for not only France but for himself, personally. Accordingly, as Monsieur le Governeur Du Casse was handing out letters of marque to any buccaneer who cared to apply, the King sent a flotilla to Saint Domingue to ramp up for an all out siege of Cartagena.

The leader of this expedition was Baron Jean de Pointis, an Admiral who had seen action on the European front. He had ten men-of-war with him and, through the connections available to Du Casse, managed to enlist another seven ships captained and manned by freebooters. The Governor added his own squadron for a total of 30 ships and over 6,000 men.

Despite his initial hesitancy, the Admiral was convinced by Du Casse to enter into a written agreement with the buccaneers. This ensured them that any loot would be divided fairly, so that – as they suspected might occur – they would not do all the heavy lifting and be left with little or no reward. How satisfied the pirates were with the agreement remains unknown, but they sailed with de Pointis on April 13, 1689 bound for Cartagena.

The city stood on a head shore behind which were an exterior and an interior bay. The Boca Chica passage to the interior bay was heavily fortified but beyond that little if any artillery was available to guard the city’s back. Because of a lack of men and arms, the Spanish could not stop Admiral de Pointis’ entire fleet from breeching Boca Chica. Once he was behind the city, de Pointis began landing artillery and set up a bombardment that lasted six days. On May 6, Cartagena succumbed to the superior firepower of the invaders.

The Admiral and Governor du Casse met with city leaders and, unbeknownst to the buccaneers, agreed to a ransom that amounted to only about half of the wealth available in Cartagena at the time. De Pointis turned his marines on the buccaneers, keeping them in line as booty was loaded onto the French men-of-war. By May 29, de Pointis was ready to set sail after handing over what he felt was a “fair share” to the seven pirate captains.

There certainly must have been protests to both de Pointis and Du Casse, but neither seems to have responded with anything satisfactory. The Admiral and the Governor boarded their ships and departed for Saint Dominique. But the buccaneers, who felt cheated beyond reason, had other plans.

The pirates re-entered Cartagena who, in her weakened state, could hardly defend herself. The men went on a rampage, torturing, looting and killing with the kind of blood-lust that only occurs when people are truly angry. By mid-June the rage of the buccaneers had burned itself out. They took what booty they had managed to dig up and set sail for Petit Goave in Saint Dominique. They left Cartagena almost irreparably broken; it would be another ten years before her reputation as a cultural and financial hub would be restored.

Meanwhile, the Frenchmen got a bit of their own back at sea. Their ships were hit by a gale and, limping along the coast of Jamaica, they were overtaken by a small squadron of English vessels. Five of the buccaneer’s ships were taken as prizes and their Cartagenan wealth ended up lining the coffers of the Governor of Jamaica.

The only winners in the entire affair were Admiral de Pointis, who managed to wrest most of Governor Du Casses’ share of the wealth away from him on a technicality, and of course the Sun King, Louis XIV. Though Louis did return a portion of what he had accumulated to Du Casse and the buccaneers, it hardly made up for their losses.

The sack of Cartagena, which on every level was a miserable tragedy, sounded the death knell of the buccaneers. Within ten years the Golden Age of Piracy would dawn and a whole different breed of seafaring freebooters would emerge more interested in prizes on the water than booty on shore.

Header: The Sack of Cartagena by Howard Pyle

People: A Buccaneer at Heart

The old saying about greatness can be applied to pirates, too. Some are born, some are made and some have the mantel thrust upon them. Today’s subject was neither alive during the Golden Age nor, in the end, much of a seaman. But his life bares all the earmarks of any raider, from Viking to buccaneer. And most of it was thrust upon him.


Lee Christmas was born at the end of an era in a place that was fading away. He came into the world in Livingston Parish, Louisiana in a plantation house on the Amite River, February 2, 1863. The world he was born into was doomed by changing attitudes and the rigors of war, and the Christmas family fell – had in fact already fallen – on hard times as Lee grew to manhood.

There does not seem to be anything of delusion in Lee’s approach to life, however. Far from mourning the wealth he might have inherited, Christmas as a young man went forth to find adventure, first on the water. He apprenticed with bargemen on the Mississippi and eventually graduated to operating a tug boat on Lake Pontchartrain. Never a strikingly handsome man, Christmas all the same was full of charm and a quirky sense of humor that either endeared him to his fellows or put them off, depending on the man. He was driven to succeed, and when the opportunity arose to get in on the ground floor with the Illinois Central Railroad, Lee jumped at the chance.

He became a brakeman and by the 1880s was instrumental in the building of railroad lines in Louisiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Texas. He was a force in the booming railroad industry, and worked as an engineer aboard a train that ran regularly between Memphis and New Orleans, where he lived.

In 1891 everything changed in the worst possible way for Lee Christmas. Some sources, like Herman Deutsch in his book about Christmas, The Incredible Yanqui, claim that the hard-drinking Louisianan was hitting the sauce at the throttle. His employer, on the other hand, said Christmas had been on duty – and awake running his locomotive – for over two days straight. Either way, Lee fell asleep in his speeding train and hit another engine head-on.

When Christmas recovered from the awful accident he found he had been bared from returning to his job while the incident was “under investigation.” With no means of support and bills to pay, Christmas tramped around Texas and Louisiana doing odd jobs with his hands. At last, in 1894, he was called back by the railroad but just when he could see his life returning to normal his former employer threw him for another loop. The now-required company physical found Christmas to be color blind; the railroad would not rehire him.

