Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
Speaker 1: much for tuning in. That's our super producer, mister Max Williams.
Speaker 2: Hello, I am here and in the room for a while.
Speaker 2: He's sitting in a chair. We're all here together.
Speaker 1: Yes, they call me Ben Bullen for tax purposes, and
Speaker 1: that's mister Noel Brown. Did you do your taxes?
Speaker 3: What's that done? Your taxes?
Speaker 1: This a legal inquiry, yes it is. So we are
Speaker 1: all answer to me, Dan if we are going to
Speaker 1: you live, I don't from the I did do my taxes?
Speaker 2: Get black bags? See if I care. I was just
Speaker 2: trying to help you out.
Speaker 1: All right, did you do your taxes?
Speaker 3: Nope? All right, I did my taxes. In case we're wondering,
Speaker 3: I did him in January. And we have a good boy.
Speaker 1: We have a fourth person joining us today death long
Speaker 1: time brother in arms, also a co creator of stuff
Speaker 1: they don't want you to know. Fellow ridiculous historians. Let's
Speaker 1: welcome the one and only mister Matt Frederick.
Speaker 4: Hey, everybody, Matt the Voice Frederick, Matt the Private Privateers,
Speaker 4: saving Private Ryan's private privateers.
Speaker 3: Of our podcast.
Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey, that's a different one, as you can tell, folks.
Speaker 1: Because we're talking about being good boys and paying our taxes.
Speaker 1: We're leading into a an exploration that we couldn't imagine
Speaker 1: occurring in a better environment. We are going to talk
Speaker 1: about some of history's most ridiculous, obscure and strange pirates,
Speaker 1: and we're doing it in the former home of Caribbean piracy.
Speaker 3: It's true, it's a little it's a little different than
Speaker 3: it once was.
Speaker 2: It's they classed up the joy I don't know if
Speaker 2: they used to have flamingo yoga.
Speaker 5: In the pirate days.
Speaker 3: But you know, here we are at Bahama.
Speaker 1: At the lovely Baja Maar. We couldn't be more thrilled.
Speaker 1: We've been here for a couple of days. We are in, guys, honestly,
Speaker 1: a posh studio. I'm gonna say it. It's way better
Speaker 1: than what we're used to.
Speaker 2: It's well, you know, I mean, our individual homes typically
Speaker 2: serve as our studios, so results may vary.
Speaker 3: I like my situation. I hope you all like yours
Speaker 3: as well.
Speaker 2: This situation, though, however, involves a fish bowl type thing
Speaker 2: where there are children and their families, just looking and
Speaker 2: pointing at the at the odd men.
Speaker 5: And just tried to make eye contact with the dad
Speaker 5: just ice man, Come on, dad, man.
Speaker 3: No, this is not how it works. I just want
Speaker 3: in your natural environment, dude, let them observe you.
Speaker 6: I want to meet that dad and to break the
Speaker 6: metaphorical fourth wall here a little bit. What's different today
Speaker 6: than it was from yesterday when we recording stuff that
Speaker 6: I want you to know is that's on video today
Speaker 6: is audio hanging on?
Speaker 1: Well, we have.
Speaker 6: Of the windows open, so there's a pathway that people
Speaker 6: are walking down, and yesterday I just walked by like whatever.
Speaker 6: Today they're just like.
Speaker 1: Because today it's way easier to see.
Speaker 3: That's right, the more of the foot traffic on that
Speaker 3: side of the cube.
Speaker 1: So you may hear us shout out people who are
Speaker 1: walking by. A fellow visitors to Baja Mar. There are
Speaker 1: a lot of very curious kids here. You may also
Speaker 1: encounter a random guest because we had some folks walk
Speaker 1: in as we're recording, likely shirtless, likely shirtless. It's a look,
Speaker 1: it's a mood, it's a vibe. Guys. What say we
Speaker 1: do it a listical style here and get into certain
Speaker 1: stories of different pirates, often obscure that we have been
Speaker 1: diving into over our past few days here.
Speaker 2: At Baja cliff Diving. Even it was a false cliff,
Speaker 2: but I did cliff dove.
Speaker 1: I remember we were cliff cliff.
Speaker 5: Yes, and then you go into a little cove of sorts.
Speaker 5: What do you call that? A grotto?
Speaker 3: Much like the Playboy mansion. Yes, a legend.
Speaker 5: On the other side within said grotto, you can see
Speaker 5: into this animal sanctuary that they've got set up in there.
Speaker 5: You can see all kinds of sharks and turtles.
Speaker 3: Tag not an ad.
Speaker 1: Hashtag, kind of an hashtag, kind of a kind of
Speaker 1: an ad.
Speaker 5: I'm sorry, I was genuinely excited.
Speaker 2: Because we are genuinely enthusiastic about this place. It's super
Speaker 2: super fun. Definitely no ad required, to be honest, we're
Speaker 2: just they put us up, and of course we're gonna
Speaker 2: gush about the place.
Speaker 3: It rules.
Speaker 1: So, gentlemen, where should we begin? I guess we got
Speaker 1: to talk about piracy in general. It's still a thing.
Speaker 2: We should start close to home and then move our
Speaker 2: way outward back to our other home.
Speaker 1: Perhaps that's good, Yeah, and we can maybe end with
Speaker 1: the world's most six cessful pirates.
Speaker 3: Oh there we go. Okay, okay, like that.
Speaker 2: When I say close to home, I mean close to
Speaker 2: where we currently find ourselves at home, and then maybe
Speaker 2: moving back towards the States.
