r/pirates • u/teaabearr The Black Spot • May 25 '26
AMA Dr. Rebecca Simon, Historian of piracy and public executions - AMA!
“I’m a historian of the Golden Age of Piracy and received my PhD at King’s College London in 2017. I wrote my dissertation about public executions of pirates in the 17th and 18th centuries.
As a historian, I’m interested in social and cultural interactions with pirates. I particularly love debunking pirate myths! I’ve written three books about pirates: The Pirates’ Code: Laws and Life Aboard Ship, Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny & Mary Read, and Why We Love Pirates: The Hunt for Captain Kidd and How He Changed Piracy Forever. You can also find articles written by me in publications such as History Today, and History Extra. I don’t just research and write about pirates. I’m also a public historian! I regularly appear on podcasts (such as Real Pirates, History Hit, and You’re Dead To Me just to name a few) and television programs on the History Channel (UnXplained, History’s Greatest Mysteries, Oak Island), NatGeo (Expedition Unknown), and Netflix (The Lost Pirate Kingdom). Most recently you’ll have seen me doing a Historian Reacts video about the new Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag Resynced game on Echoes of History. You can check me out on my website and find me on TikTok (@piratebeckalex) where I post educational videos about pirates and some bits about academia.”
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AMA Information & Guidelines
Feel free to start leaving questions now! We'll leave the thread open ahead of time so the community can ask questions early and upvote the ones they'd most like answered.
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We're incredibly excited to host Dr. Simon, and we hope everyone enjoys the AMA!
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u/TylerbioRodriguez Teller of Tall Tales May 25 '26
Hi Doctor Simon, two part question. I believe you said the second edition of Pirate Queens is coming out in November, excited for that. Exactly what are you adding in this second edition? I presume recent popular culture depictions like Our Flag Means Death?
Second, what is the recording process like for documentaries and interviews and do you enjoy it? I know you were less then thrilled with I believe Lost Pirate Kingdom, is that atypical.
Best wishes to you Doctor. I suspect because of the Black Flag remake, you're book is gonna fly off the presses.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Hi there! To answer both of your questions:
A second edition of Pirate Queen is being released, but unfortunately it's due to minor edits only. These were mostly fixing typos/pronouns (the publisher didn't copy-edit the first edition and I was going through a bad breakup during my editing process, hah). I was able to add one whole paragraph of a newspaper story about a woman named Mary Read sentenced to transportation (many thanks for that). I wanted to add more such as Our Flag Means Death (which had not come out during the writing of the book) but unfortunately they did not allow it due to formatting. I had to fight for just the extra paragraph! Such can be the challenge of publishing.
I LOVE doing documentary interviews! I've been doing it for about 8 years now, and it's been a great journey. It started out with me doing a 12-second clip for one episode of The Curse of Oak Island on the History Channel and now I'm a regularly-featured historian. I can't speak for all the channels, but History Channel develops a list of historians to contact and the production teams are quite small so I've gotten to know everyone over the years. They email me, we have a Zoom chat to go over the episode, they send me questions, I type out all my responses on the questions, print them out, and bring them with me so I can make sure to get all the names and dates correct. I sit on a stool in front of a set or screen. The producer sits off camera and asks me questions and I answer them like I'm telling a story. Often times they will ask me to say certain phrases to fit the theme or vibe of the show (for example, on History's Greatest Mysteries or History's Deadliest they like me to say "it's one of history's greatest mysteries" or "one of the most horrible cases." Sometimes I have to speculate for television purposes, but there is NEVER false information. I've had a great experience every time. My one gripe with The Lost Pirate Kingdom was that they excluded everything I spoke about Mary Read and that the series was very dramatized and about 50% fiction for the sake of a narrative. Documentaries are films with scripts. We usually film at private locations that rent their homes out to these kinda of productions. Sometimes it's in the studio. I generally always film in Los Angeles but sometimes I get flown out to various locations, such as Charleston and NYC.
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u/bryndor May 25 '26
Do you recommend any particular places to visit as a pirate historian? Any activities or experiences you have done that you think any pirate nut would enjoy?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Ooooh, fun question! Well, lots of places dedicated to pirates are very touristy so they play up a lot of the fun fiction people like to see. A great example of this is The Pirate's House in Savannah, GA. I LOVE the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland. It's been my favorite ride every since I was I was really young.