Devastated to once again be without income, Christmas managed to hear about the new railroad systems in Central America. Banana plantations, most of which were connected in one way or another to the U.S. company then known as United Fruit, needed their produce transported to the coasts and supplies – including huge blocks of ice – brought back up the mountains. No one would turn away an experienced engineer for a little problem like color blindness. Christmas booked passage on a steamer out of New Orleans and arrived in Puerto Cortes, Honduras late in 1894.

Christmas settled into the routine of engineer fairly quickly. The tiny train on its rickety tracks was no where near the mighty engine he had once piloted, but the work was steady until a pivotal moment in Christmas’ life happened at a gorge known as the Laguna Trestle in the Honduran mountains. The date was April 14, 1897. Christmas’ train was flagged down by revolutionaries with guns who commandeered both engine and engineer. At first, it seems that Christmas had no intention of joining the revolutionaries but, when government forces arrived to do battle, Lee Christmas took the gun the men in his engine had given him and fought along side them. On that day, the man from the Amite River went from locomotive engineer to politician and warrior.

Christmas switched camps often; in 1899 he was working for the Honduran government but by1903 he was again on the side of rebel leader Manuel Bonilla. Christmas adopted a persona of careless ferocity; he continued to drink hard, made a name for himself in Honduran capital San Pedro Sula’s brothels and chewed glass.

When Bonilla tried to encroach into Nicaragua in 1907, Christmas found himself exiled to Guatemala. It was here that he met the United Fruit company’s Central American agent Samuel Zemurray, known – in some cases affectionately, in others sarcastically – as “El Amigo”. While the documentation is slim, it is generally assumed that Christmas was in some way involved with, and probably in the pay of, United Fruit and their bid to monopolize the banana plantations of the region.

From this point on, Christmas’ exploits, either with or without Bonilla, would be heavily armed with guns provided by Zemurray. The famous Battle of La Ceiba in January of 1911 saw Christmas battling Honduran government forces with the aid of U.S. Army Colt machine guns. He used the guns to support rebel infantry in such an innovative way that his tactics would be studied by European and American generals, and used to great success in World War I. Bonilla’s rebels won the day and he resumed control of the government. Christmas was a hero until 1913, when Bonilla’s death changed the political climate overnight. Christmas was again sent packing, this time to Nicaragua.

Lee dropped out of sight, but landed on his feet. For nearly eleven years he worked with Zemurray, manipulating governments and economies in Central America. Rumors swirled in the states and elsewhere that Christmas had become emperor of some banana republic or other or that he was fighting with Zapata in Mexico. One thing we know with certainty thanks to letters home to friends; he married a local girl, Ida Culotta, in Puerto Cortes in 1914.

Lee Christmas was not a healthy man, however. The ravages if a tough life and a tougher lifestyle took their toll. Sick with tuberculosis, Christmas returned home to New Orleans in the early 1920s. He died there on January 24, 1924. The memory of his fascinating life faded quickly as the 20th century pressed on, but his legacy remains in odd corners like this one. Lee Christmas’ life is the story of a man who, if born in the Great Age of Sail, would surely have given Morgan or Roberts a run for their money.

Header: Lee Christmas in cavalry fatigues courtesy of the Marion Samson Collection, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

History: A Surgeon Aboard Us

I thank the Lord Serapis that when I was in danger at sea he straightway saved me through the good grace and constancy of our doctor… ~ letter from Roman sailor Apion to his parents, Epimacus and Philadelphia circa 100 CE.


As the above snippet from a short letter home shows, doctors have been sailing aboard ships of all kinds for centuries. Because it was not until the Napoleonic Wars that shipboard doctors were routinely recognized as part of the standing crew, many historians have glossed over or completely ignored the history that led up to that acceptance. Fortunately, some modern writers have endeavored to set the record straight.

As noted by Kevin Brown in his entertaining history of seafaring medicine Poxed & Scurvied, it may have been the Greek poet Homer who first wrote of naval surgeons in his epic Iliad. Here he mentions Machaon and Polidalirus, the medical professionals who sailed with Agamemnon’s fleet when that king set out to start the Trojan War.

As Brown notes, it was during the Imperial days of Rome that doctors aboard ship began to really become a fixture. So much so, in fact, that Caesar Augustus included them in his regulations against doctors going into battle. There were also regulations during his reign that navy physicians be over the age of 21.

In the Medieval period, a barber who could double as a surgeon – essentially, let’s face it, a puller of teeth, stitcher of wounds and hacker-off of limbs – was regularly aboard the merchant vessels of the Cinque Ports and Hanseatic leagues. It may be that at least some of the surgeons who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his post-1492 cruises to the New World were also spies for Spain. In Empires of the Atlantic World J.H. Elliott notes that Ferdinand and particularly Isabella sought to control the unruly mariner by inserting their own intelligencer on his ship in the person of royal doctor Diego Alvares Chanca y Salazar.

True finesse in medicine at sea had already bloomed in the Mediterranean with the era of the Crusades. Here the Knight of Malta and their counterparts, the Knights Hospitaller, began fitting out ships as floating hospitals to treat sick and battle wounded in the 15th century. Though the ships were merchant vessels repurposed as sick berths, they were a decided innovation that probably saved more than a few lives.