Speaker 1: Oh and everybody check out our episode. Did pirates have
Speaker 1: a government from a few years back which also takes
Speaker 1: place here?
Speaker 3: It sure does.
Speaker 2: And I don't know if we talked about this on
Speaker 2: that episode, but I was doing a little digging. I
Speaker 2: know we talked about the eye patch trick. It wasn't
Speaker 2: necessarily that someone's eye had been removed by a parrot or.
Speaker 3: A butter little.
Speaker 2: It was about flipping the patch to the other side
Speaker 2: if you needed to go down into the below decks,
Speaker 2: and then that eye that had been blocked would be
Speaker 2: pre acclimated to the darkness.
Speaker 5: Beautiful, pretty cool.
Speaker 2: And the peg legory of it all, Yes, that was
Speaker 2: done by just some really industrious and thrifty woodworkers who
Speaker 2: kind of figured out how to use their certain set
Speaker 2: of skills to craft on the fly.
Speaker 3: What's the word prosthetics?
Speaker 5: Oh, I was thinking maybe you would put some kind
Speaker 5: of divot or whole in the deck, you know, so
Speaker 5: that you could really strap in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, stability during waves and then just rock people. And
Speaker 1: in a sword fight, you know, how is that guy
Speaker 1: able to swing around so quickly?
Speaker 2: Well, and speaking of the sword fights, of it all
Speaker 2: been the the swashbuckling, you know, a golden age of
Speaker 2: Hollywood pirates sword fights we know as being very precision
Speaker 2: and fencing like not how it was. It was much
Speaker 2: more cutthroat and slash and burn chaotic.
Speaker 1: And also we know that pirates, some pirate crews were
Speaker 1: actually really progressive for their time. We also know that
Speaker 1: the line even let women hang out right right, though
Speaker 1: in the West it was still sometimes considered bad luck.
Speaker 1: We don't know if all the women were pirates, but
Speaker 1: we'll get to that. We'll get to the comp we'll
Speaker 1: get to some yes, we'll get to some feminism piracy.
Speaker 1: They got workers comp there were democratic votes on the ship.
Speaker 3: The Bauty was all split in equal shares.
Speaker 1: There was like a pension plan, you know, for people
Speaker 1: who were retiring or who were injured. But there are
Speaker 1: also so many misconceptions about piracy in general. It's like
Speaker 1: it's a really muddy gray line between murky Water, privateer
Speaker 1: Murky Waters, or dark Waters. Did you guys ever see
Speaker 1: that cartoon Dark Water.
Speaker 5: Saw the movie dark Water.
Speaker 2: The one about that was the one about the the
Speaker 2: teflon right, Yeah, there was a there was a super
Speaker 2: fun hang yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: There was another one. We'll get into it later. Just
Speaker 1: hit us up on Ridiculous Historians of Facebook if you
Speaker 1: remember that obscure card, especially if you're an old I.
Speaker 5: Sound familiar, man, but I like, I feel like I
Speaker 5: can picture something in my mind of the art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's very pirate coded,
Speaker 1: as Noel would say, Uh, it's I don't know if
Speaker 1: it holds up on rewatch, but it does bring us
Speaker 1: to a question, what about.
Speaker 3: Flight of Dragons though, yes, it does okay cool and
Speaker 3: it is a ranking bass Yes, I love the rankings
Speaker 3: in the back.
Speaker 1: I'm surprised you haven't seen that.
Speaker 3: I haven't. It seems like a bit of a deeper cut.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 5: One guys, can we talk about New Providence Island, the
Speaker 5: island on which we are sitting right now in the Bahamas,
Speaker 5: the Big Island? I feel like that's kind of what
Speaker 5: we're hinting at. The cool things in piracy at least, well,
Speaker 5: there are a lot of interesting things, a lot of
Speaker 5: horrific things that happened with piracy. But during the Golden Age,
Speaker 5: like sixteen ninety seventeen twenty, that's when here in the
Speaker 5: Bahamas there was a place that.
Speaker 3: Was an intentional community.
Speaker 5: Well it was completely bombarded and everybody left because this
Speaker 5: place was destroyed, and then a lot of folks came
Speaker 5: back and rebuilt everything and used it as a really
Speaker 5: ange HQ.
Speaker 3: It is like an HQ is also a bit of
Speaker 3: a pirate utopia.
Speaker 5: It's very strange because you're thinking about British or Spanish
Speaker 5: rule back in the like colonial rule back in the day,
Speaker 5: that is one of the big problems in the world.
Speaker 5: And you're talking about a bunch of people who are
Speaker 5: really good at ships, making ships go and functioning on
Speaker 5: the seas, a lot of them in the Atlantic Ocean,
Speaker 5: especially once we're talking about here and the freedom that
Speaker 5: that represents, right, and then the freedom that the Bahamas
Speaker 5: represented at that time when they created their own place,
Speaker 5: like as we were saying, like a freeport, not freeport,
Speaker 5: but like.
Speaker 1: Episode of stuff. They don't want you to know.
Speaker 5: Because Nasau, like now what is now Nasau was basically
Speaker 5: what the place we're talking about, and I'm trying to
Speaker 5: make a connection between the freedom of that that place
Speaker 5: represented versus the colonialism, and how a lot of the
Speaker 5: the pirateers began because they weren't getting paid right by
Speaker 5: people who commissioned them to be on a ship to
Speaker 5: go somewhere and do something.
Speaker 1: To or or absolutely conscripted them, yes right and made
Speaker 1: them in all function slaves and we'll get to like.
