Lady Pirates: "...Thy Bride, Charlotte, The Female Pirate!"

So people make up stories all the time. I'm never surprised by that since I do it my own darn self (and then have the temerity to ask people to pay me for them). With this in mind, I find it kind of amusing that the piratosphere gets so huffy about the story of Charlotte de Berry. Sure, its probably pure fiction but so what? Its a good story, even if it is a little over done and heavily sauced with Victorian details. Lighten up, kids. Nobody seems to mind that Jack Sparrow is likewise fictional. Give the lady her due, will ya?

In 1836 Edward Lloyd published his "History of Pirates". Hot on the heels of Charles Ellms' "The Pirates Own Book", Lloyd cashed in on a titillating subject that the Victorians were just bonkers for. Lloyd's book is the first place that de Berry is mentioned and, though he is heavy on "facts" he leaves some pretty critical information out. All the same, here's what he has to say in a nutshell.

Charlotte de Berry was born to poor "but still most respectable" parents in an anonymous English port town in 1636. The girl was an only child and she grew up wild and free, idolizing the sailors around her and dreaming of going to sea. When she was 14 she started dressing in drag and hanging out in bars with the rock star sailors she loved. It was in one of these haunts that she met Jim Jib, whose real name appears to have been de Berry and - you guessed it - eloped with him to sea. Her parents never saw her again and Lloyd has them dying of broken hearts for the loss of their child.

Charlotte, of course, distinguishes herself aboard her husband's vessel. She is involved in multiple sea battles and no one ever suspects her for a girl. The ship's Lieutenant takes a set against Jim Jib at this point and has him brought up for court martial for some imaginary infraction. What ever the charge it must have been serious because Jim is given the brutal sentence of flogging around the fleet. In this nightmare that usually killed the prisoner, a man was rowed from one ship at anchor to another, flogged on board each ship with a set number of lashes, and then returned to his own ship for the final flogging. While this punishment was certainly carried out occasionally, it is not recorded by the Royal Navy until the late 18th century.

Jim dies a week after his ordeal and Charlotte plots revenge. Once her ship has returned to England and the sailors are paid out, she lies in wait for the Lieutenant, shoots him in the street and takes his money. She then runs off to London where she returns to women's clothing. She takes rooms, one imagines near the water. Of course, Charlotte is a beautiful woman and the local guys go nuts for her. One merchant Captain in particular won't take no for an answer and he manages to trick Charlotte into coming aboard his ship, which immediately sets sail. Charlotte is now Captain Wilmington's sex slave. Don't you love Victorian prose?

Wilmington, it turns out, is a cruel Martinet who punishes early and often aboard ship. His men can't stand him but no one wants to take the lead in a mutiny. No one, that is, except Charlotte. She kills Wilmington while he sleeps and becomes Captain of the merchant which now turns pirate. The ship is wildly successful in raiding merchants off the coast of Africa and things are going splendidly until Charlotte sets her cap for a heavily armed merchant that refuses to go down without a fight. The ensuing melee kills most of de Berry's crew, cripples her ship and sinks the prize with all hands aboard. Bummer.

Charlotte manages to limp her ship into Grenada - which at the time was not a colony of any European country, keep in mind - where she puts on her dresses once again and starts charming the local boys while the ship is being refit. She meets and falls in love with a "planter's son" who agrees to marry her and join her in her piratical adventures. He even generously re-mans Charlotte's ship with some of his Dad's slaves. And so, the pair head out for more prize taking.

The luck is not in it for Charlotte, though. The ship is beat up by a gale and blown out to sea where the crew quickly devours all available provisions. When hunger bites too deeply, the men agree to draw lots Monty Python style to see which man will be killed and cooked for dinner. The shortest straw goes to Charlotte's husband and she, understandably, tries to keep him from going in the stew pot. Fortunately, one of his faithful slaves steps up to take his place and the crew's hunger is sated... for now.