It should be noted that the Knights of St. John, an arm first of the Hospitallers and then the Maltese, extended treatment for injury or illness to their Moslem galley slaves. Brown notes that these men were treated, along with Christian sailors, at the Sacra Infermeria in Valletta. Here, such attentions as food service on silver plates and large, breezy wards were denied to no one regardless of societal status, religion or country of origin.

A tremendous amount of information regarding medicine at sea has come from the excavation of Henry VIII’s favorite warship Mary Rose. Launched in 1511 and sunk in 1545, she appears to have gone down with her entire crew (including the intrepid ratter known as Hatch) and all goods aboard. Since 1982, the Mary Rose Project has been revealing her history and what they have found tells us a good bit about the surgeon aboard.

He seems to have occupied two cabins, one perhaps for his own use and the other for any assistants he may have had and/or examinations and surgery. He seems to have been doing a good job too for, as Brown notes, most of the crew of over 400 men “… were large-boned, strong, and fit …”

Brown also gives us a somewhat chilling list of the instruments found in Mary Rose’s surgeon’s kit:

… copper alloy mortars, spoons, bandage rolls, pewter syringes for urethral irrigations in the treatment of gonorrhea and for the irrigation of wounds, wooden needles, spatulas, a maplewood feeding vessel, a leather wallet for storing instruments, ear scoops for cleaning out the ear, razors, a brass shaving bowl, and the handles of surgical instruments.

As Brown points out, the metal portions of those instruments have rusted away but they certainly included saws, forceps, probes, cautery irons and a trepan for removing parts of shattered skulls. The brutality of such necessary treatment is easily imagined, and thankfully avoided in this day and age.

Of course things were none too pleasant on the Spanish Main of a short 100 years later. Stephan Talty in Empire of Blue Water tells us that Henry Morgan shipped a surgeon on his raids of both Portobello and Panama City. Little good they seem to have done, however, as they turned up drunk and incapable on more then one occasion. Slap dash amputations by carpenters and careless cauterizations with swords led to gangrene and death, more often than not, in the humid heat of the jungle. Only the very strongest could survive the treatment, much less the injury.

As medicine improved so did its availability at sea. The surgeon became the physician, falling eventually into the general group known as warrant officers. And long before Nelson’s navy, the scientist-physician epitomized by real men like James Lind and fictional characters like Stephen Maturin was already starting to take to the sea. Morgan himself, as an aging pirate made good with gout and cirrhosis, was treated by Dr. Hans Sloane. Sloane was the epitome of the physician cum naturalist in 1687 and, though he could not save the decrepit Morgan from himself, he would go on to treat English royalty.

The history of medicine at sea continues to fascinate on so many levels. To each their own, of course, but I always wonder how one would manage to remove a cataract aboard a sailing ship at sea around 1810. The thought that it could be – and was – done is just another example of how hardy and capable our ancestors really were.

Header: Mary Rose by Bill Bishop via The Mary Rose Project

Seafaring Sunday: Governor Modyford's Action

March 4, 1666: In retaliation for raids on isolated coastal plantations, Governor Thomas Modyford of Jamaica declares war of Spanish territories in the New World and begins issuing letters of marque against Spain to Port Royal's buccaneers.  One of those who receives a commission is the now infamous Henry Morgan, who will go on to become Lieutenant Governor of the island.

Header: Replica of the letter of marque issued to Henry Morgan and signed by Modyford from the wonderful craftsman at Pirate Documents

Seafaring Sunday: Leaving Panama

February 26, 1671: Over a three day period beginning February 24, Henry Morgan and his band of buccaneers left Panama City, Panama.  They had spent four weeks looting, pillaging, drinking and generally destroying the Spanish city on the Pacific.  They would march back across the Isthmus of Panama and depart for Port Royal, Jamaica, whence they had come.

Header: Henry Morgan in Panama via Getty Images

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Alarm

Today's adventure into the etymology of words is a curious mix of marine and land-based warfare. As anyone who knows the history of seafaring will tell you, there are times when a sailor is required to fight and at least some of those actions will occur on land. Sometimes a sailor is a soldier – and vice versa really. From Morgan’s buccaneers to Daniel Tod Patterson’s raid on Barataria to the U.S. Navy battling Somali and other pirates as we speak, the line between seaman and grunt is often nonexistent. Go see Act of Valor if you doubt me at all.


So it is that one can raise an alarm and/or be alarmed on land or at sea. But where did all of this alarming voice raising come from? I’ll say that none of the Brethren will be surprised when I tell them: Italy.

All’armi! That was the call to arms in Italian city-states and aboard their vessels of the pre-Renaissance era. It literally translates as “To the weapons!” and was therefore both an alert of impending danger from an enemy and a rallying cry. Some time around 1300 French speakers took up the call as Alarme! With all the inter-cultural mixing of warriors that went on at the time, the English brought it home by the end of that century with only a missing e to make it their own. Just as a curious aside, the Dutch jumped on the alarm bandwagon as well, spelling it as the English did, but the German speaking Holy Roman Empire did not. Their original “Warnung!” has come down to us today.

At sea or on land, the alarm is sounded by use of bell, drum or horn; a set noise allows men to know exactly what is in the offing and what is expected of them. Anyone who has seen the movie Master and Commander is well aware of what happens when the order “Beat to quarters!” is given.