Speaker 5: And they just decided we're not doing this anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And the colonial powers had their own pirate armies.
Speaker 1: They just called them privateers and gave them little certain
Speaker 1: that said what this guy does is fine.
Speaker 2: And I'm sorry, man, I didn't mean to interrupt. The
Speaker 2: privateer comment was not quite on base. You're more talking
Speaker 2: about when they were conscripted to just run supplies and victuals.
Speaker 5: Often often there's I think somebody you're going to be
Speaker 5: talking about today, Noel, And that thing happened in particular
Speaker 5: where a mutiny occurred because of the pay stopped and
Speaker 5: they got stranded somewhere on a ship and they said, well,
Speaker 5: I guess we're taking the ship so to jump in here.
Speaker 6: Like I think Ben, we were talking about this maybe
Speaker 6: two netsco that basically on every like long Spanish voyage,
Speaker 6: you basically read about there's a mutiny at some point.
Speaker 6: There is always a mutiny and all these things because
Speaker 6: they stopped paying people.
Speaker 1: They like, the food goes bad.
Speaker 6: It goes bad for some reason. God grabs a bunch
Speaker 6: of cows. No, they're not going to talk about enough
Speaker 6: sourcing on that basil hood if you want to check
Speaker 6: that one out. But there's always gonna overthrown because it
Speaker 6: really sucked, and you know, there's these liberties will be
Speaker 6: taken away because it's easy to you know, there's the
Speaker 6: romanticized view of pirates where it's like all these people
Speaker 6: weren't bad, they like the Pirates of the Caribbean view.
Speaker 6: Then there's like the like pirates are bad, but they're
Speaker 6: just terrible view, But it's like, you know, they were
Speaker 6: rebelling against the system that was really bad.
Speaker 2: No, the truth is somewhere in the middle, and of
Speaker 2: course there's examples on both sides. But it's so interesting
Speaker 2: to think about how a ship at sea really is
Speaker 2: like its own little country, and a mutiny is really
Speaker 2: kind of like.
Speaker 3: Overthrowing the governments.
Speaker 2: But it's a lot easier to do when you as
Speaker 2: kind of like a bunch of your closest pals and
Speaker 2: then the guy that you want to overthrow. It's a
Speaker 2: little more functionally achievable goal on a ship. So that's
Speaker 2: probably why it happened so much more than like, you know,
Speaker 2: your average coup exactly.
Speaker 1: And then we also know to be clear here, we're
Speaker 1: primarily talking about piracy in the Caribbean, which is what
Speaker 1: most Americans are going to be thinking about right when
Speaker 1: you hear pirates, right, and a lot of that is
Speaker 1: probably due to Johnny Depp, But we have to realize
Speaker 1: that the colonial system, in a very real way, it
Speaker 1: created the Caribbean piracy, right, because these folks were under
Speaker 1: brutal class regimes. Uh, the punishments were incredibly harsh for
Speaker 1: all kinds of things because the captains and the colonial
Speaker 1: powers ruled through fear. So when we had when we
Speaker 1: had people who say, were of darker skin tone, right,
Speaker 1: they would never have a chance to advance in a
Speaker 1: colonial operation at all. So why wouldn't you go somewhere else?
Speaker 2: And to the point of the egalitarianism of the pirate world,
Speaker 2: those folks would have been welcomed into the right, yeah.
Speaker 1: Especially if they're treated as able bodied yeah, and if
Speaker 1: not treated as equals treated less horribly fair enough.
Speaker 3: See now I'm doing the romanticization again. It's easy to do.
Speaker 3: But at the very least you're right then they were
Speaker 3: allowed to exist.
Speaker 1: They were allowed to exist. Which does it seem like
Speaker 1: it's asking for that much? So I think we're a
Speaker 1: low bar. We're gently becoming pro pirate because of the meritocracy.
Speaker 5: I want to yes, I want to make one point.
Speaker 5: It's it's uncomfortable, it's it's unsettling, it's it's gross and sorry,
Speaker 5: I know that I know what show them on. We
Speaker 5: just have to point out in the in the writing,
Speaker 5: there's there's a lot of reading that you can do
Speaker 5: about quote wild women, which you will see. You will
Speaker 5: see that phrase a lot when you're looking up the
Speaker 5: history of pirates.
Speaker 3: Well, well maybe I don't know.
Speaker 5: What. Just want to point this out here because it's
Speaker 5: just it's a truth of a truth of the thing.
Speaker 5: We're talking about the different versions of pirates that you'll
Speaker 5: read about and the way they are depicted there. There's
Speaker 5: horrific s a happening across the board, but just I
Speaker 5: mean on ships when you know a port was rated
Speaker 5: everywhere that was happening, and it's just very much so
Speaker 5: in the way you know we've spoken before, but I've
Speaker 5: spoken with you guys before about vikings and the way
Speaker 5: they're depicted, and you know, but there's all there's that
Speaker 5: that gray area between the truths often, but there is
Speaker 5: horrific stuff in almost every crew that I've read about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no happy pirate squad, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1: There's nobody who is like raiding a ship to bring hugs.
Speaker 1: This isn't happening. This is a great setup, Matt, for
Speaker 1: a story we'll get to later, because we did say
Speaker 1: we're going to get into some feminism in piracy, which
Speaker 1: I'm really excited about. This is going to be crazy,
Speaker 1: but you know, it's your proposition there about starting closer
Speaker 1: to the US centric view. Why do you kick it
Speaker 1: with us on the on the is there a pirate
Speaker 1: from the Caribbean that's really captured ry?