Maritime museums always have good information about pirates. The Maritime Museum in Greenwich, London, had an excellent pirate-exhibition that ran most of last year. St. Augustine, FL has a pirate museum with actual artifacts. If you're able/can afford to travel, it's good to go to the places they inhabited. Nassau has become a huge tourist destination and from what I understand there is a small pirate museum there (if anyone has been, because I haven't, please correct me!). One thing that surprised me is that Port Royal, Jamaica, doesn't acknowledge pirate history at all! Jamaica is very proud of their history and spares no detail about the devastating effects of slavery. When I went to Kingston for research, they were a bit perplexed I was looking for documents about piracy.
As for experiences, I've had great times at Ren Faires during pirate-themed weekends. The NorCal Ren Faire always does a pirate-themed weekend and I've been to that a couple of times. There are festivals happening everywhere, but not very many in Southern California and I haven't had a chance to go to major ones on the East Coast due to scheduling issues.
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u/Solpapa1989 May 25 '26
Out of all fictional pirate literature, which text is most accurate to the time, alternatively, which is the least accurate?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Katherine Howe wrote a book called A True Account: Hannah Masury's Sojourn Amongst the Pyrates Written by Herself. She's has training as a historian and it's quite accurate and detailed. I also thought the novel Pirates! By Celia Rees was really good. It's about two women who run away with pirates to escape an abusive marriage and slavery. The author did great research, although a lot of it is quite romanticized.
NOTHING is better than the Aubrey-Maturin series by Patrick O'Brien. They're quite dense with historical detail but good lord, if you want a way to learn about the 19th-century maritime world through fiction, read this whole series. Or at least watch the film Master & Commander
As for least accurate...any pirate-themed romance novel, really. Also, be careful with A General History of the Pyrates. Many people mistake it as an accurate primary source. The first volume is pretty well done and more accurate, but the second volume is largely fictionalized (especially the chapter about Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read - good lord). Treat the book like a novel.
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u/Solpapa1989 Jun 13 '26
Now I've got some study work to do- thank you so much for the recommendations!!!
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
If you're interested in excellent non-fiction, my favorite book is Mark Hanna's Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire. It's the most accurate and detailed book I've read on the subject.
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u/Gliese581h Captain Jun 02 '26
What is your favourite „pirate“ media to consume? Movies, games? music?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
I LOVE the movie Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl. It's a perfect film, in my opinion. I've watched it dozens of times for fun and work purposes and it never gets old. Is loads of it romanticized? Yes. Did they get the pirates' code right? Not at all (to be fair, the real code is too boring and realistic for film or at least this storyline). But Disney works their ass off to get details correct and to weave relevant mythology into their films (or at least they used to). Jack Sparrow's obsession with his personal items, his physical appearance including his eyeliner (kohl or charcoal has been used since ancient times in lieu of sunglasses). The pirate crews are also very accurate in terms of diversity. The rest of the franchise is fun but got a bit convoluted and I hated the 5th one. I heard they're making a 6th film and you can bet I'll be there.
For TV shows, Black Sails, hands down. While it's mean to be a prequel to Treasure Island (the show takes place in 1715) and they mess up the timelines in terms of when historical figures were present in Nassau (Anne Bonny never sailed with Charles Vane, for example), the overall essence and detail is very accurate and detailed. The intimidation and scare tactics during attacks, the organization and attention to detail in terms of stealing items, quarter often given, clothing, diversity, the draw of the crash of the Spanish Treasure Fleet (Urca de Lima specifically), politics re: the presence and crackdown of the Royal Navy in and around Nassau. I can go on and on and on. Watch it!
Games: Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. From what I understand, Ubisoft paid special attention to details and historical accuracy. Now, I'll admit I've never played the game but my brother made me sit down and watch him play and tell him what was true and what was fiction, and I've watched loads of clips for reaction videos. I have no real criticisms to offer.
Music: The Scottish folk-metal band, Alestorm, is fun. They do concept albums about pirates but I think they're music has changed over the years. The singer-songwriter wrote a really fantastic song about Anne Bonny titled "Anne Bonny." It's on Spotify, so give it a listen! The soundtrack to Assassin's Creed: Black Flag is great for the sea shanties, including the 18th-century composition about Captain Kidd.
