So I got to watching Starz's Black Sails recently and although I was hesitant at first, expecting it to be kind of corny, it soon grew on me and I've been binge watching it. The show has grown through the second season and I particularly like Toby Stephens as Captain Flint. (RLS' Treasure Island Captain Flint). I like how they have blended fictional characters in with the romanticized real life ones such as Blackbeard & Charles Vane.

 

Anyway all of this led me to start thinking about the history of the Caribbean and in particular piracy. From my initial wikipedia searches I found that information seems sparse, which is understandable, given that we're talking about 400 year old history, but I knew there would be someone out there that has written a solid, engaging history. 

 

And so I'm now at the point where I've just purchased 3 books from Amazon based on recommendations from varying places. David Cordingly's name kept popping up with his history Under the black Flag and his more recent Spanish Gold. Finally I stumbled upon Carrie Gibson's Empire's Crossroads. 

 

To be honest I'm sat here now and I'm thinking to myself, how have I left it so long to delve into piracy. Perhaps it's because it's typically romanticized for children, who can pretend to be adventurous, marauding captains with their plastic sword, pirate hat play set from the local toy shop.

 

Maybe because of this glamorizing of piracy in modern day society and the lack of reliable evidence available it's hard differentiate between what is legend or fantasy and what was real. Hopefully my three purchases will help enlighten me. 

In short, for a book called "Seafaring Women" it was shockingly patronizing of women. (Or maybe it wasn't shocking, and that was what made me so angry.)

I will have to admit that the title is a little misleading as the book is a lot more about the sailors then their women at certain points - however, on the whole it was very interesting and enlightening.

I learned a lot about my city in the first chapter (I'm from NYC) and the prostitution and dance halls that popped up down there because of the sea ports and the demands of the sailors.

You learn a lot about select captains of the navy and of course you read about Mary Reade and Anne Bonny. Pirate men take a backseat but when you read about sailors and anything dealing with an HMS you are reading about men.

On the whole I thought he could have injected more of a woman's POV but I will cut him some slack due to the fact that there aren't a lot of books written about women as pirates/stowaways/heroes. There are also not a lot of accounts and that is owing to a few things. Women were not very likely to want to disclose that they are female to their crew. Two, they were not seeking claim or fame and most likely just appealed to the Navy Pension - or didn't depending on whether or not they were married etc. Also, even if there had been a decent amount of women that worked and disguised themselves on a boat, they were most likely not written about and only those that distinguished themselves to the point of public notice were written about.

Authors saw that people liked to read about women pirates/sailors but few believed that women should go into that profession.

All in all - this is a good book if you are interested in maritime history and a slightly better understanding of the role and POV of women during the heydays of sailing.

Not as entertaining as his previous book about Seafaring women. I'm taking a bit of a break on this one.

Thanks to Treasure Island and Peter Pan when someone mentions "pirate" a certain swashbuckling image is conjured up, perhaps Errol Flynn rescuing some handsome maiden. Unfortunately most of that mythology has little basis in fact. Walking the plank, for example has no historical basis according to David Cordingly in Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Pirates rarely had the time; anyone who resisted was hacked to pieces and thrown overboard. Extreme violence was common. Chinese pirates, in particular, had a reputation for cruelty, but survivors of pirate attacks in the Caribbean reported little chivalry on the part of their captors. Pirates have existed for centuries. There are numerous reports of Greek and Roman pirates and in South American ports today it is not uncommon for slow merchant vessels with containers to be boarded by crew from fast small river boats who seem to know precisely which containers contain the most salable merchandise, break into them, take what they want and are long gone. The crews of today's ships are so small, and the vessels so large, and the risks so great that usually little resistance is offered. (See John McPhee's [book: Looking for a Ship] for a contemporary account.) Countries at war would issue " of marque" that authorized ship captains and their crews to prey on the enemy's shipping/ In theory, anything taken was supposed to be turned over to the issuing sovereign who then returned a share to captain and crew. It could be very profitable for an enterprising captain sovereign who then returned a share to captain and crew. It could be very profitable for an enterprising captain. Pirates were about 90% ex-seamen, most coming from ships that had been attacked. They elected their own captains who could be deposed if they were not daring or decisive enough to suit the crew. None of them was particularly humane and could honestly be called "lazy" by nature, given to bouts of heavy drinking. The crew often was racially mixed but blacks were given the hardest and most menial jobs and slaves were stolen and sold with the rest of the booty. One interesting tidbit from Cordingly's most interesting book is the derivation of the dollar sign. Pieces-of-eight, or pesos, had twin towers representing the pillars of Hercules stamped on them. At one time pesos were the most common currency in the Americas and the twin towers soon evolved into $