Speaker 3: Oh, geez, put me on the spot.
Speaker 2: Why don't you, Well, you know what, I will talk
Speaker 2: about this guy because it actually is also very applicable
Speaker 2: in terms of what we just discussed regarding the golden
Speaker 2: age of piracy, and there was actually a thing that
Speaker 2: happened where King George, the first kind of near the
Speaker 2: end of that Golden Age that Matt was talking about
Speaker 2: seventeen eighteen to seventeen. Seventeen seventeen to seventeen eighteen, he
Speaker 2: passed something called the Acts of Grace, which essentially absolved
Speaker 2: a lot of these pirates for their crimes in the
Speaker 2: hopes that they would quit pirating. Yeah, but some of
Speaker 2: them said, King George, you can take your pardon and
Speaker 2: stick it where the sun don't shine.
Speaker 6: Also to jump in here, I mean, Ben, I know
Speaker 6: you were the swell, but so much of my knowledge
Speaker 6: of this time of period it just comes from Assassin's
Speaker 6: creed for a black Flag. They're showing up, you know,
Speaker 6: is it Huntingford. We're going to get into him eventually,
Speaker 6: but yeah, he's your friend. He portrays you and you
Speaker 6: have to kill him later.
Speaker 3: Oh so yeah, I've never played a one of those
Speaker 3: games where it's it.
Speaker 1: Start later in the franchise.
Speaker 2: I start earlier in the fan like the Pirate One.
Speaker 2: Don't start one?
Speaker 1: Should I say?
Speaker 3: The Pirate One?
Speaker 1: Though?
Speaker 3: Is that great.
Speaker 1: Mechanics?
Speaker 6: Well, they're going to re release it this year unless
Speaker 6: they're not going to re releaate what. Yeah, Ubisov has been
Speaker 6: haven't official announcement, but they've been working on a re
Speaker 6: release or remastering of four. But they're also working on
Speaker 6: a remastering of Prince Persia, which they canceled.
Speaker 1: Because you have thoughts like going on now Srodingers.
Speaker 2: That's funny though, because Ubisoft is kind of the King George,
Speaker 2: the first of video.
Speaker 3: Games in a lot of ways.
Speaker 2: Because not to get too off the track here, but
Speaker 2: we're all huge fans of clareub Scare Expedition thirty three,
Speaker 2: which is what one could argue as close to an
Speaker 2: indie game studio as might be able to generate what
Speaker 2: feels like a triple A title like clareub Scare. And
Speaker 2: it was made up from folks who pitched that to Ubisoft,
Speaker 2: and he was continuously shot down and said, no, no, no,
Speaker 2: that's too weird, it is never gonna fly, and literally
Speaker 2: blew them out of the water when they started their
Speaker 2: own company Sandfall, dude.
Speaker 6: And by the way, I have my whole right arm
Speaker 6: exposed facing Matt right now, who refuses to play claireub
Speaker 6: Skire so he has to just stare at my.
Speaker 1: You have to play it. With the audio we're getting on, I.
Speaker 5: Would love it so much if it wasn't all, you know,
Speaker 5: a generated I'm only kidding right now.
Speaker 2: The Proclamation for Suppressing of Pirates also known as the
Speaker 2: Act of Grace, and it was it was not an
Speaker 2: act of Parliament, but it was a royal proclamation that
Speaker 2: King George the First of Britain issued on September fifth
Speaker 2: of seventeen seventeen, promising a pardon for all acts of
Speaker 2: piracy committed before the following January the fifth, to any
Speaker 2: pirates who would be so bold as to surrender themselves
Speaker 2: to the Crown, to a proper authority before said deadline.
Speaker 3: And there were other, you know, caveats associated with that.
Speaker 2: But we're talking about a dude named Charles Vain, who
Speaker 2: I believe that's your your reference point with the game, right.
Speaker 6: Uh no, but he is got you play as a
Speaker 6: fictional pirate Edward Tenway. But Vain is one of the
Speaker 6: guys you meet and you don't think very highly of Vain.
Speaker 6: Vain has comes off as a real pill.
Speaker 1: Well he was Benjamin Horney Golden.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he's actually a kind of your mentor, and he's
Speaker 6: kind of like a guy who portrays you.
Speaker 1: Jim and Horny gold Yes, matt okay, okay, just with
Speaker 1: an I.
Speaker 3: That's a banger of a pirate.
Speaker 5: For gold, we got vain and horny gold.
Speaker 2: So here's a quote from Captain Charles Johnson from a
Speaker 2: general History of the Pirates with a y because they
Speaker 2: spelled things funny. Back then, all the pirates who were
Speaker 2: found at this colony of rogues submitted and received certificates
Speaker 2: of their pardon, except Captain Vaine and his crew, who,
Speaker 2: as soon as they saw the men of War enter,
Speaker 2: slipped their cable, set fire to a prize they had
Speaker 2: in the harbor, and sailed out with their pirrishical colors flying,
Speaker 2: firing at one of the men of war as they
Speaker 2: went off.
Speaker 3: Boy, King go off, they went off.
Speaker 1: And folks, to be clear, Vain is to your point. No,
Speaker 1: he's one of the people who looked at this offer, offer, this,
Speaker 1: this olive branch from somebody that he totally freaking hated,
Speaker 1: and he played along at first, and he said, oh, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know me. I'm a I'm a good boy, I'm
Speaker 1: an upstanding maritime dude. And they said, oh, right there
Speaker 1: they were. The King's palled in for the uh. And
Speaker 1: then just a few months afterwards, as he said, he.
