Children Involved with Piracy
Child pirate aboard the Whydah
Pirates and Buccaneers have been feared by many throughout history. Their ruthlessness brought piracy fame. This fame has become so popular in culture that today’s children like to dress up and pretend to be pirates for Halloween. Although many children idolize pirates, there are some that have taken their fascination further than just pretend-play. Some have taken it to their real life and joined a pirate sloop. This applies to both child pirates of the past and modern day child pirates. The child pirates of the past and of today became pirates for the same reasons: desire, forced recruitment, or poverty and money troubles.
There are many portrayals of pirates from the Golden Age of Piracy. Child pirates are not one of those portrayals. Because little documentation of there being child pirates in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries exist, most people do not consider the possibility of children becoming pirates. In popular culture, numerous amounts of child pirates are on television, film, and media. Most are portrayed as young children dressed like the well-known pirates of the past with much less brutality and terror. For example, the child pirates in Disney’s Jake and the Neverland Pirates are playful, innocent, and kindhearted. Aside from the child pirates in popular culture, the actual child pirates of today are just as frightening and cruel as their adult counterparts. Some may argue that these minors are worse than adult pirates. As the amount of modern pirates arise, so does the amount of child pirates.
Anne Bonny: Love Her or Hate Her
Anne Bonny was a fearless, ruthless, and stubborn woman during the Golden Age of Piracy. Pirates intrigued her and she became one of the two female pirates that are known about. In “Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts”, we are told that “Anne came from a good family…was quick tempered and easily enraged” (Stockton Ch. 28). Such qualities are commonly associated with pirates.
Colin Woodard, the author of The Republic of Pirates, believes that most of the information given about Anne Bonny and Mary Reed are false (Woodard). However, Woodard does not deny the story of Anne and her famous pirate husband whom she left her first husband for.
Anne Bonny and Calico Jack
Though her start can be interesting, what is more fascinating is the comment she made to her second husband, Captain Rackham. Captain Rackham, also known as Calico Jack, was to be executed in a Jamaican prison. According to Woodard, Anne’s words to Jack before his execution were “I am sorry to see you here, but if you had fought like a man, you need not have hanged like a dog” (Woodard). This shows how ruthless this woman was and how fearful those around her, even loved ones, felt of her.
-Mai
Sources:
Woodward, Colin. The Republic of Pirates. Colin Woodard, 2008. Web. 17 June 2013.<http://www.republicofpirates.net/Bonny.html>
Stockton, Frank Richard. “Two Women Pirates.” Buccaneers and Pirates of Our Coasts. N.p.: MacMillian Company, 1898. 253-62. Print.
Did Pirates Have Children?
Disney’s Jake and the Neverland Pirates
Plenty of questions arise about pirates due to their ever growing popularity in film, media, and entertainment. As I learn more about pirates and compare the facts to what I’ve seen or watched, I became interested in knowing whether some aspects of these stories are true and which ones are fictional. One topic that interests me most is whether pirates had families, such as wives and/or children.
Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean
The Adventures of Tin Tin
In films like Pirates of the Caribbean series and The Adventures of Tin Tin, both of which have been fairly recent films, there are characters who are either children of pirates or descendants of them. In Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man’s Chest and At World’s End, Will Turner (played by Orlando Bloom) runs into his pirate father Bill Turner. It is also assumed that Will and Elizabeth, his lover (played by Keira Knightley), had a son together. Another example is in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides when Jack Sparrow discovers that Blackbeard has a daughter: Angelica. The last example I have is from Tin Tin. Tin Tin joins a man named Haddock on a treasure hunt to find a pirate ship called the Unicorn in which the captain was Haddock’s ancestor. With this in mind, my question is “Did Pirates Have Children?”
In the chapter A True Account of Three Notorious Pirates part 1 in Great Pirate Stories by Joseph Lewis French, Blackbeard is said to have had 14 wives. Did some of these women bare his children? Upon some research, I stumbled upon this website that claims that Blackbeard occasionally “shared” his wives with his crew. Could any of the children that came from these women, if there were any, be from the crew-members and told that they were Blackbeard’s? Or did the women who bared these children, in order to protect them, claim that they were not Blackbeard’s nor any other pirate’s? Hopefully as I continue my research I will find more about his lineage as well as other pirates’ lineage. http://www.thegenealogist.co.uk/featuredarticles/jun11_pirates.php
The picture above is from last Halloween and those “Pirate Princesses” (as they like to call themselves) are my daughters. As a mother, I feel that this topic suits me well. My children are my biggest motivators so why not incorporate them into my research?
-Mai
WHAT FAVOR DID THE GOVERNOR OF NORTH CAROLINA DO FOR TEACH?
- Artist’s drawing of Blackbeard’s ship.
– North Carolina Governor Eden gave him the right to the vessel (Queen Anne’s Revenge) which he pirated earlier and also married Blackbeard and his 14th wife.
– Historical Fact: Blackbeard’s entire career as a pirate captain of Queen Anne’s Revenge only lasted 2 years, from 1717 to 1718.
– Controversial issue: When the crown was making pardons for any pirate who gave themselves up, Teach was among those who surrendered to Eden.
The Code of Conduct 
Recent Comments