Tools of the Trade: Have We Been Introduced?

It would be erroneous of me to imply that every sailor aboard every pirate or privateer that ever sailed had a snappy nickname like Billy Bowlegs, Jim Jib or Tom Topman, but it happened more than you might think. Many men took names other then their own to avoid punishment if they were captured by the navy they deserted. Others used their nicknames as another way to frighten the enemy. Messing with Bloody Robert, Black Bart or Blackbeard sounded like a bad idea, even on paper. Let's face it, though, not everyone has that special ear for euphonious monikers. Still, there were a lot of funny names floating around and a certain amount of standardization eventually occurred.

After a while - as usual, just like in the large navies of the day - guys started to take their nickname from the job they did. Since turnover was not unusual on a pirate crew, men being free to come and go as they pleased, knowing each man's name was probably even less feasible than it was aboard an 800 soul man-of-war. Easy identification was essential in tight quarters and tense situations and, just like today, men who took pride in their speciality probably identified with the words used to define it. So here's a little list, Brethren; a quick overview if you will to help you decide what to call your family members, friends and coworkers this Saturday on International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Captain: of course this one is relatively self-explanatory. Keep in mind that the Captain was an elected official, especially in the Golden Age of Piracy and, though his word was law during the taking of a prize or a storm, he rarely expected the kind of respect that would be found in the naval or merchant service. (Note: Skipper is not an interchangeable term. If you want a "Skipper" jump on a fishing or whaling boat... or take a three hour tour and get lost on a deserted island).

Lieutenant: many pirates and privateers in particular shipped one or even two Lieutenants sometimes known as Mates, 1st, 2nd, etc. (but never "little buddy"). These men would be called upon to fill in for the Captain or command prizes as necessary.

Master: here's a confusing term. In the Royal, American and French Navies a Master and Commander was and officer who did the job of both the Master and the Captain and was one step down from a Post Captain. A Quartermaster was, much like a purser, in charge of supplies including food, rigging, sails, beverages, livestock, etc. A Master was the navigator, and that is how the term was used on pirates and privateers. Generally a seasoned sailor who knew his way around not just a chart but most local shores and rivers as well, the Master was invaluable to the safety of the ship.

Bosun: the word is short for "boatswain" which means the ship's suitor. Kind of romantic, huh? Essentially, the bosun ran the ship. He kept the men working and the ship in good order so that the other officers could get on with the business of finding and taking prizes. Interestingly, it frequently fell to the bosun to look after the cat or cats kept aboard as rat catchers. He also carried out any discipline, such as flogging.

Leadsman: subordinate to the Master but no less crucial to the ship, the leadsman was in charge of keeping track of water depth and the ship's speed. He did this by throwing the "lead line" into the ocean periodically and counting the depth of the consecutive knots made thereon. (This is why a ship's speed is measured in "knots").

Purser: as above, the purser was in charge of all the supplies on the ship. His subordinates included the Cook or Slouchy (so called because he was frequently the guy with the peg-leg and eye patch), Jemmy Ducks (who was in charge of the chickens or ducks brought aboard for their eggs), Sparks, the blacksmith and Sails, the sailmaker.

Other important fixtures aboard were Chips, the carpenter who was invaluable in the case of damage to the ship, and Guns, the lead gunner.

Did you get all that? Start thinking about who's who around your place and slap a tag on them come Saturday. You'll be able to tell them not only what they'll be up to all day, but why you picked the name you did!

The Pirates Own Book: "My First Crime Was Piracy"

Its that time again, Brethren! We haven't opened The Pirates' Own Book for a while and I thought the delightful tale of Charles Gibbs might be a handy distraction for a Tuesday afternoon. Without further introduction, here is Charles Ellms' take on the nefarious Gibbs the pirate.