Speaker 3: Blew up the spot.
Speaker 2: To maybe you know, unpack that kind of you know,
Speaker 2: old timey quote I just read. He basically gave him
Speaker 2: the finger, set a ship on fire, and fled with
Speaker 2: his pirate flag flying, saying like, first of all, this
Speaker 2: is important to note Vain was a Jacobite, okay, meaning
Speaker 2: he was of the political ideology advocating for the restoration
Speaker 2: of the senior line of the House of Stuart to
Speaker 2: the British throne. So politically he was just absolutely opposed
Speaker 2: to everything that the King stood for.
Speaker 3: It was like exactly secretarian, you know, and that kind of.
Speaker 2: Stuff, to the point where that probably informed his decision
Speaker 2: to give said finger and set set fire.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right on off into the sunset.
Speaker 1: And his boys loved it.
Speaker 3: Honest, his boys loved it. If I could jump in
Speaker 3: real quick.
Speaker 6: I think it's also important to understand on why the
Speaker 6: king was doing this, because getting these pirates done was nice,
Speaker 6: but there was still in need for privateers, at least
Speaker 6: in their mind. And like Horni Gold, like you know,
Speaker 6: is one of these guys who would have maintained he
Speaker 6: was a privateier, not a pirate like they were, Like,
Speaker 6: you know, we'll probably talk about this more later. What's
Speaker 6: the line between a privateer and a pirate really?
Speaker 2: So, yeah, but to your point earlier to Max, I mean,
Speaker 2: and I think a couple of the other fellas made
Speaker 2: this point as well. The reason they moved towards piracy
Speaker 2: is because the privateering and or the version prior to that,
Speaker 2: just wasn't paying the bills.
Speaker 3: So basically the proposition here is come bend the knee
Speaker 3: and then.
Speaker 2: Go back to the old way where we are now
Speaker 2: in charge of you again. And uh political you know,
Speaker 2: differences aside, that just didn't seem like a particularly good
Speaker 2: deal for for.
Speaker 3: Mister vane Yes and his boys, the horn to.
Speaker 6: Go got good because his whole thing was like, oh,
Speaker 6: I will screw over all my friends I made here
Speaker 6: in Nasut. Yeah, yeah, he's a real part.
Speaker 2: But this they say, no honor among thieves, I think
Speaker 2: that's a me snomer.
Speaker 5: Well, this is.
Speaker 1: It depends on the type of thievery. But this is
Speaker 1: the kind of thing with privateers. We have to remember.
Speaker 1: It's a really crappy commission gig because they're saying you
Speaker 1: can do what you want as long as you do
Speaker 1: it to this group, like as long as you attack
Speaker 1: the Spanish or you know, as long as you attack
Speaker 1: the British, you're fine and you can kind of take
Speaker 1: what you want from there. But we're not like giving
Speaker 1: you health insurance. We're not giving you workmen's comprehension. It's
Speaker 1: a contract gig, and we can end it at any time.
Speaker 2: It's a good example of like seizing the means of
Speaker 2: production kind of stuff, where it's like I don't need
Speaker 2: you and your your grace proclamation. I don't need the
Speaker 2: pittance that you're gonna throw me for the work that
Speaker 2: I can go out and grab and do myself. Granted,
Speaker 2: there is something to be said and an argument to
Speaker 2: be made of having regular gigs and not having to
Speaker 2: like always hustle and find the next you.
Speaker 1: Know, shout out to everybody to not go shout out
Speaker 1: to our fellows.
Speaker 5: We're gonna say it sounds like a gig economy, isn't
Speaker 5: Isn't that the way to go? Like we've advanced so
Speaker 5: far since then, and we've decided the gig economy is
Speaker 5: the thing that works the best for.
Speaker 2: Everything that's right this calculation, This is a rig economy.
Speaker 1: I'm doing ship jokes.
Speaker 5: Got it, and it works on so many levels.
Speaker 6: Nice work, Bet, I interjected the bad joke drum here annually.
Speaker 1: Thank you, thank you, you are the bad joke drum
Speaker 1: of my heart. Max.
Speaker 2: So not a lot is known about Charles Vane's early
Speaker 2: life other than the fact that he was a sailor.
Speaker 2: He is from Port Royal, probably wasn't born there.
Speaker 5: Forgive me is port Royal, Jamaica.
Speaker 2: I believe it's in uh, yeah, I think it is.
Speaker 2: That's correct. And he is thought to have been born
Speaker 2: around sixteen ninety, probably in England, but he operated in
Speaker 2: Port Royal and again likely wasn't born there. He was,
Speaker 2: as I'd said, a big spokesperson for the Jacobite cause
Speaker 2: he served as a privateer under Henry Jennings and in
Speaker 2: seventeen sixteen this position helped him to knock over a
Speaker 2: Spanish galleon that had sunk off the coast of Florida
Speaker 2: in a storm and collect all of the sunken literal
Speaker 2: sunken treasure you know therein That's when he really started
Speaker 2: hanging out right here around Nasau and then where we
Speaker 2: now sit, had a super super posh lifestyle and became
Speaker 2: an incredibly successful pirate, capturing merchant vessels from places as
Speaker 2: far flung as Hispanola to New York and just shout
Speaker 2: out to Wayne Savage and his website the Golden Age
Speaker 2: of Piracy, getting some really good information from that. So
Speaker 2: let's go really quickly into the deal with the pardon,
Speaker 2: and I'm just going to read really quickly from Wayne's writing,
Speaker 2: because I think he does a great job somemming this up.