And this brings up an important point peculiar in some ways to naval discipline. Bringing men to battle stations aboard ship was done with frequency – threat or no – by fighting captains who chose to keep their ships and men ready for action. The application is based on the undeniable fact that people cannot do under stress what they have not done in practice. Much like learning to shoot a gun or drive a car, you’re reaction time in a dangerous situation will be hindered if you have never done such a thing before. Thus scheduled alarms and sometimes unscheduled false alarms, were routine on well-run ships. Even privateers and, on rarer occasions, pirates worked their guns now and again. Every man to his station and no confusion when the “real thing” comes to pass.

On the same subject, to some degree at least, Bill Brohaugh points out in his book Unfortunate English: The Gloomy Truth Behind the Words You Use that alarm became more associated with fright or startle around the 1500s. At the same time, English speakers began to use the word afraid to mean scared. Its original meaning though, in the form affray, was to disturb or unsettle people. Thus people who were unsettled –literally driven from their land and homes – were affrayed. The etymological jump to scared, in fact alarmed, makes perfect sense doesn’t it?

But now I’ve veered dangerously off course, and should wisely avoid the lee shore. Happy Saturday, Brethren; is you’ve an interest in exploring more strange and wonderful English etymologies, find Mr. Bohaugh’s fascinating website here.

Header: Jack Aubrey calls out the alarm; Russell Crowe in Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World

Booty: For Sale: One Pirate Ship

If you’re like me, you have dreamed of owning, and in particular sailing, a fully-rigged, accurate-to-every-detail replica of your favorite pirate ship. Some may wish for Drake’s Golden Hinde, others might long for Black Bart Roberts’ Revenge, Sam Bellamy’s Whydah or Blackbeard’s Queen Anne’s Revenge. Or is a privateer more to your liking; John Paul Jones’ Bonhomme Richard, or a handsome frigate like the dear Surprise perhaps? For me the dream will always be Renato Beluche’s brig General Bolivar, the quintessential Gulf privateer.


Dreams like this are a wonderful way to pass a quiet moment but, for most of us at least, they will remain as formless as the ether. For those of you who are in all seriousness, though, there is a ship in the style of Henry Morgan’s Oxford currently available for sale.

As this listing at Maritime Sales online indicates, the ship is a 90 foot, Santa Maria style galleon complete with kitchen, bathrooms, electricity and a diesel engine. It is outfitted as our seafaring ancestors could never have imagined. Her commission is out of Honduras and according to the listing she can comfortably float 78 hands; pirates not included.

Clearly this is the ultimate fantasy. Her lines are unfortunately wide and her below decks look more like a summer camp cabin than a proper place to hang a cot. I’d hate to be in one of those beds in a high sea; in fact, I’m sure no one would be in them for long. But that’s not the point. This is like owning a floating bed and breakfast, and it can all be yours for the reduced price of $750,000 U.S.

Something to contemplate on this, the first of three Friday 13s in 2012.

Header: Pirate ship via maritimesales.com (click the link above for more pictures)

Tools of the Trade: Punch, Flip and Old Grog

Recently, I was asked by a friend who is a professional editor and screenwriter to look at a piece he was working on. The screenplay was about buccaneers in the latter part of the 17th century and there were a few points my friend was unfamiliar with as far as seafaring, timeframes, dialogue and particularly the little details of historical accuracy. Of course I was eager to get my hands on the thing; the idea of a well researched, high spirited buccaneer movie (featuring real life filibuster Michele de Grammont, no less) excited me immeasurably. Sadly, reality put a damper on that enthusiasm pretty quickly.


There were a million little details that crushed my spirits thoroughly (the hero, just as an example, wore a tricorn hat and beaded braids a la Jack Sparrow) but one that stood out was the drinking that went on in the buccaneer port of Tortuga (sadly positioned off Puerto Rico, not Haiti where the buccaneer outpost actually was). Many was the time that the protagonists reached for a mug of grog; in fact de Grammont and our hero sealed a deal over pints and pints of the stuff.

In the 1680s, for better or for worse, grog was an unknown commodity. In fact grog was probably largely unknown in the New World well into the 18th century. Grog was initially a drink of the Royal Navy and was not officially adopted by them until 1740. The mix of water and rum was a replacement for beer, which had a habit of going off pretty quickly, particularly in warm climes like the West Indies and India. As an aside here, if you are familiar with India Pale Ale you know how the Royal Navy tried to fix that; the stronger, sturdier IPA was brewed specifically for ships headed east.

This is not to say that buccaneers were not familiar with rum, or that they would in fact not have added things – including water – to it. It simply would not have been called “grog”. What the gentlemen rovers called their drinks of choice, though, is one of the more curious tidbits about the early filibusters and those freebooters who came after. At least to me.

The type of rum that was most available to many of the Caribbean islands in the 17th century was affectionately known as “kill-devil”. This was a common man’s drink composed of rum that had not been properly aged to smooth over the bitter taste of fermented sugar cane. While wealthy land owners, Governors and visiting dignitaries in the first outposts of Britain would drink rum proper which was originally called rumbullion, the working poor and the slaves who made the rum drank a less refined form of same. It was probably an addiction for most and the death of many as well.

Another popular way to drink rum was in what was called a punch. Alcoholic punches were intensely popular in Europe in the 17th century so making one with the locally bottled alcohol was not much of a stretch. Rum punch usually contained water, some form of citrus juice – lime was the most popular – and molasses or sugar. Sometimes nutmeg was grated into the beverage. Henry Morgan and his captains were getting roaring drunk on rum punch when his flagship, Oxford, exploded underneath them killing every man directly across the table from Morgan but sparing the old dog and his mates on the other side.