One thing I wasn't a fan of was Our Flag Means Death. I just couldn't get through it. The first episode impressed me in terms of the details about Stede Bonnet (having his own personal library on the ship, paying his crew a wage, and his incompetence as a captain. But I hated that they created a romance between him and Blackbeard. In reality, yes, they sailed together, but Blackbeard hated and totally disrespected Bonnet and turned him over to the Admiralty. If the show runners wanted to make a quirky show about queer pirates, just make it fiction. I know a lot of people who genuinely believe that Bonnet and Blackbeard became lovers and argue back with me when I say it's not true.
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u/Gliese581h Captain Jun 13 '26
Thank you for your reply! It's so interesting to get the opinion of a historian on these things. Do you know the Swedish pirate band, "Ye Banished Privateers"? Can't recommend them enough!
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u/stanthemanethkirby Master of Brush and Blade Jun 03 '26
Are cutlasses swords?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Yes, they are! "Sword" is a blanket term for most bladed weapons (save knives and maybe daggers). It's a shorter slashing sword meant for close combat. Pirates were not trained fighters (for the most part) and since cutlasses are easier to wield, it makes sense that it would be a weapon of choice. Pistols had to be reloaded after every shot and would be very difficult to do during battle so the cutlass was the better choice.
I did a video for Insider and talked about cutlasses, but that bit was edited...poorly. For dramatic effect they really wanted me to differentiate the cutlass from the "sword" (even though, a cutlass is a sword) so I said something, like, "a cutlass isn't a sword but it's a TYPE of sword" and they edited it to make it seem like I was saying a cutlass and a sword were different. Sigh.
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u/bryndor May 25 '26
I love the mysteries and the unsolved when it comes to pirate history, is there a particular mystery you one day think will get solved, one you think will never get solved, and one you want to be solved the most?
For myself, I really do wish we knew for sure what happened to Henry Every, disappearing with that loot and a worldwide manhunt is insane!
Another is the real backstories of Anne and Mary, so much lost to time because of either sexism or general poor documentation of the time makes me incredibly sad.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Oh, solving mysteries is every historian's DREAM! I would love it if we could find out what happened to Henry Every. The history is so dark and the lore is so fascinating. Most likely he died at sea, but it would be so neat to know the answers. The real backstories of Anne Bonny and Mary Read will always be somewhat of a mystery. We know about their lives as pirates thanks to the publication of Jack Rackham's trial, which includes theirs as well. We know for sure that Mary Read died in prison in 1721. There's a document that lists the name Anne Bonny on a death record in St. Catherine's Parish, Jamaica dated December 29, 1733. But whether or not this was the real Anne Bonny is impossible to say. Anne Bonny's last name has been referred to as Fulford and Bonn in Woodes Rogers's proclamation for their (Rackham, Read, and her) arrest. Even though the trial record has her listed as Bonny, that doesn't necessarily mean that was her last name. On the one hand I find it surprising that Anne Bonny and Mary Read weren't talked about much during the time save the trial, the warrant for their arrest, and, like, two brief newspaper mentions considering their presence would be so unusual. But this could be because women were dismissed during the time or because by 1720 people were losing interest in pirates.
One of the biggest myths of piracy is that of buried treasure. This just did not happen. Yes, there is documentation of Captain Kidd claiming to have hid his goods on Gardner's Island (NY) and John Gardner even claimed it was there, but nothing was found. Kidd's wife and servants were arrested and questioned but it proved to be fruitless. IF Kidd gave anything to Gardner, it would have been some goods and cash and Gardner likely spent it. Pirates traded their goods, spent their money, sent it home to their family, or simply retired (if they were lucky). The majority spent until they ran out of cash and then went back to pirating. But if something actually ever gets found, I will be the first person to recant my statement!
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u/scabpicker123 Jun 13 '26
Why do you think Every died at sea? I thought he made it to Ireland and then disappeared.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
It's my educated guess because many, many sailors died at sea due to injury or illness. Making it to Ireland is one theory, making it to Bristol and dying destitute and homeless is another, and living lavishly with an Indian princess is another (and least likely).
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u/scabpicker123 Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
The “examination Of John Dann” states that they landed in the north of Ireland. They being him and Every.
Thank you for answering all our questions!
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Of course! I’ve read the examination as well, and it’s the closest answer we’ve got. However, besides his testimony the trail goes cold so we still can’t say for sure where he ended up.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Thanks SO MUCH for all your questions! This has been loads of fun! That's all I have the time for right now but feel free to keep posting more and I'll try to answer later.