Speaker 2: It really came into his own as a pirate when
Speaker 2: the news of the King's pardon reached Nassau. Being one
Speaker 2: of those who refuse clemency, he was disgusted when more
Speaker 2: than half of the pirates, including his mentor Jennings, accepted it.
Speaker 2: This is like a bad look as far as he
Speaker 2: was concerned. This was people like you know, denying their
Speaker 2: their pirate pirate ways and bending the knee again to
Speaker 2: the people they were rebelling against in the first place.
Speaker 2: Many others who rejected it were doing so on political,
Speaker 2: politically motivated grounds because they were also Jacobites. So he then,
Speaker 2: after doing the thing you know that I described in
Speaker 2: that quote, reached out to a lot of other Jacobites
Speaker 2: and a lot of people who supported his cause and
Speaker 2: started to amass more crew members for his operation on
Speaker 2: February seventeen eighteen in rather the HMS Phoenix, which was
Speaker 2: a British ship captained by a guy named Vincent. Pierce
Speaker 2: got to Nasau and he was kind of welcomed by.
Speaker 3: The the local folks.
Speaker 2: And that is when Pierce, he was kind of like
Speaker 2: the the Jean Valjean and Javert kind of situation. He's
Speaker 2: the Javert to Vain's Jean Valjean started to uh aggressively
Speaker 2: pursue capture of this you know, escaped pirate who was
Speaker 2: flouting the very generous clemency offered by the king.
Speaker 1: Oh we also have to point out too, I'm loving
Speaker 1: this story. Vain was even among other pirates, infamous for
Speaker 1: his cruelty. Really yeah, yeah, he was a hard gum.
Speaker 1: Yeah he was not like we're we just want to
Speaker 1: make sure you don't think we're painting him in too
Speaker 1: heroic a light.
Speaker 2: No, I'm not trying to. It's mainly just interesting the dynamics.
Speaker 1: Of the whole dynamics politics and because it's not financial
Speaker 1: for him, it's first it is personal.
Speaker 3: That's and then sometimes that's what makes the most dangerous characters.
Speaker 1: Because you can rationalize whatever you're doing.
Speaker 5: Do you have one example of that, just so I understand,
Speaker 5: Like what we're talking about is cruelty. Yeah, and I
Speaker 5: don't want to go They were darker.
Speaker 1: Not just They wouldn't just beat, uh, they wouldn't just
Speaker 1: beat other sailors when they were raiding ships. They would
Speaker 1: capture them and sometimes not even try to ransom them.
Speaker 1: They would just torture them for long periods of time,
Speaker 1: and then they would also, uh, I think this is
Speaker 1: the right guy. They would go really hard on one
Speaker 1: dude to make him an example to the other sailors
Speaker 1: so that they would willingly give up all their values valuables,
Speaker 1: and then they would also beat those guys. Geez.
Speaker 5: Okay.
Speaker 1: So it's like somebody is gonna try to mug you
Speaker 1: with a baseball bat, give your wallet and you do,
Speaker 1: and they say, okay, now I'm gonna beat Yeah.
Speaker 5: They got your stuff.
Speaker 3: Now it's real, real gangster. Yeah, Dan is a good
Speaker 3: of the.
Speaker 5: Seas as a palate cleanser. Between that and the next
Speaker 5: pirate we talked about, I want to clarify something from
Speaker 5: my own mind. I think you guys might know better
Speaker 5: than I. The ships that many pirates would use were
Speaker 5: often smaller, right than the schooners or okay, so they're there,
Speaker 5: they don't, they don't. Just for me the complete layman here,
Speaker 5: not like the huge bricates exactly, or a galleon or
Speaker 5: one of these huge ships that maybe the Spanish Armado
Speaker 5: would have or another you know, British force.
Speaker 1: Always there were some chonky boys, but most of them
Speaker 1: to jump in more sloops and schooners.
Speaker 6: The big steption would be like Edward teaches Queen Anne's Pravans,
Speaker 6: which was.
Speaker 5: A man of war.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, that's like the huge that's bigger than a freak.
Speaker 6: But yeah, this is obviously black Beard, but that was
Speaker 6: like his prize was capturing that. But yeah, most people
Speaker 6: had small agile chef.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they could out maneuver the bigger guys, and
Speaker 1: they were also easier to steal.
Speaker 2: It's like those gangs of a dirt bike in eight
Speaker 2: TV riders that we see around Atlantic Chase. They there's
Speaker 2: no way they can ever because the zip off through
Speaker 2: a neighborhood.
Speaker 5: Well, and the point I wanted to get to with
Speaker 5: all of that was that's one of the reasons Nasau
Speaker 5: was so important and such a good place to go,
Speaker 5: because those smaller ships can get into this area much
Speaker 5: more safely and come in closer to land.
Speaker 2: Well, and dude, the wind man, think about that. If
Speaker 2: you were a smaller ship, you can harness that wind,
Speaker 2: if you're a skilled sailor and zip and go super suent.
Speaker 2: It's crazy windy around here.
Speaker 1: There's another there's another point there that has always fascinated
Speaker 1: me historically. You guys, when we talk about sea serpents.
Speaker 1: This is a tangent, but we talked about sea serpents
Speaker 1: or sea monsters, sea creatures of the deep. You know,
Speaker 1: you see all those woodcuts of them swallowing up a
Speaker 1: ship entire. We have to remember is that's not necessarily
Speaker 1: as implausible as it sounds for really big octopus or
Speaker 1: a squid to attack a ship like that.
Speaker 3: David Joe Jazz, because.