Soon, the lot drawing resumes and wouldn't you know Charlotte's husband is on the menu again. This time, another slave steps up and the crisis is momentarily averted. I know you can see this coming. A third drawing of lots turns up the Captain's mister once again and this time there is no generous slave to sacrifice. Charlotte talks the crew into eating only the hub's calves - seriously! This doesn't hold back their hunger for long, though, and eventually Charlotte's husband is killed and eaten raw while she watches. Needless to say, she goes insane.

The ship is eventually rescued and returns to pirating but Charlotte is now out for revenge on her own crew. They know what she's up to and some propose throwing her overboard. Cooler heads prevailed and she was "suffered to wander about the ship in undisturbed enjoyment of her wild ravings." I don't know. Maybe enjoyment wasn't really the right word there, Ed.

The pirates attack a Dutch ship "of large size and force" and nothing good comes of it. Charlotte kills anyone she can shoot and eventually is struck with a cutlass. Falling overboard, she calls out: "My husband! thy bride, Charlotte, the female pirate, comes to join thee!" Then Charlotte's ship blows up and everyone dies. The end.

And that's the rather sleazy story of Charlotte de Berry as told to us by Edward Lloyd. No, I don't believe it. But its still a ton o' piratical fun.

Tools of the Trade: You Wouldn't Want That to Happen

Here in the US today is an iconic day. Labor Day. A celebration of America's workforce and, traditionally, the last day of summer. Time for one more trip to the State Fair, one last cook out and one final warm night of star gazing. As the old sailors adage goes, Oh! That it were ever September.

So, with that in mind, I thought I'd mention an iconic sailing image and how odd it is that such a thing would be so iconic in the first place. The "foul anchor", an example of which is seen above on a piece of French copper, is one of the most recognizable nautical symbols around. It is used routinely in naval and merchant insignia - in fact, I still have my Dad's foul anchor pin from his time in the Merchant Marines, may he rest in peace. The symbol represents an anchor around which the rode - either rope or chain - to which it is attached has wrapped.

Although lovely to look at in representational form, there's a good reason why such an anchor is known as "foul". The entangled anchor is a pure nightmare for seaman. The anchor fouled by rope or chain loses its holding power, allowing the ship to drift. Retrieving the anchor is difficult at best and sometimes impossible. More than one cable has snapped and the anchor lost for fouling. This is an expensive proposition for the ship and frequently cause for disciplinary action on those responsible. Generally speaking, sailors see an anchor fouled as a sign of inattention to duty and just plain poor seamanship. Nobody likes a bad seaman, after all.

Enjoy the holiday, my American Brethren. Keep your anchor clear of rode, and smooth sailing to one and all.

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Blue

Let's get the semantics out of the way. I am in no way saying that sailors invented the word "blue". Obviously, considering human populations, we've had the word around for a long, long time. There's probably more blue in the world than any other color given the vastness of the sea and sky. Even major swatches of green can't rival the pervasive nature of blue when you see the world from space and when you are out in the open ocean with no sight of land whatever, well. If you've been there, I don't need to explain. If you haven't, there are no words that can truly make you imagine the unremitting beauty - or terror, depending on your perspective - of the sea hurrying along before you to join the sky. No wonder early seafarers feared falling right off the edge.

Its just that feeling of being so far away from everything that may have led sailors to use the word "blue" for "sad" and transmitted the idea to those on land without being able to communicate the feeling. "Till all is blue" referred to not only the physical movement of a ship from port out to the blue of the open ocean, but also the time of adjustment from land based activities to the sure rhythm of a ship afloat. It then morphed into meaning something carried to its most penultimate possibility, just as the ship was carried by the wind to the open sea.