Bombo or bumboo was also popular and was probably virtually the same thing as rum punch. A heated version of both drinks was called rumfustian. This contained rum, beer, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg and a raw egg and was then heated with a rod such as a red-hot poke from the fire. A cousin to rumfustian, flip was a popular drink in the American colonies before and during the Revolutionary War. It was made with rum, beer and molasses or sugar heated just as its relative had been. In his history of all things regarding the title …And a Bottle of Rum, Wayne Curtis states:

If grog was an emblem of the triumph of order over disorder on the open seas, rum – especially in the form of a popular drink called “flip” – was a symbol of the new order displacing the old in the colonies.

And doubtless very popular with the privateers of the era; in fact John Paul Jones was known to enjoy his flip when in port.

All that said, it is important to remember that our freebooting ancestors were not terribly picky about their alcohol, at least in general. An onion bottle full of wine or porter would have done just as well as a bowl of bumboo and the big head the next morning would have been just the same.

And so, in less wordy form, my recommendations went out to my friend and his client. I will continue to wonder about that ambitious buccaneer screenplay and hope for its great success. Especially if the tricorns and grog are ditched all together.

Header: From Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates

Update 11/22: Looking for more in depth information on rum for the pirate in all of us?  Check out Blue Lou Logan's well researched and delightful post at his freebooting blog.

People: The Pirate Corso

When we speak of pirates and privateers during the age of buccaneers we tend to gravitate to British, Dutch or French names. Henry Morgan, Laurens de Graff and Michel de Grammont come to mind readily. It is rare that a Spaniard – whose holdings in the New World were usually the targets of plundering buccaneer from England, France and Holland – comes to mind. So it was with surprise and delight that I sat down to read a chapter in Benerson Little’s most recent book about a freebooter who called himself Juan Corso.


Corso’s moniker in and of itself is something of a pun. Though, as Little notes, Corso was a common surname in Spain, it also translates literally as “privateer”. Corso’s name is the equivalent of a Frenchman calling himself Jean Corsaire or an Englishman going by Johnny Privateer. Since we know nothing about Corso’s childhood or early life, it is not a stretch to say that his name is an alias if not an out and out joke.

Much of the action that made up Corso’s career is educated guess, but he appears first on the historical record cruising under the command of Captain Felipe de la Barrera y Villegas. Barrera was at the head of a small flotilla of light, shallow draft “half-galleys” that were searching the inlets and lagoons off the Gulf Coast of Mexico for illegal logwood cutters. Men from the British island of Jamaica in particular made a living cutting down, chopping up and selling logwood surreptitiously in these areas. The Spanish, who considered the costly resource theirs alone, hunted these men without remorse. Even during peace with England, Spain marked the men criminals regardless of written passes they may hold from English lords.

This was the case in 1681 when Corso, along with his frequent partner Pedro de Costa, was among Barrera’s men as they cruised into Laguna de Terminos on the coast of Campeche. The logwood cutters were surprised and, though one of their number in the form of a British sloop named Laurel managed to escape, they were rounded up or slaughtered, their camp burned and their goods seized. Though Barrera initially promised the Englishmen safe passage, they were in fact packed into the holds of his ships and taken to Campeche where they were sold to the city as slaves. Most would be worked mercilessly in the sodden swamps around the city with little water and less food, their skin burned black by the sun, their feet riddled with parasitic worms and their bodies infested with fleas and lice.

Barrera made a tidy profit on this enterprise of human misery and Corso and de Costa may have decided they wanted to rake in the same kind of cash. The two men received a commission from the mayor of Campeche and, with a group of small ships or canoes probably amounting to no more than three or four, they headed south for the Gulf of Honduras. Here logwood smuggling was particularly heavy, and Corso and his mate planned to increase their odds of catching larger ships by the capable use of stealth.

Rather ironically they ran into Laurel, the British ship that had escaped Barrera, near Trujillo, Honduras. This time the Spaniards were victorious, boarding Laurel and seizing her small crew. Her captain, Robert Oxe, would later write that he fought two hours with the freebooters and that, when they did board, he offered them his legal commission from the Earl of Carlisle. Corso and de Costa, unimpressed, disposed of the papers. Oxe says:

They said that they would come to Jamaica, too, presently, and that they had taken five hundred English prisoners.

Though Oxe and his men would not fair as badly as the unfortunates who labored in Campeche, he was ordered tortured and beaten by Corso. He complained of being hung up “… at the fore braces several times, [and beaten] with cutlasses…” about the body and face. Little tells us that Oxe and eight of his men were finally set free in a single canoe.

Doubtless aboard their prize ship, now called Leon, Corso and de Costa managed to re-capture a Spanish treasure ship that had been taken off Honduras. They renamed Nuestra Senora del Honhon the Leon Coronado. With these two ships they went to work clearing the Gulf of Honduras of the logwood cutters, tallying up a fortune in prize goods. When they headed back to Campeche in triumph, they were sadly disappointed to find the mayor eager to accept their prizes after which he unilaterally sent them off to Veracruz. Despite Corso’s protests – for which he was briefly jailed – it would be months before the Governor of Mexico finally awarded him and his mates a share of their booty.