Speaker 1: In reality they are so much smaller than they're portrayed
Speaker 1: in fiction. Right, if you go on an accurate reproduction
Speaker 1: of one of those ships, you're going to think, oh,
Speaker 1: it's not the size of the sea monster, it's the
Speaker 1: size of the ship.
Speaker 5: The interesting that's what.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what makes a difference. The ocean's great fascinating
Speaker 1: facts because.
Speaker 5: The tactics of a pirrating ship is to come along,
Speaker 5: to find its way alongside, sneak up basically to a
Speaker 5: larger ship, and get part of the crew on board,
Speaker 5: right because we're.
Speaker 1: Not talking smaller boats under cover of night.
Speaker 5: Because we're not talking about naval combat off way. But
Speaker 5: if you play like Black.
Speaker 1: Flag, you got broadside people.
Speaker 5: It's well it's the broadsiding, but it's all about upgrading
Speaker 5: your cannons and all these other things. And I wonder
Speaker 5: how much of that actually played into the form of
Speaker 5: pirrating that truly existed, maybe.
Speaker 1: At the state level role, so you would have something
Speaker 1: that's essentially like a BattleMech. You know the size of
Speaker 1: your flags, right, Yeah, those guys have all these tremendous
Speaker 1: capabilities if you stay still long enough for them to
Speaker 1: get to you. Right. So if you if you see
Speaker 1: them turning and facing the can instward, you you might
Speaker 1: have to wait for a while, right to get your
Speaker 1: ass kicked.
Speaker 3: Absolutely to jump in with more Black Flag.
Speaker 6: There are at the end of Black Flag for like
Speaker 6: boss level ship fight, and if you try just fight
Speaker 6: them as traditional, you're gonna get your ass kicked every
Speaker 6: time because there's so much more powerful that you can
Speaker 6: make your own ship. But so yeah, being nimble and
Speaker 6: fast and a lot of those fights nestics are usually
Speaker 6: against really large ships at bend point, they take forever
Speaker 6: to turn.
Speaker 5: Yes, but once they fire, you're dead. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, It's kind of like getting in a fight with
Speaker 1: a sumo wrestler, you know what I mean, Like, just
Speaker 1: don't let them get to you.
Speaker 3: No, you gotta sweep the leg.
Speaker 6: And to know previous part about Charles Vaine, when they
Speaker 6: got them all on Nassau, they had them blockaded into
Speaker 6: Nassau with all those massive ships. It's like, yeah, those
Speaker 6: fast little ships can't really do much in that case.
Speaker 1: It's a wildfire, right, as long as those big ships
Speaker 1: are able to stay supplied.
Speaker 5: But blockade. I swear I heard that about history here, Matt.
Speaker 1: Let's get it straight. Hey, uh riddles, this what happens?
Speaker 2: Well, I will get to that in two point five seconds.
Speaker 2: I just want to add I just there was a
Speaker 2: detail that I left out. When Vain decided to flee
Speaker 2: the coup after being offered that pardon, What essentially happened
Speaker 2: was an envoy came to Nasau, you know, bearing the
Speaker 2: papers that would represent you know that pardon make it official.
Speaker 2: And not only did Vane you know, reject it and
Speaker 2: set a ship on fire.
Speaker 3: This guy's name was Rogers. He sailed the flaming ship
Speaker 3: directly at rogers fleet.
Speaker 2: And created a diversion that he then used to peace
Speaker 2: on out.
Speaker 3: Wow, black flag, I know.
Speaker 1: That was Woods Rogers And the thing is the templar. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the game, the game, definitely in the game in real life.
Speaker 1: Who knows, but I nol I believe that that crazy
Speaker 1: move to turn a ship into a fire ship. It
Speaker 1: it didn't destroy this other guy's ships, right, It didn't
Speaker 1: destroy Rogers's fleet, but it gave him the opportunity.
Speaker 5: Yeah, just a.
Speaker 2: Distraction, total, very very expert god teared diversion just to
Speaker 2: get out of there.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right, what happens next.
Speaker 3: Well, a lot of things happen.
Speaker 2: He pirates around, you know, for for for a while,
Speaker 2: he massed quite a bit of wealth, of course, and
Speaker 2: then eventually, as as is typically the case with folks
Speaker 2: flouting the law so openly like that, it eventually catches
Speaker 2: up with them, and it caught up with him in
Speaker 2: pretty epic fashion in the form of an absolutely cut
Speaker 2: scene worthy twist where he essentially is run from the authorities.
Speaker 2: He shipwrecks on an island, he has to. He gets
Speaker 2: rescued from the island and then like gets aboard another
Speaker 2: vessel where he takes on a false identity for a
Speaker 2: while and get in get in situations.
Speaker 3: And he sure did so.
Speaker 2: In February of seventeen nineteen, he got caught in a
Speaker 2: hurricane the Bay Islands, got shipwrecked on a literal uncharted
Speaker 2: and basically I mean, for all intents and purposes of
Speaker 2: what we know, uninhabited island. The rest of the crew
Speaker 2: died during this shipwreck. He was only able to survive
Speaker 2: because of some kindly turtle hunters who didn't necessarily live there,
Speaker 2: but this is an island they knew about, and he
Speaker 2: was able to bart her for supplies or just you know,
Speaker 2: appeal to the kindness of strangers. Eventually, what I was
Speaker 2: kind of describing a minute ago, a merchant ship arrived
Speaker 2: and it was piloted by an ex pirate named Holford.
