Book shows pirate lives were violent, but democratic | DON NOBLE
Keith Thomson of Birmingham has been interested in pirates for a very long time. Before he brought out his action novels, “Once a Spy” and “Twice a Spy,” he had written the novel “Pirates of Pensacola.” Thomson knows pirates, and after reading "Born to be Hanged," a nonfiction historical account of a major pirate expedition in Central America in the 17th century, you will, too.
In the city of Panama, on the west coast of Central America, there was treasure.
From there, galleons of the Spanish fleet loaded up with gold and silver and took it home.
Pirates, who were mostly English — England was usually at war with Spain — sailed around the Caribbean, mainly. But one pirate gang concocted a daring plan. To gain some legitimacy as privateers, they agreed to help rescue an Indian princess who had been captured by the Spanish and, with Indian guides, they crossed the Isthmus by canoe and on foot.
It was fantastical, dangerous and unpleasant beyond description.
There were biting insects and botflies that lay eggs under your skin, various pit vipers, scorpions, caimans that are 8 feet long, poisonous frogs, tarantulas and 1,000-pound anacondas up to 40 feet long.
There were trees with poisonous fruit and one tree with bark sap so toxic if it falls on you, say while you are sheltering under the tree during rain, it can kill you.
And some of the time they traveled by canoe on wild rivers and risked drowning. None of these pirates had been to summer camp as children and most could not swim a stroke, but they followed a pirate precept: If you were born to be hanged, you would not die by drowning. Lots of them died by drowning.
Thomson dispels some myths. Pirates did not wear high boots. That was invented by Hollywood. They did not say “Aaaargh.” The skull and crossbones flag was not in wide use but the pirates would sometimes fly a red flag which meant "no quarter will be given, no prisoners taken." That would chill the blood.
They might, however, when flush with booty, keep a parrot or a monkey on their shoulder.
And booty, as well as adventure, was the whole point of all this. A Spanish treasury or galleon might contain 50,000 or 100,000 pieces of eight, a silver coin. Pay for a civilian seaman was about 100 a year. A pirate whose share was, say, 247 pieces of eight could buy a farm and 12 cows in England.
They often scored huge prizes but, alas, they then went to port and gambled and drank with breathtaking excess, sometimes spending or losing two or three thousand in a night.
(At sea, the pirates drank a gallon of beer or a pint of rum a day.)
One learns odd things. I have always known the word "careen. " As in "The drunk student careened down the hallway, lurching from side to side, wall to wall." Thomson explains that the wooden hulls of ships became fouled with barnacles and seaweed and had to be cleaned or the ship lost speed. Speed, when escaping from Spanish warships, was crucial, so from time to time the pirates would find a secluded cove, run the ship up in high tide, and at low tide when the ship was sort of lying on its side, clean half the hull. The next day they would clean the other side: careening.
The smart money in the Caribbean opened saloons and brothels, just as in California in 1849, stores that sold tents and pots and pans made their owners rich.
Pirates, we learn, were truly a band of brothers — their lives depended on it. They were also amazingly democratic, voting on whether to attack or not, and a mutiny, to replace the captain, was actually a vote of no confidence.
Voting on when to go home because they had enough booty, however, was problematical, since the pirates who had squandered their share in port wanted to continue and the more prudent wanted to go home and buy a farm.
Just sailing from place to place could be deadly as they might be sunk in a storm, or become becalmed and suffer from lack of water, scurvy, even starvation. This gang sailed and raided for months before returning to England around Cape Horn.
Thomson, using several diaries and histories of the time, describes in fascinating detail the pirates’ tactics while attacking ships and seaside towns, and bloody fights they are.
In battle, pirates were fine marksmen and ferocious hand-to-hand fighters but many were killed and wounded.
But they had this organized too.
The loss of an eye or finger was worth 100 pieces of eight, left leg, 400, right leg 500, same with arms.
Thomson tells this story with verve, a sardonic and playful wit. It is really fun.
And never waste sympathy on the Spaniards. They were, by all accounts, heartless. They believed the natives “benefitted from Spanish tutelage as well as from conversion to Christianity, objectives that were easier to achieve if the would-be converts were first enslaved.” Thomson includes an anecdote where a mine worker, a mother, needed a few minutes to nurse her infant. The Spanish overseer smashed the baby against a rock. No delays were permitted. The Spanish even invented waterboarding.
Don Noble’s newest book is Alabama Noir, a collection of original stories by Winston Groom, Ace Atkins, Carolyn Haines, Brad Watson, and eleven other Alabama authors.
“Born to be Hanged: The Epic Story of the Gentlemen Pirates Who Raided the South Seas, Rescued a Princess, and Stole a Fortune”
Author: Keith Thomson
Publisher: Little, Brown & Co.
Pages: 384
Price: $ 32 (Hardcover)
This article originally appeared on The Tuscaloosa News: Book shows pirate lives were violent, but democratic | DON NOBLE