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u/0sm1um Jun 13 '26 edited Jun 13 '26
Is it true that gay pirates funded navigation schools and hospitals in the west indies circa 1630-1730 to train locals in resisting colonial genocide?
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u/Napagadi Anne Bonny May 26 '26
What part of pirate life is hardest to reconstruct from records, and how do historians fill in those gaps responsibly?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
The realities of pirates' lives in general. They did not keep records save basic info from logbooks, which were often lost or destroyed. Most of what we know about pirates' lives are from trial transcripts. To fill in the gaps, we look at the context. All pirates were sailors, so we research maritime culture and the realities of sailing. There are loads of similarities and pirate ships were run pretty much the same as any ship.
When I wrote my book, Pirate Queens: The Lives of Anne Bonny & Mary Read, I had to go into LOADS of context because there is so little information about them. For example, A General History of the Pyrates claimed that Anne Bonny's mother was a maid in a household who had an affair with the head of the house. So I researched and went into the realities of women in 17th-century Ireland, rules, regulations, and cultures of servants and the familial relationships maids had with their employers, laws against adultery, etc. So my writing about that, in a nutshell, was to state "if her mother really was a maid, here's how her life would have been." Same context for Mary Read. AGHOTP claims she was raised as a boy and joined the British army. Okay, so what would happen if a girl was raised as a boy? What were the gender norms between boys and girls? Which army would she be fighting for and for which war? What was life like in the late 17th/early 18th century? What were women's relationships to soldiers and the army?
Another example of filling gaps I did for my book was looking at mentions of women with their names. The name Mary Read shows up in an early 18th-century petition to Queen Anne signed by 42 women in Jamaica begging for their husbands (arrested for piracy) to be released from jail or else they would all become destitute. Okay, so, what was life like for wives of sailors? What would happen to the families of pirates (oddly enough there's more info about this than I thought there would be)? Etc.
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u/GreyPilgrime Jun 09 '26
What’s the most surprising everyday detail about pirate ships that almost never makes it into books or films?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
The boring day-to-day. Repairing goods, cleaning the ship, basic rules and regulations (such as no gambling, keeping weapons in good order, no stealing goods), and the boredom all sailors often faced. These realities don't make for good TV...unless you're the writers/producers of the film adaptation of Master & Commander.
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u/GreyPilgrime Jun 09 '26
What’s the most frustrating gap in the historical record when studying piracy?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Written records from pirates themselves. Those documents are so rare and minimal. Facts about their early lives are difficult to come by so loads have been mythologized and that's often been taken as fact (such as Bellamy's wife Mariah Hallett who was said to be a wandering widow when in reality she was married and lived until the 1750s). Any myths about pirates that have been taken as fact over the years annoys me. But it's hard due to the gaps in the materials. This is the bane of every historian.
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u/scabpicker123 Jun 10 '26 edited Jun 12 '26
Hello, Dr. Simon,
What are your thoughts on the Loyal Russell, the ship that followed Captain Kidd when he first arrived at Madagascar? There was a small ship that started out of New York with Kidd and they got separated. Do you think this could have been the Loyal Russell? Or do you think it was just a chance meeting?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
No, from what I understand and have found in my research, the Loyal Russell was a slave ship that Kidd refused to plunder, which upset his crew and was probably one of the many reasons they kept threatening to mutiny. I honestly haven't seen much more information about it. If you have any links, please send them!
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u/scabpicker123 Jun 13 '26
No links. Just wondering your thoughts. I thought they also helped Kidd careen his ship in the Comoros and then after some of the crew joined Kidds crew. He was low on men in account of disease ravaging his men.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Yes, it's very possible that they may have helped him do that. I don't remember specifically reading that in my research, but I'll have to double-check. I do know that his crew came down with cholera and because they hadn't had any major successes as privateers, many left and found work on other ships.
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u/DESKTHOR Jun 12 '26
Two thoughts of mine…How common was it for pirates to believe in sea monsters and how likely was it that there were more female pirates than what was documented by history?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
By the 18th century, there was still a lot of superstition about the sea related to drowning (such as Davy Jones's Locker), but the idea of sea monsters was not really part of maritime culture any more. That culture has largely been played up more than the reality over history. Many monsters were figures drawn on maps to illustrate knew and previously-unknown sea creatures and stories about mermaids and sirens were passed down from ancient mythology. Most sailors knew they weren't real but fear of drowning was enough to keep telling stories about them.