Career sailors tended to look forward to the release from land where they never quite felt like they fit in. Someone who was aboard ship involuntarily, however, might find the apprehension of being at sea more than their psyche could tolerate. Tales are told of impressed sailors dying on long voyages for want of land, or going mad and throwing themselves into the ocean to drown. These conditions led the more compassionate naval surgeons to the conclusion that a man could literally become "blue" at sea. The "blue devils" were blamed for these unfortunate deaths and efforts were made on "happy ships" to keep the blue devils away. Music was considered a sure balm for such problems and was generally encouraged by officers. In the worst cases men were strapped into hammocks in the sick berth and given drugs such a laudanum (opium tinctured in alcohol) until the next port was reached and the unfortunate could be left to his own devises by land.

Eventually "blue" meaning "depressed" worked its way into the general language. So, it may very well be that you have sailors in general - and the Royal Navy in particular - to thank for all those maudlin country songs. Don't blame me, though. My ancestors said bleu.

Bon Samedi mes frères! See you back in the week ahead (and for my Brethren in the US, enjoy the long Labor Day weekend).

Sea Monsters: "...As If Attentively Viewing the Vessel"

I've been reading old accounts of sea serpents and/or monsters recently and I just can't help but share. First off, though, let me address the above, which I found while poking around for old engravings of sea monsters.

"Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters" is, of course, another attempt to cash in on the popularity of "Pride and Prejudice and Zombies". The book is due out this month and may actually appeal to someone, although who that person might be escapes me personally. Of note, to me, is the fact that the titular "sea monster" on the cover is in fact a Marine rather than an actual Royal Navy officer. I honestly love Austen's writing but it appears that, even in knock offs, Jane's ladies seem to get it just slightly wrong when choosing their beaux.

To the "real" sea monster: In the August, 1818 addition of the Portland, Maine, Eastern Argus, a small piece appeared about the sighting of a sea monster off the shore of Maine's Monhegan Island. The reporter is a passenger on the schooner Maxamilla coming from Lubec and carrying passengers to New York. The Captain spots a small boat under sail but, when the boat disappears suddenly, he decides the object must be the locally famous "sea serpent". Those aboard waited to see if the monster might reappear. The reporter tells us: "In a few minutes, anticipation was realized - as the monster was discovered about a quarter of a mile to the leeward with his head about 15 feet out of the water, and his tail at the same time about 10 feet out, his breast, or body, near the water, was encircled with a clear white stripe, the diameter to appearance about 6 feet. In this position, the monster remained about two minutes, as if attentively viewing the vessel; and he then began thrashing the water, with his head alternately upon either side, with the utmost fury."

Evidently, whatever our little buddy off the coast of Maine was, he didn't like being stared at. I wonder if the Lovecraftian Marine above had the same issue? Happy Friday, Brethren. If anyone reads "S and S and SM", please leave your humble hostess a comment and let me know how it turns out. I'm guessing Miss Marianne ends up with Cthulhu. What joy!

Tools of the Trade: Good Eats!

Pirates, like every other organism on the planet, have to eat. Now, I'm sure I'd be up for a keelhauling for calling some of these guys "organisms" but that's another post. Let's talk about the diets of sailors - and of pirates and privateers in particular. Perhaps one of you, my Brethren, will be inspired by your humble hostess to bring something new to the table tonight. Or, perhaps not. Frankly, unless the economy gets way worse, I'm not going to be cooking our terrapin friend up there any time soon.

Generally speaking, pirate voyages were short. From the days of the buccaneers in the Caribbean to the end of the era of the privateers, pirates stayed close to a home port that was chosen not only for its proximity to rich shipping but for its access to markets that would readily buy the pirates' booty. This meant that provisioning a pirate ship was easier than loading up a navy frigate with comestibles and water and that, too, had its reasons. Why cram a hold full of barrels of food and drink when you could pack it with prize goods instead?