In 1682, the Spanish government reclaimed their treasure ship and Leon Coronado was made part of the Armada de Barlovento, the official pirate hunting fleet of New Spain. Probably frustrated at being slighted not only by the loss of his ship but by failure to be asked to join the Armada, Corso gathered a new set of small ships and headed for Cuba. There he began a systematic round of attacks on British and French buccaneers who stopped at the island for water and provisions. Corso sailed under a red flag of no quarter, according to Little, and he made a habit of torturing and killing the crew of ships that dared resist him. His depredations were so successful that the Governor of St. Domingue (modern Haiti) began issuing commissions against Spain at Petit Goave and Britain threatened to declare war against Spain once again. The sack of Veracruz, usually considered to have been mounted after the fate of the unfortunate logwood cutters from Laguna de Terminos was discovered, may have been just as much the result of Corso’s unchecked success in the Caribbean.

Corso retaliated for the brutal raid at Veracruz which, though largely the work of Petit Goave corsairs, he seemed to blame on the British. He raided the island of New Providence in January of 1684, leaving only a handful of people alive and free. The island sat uninhabited for three years thereafter according to Little. Corso also managed to virtually shut down sea turtle harvesting in the Caribbean causing a shortage of meat particularly in Jamaica.

Pressure from the Royal Navy in particular drove Corso away from Cuba and, by early 1685, he was back in Mexico and once again with his old mate de Costa. The two were sent out by the Governor to try and find the Gulf Coast settlement of French explorer Rene Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle. The Spanish were antsy about any encroachment on their vast holdings around the Gulf. Who better to send as a destroying force than two notorious privateers? Though Cosro and de Costa seem to have thoroughly searched the shores of the Gulf, they missed de La Salle’s sad tent city at Matagorda Bay.

Corso kept up the search and landed at several points in the Florida. At Cape San Blas his flotilla hit rough weather, possibly a hurricane, and was wrecked with the loss of all ships. Little says that approximately 35 men walked ashore alive but without supplies, firearms and little in the way of clothing on their backs. Most died of starvation, injuries and exposure including Corso and de Costa. The rest, Little tells us, set upon the bodies of the dead, carving them up and cooking them “without wasting even the heads.”

Though Corso’s success against just about every nation who colonized the West Indies at the time was matched by very few, he is largely forgotten today. He was, to my way of thinking, a Spanish version of the notorious corsaire Francois L’Olonnais whose hatred for the Spanish led him to torture and murder. Corso, a strident Spaniard if not by birth certainly by nationalization, vented his wrath in turn on the British and French.

Header: Dead Men Tell No Tales by Howard Pyle

Sea Monsters: Rare but Deadly

Before I even get started I want to pull to the fore what this article from CNN.com left until the final paragraph. According to Francine Cabral, professor of microbiology at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School:


The incidence of this disease is very, very small, but when it happens it’s tragic.

“It” is a disease imparted to humans who have been exposed to a specific type of amoeba called Naegleria fowleri. The amoeba live in fresh, warm water such as lakes, rivers and even poorly treated backyard pools and enter a human body through the nose. Though the article notes that Naegleria are not naturally human parasites, once they are inside you they start poking around for something to eat. The something they generally turn to are the neurons of the host’s brain.

The amoeba multiply quickly once they’ve found a source of nutrition causing the person to become ill with what is known as amoebic meningoencephalitis. The two most unfortunate points about this disease are that it is close to 100% fatal and, in this day and age, it is usually caught by children. Symptoms start out seeming flu like; headache, nausea and vomiting, neck stiffness and a particularly high fever. Later symptoms include much more horrific manifestations such as seizures and hallucinations. Eventually the brain, overwhelmed, simply shuts down usually three to seven days after infection. As of this writing, four young people in the U.S. lost their lives to Naegleria this summer.

The symptoms of the disease, which has been known in the states for over 20 years, sound curiously similar to a fever/seizure disorder described by buccaneer doctor Alexander Exquemelin. Men following Henry Morgan on the trek across the isthmus to the raid on Panama City became horribly ill with these symptoms and died in “half a fortnight” or about seven days. Though Exquemelin does not mention the crossing of or swimming through warm water, Panama is by and large a steamy jungle and doubtless fording streams was part of the hardship. While there is no evidence to suggest that Naegleria was the culprit 300 plus years ago, it’s a curious possibility.

For modern parents, there are simple ways to keep your children out of harm’s way. According to the Centers for Disease Control, the Naegleria amoeba is active from July to September. All people, but especially children, should avoid swimming in untreated or poorly treated water during those months and when temperatures are high. Using nose clips in warm fresh water, or keeping your head out of the water all together, is another precaution. Finally, don’t go digging around in those gooey underwater sediments while you’re in shallow, warm, fresh water. That’s where the critters most enjoy hanging out.

While living like a buccaneer may seem appealing, dying like one certainly is not. Stay safe out there, Brethren; you’ll be glad you did.

Header: Amoeba via Jason Champion

Booty: Hip Action

My dear friend and long time supporter of Triple P Laurel sent me a news story via NPR that included an interesting new use for the now famous “Captain Morgan Stance” that the rum brand has hitched their wagon to for close to a decade. Shunned by the NFL but embraced by those who care to “join the Captain”, it seems that the science of medicine has found a new way to use the one-leg-up-whether-there’s-something-under-that-foot-or-not pose: reducing dislocated hips.


