Turtle soup with sherry, favorite weapon, taste of falbal… Here are all the secrets of the buzzard!
1/ Pirates, fine gourmets
William Dampier (1651-1715), a pirate with a “gentle soul”, even wrote about a hundred entries inOxford English Dictionarymost of which are engaged in food. Based on her experience on the islands, here are the dishes she recommends: pink flamingos“with black meat, but good”; armadillos“with a taste close to land turtle meat”; grasshoppers“their heads are crunching under their teeth”; sea lions… But star meat is meat turtle marine, “which looks like a chicken”. These reptiles are easy to catch and require little care: they can be kept alive for several weeks on board. Except for the shell, the turtle eats everything inside it, and as a pirate it is in soupboiled in sherry, that it is the best.
2/ Distribution of justice
When they capture the ship, noisemakers organize “distribution of justice”. If the captain is judged to be bad – according to the testimonies of his crew members – he is flogged. Theirs whipping favorite is “job” : the captain must run around the mast. The pirates, in a circle around him, urge him to speed up by poking his back with the points of sabers, knives, compasses or pitchforks.
3/ Pirates, victims of fashion
The extravagant appearance of Jack Sparrow, in pirates of the Carribeanowes a lot Jack Rackham. The latter was nicknamed “Calico Jack” because colorful cotton clothes (calicos) that he wore. Far from Europe, on the Caribbean islands, nothing is thrown away. Some pirates hunt while still dressed in the “worn red jackets of the New Model Army”, the revolutionary army founded in 1645 by Oliver Cromwell. It is English elegance in the tropics.
4/ Mandatory music during the attack
On board Bartholomew Roberts, the men must play music, music at the time of the action.
5/ Pirate parrot
THE parrot is an external sign of wealth. With his glittering feathers and ability to chatter,exotic bird he is valued by the powerful… and pirates!
6/ “Blunderbuss”, the pirate’s favorite weapon
“Blunderbuss”, a handgun with an extended barrel that can fire several small lead bullets simultaneously. He also uses short swords with a curved blade, ideal for fighting in confined spaces of the ship.
7/ One-legged pirate
THE cliche the missing leg dates from the 16th century Norman, François Le Clerc. The manuscript confirms his boldness: “Always one of the first to board, he lost his leg (…), but he did not abandon his aforementioned service.”
8/ Choice of pirate ship names
Not that inventive, pirates! Theirs ships they have fairly standard names. That’s how the French La Buse called his Victoriouswhile Henry Morgan opted for sober Oxford. As for the frigate of Black beardher name is Queen Anne’s Revenge. An evocative name that wasn’t always hers: she was called Concord before a pirate took it in 1717 from a Nantes shipowner.
9/ Top 3 pirate treasures
Captain Kidd
This one a Scottish pirate worked towards Madagascar. In 1698, after the rebellion, he burned his ship and left for the United States. He was caught and hanged in London in 1701. Legend has it that he buried his booty. For a while we thought we had found the wreck of his ship east of Madagascar, but for the Frenchman Albert Fagioli we should rather look in some Thai archipelago…
Olivier Levasseur, known as “La Buse”
Before his death, executed in 1730 in Reunion, Olivier Levasseur, known as “La Buse”, allegedly threw the cryptogram into the crowd, shouting, “My treasure to anyone who can understand!” Since then, research has not stopped. And with good reason! In 1721, he seized a Portuguese ship loaded with a treasure estimated at around four million euros.
Edward Teach known as Blackbeard
Edward Teachhis real name, he drank his rum in a silver cup: the object became the Holy Grail treasure lovers. In 1996, researchers located the wreckage of the ship Queen Anne’s Revenge, sunk in 1718 off the coast of North Carolina. Since then we have reassembled the bronze bell, cannons, anchor… But no silver cup.
10/ Average age of pirates
The average age of hackers is 27 years.
You may also be interested in:
⋙ 17.-18. century: the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean
⋙ Even pirates had a code of conduct!
⋙ Wakô: Japanese pirates who terrorized the China Sea