Fifteen Facts Johnny Depp

Didn’t Teach You About Pirates

1. Pirates frequently marooned their victims on desert islands.

Marooning was the usual punishment for pirates who deserted their
posts in battle.

2. There is no evidence to show that pirates made their victims walk the
plank. The myth owes its origin to JM Barrie’s play Peter Pan and was
subsequently incorporated into most of the early movies.

3. Pirates very rarely buried their treasure and instead spent their loot on
women, drinking, and gambling. Captain Kidd did bury some of his
treasure on Gardiners Island near New York, and this probably explains
the popularity of this pirate myth.

4. The pirate treasure map is another myth and owes its origin to the
treasure map used as a frontispiece to Treasure Island by Robert Louis
Stevenson.

5. Pieces of eight (or pesos or Spanish dollars) were the most commonly
used currency in Spain’s empire in the New World for more than three
centuries.

6. The twin pillars on the reverse of a piece of eight (a silver coin which
would be worth about 28 US dollars today) eventually formed the basis of
the dollar sign.

7. More than 90 percent of pirates were former sailors and had formerly
served on naval ships, merchant ships, or privateers.

8. There is plenty of evidence to show that some pirates had wooden legs
due to injuries received in battle.

9. Pirates, in common with other seafarers, frequently collected parrots

as colourful souvenirs of tropical regions.

10. Women seafarers were rare in the days of sail, but the lives of two
female pirates, Mary Read and Anne Bonny, are well documented. They
were members of the crew of Calico Jack Rackam and were sentenced to
be hanged in Jamaica in 1720 but were reprieved.
11. Most pirate ships were run on unusually democratic lines. The
captain was voted in and out of office and major operations were
determined by a majority vote of the crew.

12. Several pirate ships operated a medical insurance scheme with

money allocated for injuries: 600 pieces of eight for loss of right hand;
500 pieces of eight for loss of left hand or right leg; 100 pieces of eight for
the loss of an eye or a finger.

13. A privateer was a privately owned ship (or the captain of that ship)
which was authorised by a Letter of Marque to capture enemy ships for
profit in times of war.

14. A buccaneer is the usual name given to the pirates and privateers
who attacked Spanish ships and treasure ports in the Caribbean and
South and Central America in the period from about 1620 to 1690. Sir
Henry Morgan is the most famous of the buccaneers.

15. The black pirate flag with skull and cross bones came into common
use during the early years of the eighteenth century. Many pirates
devised their own flags with symbols including an hour glass, a skull, a
spear, signifying that if the victim did not immediately surrender they
would die.

David Cordingly

Author of The Pirate Hunter of the Caribbean:

The Adventurous Life of Captain Woodes Rogers