As the article notes, the dislocation of such a large ball-and-socket joint is excruciating. Fortunately, it is also rather unusual in active, healthy individuals. Athletes who play contact sports like hockey, rugby and football are about the only ones who might run the risk of such injuries. Aside from that, the most common cause is violent accidents such as vehicle collisions. The problem, as anyone who has ever dislocated a shoulder knows, is that the limb is left hanging with no means of support while the nerves around the joint scream in agony. Now imagine trying to bear weight on the limb and you can see how bad a dislocated hip really is. The other problem is that a large joint requires some serious manhandling to get it back into place. As the article notes, the most common attack is for a physician to straddle the patient on a bed or gurney, hold the uninjured leg down and force the ball back into its socket with the injured leg at a 90 degree angle. It’s dangerous for the doctor and pure torture for the patient.

A recent study in the Annals of Emergency Medicine showed that it is possible to have a patient assume a Morganesque stance, with their uninjured leg’s foot on the floor and their injured leg’s foot resting on a bench or step-stool, for reduction of the dislocation. This approach may be less traumatic to the patient and is almost certainly safer for the doctor. The unfortunate caveat of the study is that there is no proof, as yet, that this approach is in any way better for the patient than the doctor-up-on-the-gurney maneuver.

Dr. Hendey of UC San Francisco, Fresno notes in the article that he and his staff have been using this new technique for a year or two. It wasn’t until he saw a commercial for Captain Morgan’s Rum that he realized the similarity. “… it just struck me that that’s the position we do,” he said.

So there you have it, Brethren; rum saves the day once again. I’ve a sneaking hunch that it probably saved more than one true pirate with a dislocated joint back in the Golden Age as well. Happy Friday to one and all, and many thanks to Laurel as always.

Header: Captain Morgan by Don Maitz

History: Revisionist With a Capital R

I will say before I even begin that depending on the “news media” for your news has become a dicey proposition, and so depending on it for your history is even more so. But a recent article from ABC News online seems to take your gullibility cake, chew it up and spit it back into your mouth mother bird style. Historically speaking, anyway.


Back in March I spoke a little bit about a group of six cannon that were being lifted from the Chagres River on the Atlantic coast of Panama. News media insisted that the cannon were unequivocally those of the famed buccaneer Henry Morgan. Though the authenticity of such statements has yet to be proven, it looks like the big guns – if you’ll pardon the pun – have moved in for the kill. Now we are being told that “Pirate Henry Morgan’s Long-Lost Ship…” has been “… Unearthed.”

As ABC News notes, the wooden hull of a ship and “… several wooden chests” have been found in the Chagres through the combined efforts of two prestigious American universities and volunteers from NPS. The find is in the Laja reef area which is a notorious coral and rock bed poised to tear out the bottom of just about any ship that enters there. This is where Morgan lost more than one ship in 1671 on his way to raid Panama City. All that said, there is as yet no evidence that the find in question is Morgan’s Satisfaction, as the article asserts.

Further down, at paragraph seven, we find that the expedition has received a “… substantial amount” of monetary backing from none other than our old friends the folks at Captain Morgan’s Rum. Tom Herbst, their brand manager, is quoted as saying:

When the opportunity arose for us to help make this discovery mission possible, it was a natural fit for us to get involved. The artifacts uncovered during this mission will help bring Henry Morgan and his adventures to life in a way never thought possible.

While, as a student of both anthropology and archaeology, I am all in favor of corporate funding for any responsible project, you have to question this one. Is the integrity of the actual find being skewed to fulfill the wishes of its sponsor? Will this ship be deemed Satisfaction regardless of evidence to the contrary, should such come to light? Did Captain Morgan’s Rum just buy their brand an artifact?

The article, though short, also whimsically (some might say maliciously) distorts the history of Morgan himself. According to the article:

Morgan was hired by the British government to protect its colonies in the Americas. He traversed the seas, taking down anything that might harm British interests.

That sounds more like the description of a superhero than a man who was hauled back to England and taken to task by his king for attacking Panama City. Not to mention all that torture and rape and what not. Lucky he may have been, but Morgan was neither protector of the realm nor, for that matter, much of a sailor.

As promised back in March, Triple P will keep an eye on this one and report as the story develops. All I can say at this point is that I hope the ship is what the researchers and their sponsor imagine it is. Given the tone of the ABC News article, any alternative may never be made clear to the public. Not only would that be a horrible blow to seafaring history, it would also constitute an unconscionable shame.

Header: Rio Chagres from Castillo San Lorenzo by Gaspar Serrano

Booty: The Captain Strikes Again

This post is actually full of completely unrelated items that I feel like sharing with the Brethren. Because you are the coolest people I know. And besides, it’s my ship.


That out of the way, I was recently rewatching my new favorite episode of “Deadliest Warrior” on Spike TV (narrowly edging out the glorious Sun Tzu vs. Vlad the Impaler). This is the one where my favorite Saint, the delightfully spunky Jeanne d’Arc (Joan of Arc to you Anglais), kicks Norman butt on William the Conqueror (aka “the Bastard”). How does that feel, Viking boy? Anyway, click here to see the panel discussing the battle in detail as it appears that the full episode is not yet available online.

While I enjoyed the splendor that is a seventeen year old peasant girl wreaking havoc on a seasoned veteran of Medieval warfare, a commercial break interrupted my reverie. But hark, what is this? Why, it’s our old friend Captain Morgan.