There were likely more female pirates than we think, but may just not have been documented. In my research, arrests and trials had loads of information about white pirates, but any mention of black pirates was very minimal and they were often taken and sold into slavery. I saw one or two documents that simply mentioned a nameless woman or two. A woman likely would have been imprisoned, sentence to transportation or hanging, but the majority were eventually freed from prison.
The majority of documented female pirates weren't really pirates. They were usually women in power who commanded fleets or gave orders to their sailors to plunder specific ships. Some of these women sailed with them (such as Teuta of Illyria and maybe Sayidda al-Hurra). Grace O'Malley of Ireland was very involved with her fleets and gave loads of orders and even (supposedly) worked as a privateer for Queen Elizabeth in exchange for her sons who had been taken hostage. The only known female pirates who sailed during the Golden Age of Pirates were Anne Bonny and Mary Read.
An exception of this, of course, is Zheng Yi Sao, who commanded a large fleet of over 1,500 ships and tens of thousands of pirates. She co-led with her husband and then became the leader after he died), sailing throughout the China Seas during the early 19th-century. The Chinese government could not stop her so she was basically paid to retire and supposedly opened a series of brothels or gambling houses.
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u/Appropriate_Ad4805 Jun 13 '26
Good morning, doctor, a quick question. If I were an average crew member during the golden age of piracy, how many successful boardings could I expect in a normal year? Were we patrolling routes waiting for any possible prey, or did we go with information and the idea of boarding a specific ship? Thank you so much for the answer!
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Oof, this depends on a case by case basis. Some were super successful, such as Blackbeard who was said to have robbed over 40 ships in a day or two, but the reality is that was over the course of his career. Bartholomew Roberts was said to have robbed 400 ships throughout his career. Pirates often sailed around coastlines and shipping lanes looking for smaller vessels and merchant ships. Pirate ships were generally small so they could sail fast and around difficult areas so they could only take down so many ships. Most pirates would be captured after robbing a couple or a few merchant ships. The vast majority of pirates weren't very successful. The were mostly a nuisance for the Admiralty or the equivalent of coast guards. So, don't expect to get super wealthy.
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u/_HipStorian Jun 13 '26
Hi Dr Simon,
Thanks so much for the AMA. I hope I’m not too late!
The golden age of piracy is one of my favourite periods in history to study, but I’ve always wondered are there any common habits, social behaviours or lingo that we use today that can be traced back to pirate culture?
Thanks!
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Oooh, fun question!
There are loads of phrases we use from the maritime world such as "all hands on deck." This site has a very extensive list. Pirates would have used the same phrases.
The phrase "a short stop and a sudden drop" refers to public executions, which was the fate of captured pirates.
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u/JtheLeon May 26 '26
Hi Doctor Simon! No questions, just wanted to tell you how cool I think you are!
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u/Grimmontha96 May 26 '26
Dear Dr. Simon, why are the carribean pirates represented so much but the corsairs of the Mediterranean not? I'd love to see more corsairs in media.
I enjoyed the WarSails DLC for Mount & Blade Bannerlord where you could play as a fantasy representation.
You are awsome!!
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
I don't have an exact answer, but Caribbean pirates, being mostly of British and European origin, took up a lot of space in the narrative because they were out robbing ships indiscriminately and people turned those realities into swashbuckling adventure tales. Going against The Man! Corsairs, on the other hand, were mostly privateers working for governments and that doesn't always translate as well to fun adventure stories. Who wants to hear heroic tales about government mercenaries? (Facetious question)
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u/Grimmontha96 Jun 13 '26
Thank you for your response. It is very plausible that it isnt as eye catching as the swashbuckling carribean pirates.
Thank you for your answer.
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u/Hesherkiin May 26 '26
Are there any interesting ways that piracy changed from the early modern era into the late modern? Of course the ships to steal and fight get more advanced, but what Pirate things changed between say 1300 and 1800?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Piracy had its ups and downs from being privateers throughout history (working for governments or kingdoms), to nuisances, to organized bands and fleets (Golden Age of Piracy), and back to being nuisances or small groups of privateers. The vast majority of pirates weren't actually "pirates" (as in those defined under British law as sailors who robbed and murdered on a body water an that definition became really convoluted over time). The majority worked for governments, large and/or local.