Gibbs was a Rhode Islander by birth, according to the book, although I have seen other historians note that he was born in Nova Scotia or Newfoundland. Either way it appears that he eventually came to call the US home. In the year 1809 he was 15 years old, had been expelled from school and was doing farm labor which did not interest him in the least. He had a "great inclination to roam" and therefor turned to the sea. He signed on board the Navy sloop Hornet and, as so many sailors did, worked his way onto a larger more prestigious ship. Ellms has Gibbs aboard the Chesapeake when she is engaged and captured by the British frigate Shannon. This conflict was the touchstone that sparked the War of 1812 and many of you have probably seen the famous painting showing the valiant Chesapeake trying in vain to overcome the heavier gunned Shannon. It has always struck me as serendipitous that both ships were named after rivers.

At any rate, Gibbs was imprisoned in Dartmoor, England and eventually exchanged. He made his way to Boston where he opened "a drunkery" in a questionable area of town. His establishment catered to the local harlots and it became Gibbs habit to let the girls "pay him in their coin" thus running the place into the ground for lack of funds. Time to go back to sea.

Evidently fed up with the Navy, Gibbs takes passage to Buenos Aires and secures a berth aboard an Argentinian privateer. First Consul Jose de San Martin was handing out letters of marque like Halloween candy around this time, so its not surprising that Gibbs was drawn to the fledgling country. At some point the crew mutinied over prize money and the mutineers turned to piracy. According to Ellms they "steered for the West Indies, with hearts resolved to make their fortunes at all hazards" and in the course of this endeavor they managed to slaughter four hundred of their fellow men. Ellms does not give us dates or even vague time frames but, no matter how you slice it, that's impressive.

Gibbs and his mates end up lodging in Havana for a time, although why is not discussed in the book. The raiding and murder continues until 1819, when Gibbs is in New York with $30,000 burning a hole in his pocket. Gibbs is quoted as saying at the time of his trial for piracy and murder that he "...fell in with a woman, and I am sorry to say that a heart that never felt abashed at scenes of carnage and blood, was made a child for a time by her..." I'm going to read "she took me for all I was worth" into that. The relationship was evidently too much for our pirate, and he returned to Argentina to take a post in the Navy there.

Here, Ellms switches to a first person style of narrative as if he is merely writing down an interview with Gibbs. He doesn't say that he has met or even seen the man, but none the less it is Gibbs' voice we appear to be listening to now. He rambles somewhat, about a trip to North Africa and an attempt to join the Barbary pirates. When this fails its back to independent piracy and, as always with Ellms, we now have the story of an abduction and rape. A "Dutch girl" is
taken by Gibbs and his pirate pals from a ship they raid. They kill all the other passengers - including her parents - and hold her against her will for two or three months until they finally give her poison. The prose is pretty purple here but Gibbs insists that he never touched the girl.

After this heinous interlude, Gibbs makes his way to New Orleans and signs aboard the ship of a Captain Thornby. The ship is not only transporting cotton, sugar and molasses but also $54,000 in "specie" or coin. I think we all know what happens next. Mutiny ensues and the narrative becomes somewhat confused as to who killed who on one fateful night off the coast of New England. At any rate, the Captain and his officers are murdered and thrown overboard, the money is taken to Southampton and buried on the island, and then one of the conspirators blabs to the local lighthouseman, Johnson. The cat is out of the back.

The rest of the story appears to be recordings of court documents with the defendants in the case, Gibbs and Thomas Wansley, accusing their fellows of selling them out to avoid hanging. If there is any truth to what Ellms has written, it appears that's exactly what happened. There is also a frank discussion of racial tensions, with Wansley - who was black - telling the court directly that he was being convicted more for his color than for his deeds. Again, judging from Ellms' account of the mutiny, he might very well have been right. Both men are hanged, and Ellms prints a series of letters attributed to Gibbs, one of which includes this poem:

Rising grief distress my soul
And tears on tears successive roll -
For many an evil voice is near,
To chide my woes and mock my fear -
And silent memory weeps alone,
O'er hours of peace and gladness known.