Pirates and privateers stocked their ships with the same goods that great navies of the day did. Hardtack, the tooth-breaking biscuits that could last for years in a wood barrel, was the number one starch. Salt pork, beef or horse was the number one protein and dried peas were your vegetable. Sounds good already, doesn't it? Hard cheeses were popular for their shelf life. Even the rind could be melted on hardtack to make a somewhat respectable "toasted cheese", generally served with hot mustard. Many larger ships kept chickens for their eggs. Water was stored in barrels, too, but since it tended to get swampy pretty fast, pirates put in for fresh water wherever they safely could. Unlike the navies of the time, pirates weren't really big on grog. Beer, wine, unwatered rum and whiskey were far more to their taste. Of course the beer went first because it didn't last very long but wine and hard liquor traveled remarkably well.

All that being said, and given the old adage about the best laid plans of rodents and sailors, sometimes things went awry. Weather and encounters with better armed enemies could send a pirate ship well off its course and then old fashioned ingenuity might be the only thing keeping a crew fed. If the men were lucky, they could catch fish over the side to sustain them at sea. Failing that, no land in sight might mean eating the rats that invariably populated the ship. Either that or the cat kept aboard to do said duty in better times. Unpopulated islands provided a respite as well, offering fresh water and wildlife. Many times, the creatures on these islands had never seen people and catching them was as easy as swinging a pole.

The big guy shown above was a particular favorite, not only for his taste but for his ease of capture. Sea turtles were creatively cooked on skewers, as fillets, fried, in soup or stew and, by land, barbecued in their shell Bear Grylls style. Some sailors were so fond of turtle that they went out of their way to get it when they were stuck on land. It may be no coincidence that places like Saint-Mayo in France and New Orleans in the US are famous for their turtle soup.

In the hardest of times though, when a ship was becalmed or crippled far from land, things might edge the ridiculous. The story of Henry Morgan's ill fated 1670 voyage is still told today. His crew, stranded and out of provisions, resorted to eating their leather satchels. One of them even left a recipe, of sorts, for the best way to cook such a thing. On Charlotte de Berry's ship in the Atlantic, the tale is told of the crew fairly mutinying for lack of food. They killed two slaves and cannibalized them before killing Charlotte's own husband and roasting him in an act of greedy defiance. I'm not necessarily buying that one, but its a good story all the same.

Obviously, such cases were extreme and generally speaking the cook - often called "Slouchy" on a pirate crew because cooks were almost invariably injured seaman who couldn't climb or run out a gun - liked to keep his boys happy. Two favorite pirate dishes would make a nice meal. The main course would be salmagundi. This was a stew of meat or fish, or a generous combination of both, cooked in wine. To the simmering meat was added vegetables - fresh or pickled - hard cooked eggs, olives and onions. Sometimes cabbage and a tropical fruit such as coconut, plantains or bananas would be thrown in as well. Desert might consist of plum duff, a favorite aboard all ships from the 17th to the 19th century. This was actually made with plums on land but at sea it consisted of hardtack flour, raisins, molasses and spices like cinnamon, anise and cloves. Wash that down with some rum and you've got everything a growing boy needs!

Hungry yet, Brethren? Well I am. But I think a tuna sandwich might sit better than a bowl of turtle. They have those cute eyes, you know?

People: "The Intrepid Hero of a Hundred Battles"

The Pirate Guys, John "Ol' Chumbucket" Bauer and Mark "Cap'n Slappy" Summers always impressed me for inventing and then promoting the hell out of International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept. 19th; be ready!). But they didn't really win a place in Pauline's cool heart until their book "Pirattitude" came out in 2005. Among the sidebars of famous pirates scattered throughout was not only Jean Laffite (name spelled correctly!) but a privateer that your humble hostess holds as dear as her own Uncle Renato Beluche. There on page 85 was Dominique Frederic You (or Youx, as it is written on his grave so we're gonna go with that).