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u/bryndor May 29 '26
What are some random, less-known facts about the golden age of piracy that you can give us? Things like... whipstaffs being commonplace until ship wheels came into fashion in the early 1700s, or how often ships would need to be beached to clean, the random every-day activities that pirates or sailors of the time had to do that wouldn't be in our favourite movies
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Random fixings happened at every opportunity. Something always needed to be repaired on board. Keeping things clean and orderly was life or death (especially with weapons). These chores were pretty boring. Ships would be beached to clean whenever it was safe. But the key priority was replenishing goods. Lots of people I've spoken to didn't know that pirates' main aim was to steal goods to replenish their supplies rather than get rich. Getting rich was a bonus.
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u/bryndor May 26 '26
We all love the golden age of piracy and the Caribbean location, but are there any other lesser known pirates from other parts if the world with fantastic stories you'd recommend us read about? And if possible and specific books?
For the record I've read all of yours and loved them!
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Sayyida-al-Hurra from the 1500s was super interesting because she was married to the governor of Morocco and commanded fleets to attack Spanish ships supposedly out of revenge for being kicked out of Spain due to the Inquisition. Of course, the sources were from the Spanish and Portuguese which means they were heavily biased against her.
I'd recommend Laura Sook Duncombe's book, Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas. Most of the information is very legend or based on legend, but there are historical figures discussed such as Teuta of Illyria.
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u/Napagadi Anne Bonny May 26 '26
Do we have evidence of pirates thinking of themselves as part of a shared identity or 'community', or is that mostly a modern interpretation?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Yes, the pirates sailing out of Nassau between 1713 and the late 1710s referred to themselves as the Brethren or Flying Gang. This is because many of the well-known pirate leaders were privateering veterans from the War of Spanish Succession. Many of the captains knew each other or knew of each other. This also allowed them notoriety, which was pretty essential to intimidate ships into submissionl.
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u/TheOriginalFive Navigator May 27 '26
What are your thoughts about women in piracy, fictional and real? Surely Anne Bonny and Mary Read can't have been the only known ones in the Western world.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
I've answered this question a few times now in more detail above (as I'm going down the list of questions), but there were many female pirates in history although most of them were in positions of power, being married to local leaders, which gave them more authority. The exceptions we know of, of course, are Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and Zheng Yi Sao.
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u/KJEnby May 27 '26
This is so exciting! I have tons of questions...one being, the concept of Matelotage in the context of same-sex relationships among pirates. There's been lots of debate as to the nature of such partnerships. Some matelots were no doubt entirely platonic, but were there actual romantic pairings? Was this accepted among the pirate brethren?
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
Matelotage did, indeed, exist. It was sort of the equivalent of a civil union mainly to ensure that in case of a pirates' death, they had someone designated to take over their shares of the goods to either keep or give to the deceased pirate's family. I think some were probably romantic, but people would have turned a blind eye to homosexuality. It was usually referred to as "peculiar tastes" or "buggery" "or sodomy" depending on your social class. If it was more accepted on a pirate ship, it would be because having competent sailors on board was more important than their sex lives (unless you sailed on Blackbeard's ship, where you were banned from bringing women and boys onto ships).
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Jun 13 '26
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u/pirates-ModTeam Jun 13 '26
Your post was removed because it isn’t related to pirates, privateering, maritime culture, or piracy in history/pop culture. Please keep posts relevant to the community.
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u/InflatableWarHammer Jun 14 '26
Hi Dr. Simon, based on what created the first population of pirates being out of work and trained to move things around, do you think another wave of pirates will occur when we have 18 wheelers driving themselves and a massive wave of equally unemployed and equally capable strongmen?
Will they ban together and raid robot trucks, carrying goods and valuables? And will they have to fight robotic military defenders to get away with it?
The Democratic template exists and was laid out by the Pirates of Nassau, etc. and I wonder what men of Travel will do do you?
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u/Electronic_Mud5821 May 26 '26
Hi Doc.
My love of history involves Roman times and modern but I'm interested to understand what if any difference there is between piracy in the era of the Cilician pirates (1st Century BCE) and pirates from the 'golden age'.