Pirate poetry, Brethren. You can't beat it. The final note in this chapter is both poignant and indicative of the time it was written. Directly from Ellms: "After the bodies had remained on the gallows the usual time, they were taken down and given to the surgeons for dissection. Gibbs was rather below the middle stature, thick set and powerful. The form of Wansley was a perfect model of manly beauty."

Very little has been written about Gibbs outside of Ellms' narrative so its hard to compare and contrast. It is documented that Gibbs was one of the men operating out of Cuba who was turned over to Commodore David Porter when he was hunting pirates in the Caribbean. From there he was, indeed, hanged. The rest is no more than speculation.

History: Keeping Things Light Aboard

Things can get pretty monotonous on a long sea voyage, especially back when you had to rely on the wind to get you where you wanted to go. There was always work to do, of course, and storms and the enemy were foremost in the minds of sailors. Excitement didn't come around very often, though, and sailors formed some interesting traditions to keep their spirits up as they faced the vastness of the ocean, sometimes feeling like their little wooden world was the only thing around.


One of these strange but amusing rituals was a hazing of sorts. Those who had never crossed the equator were washed and shaved when their ship did so. It didn't matter which way you were going. North or south, crossing the equator meant you got to mess with the newbies. If no barber was aboard, certain men would be selected to do the shaving. Under what I imagine was almost always a hot sun, the less seasoned hands would come up on deck and queue up for their grooming. The whole business had rather a holiday feel to it and extra grog rations were included. On some ships, the barbers' assistants would drape themselves in sail cloth quasi-Grecian style and be called nymphs or nereids. It must have been quite the spectacle and one wonders how anything got done thereafter.


But don't take my word for it. The following is an excerpt from Captain David Porter's log written aboard the frigate Essex on November 23, 1812. The ship,
commissioned for service against the British during the War of 1812, was off the Canary Islands in the southern Atlantic on her way to the Pacific to destroy the British whaling fleet therein. And boy did she. Here's Dave's "eye witness" account of the shenanigans at the equator:

"We were honoured by a visit from the god of the ocean, accompanied by Amphitrite and a numerous retinue of imps, barbers, &c. &c. in his usual style of visiting, and in the course of the afternoon all the novices of the ship's company were initiated into his mysteries. Neptune, however, and most of his suite, paid their devotions so frequently to Bacchus, that before the ceremony of christening was half gone through, their godships were unable to stand; the business was therefore entrusted to the subordinate agents, who performed both the shaving and washing with as little regard to tenderness as his majesty would have done."

I'm sure it was big fun for everyone but the poor guys getting shaved. But then, each man went through it at some point in their sailing career and a break from the usual couldn't be all bad, could it?

Sailor Mouth Saturday: Groggy

The word "groggy" was not going to be today's post when I was lining things up yesterday, believe me. Sometimes serendipity plays a part in all things though, Brethren, and this is one of those times.

The First Mate and I stayed up a little too late last night and had a few too many. No reason to lie about it. When we finally rolled out of bed my husband, as he's pulling on his socks, lets go a little groan. The following conversation ensues:

Him: Groggy.

Me: You are?

Him: Yeah. Too much last night.

Me: A sailor who drank too much grog, was groggy.

Him: There's your post for today.

And so it is. Obviously the word "groggy", meaning cotton-headed, shaky or dizzy comes to us from sailors. In all honesty that was the word to describe being hung-over after too much grog. But what is grog, really, and why does it have that funny name? Thanks for asking.

In 1687 England "conquered" Jamaica and the sugar cane plantations thereon became the property of the King. One by-product of making cane into sugar is molasses and fermented molasses becomes rum which, as we discussed on Thursday, can stand in barrels just about forever without going bad or losing its punch. Rather quickly, the brandy given to average seamen in the Royal Navy was replace by rum.