Youx was born at some point but no one knows when or where. A lot of speculation has gone into the origins of this little guy who, though stocky and muscular stood only five feet tall. There is an entire school of thought - particularly among those who see the bogus "Diary of Jean Lafitte" as gospel - that Youx was in fact Pierre and Jean Laffite's much older brother. OK, I could go on and on but instead let me just say that a man named Laffite wouldn't have Youx put on his grave and a man named Laffite wouldn't write a diary and then misspell his own name. Honestly!

Youx's origins seem to stem from Haiti, where he is rumored to have fought as an artillerist with the French Army during the slave rebellion. Whether the story is true or not is another thing that's up for debate, but Youx never quelled the idea once he made it to Louisiana. William C. Davis, in his exhaustively researched and engaging book "The Pirates Laffite" has Youx sailing as a French privateer out of the island of Guadaloupe in 1806. Here, according to Davis, Youx took part in the defense of the port of Baracoa against the British.

Again, documentation is scarce but by 1810 the Caribbean islands of Guadaloupe and Martinique had fallen to the British and Youx, like so many others, turned to Cartagena for a letter of marque that would allow him to ply his trade in the Gulf with some semblance of legality. By this time, too, he had begun taking his prizes to the Laffite port of Barataria and his relationship with the brothers was well known in New Orleans and elsewhere. He was the Laffite brothers' "most trusted Lieutenant" and the close friend and sometimes partner of their possible cousin, Beluche.

By 1813, when the Laffites were at the top of their game, Youx's name was synonymous with their operation. Vincent Nolte, a leading merchant in New Orleans and no friend of the Laffites for all the business they were taking from him, wrote rather petulantly at this time of the brothers and their buddies walking arm in arm down the city's streets with no fear of reprisal from the law. He complains of seeing Jean Laffite in particular with "Beluche, Dominique and Gambi... walking about publicly. They had... their depots of goods &c., in the city and sold, almost openly, the wares they had obtained by piracy". Grumpy son of a gun, that Nolte.

Of course, nothing lasts forever and in September of 1814 Commodore Patterson of the New Orleans Naval Station raided Barataria, took ships as prizes and arrested anyone he could catch. The Laffites, tipped off by someone in the know, left their base and put Youx in charge. Instructed not to engage the Americans he instead set flame to everything he could and was brutally treated in prison for his trouble. He was chained heavily and - when Andrew Jackson finally agreed to release the Bartarians in exchange for their assistance at the Battle of New Orleans - Youx needed some time to recover before he was ready to fight against the British once again.

On January 8, 1815, Dominique Youx and Renato Beluche stood side by side overlooking the British on Chalmette plain south of New Orleans. The final battle of the War of 1812 was at hand and each man commanded a Baratarian crew working two twenty-four pound cannon. They were the infamous Battery Number 3 that decimated the British and were lauded by General Jackson in a public address some weeks later.

The erroneous story goes that the Treaty of Ghent had already been signed the previous December and so the war was over and the battle meant nothing. In fact, the US Congress had not yet ratified the treaty which contained a "clause ante bellum". The clause would have ceded any North American territory occupied by the British to them, meaning they would have been granted control of the Mississippi. American shipping through New Orleans would have been closed down, the new country would have been starved out and there you are with that whole "Colonists vs King George" nightmare all over again. Youx, Beluche and their boys are some of the most under-appreciated heroes in American history. Period.

After the war, Youx returned to the sea. There is documentation of him working with Beluche in and around Jamaica in 1816 and he surely brought prizes into Galveston when it was a Laffite port between 1816 and 1821. By 1823, though, the old sailor had lost his taste for the trade and he bought a small place in New Orlean's Faubourg Marigny where he tried to make a go of running a coffee shop. The place didn't make much in the way of money but Youx is still remembered in the city as a delightful character who always had a smile and a story to tell. His many wounds caught up with him and he died after a painful illness in 1830, so poor that the city and the local Freemasons paid for his funeral.