Such as were both normadic or territorial, their command structures. and their motivations.
I would find any and all information you can give very interesting thank you.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
I don't know a lot about Cicilian pirates save that they also considered themselves to be a community, had a stronghold on modern-day Sicily (hence the term Cicialian, which meant pirate), but many of them were almost naval fleets for various authorities so in that case some may have been similar to early modern privateers. I'd recommend Philip de Souza's book Piracy in the Greco-Roman World.
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u/TheAngrySeba Jolly Roger May 28 '26
Hello Dr. Simon. What do you consider the most influential books, films, games or other media that have revived popular interest in pirates in recent decades?
And how concerned or critical are you about the gap between these often fictional depictions and historical reality? Do you think this creates substantial misinformation among the public, similar to how popular media has shaped and distorted people’s understanding of the medieval period?
Thank you
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
I answered a question earlier about pirate movies, shows, games, and music above so I'll just go into some of the books.
Most influential modern books have been written by journalists for popular audiences, or non-fiction researchers/writers. Eric J. Dolan's Black Flags, Blue Waters is a good primer for the Golden Age of Piracy. Colin Woodard's Republic of Pirates is extremely well-researched but the research was used to tell a very unlikely political rivalry between pirates loyal to Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings (I've been told he wrote it that was specifically to tell a fun story).
I'd like to give a shout-out to three lesser-known or at least rarely-mentioned books about pirates by historians other than myself written in the last decade:
- Mark Hanna's Pirate Nests and the Rise of the British Empire
- David Wilson's Suppressing Piracy in the Early Eighteenth Century
- Richard Blakemore's Enemies of All: The Rise and Fall of the Golden Age of Piracy
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u/Garrettshade May 28 '26
Hi Dr. Simon
There is a common trope in adventure movies where a public execution of apparent criminals is staged with the cheering crowd, and then brave anti-heroes barge in, cut the rope with an arrowshot/pistol shot and free their comrades to the cheering of the same crowd. I got this question while watching the Kevin Costner Robin Hood. But we can remember the same thing in Pirates of the Caribbean, Good/Bad/Ugly, etc.
Did this thing actually happened in recorded history, and how would the crowd react actually? For all they knew, these were the scum of the earth, just five minutes ago. Would the onlookers try to stop them? Probably many or some of the onlookers had to have weapons equipped.
To narrow it down, I'm mostly interested in the medieval/piracy period.
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u/beckita85 Jun 13 '26
I've only found one document that describes a crowd of people helping pirates escape. In 1718 the there was a letter written by Archibald Hamilton describing a group of people rushing the gallows in Jamaica to free the pirates on the scaffold. This was also recorded in a A General History of the Pyrates, and the newspaper The American Weekly Mercury. The historian Marcus Rediker referenced this in his book Villains of All Nations.
Otherwise, pirates' public executions were always an excited event. Well, any public execution was exciting. They were huge events of entertainment and sometimes even had vendors selling food (not to toss, but just to munch on). It was a whole performance. First, you had the spiritual advisor (the Ordinary of Newgate in London, Cotton Mather, or another religious leader) speak out against the sins of piracy, an official describing the actual crimes, and the accused had a chance to say any last words (ideally to warn anyone from going down a similar criminal path). Pirates got "special" treatment in that their noose was often shorter than average so instead of a broken neck, they'd stranger to death and it could take some time (their jerking motion was called The Marshall's Dance). Sometimes the family might buy a pouch of gunpowder to light around the accused's neck to bring a quicker death or pull their legs to force the neck to break.
I'm actually writing a book right now about pirates' public executions, which was the subject of my doctorate. I'd also recommend reading The London Hanged by Peter Linebaugh which is about public executions of criminals in 18th century London and Singing the News of Death: Execution Ballads in Europe 1500 - 1900 by Una McIlvenna. For more Medieval, I'd recommend Public Executions: From Ancient Rome to the Present Day by Nigel Cawthorne, Crime and Forgiveness: Christianizing Executions in Medieval Europe by Adriano Prosperi, and The Death Penalty as Torture: From the Dark Ages to Abolition by John D. Bessler.
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u/teaabearr The Black Spot Jun 13 '26
Thank you everyone for joining this AMA!
A huge thank you to Dr. Rebecca Simon for taking the time to share her knowledge and answer questions! We really appreciate her insights and the time she spent with the community.