As we all know (or at least those of us who have sampled the stuff) rum packs a kick and I'm told it was even stronger stuff back in the 17th and 18th century than it is now. I shudder to think. At any rate, one can imagine the seamen abusing their alcohol privileges and nothing useful getting done aboard ship. This situation was remedied to some degree in 1740 by Admiral Vernon who mandated that the rum ration be diluted with water. Vernon was known by the the foremast Jacks as "Old Grogram" because he wore an unusual coat or cloak made from the material. Grogram was, according to Websters, "a coarse fabric made of silk, or of silk, worsted and mohair". Because of the now very unpopular Admiral's funky coat, the beverage he imposed upon the sailors became known as "grog".

A "grog ration" was given to each man and boy aboard a Royal Navy ship (and later American Navy ships as well) twice a day, at noon and 6:00 PM. A ration was one pint per man or a half pint for a boy with one quart of water added per pint. By the 19th century, lime juice was added to grog in the Royal Navy (thus an English sailor was a "limey") while, interestingly, the American Navy favored cranberry juice. This was the standard but some ship's Captains watered the rum more heavily, either to save on alcohol costs or stave off drunkenness, and sailors came up with names for this sort of finagling. "Half and half grog" was the term for equal parts rum and water. "Seven water grog" was the sarcastic moniker applied to any beverage with more water than rum.

Despite orders and standards, sailors were notorious for swapping their grog ration for favors or other items like food or clothing. One sailor might have two or three times his ration on any given day and the outcome, of course, would be a decidedly groggy sailor. This especially since a healthy sailor could sleep a maximum of only four hours at a stretch. That makes me groggy just thinking about it.

I will see you in the week ahead, Brethren. Watch your grog ration, and save some for next Saturday: International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Pathetic Pirates: Maybe The Trade Isn't For You

I have a sneaking suspicion that the star of today's post would have much preferred that I pick someone else to go first. Its probably like that feeling in middle school when you have to give a speech and you want the teacher to call any name that isn't yours. And then it is your name that rings through the air and damn! Shamble to the head of the class and hope for the best. Sorry, Bart, but your up.

Today begins a new feature here at Triple P: Pathetic Pirates. There's a tendency to imagine the historical freebooters as rough and ready and just ahead of the law. At the very least we think of them dying with fortitude on the deck of a ship or at the end of a rope. But, just like every other profession, piracy has its share of Milton Wademses, ineffectually asking for their stapler and their paycheck, metaphorically speaking. So lets kick off our occasional discussions of the less than adept buccaneers with the sad career of Bartolomeo el Portugues.

Bart's early history is a mystery. I cannot find any mention of him before 1655 when he turns up in Port Royal, Jamaica. Given that this was the age of buccaneers, it is entirely possible that Bart had been an indentured servant somewhere in the Caribbean and then made his way to the infamous pirate haven seeking his fortune, but that is purely speculation on my part. At any rate he was keen to get in on the pirate action and he signed aboard a ship heading for the Gulf and Mexico.

Eventually, Bart managed to get his own small sloop and round up a crew of thirty or so men. They cruised the waters around Jamaica and Cuba, hunting for Spanish merchants. Bart got lucky and spotted a ship laden with cocoa beans and chests of silver coin. The merchant chose to fight and, though ultimately victorious, Bart lost something like half his crew in the melee. He put the prize's crew on his sloop and headed back to Jamaica in the merchant vessel. The weather turned ugly, and Bart was forced to turn his new ship toward Cuba. Here, he ran into three Spanish frigates that captured he and his crew and took them to Campeche in Mexico to be hanged.

Bart and his remaining men were held aboard one of the frigates while the gallows for their execution were being built. At some point, they managed to escape and the story goes that, though he couldn't swim, Bart made "water wings" out of two big jars emptied of their contents. He and his crew made it to land and then walked across the Yucatan peninsula (no kidding!) and managed to hitch a ride on another buccaneer's vessel. This may very well have been the luckiest point in Bartolomeo's life.