Speaker 3: He didn't trust Vane, so he did not offer him
Speaker 3: a lift. In fact, he told him that he was
Speaker 3: going to leave him there and that if he was
Speaker 3: still there when he came back in a month's time,
Speaker 3: he would he would give him a ride, but not
Speaker 3: to freedom to the gallows.
Speaker 1: Okay, So he's like, I'll give you a pass because
Speaker 1: we both were in the game, but if I see
Speaker 1: you again, you're gonna face justice.
Speaker 3: Correct. Another English ship eventually arrived in order to get
Speaker 3: fresh water. That's when Vain attempted to blend in with
Speaker 3: the crew using a fake name and a bit of
Speaker 3: a disguise.
Speaker 1: It's me Nigel, nonpirate.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: He Eventually Colford catches up with that crew, who is
Speaker 2: an associate of the captain of this new merchant vessel
Speaker 2: that Vain is now basically stowing away on for a
Speaker 2: intensive purposes, and he then turns him in narks him out.
Speaker 2: He gets tried and hanged in March of seventeen twenty
Speaker 2: one at Gallows Point. Full circle back there in Port Royal,
Speaker 2: his lifeless corpse was hung in chains on the small
Speaker 2: island off of a gun k near the port near
Speaker 2: the co and this really represented kind of making an
Speaker 2: example of him, and many people looked at it as
Speaker 2: a very important visual cue signaling the end.
Speaker 3: Of the golden the golden age of piracy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and uh, you know that's how you play the game.
Speaker 1: I guess, uh it's it's a larger than life tail.
Speaker 1: I think we've been pretty honest about the uh the
Speaker 1: darker parts of it. But uh no, after after all this,
Speaker 1: what do you think, man, You're gonna do some piracy
Speaker 1: with me?
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go to the water park.
Speaker 1: Okay, if that's euphemism for piracy, I know.
Speaker 3: They may have a pirate themed ride and I'm gladly
Speaker 3: enjoy it.
Speaker 1: And so, folks, we can't thank you again enough for
Speaker 1: tuning in enjoining us in an auditory way here at Bahamar.
Speaker 2: We're doing an intentional two parter. We all brought some
Speaker 2: really fun stories. That one ended up being a little
Speaker 2: beefier than we expected. So when we come back with
Speaker 2: part two, I think we might have two more for you.
Speaker 1: And of course, big big thanks to mister Max Free
Speaker 1: Train Williams. Huge thanks to ours returning special guest Matt Frederick. Matt,
Speaker 1: what's on your mind? Man?
Speaker 5: Who is that creeping in our phones? It's Max and
Speaker 5: he's got the knowledge, Max, Max Mac.
Speaker 1: Just for you, here it come.
Speaker 5: It's back the.
Speaker 1: Matt. My favorite part of that song Thank You Again
Speaker 1: is the SI at the end, just because it's like
Speaker 1: it seems like a release of something almost sexual.
Speaker 3: He's dreaming. Yes, I think we have nine versions of
Speaker 3: That's great. I never asked for one.
Speaker 6: They asked Matt to record one line for me.
Speaker 2: And Matt and Dylan Man going above and beyond. Shout
Speaker 2: out to Dylan the Tennessee palp Vegans who's always.
Speaker 3: Rocking the rude bekas over on stuff they don't want
Speaker 3: you to know.
Speaker 2: If you don't know what I'm talking about, do get
Speaker 2: you to a podcast platform of choice and check out
Speaker 2: our weekly listener mail episodes where you get a new
Speaker 2: root to beg a jingle to me about every yepp.
Speaker 5: And if you're behind on the root of Begas, I
Speaker 5: think the plan very soon is to make an oops
Speaker 5: All Roota Bega is at least special.
Speaker 1: And in the meantime you could also check out our
Speaker 1: parent company, IGU. If you love this trippy stuff. We
Speaker 1: have a whoops All Illumination Global Unlimited episode. I'm miss
Speaker 1: making those, you guys, we should We should get back
Speaker 1: to those before IGU puts out a puts out a
Speaker 1: call to end our podcast piracy. What do we think?
Speaker 5: Yes, yeah, always, always more.
Speaker 1: And always more reminds us the rest of the Thank yous.
Speaker 1: Big shout out to Max's biological brother Alex Williams, our
Speaker 1: brother in podcast arms, who composed this bang and bop.
Speaker 1: Big reluctant shout out to a guy who totally would
Speaker 1: have worked for the British colonial powers, our own East
Speaker 1: India Company, villain rogue and impressionist at the Renaissance Fair,
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strict.
Speaker 2: To do a bit of a paper things aka the
Speaker 2: Admiral was Roger's sort.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, oh good callback and big thanks to the eavest Jeffcoat.
Speaker 1: Big thanks to Christopher hasiotis well snol.
Speaker 5: Can I shout out the kind of haggard looking dove.
Speaker 5: There's like some really n.
Speaker 3: And the sanctuary.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no no, you can't rain those birds in, dude.
Speaker 5: If you go in the sanctuary, they will give you
Speaker 5: a tiny little stick that has some bird seed on it,
Speaker 5: and the little birds will land on the stick and
Speaker 5: hang out with you for a while, and it's glorious.
Speaker 1: And speaking of glorious, we're going to return to uh,
Speaker 1: the glory days of piracy in a way that's not
Speaker 1: often reported in Western history books, So tune in later
Speaker 1: this week. In the meantime, we got to go catch
Speaker 1: some sun and some turtles.
Speaker 3: We'll see you next time, folks.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from My Heart Radio, visit the eye
Speaker 2: Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to
Speaker 2: your favorite shows.