Davis notes that people remembered "'Captain Dominique' as a man 'to whom fortune had never been very favorable.'" Interestingly, though, he is thought of now as kind of a local spirit in New Orleans and people leave offerings and candles at his grave in St. Louis Cemetery No.2, which is shown above. The inscription on the sepulchre translates from French in part "...the intrepid hero of a hundred battles on land and sea who, without fear and without reproach, will one day view, unmoved, the destruction of the world." How cool is that?

If you are ever in New Orleans, stop by and leave a flower or a candle for the intrepid Dominique Youx. It seems like the least any lover of freebooters can do.

History: "...A Woman Uncovering Her Body"

The old canard (which by the way means "duck" in French, so I'm always particularly tickled by its usage in English - as always, words don't have to make sense to be fun!) is that sailors despise a woman aboard ship. We've certainly seen that women went to sea long before modern navies got over their squeamishness and put women solidly among many a crew, but how each individual mate on each individual ship felt (or feels) about it is open to speculation. The story is women brought trouble, caused jealousies and infighting and could lead to the very worst possible outcomes. Patrick O'Brian uses this premise in more than one of his Aubrey/Maturin novels to great success. "The Far Side of the World" in particular features a love triangle between the gunner, his nubile wife and an older midshipman that has the most tragic of consequences.

Interestingly, the superstition included a clause that stated a naked woman aboard ship brought good luck and protection to the barky. Hmm. Sounds like sailors thinking wishfully, doesn't it? Well, maybe, but...

In 77 AD Pliny the Elder wrote in his voluminous "Natural History" that "...out at sea, a storm may be lulled by a woman uncovering her body..." How handy is that? One has to wonder if Roman ships kept a woman below to climb up on deck and reveal her charms when the weather turned awkward. I know more than one of you is liking that idea. But no, they didn't do it that way as a rule. Instead they invoked the female force of protection at sea less literally, and many still do today.

The Goddess of the Double Axe worshipped at Knossos in ancient Crete with her breasts bare was not only the Great Mother in that culture but the protector of ships at sea. The Egyptian Isis (Au Set in the ancient language) was considered a universal protector of ships and shipping. When her worship spread across the Mediterranean, Roman, Greek and Carthaginian ships were routinely named for her and small amulets with her name were worn by seamen. The Norse goddess Frigg, wife of Odin, was called upon by all who went to sea for safety and good hunting.

To this day, Catholic sailors have a special affinity for the Virgin Mary. Fishing villages in southern Europe and South and Central America almost uniformly feature a church dedicated to Mary, many of which have small chapels or altars set aside for sea goers and their families. Stella Maris - The Star of the Sea - is Mary's incarnation as the queen of the oceans and in Haitian Voudon her counterpart is La Siren, the mermaid who will grant safety on the water or entice people to a watery grave.

Ships were routinely named Mary, Maria, Marie or any combination that included the Virgin's name. Columbus famously had his Santa Maria and the Spanish Armada that had such bad luck against Elizabeth of England's sea dogs contained at least ten ships with Maria in their name. Pirates and privateers were no exception, and in the early 1800s the Gulf of Mexico was jam packed with ships named Santa Maria, Maria Corazone and Estrella de Mar. In fact, Mary's name even includes the Latin word for sea.

Finally, the rage for female figureheads with one or both breasts bared may stem from the idea of the female body calming the waves. Before the 17th century, figureheads tended to be mythical or known animals. Lions and rams were popular, but so were dragons and griffins. As the Reformation marched across Europe, though, the attachment to the Virgin for protection at sea waned, particularly in northern Europe and North America. It doesn't seem like much of a coincidence that by the 18th century ships - even those with names that weren't feminine - had female figureheads. Though the form of invocation had changed, our superstitious mates were loath to give up their goddess.

Aside from all that, figureheads were and still are beautiful pieces of the woodworker's art. Many port cities have mariners' museums and a trip to one of the larger ones will probably bring you face to face with some of these delightfully fanciful figures. Check them out if you have a chance, Brethren. What is more inspiring than standing next to history?