Returning to Port Royal, Bart plotted revenge on the Spaniards who had taken "his" wealth. He managed to score a canoe and twenty guys and headed back to Campeche where he once again attempted to take a Spanish merchant. This didn't work out so he returned to Port Royal. He somehow got another ship and went back out but was wrecked on an island off southern Cuba after taking a prize. He made it back to Port Royal once again, this time in one of his ship's boats.

At this point, specifics about Bart's career drop off. I imagine that might be simply because every attempt ends the same way: in disaster. Alexander Exquemelin, a former buccaneer whose book "The Buccaneers in the Indies" gives us most of our knowledge about Bartolomeo el Portugues, closes out his segment on the unfortunate pirate with a literary shake of the head. "He made many violent attacks on the Spaniards without gaining much profit from marauding, for I saw him dying in the greatest wretchedness in the world."

It seems that Bart was so unlucky that he couldn't even die quickly. I hope he, at the very least, rests in peace. Happy Friday, Brethren! See you tomorrow for Sailor Mouth Saturday!

History: "Whiskey! For all hands!"

After posting last week about pirate grub I started doing a little more research into pirate grog and was not the least bit surprised by what I found. Shall we talk about spirits, of the sea and otherwise?

First and foremost and probably most important of all, pirates and privateers drank. Early and often. Usually to excess. It was an entitlement issue, and with some grounding in reason.

Most sailors in the trade started their careers at sea with one navy or another. While drinking was sanctioned and regulated in the Royal Navy from the 17th century on, for instance, many a Captain or Admiral became notorious for his insistence on watering the beer and wine and then later the pervasive rum. Sailors grumbled at the muck that these commanders passed off as "tot" and lack of a decent drink at dinner and supper was commonly spoken of as another good reason to join a pirate crew. Because of the egalitarian attitude aboard ship, and also because more than one piratical Captain was fond of spirits himself, no one tried to curtail the debauchery that went on.

Then, too, there was the fact that people honestly drank more back in the day. Water was untrustworthy. Just because our ancestors didn't know about parasites and bacteria doesn't mean they couldn't put two and two together and get four. Drink from a certain well or ditch and you get the runs for days. Ergo: don't drink from the well or ditch. Have a beer instead. Sure, it needed water to make but the fermentation process cured all ills. In a time when "Let us liquor!" was a common greeting among respectable men, it can be no surprise that a bunch of guys who were in a gray area of their society ethically and morally speaking drank their fair share.

Pirates and their privateer cousins didn't seem to be particularly picky about their spirits. Beer was popular for short journeys or at the beginning of a long one, but it soured fast and had to be consumed first. Wine would of course last longer in bottles, which were comparatively fragile, but in large casks it not only took up room but turned to vinegar eventually. Sherry and brandy were also drunk and during the privateering era in the early 19th century, whiskey was popular. Nothing beat rum for its staying power, though. First mentioned in Spanish manifests in the mid-17th century, it was made from molasses and not only did it not sour it didn't lose its kick with time. Plus it became extremely affordable once the slave trade and sugar cane began to boom in the Caribbean. The Brethren of the Coast couldn't get enough of the stuff.

Unfortunately, the price for drunkenness was sometimes life. There are no statistics available analysing how many pirates and former pirates died of alcohol related illnesses, but more than one man surely met Davy Jones with the help of the grog. Henry Morgan died in his fifties of a disease that sounds suspiciously similar to cirrhosis of the liver. Even so, he was unusually long lived for one who plied the trade.

Calico Jack Rackham, Blackbeard and Bartholomew Roberts (despite his own personal habit of never touching liquor) are just a few of the famous who were caught off guard with drunken crews and no way to effectively fight back when the enemy came calling. If life and limb weren't lost, a valuable ship might very well be. Dominique Youx, off the coast of Mexico and celebrating the taking of a prize, notoriously called for barrels to be brought on deck and opened: "Whiskey! For all hands!" The sailors set to drinking and Dominique's sloop Tigre ran aground on a sandbar, cracking her hull in half. The drunken crew might very well have drown had some locals not sent boats out to collect the victims of the shipwreck. As we like to say here at Triple P: don't drink and navigate.

