Pyrate Tyme - The Real Deal

 One question...why do many metal detecting club's logo's feature a pirate ship, face, or flag? Pirates, or Privateers as they were originally called, were not nice people. They were dangerous seagoing criminal gangs that literally robbed, raped, and plundered ships and coastal villages. What does that have to do with the metal detecting hobby? Since Captain Jack Sparrow graced the big screen many years ago, that loveable rouge, funny, most times drunk, and highly humorous, we have gotten a very biased opinion of pirates. As a matter of fact, most everyone who lived quite a bit after these seagoing gangs were caught and hanged, or jailed, has a slanted view of these guys. 

First of all pirates rarely, if ever, buried their treasure. They didn't have time to do so, always on the run, dodging Navel patrols or angry shipping companies. And usually after a few nights of drunken carousing in a safe port, they had little treasure left anyway. They were a "live for today" crowd, and many didn't expect to even see tomorrow. Being a common sailor in a 16th Century navy was a horror; beaten, worked to death, or executed for minor offences. Many men were "shanghaied" or basically knocked cold and brought aboard ship, and when they woke up at sea, they had no choice but to work as part of the crew. One pirate was recorded as saying "In an honest service there is thin commons, low wages and hard labor. In piracy, there is plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power; and who would not balance creditor, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sour look or two  at hanging?" He ended the thought with " No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto!"

Several of my favorite Pirate reads

Being part of a pirate crew was, strange as it sounds, freedom in a democratic society. Pirate crews would elect their own captains, if the captain did not work out, or caused the group problems the pirate crew was more than quick in replacing him immediately! They voted on what prize (ship) t take in battle to gain the most treasure with the least amount of harm to themselves. And their take was not always gold and silver, it was also rum, alcohol, booze, fine silks and linen cloth...and occasionally women. A hostage meant money in the bank. Anything they could turn a profit on. Many governors in the colonies and Caribbean nations would have dealings with the pirates, buying what they stole at reduced prices and reselling them in their sphere of influence. Kind of a 16th Century E-Bay, but without the return policy...or the hassles! Another fallacy is pirates regularly made people "...walk the plank!" There was no plank, until several books, and later movies, poured that into the mystery mix that were pirate societies. A lot of the fabricated bunk about pirates originally came from a 1724 publication called "A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates" This made a lot of money for the author, but it was equivalent to our reality television, looks good, but it really is not real! I've read several books on pirates that were very good, including a book years ago I managed to get, an original 1619 copy of "Pyrates Of The Caribbean," which I stupidly loaned to an acquaintance, and never saw the book again! If you get a chance, read up on piracy...a fascinating subject!