There he is, waking up in his hammock with a lady friend – who isn’t so easily roused – at his side. Up on deck he climbs to find his ship threatened by a Spanish galleon. But the sly Captain has a plan. Out the handy plank he walks, as if he were the captive and not the leader of this rabble, and then a silent pause. The Captain effortlessly manages a perfectly executed forward double right into the briny deep and the Spanish give him a nice round of applause. He is welcomed aboard the galleon and pirate and Spaniard share a tot of Captain Morgan’s rum. Good times! Finally the “new” slogan: “To Life, Love and Loot!”

Here is the (almost) full commercial on YouTube. Though I could go on, I’ll just say that I have no earthly desire to ever see the real Henry Morgan in anything close to that state of undress, thank you very much. You can’t ever beat pirate-centric fun, though.

And, on a completely unrelated note, if anyone has any curiosity about what Pauline might write other than seafaring tales and piratical stories, I’m happy to share. Find my entry to 49 Writing Center’s “Ode to a Dead Salmon Bad Writing Contest” entitled The Horror: A Tale of Dismemberment at their website. If you like it, consider stopping by again when voting for the contest opens.

Happy Friday, Brethren. Whether you’re inspired by St. Jeanne, Captain Morgan, Edgar A. Poe or just anyone, get out there and kick some butt!

Header: Joan of Arc Win sticker via Get Glue Stickers

People: "...Whom Nothing on Earth Could Terrify"

Richard Sawkins (sometimes spelled Sawkens) was probably born somewhere in Britain in the early 1650s. It is fair to say that he came from what would then have been called a “common” family as, like so many others of the Brethren, he went to sea while still a boy. He seems to have had the kind of winning personality that made men not only trust him, but want to follow him as well. When his biographer, fellow buccaneer Basil Ringrose, picks up his story, Sawkins is sitting in a Port Royal, Jamaica gaol awaiting trial for piracy.


According to Philip Gosse in The Pirate’s Who’s Who, Sawkins was captured while captaining the sloop Success some time in 1677. Gosse, in fact, confuses his dates and has the prison term ending in December of 1679. Sawkins was in the Great South Sea by January of that year so this is impossible. As both Ringrose and Gosse note, however, Sawkins was somehow cleared of all charges, set free and returned to his buccaneering ways.

In command of a very small vessel bearing 30 crewmen and one gun, Sawkins joined with Captains John Coxon and Sharp in an expedition across the Darien Gap to the cities of Santa Maria, Santa Marta and finally the storied Panama City herself. The small army of over 300 men set out during the rainy season and was able to cross the Gap in canoes rather than marching as Morgan’s expedition had done. They were successful in a sack of Santa Maria, and a letter from Sawkins to the Archbishop of Santa Marta encouraged him to pay a healthy ransom for his city.

Pressing on, the flotilla of canoes finally reached the Pacific Ocean just south of Panama City. They took two small Spanish ships and pressed on toward the Gulf of Panama. There they found eight ships from the Spanish treasure fleet which, it seems, were unfortunately empty of wealth. The buccaneers went on the attack with what weapons they had and, after what Ringrose describes as a “… furious, bloody battle” they took the much larger ships. Coxon then ordered the harbor blockaded and long weeks of negotiation with the Governor of Panama began.

It appears that Sawkins may have been the most articulate (and possibly the most literate) of the leaders in the buccaneer company as he was chosen to correspond with the Governor.

When the Governor enquired why the buccaneers had blockaded the harbor, Sawkins wrote back rather righteously that he and his fellows had come to restore the “… rightful King of Darien”. He was referring to the native population, something that buccaneers rarely did in negotiations with Spain. Though they often used indigenous people’s knowledge of an area to their advantage, the vast majority of buccaneers were just as likely to abuse local natives as any other European.

Getting nowhere with the Governor after a week, Sawkins learned that the Archbishop of Santa Marta was in Panama City. He sent the man two loaves of sugar along with a letter reminding him of his avoidance of a sack of his city earlier. The Archbishop was quick to respond, sending gifts of gold rings to the buccaneer commanders and promising to address the Governor on their behalf.

The Governor was unmoved and, instead of agreeing to a ransom, sent a message back asking from what country the buccaneers had their commission so that he could complain to that government. In Ringrose’s account, Sawkins’ reply is swift and sarcastic:

… we will come and visit you in Panama and bring our commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time you should read them as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make it.

Unfortunately, Sawkin’s verbal bravado was a feint. Men were growing ill from lack of fresh food and water; these buccaneers would be no match for a fortified town. Sawkins’ men finally convinced him to move down the coast and find better hunting. Some time before May of 1679 he relented, leaving Sharp and Coxon to go elsewhere.

Sawkins’ ship arrived at the town of Pueblo Nueva and prepared to invade her. Doubtless the word had spread up and down the coast that ladrones were in Panama as the town was well armed and ready when they arrived. On May 22nd, Sawkins led his men in a charge up the beach; he was felled by a musket ball and died not long after.

Richard Sawkins was remembered in Ringrose’s account of the expedition as:

… a man who was as valiant and courageous as any man could be, and the best beloved of all our company.

As Ringrose put it, Sawkins was “… a man whom nothing on earth could terrify.” That, in and of itself, is pretty impressive.

Finally, if you do nothing else tomorrow, be sure to stop by for a very special guest post in honor of Triple P’s second anniversary. Don’t you dare miss it, Brethren!

Header: Buried Treasure by N.C. Wyeth