Time ashore, though, was virtually made for imbibing and mixed drinks were not unheard of. Rumfustian, notable not only for its funny name but for the fact that it did not contain rum, was a mixture of beer, sherry, gin, sugar, cinnamon and a raw egg. The entire conflagration was served hot, and was therefor more popular in the colder months and around the Holidays. Another delightful concoction was bumboo, said to have come to the Caribbean with West African slaves. This was a simple mix of rum, water, sugar and citrus fruit which probably morphed into what we think of today as the classic grog.

Cheers to you, my Brethren. What ever your choice of drink, may it always be fresh and tasty!

Home Ports: Pearls of Wisdom

Because of my familial relationship to Renato Beluche, whose children lived most of their lives in Venezuela where they had families that are still living there today, I hold the country dear. Uncle Renato's remains are in the Pantheon National in Caracas and my fear is that I will never see his memorial or meet my family. Not because I can't find a way, but because the Government of Venezuela tightens its grip on its land and people more violently with each passing day. As my blogging hero CRwM once said over at his wonderful And Now The Screaming Starts: "...there are few pits of rabid prejudice, poisonous spite, and crippling ignorance deeper than the political-blogosphere." I could not agree with him more and I'm not about to go down that path. Suffice it to say, a little bit of my heart bleeds for Venezuela and her people.

In different - not to necessarily say better - times, there was a pirate port on the coast of Venezuela known as La Barburata. The name has changed a little, but the appeal of the lush beach and blue ocean sure haven't. Originally a Spanish holding, the port was part of the vast pearl fisheries that dotted the Atlantic Coast of South America. La Barburata became rich on the hard work of local shellfish (and native pearl divers).

The French, who at the time were in open conflict with the Spanish, had a bit of an inferiority complex over the whole "colonize the New World, enslave the locals and get rich quick" thing that Spain, Portugal and England seemed to be excelling at. So, in the mid-16th century, France decided that if you couldn't get your own ill-gotten land, you should just take it from someone else. The famous privateers of Saint-Malo and Dieppe crossed the Atlantic and began to raid Spanish ports in Central and South America for gold, silver, and jewels. The raids were surprisingly systematic and word spread down the coast that the privateers were on their way and they weren't inclined to bargain.

The people of La Barburata, used to being picked on by raiders looking for a quick buck in pearls, decided they weren't going to sit around and wait to see who got tortured or killed. In 1553 the entire population of the port city evacuated inland, leaving buildings and furnishings and supplies and native pearl divers behind. When the corsairs arrived they found the situation quite to their liking and they made La Barburata a quasi-French holding.

Word spread inland and up and down the coast that corsairs were now in charge and that they were willing to trade tax and tariff free with anyone who had goods to sell. Like the Laffite brothers in Barataria 250 years later, the French settlers in La Barburata established a thriving business in all types of goods. They traded with Spanish merchants who, in any other town, would have had nothing to do with the privateers, considering them criminals. Saving the merchants the middle man cost of Spanish taxes made the Frenchmen a little more palatable in La Barburata, though. Especially since the Spanish government had no say in the matter.

Local islands soon fell to the corsairs as the base on the coast of Venezuela became more powerful. Even noted sea dogs like Francis Drake came to La Barburata to trade his goods for the provisions and services available in the city. The Spanish got fed up with the whole thing eventually and took the city back by force in the early 17th century. The French people who remained were assimilated and life went on under Spanish rule until the great Liberator Simon Bolivar removed the yoke from his people's shoulders.

That's all I'll say about that. Fair winds until next time, Brethren.