WEBVTT - CLASSIC: New Providence: That Time Pirates Had A Government 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:04.360 Fellow ridiculous historians. We are still riding the wave of 0:00:04.600 --> 0:00:08.200 Baja Mar. We returned recently with a two part series 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:12.480 about pirates, and in our conversation, we realized there was 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:18.759 no better way to continue to continue our piracy phase 0:00:18.800 --> 0:00:23.560 obsession than by returning to a classic episode about that 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:25.320 time pirates had a government. 0:00:25.800 --> 0:00:28.720 Yeah, they were super egalitarian, those pirates. You think they 0:00:28.720 --> 0:00:31.680 think of them as bloodthirsty rape and pillagers, but in 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:34.120 fact they were all about doing things by committee. 0:00:34.600 --> 0:00:39.839 Yeah, pretty often. They seemed to be quite progressive, especially 0:00:39.920 --> 0:00:43.960 considering the colonial powers at the time, or in comparison 0:00:44.000 --> 0:00:45.200 to those and less. 0:00:45.320 --> 0:00:47.360 You know, we did make the point in the episode 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:49.640 that we did at Baha Maar that we're not trying 0:00:49.640 --> 0:00:51.839 to romanticize them too much because they definitely raped and 0:00:51.880 --> 0:00:55.600 pillage a plenty. They weren't just out there doing secret ballots, 0:00:55.640 --> 0:00:59.400 but they did have a pretty robust system of governments 0:00:59.480 --> 0:01:04.440 that they used in a kind of almost pirate utopia situation. 0:01:05.000 --> 0:01:08.319 Yeah, it's strange because it was sort of a marriage 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:12.240 of convenience, like when a bunch of gangs will team 0:01:12.319 --> 0:01:16.520 up in a film to fight against a larger threat aliens. 0:01:17.120 --> 0:01:17.440 FBI. 0:01:17.800 --> 0:01:21.520 Yes, sure, this is the golden age of piracy was 0:01:21.560 --> 0:01:25.800 thought to be a time of lawless, terrifying, ridiculous history. 0:01:26.160 --> 0:01:30.319 But in this episode from a few years back, while 0:01:30.440 --> 0:01:34.640 we were recording at Baja Mar, we realized we were 0:01:34.680 --> 0:01:39.120 in the Bahamas, the very same place where, according to 0:01:39.200 --> 0:01:42.319 some pirates, once upon a time had a government. 0:01:42.840 --> 0:01:44.880 And we loved all this pirate talk so much that 0:01:44.959 --> 0:01:46.880 we did a bunch of resoarch that didn't even make 0:01:46.920 --> 0:01:50.880 it into our contractually obligated pirate episode. So we've got 0:01:50.920 --> 0:01:52.880 another one coming your way very soon, and then a 0:01:52.920 --> 0:01:55.640 pile that we're gonna sprinkle a little further on down 0:01:55.680 --> 0:01:57.680 the line, but we're going to talk about a pirate 0:01:57.760 --> 0:01:59.840 of the Midwest of the Great Lakes. 0:02:00.480 --> 0:02:03.680 And then we're also going to explore the Barbary Coast 0:02:04.520 --> 0:02:07.960 in depth. So stay tuned for both of those episodes, 0:02:08.240 --> 0:02:10.160 as well as a secret episode. 0:02:10.720 --> 0:02:11.359 For now. 0:02:11.680 --> 0:02:15.799 Please tune in to our classic for this weekend New 0:02:15.880 --> 0:02:23.720 Providence That time Pirates had a government. Asterisk Ridiculous Histories 0:02:23.760 --> 0:02:28.600 a production of iHeartRadio. Ridiculous Histories a production of iHeartRadio. 0:02:52.760 --> 0:02:53.280 Yoho Ho. 0:02:53.560 --> 0:02:56.600 Welcome back to the show, Ridiculous Historians. Thank you as 0:02:56.639 --> 0:02:59.639 always so much for tuning in. Let's give it up 0:02:59.639 --> 0:03:03.560 for the buccaneer, the privates here of ridiculous History, super 0:03:03.560 --> 0:03:07.800 producer mister Rex Williams. 0:03:06.560 --> 0:03:11.840 Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum or something 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.880 they loved, drum they did. It's a little sugary for 0:03:15.000 --> 0:03:15.519 my taste. 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.919 I'm not yeah. 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.160 That's true. I do like a tiki drink, though. I 0:03:21.200 --> 0:03:23.040 really like a tiki drink, and a lot of those 0:03:23.080 --> 0:03:25.920 do contain rum, but it's not like required, and it's. 0:03:25.720 --> 0:03:28.960 Mixed with so many fruit juices. And there's this presentation 0:03:29.200 --> 0:03:32.000 the equim ball. There's a great tiki bar that we 0:03:32.040 --> 0:03:35.240 always try to go to when we're in LA and 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:39.120 we can tie. Yeah, we go to see we go 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:42.120 to We go to this tiki bar whenever we have 0:03:42.200 --> 0:03:44.640 time in town. And it's a little place, but they 0:03:44.720 --> 0:03:48.080 serve these amazing drinks and you have to be really 0:03:48.120 --> 0:03:50.880 careful with those too, man, because I could drink like 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.320 one and then I think it's time to eat trash 0:03:54.360 --> 0:03:55.800 street food and go to bed. 0:03:55.720 --> 0:03:57.880 Well, which is easy to do in LA. But also 0:03:57.920 --> 0:04:00.880 I think tiki t or tiki tie is like in 0:04:00.920 --> 0:04:05.600 the pantheon of like great American tiki bars. They invented 0:04:05.680 --> 0:04:09.440 some drink there, some form of corpse revivor or whatever 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:12.480 it was. I mean again, I can't think of that. 0:04:12.880 --> 0:04:14.840 Robert Lamb of stuff to splow your mind is the 0:04:14.840 --> 0:04:16.679 guy that turned us onto the spot in the first place. 0:04:16.680 --> 0:04:19.440 But it's super cool if you're ever there. It's also 0:04:19.600 --> 0:04:25.640 right by the Scientology like studio backlot. It's like Scientology 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:28.680 just sort of bought a lesser like studio. It has 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.160 the gates and everything, and it's got all these billboards 0:04:31.160 --> 0:04:33.480 for their propaganda stuff. But we don't want to get 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:35.800 sued by the Church of Scientology, so let's talk about 0:04:35.800 --> 0:04:37.200 pirates instead. Yeah. 0:04:37.320 --> 0:04:41.560 Also, also, we were very respectful when we got two 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.080 or three cocktails deep and ran around and had a 0:04:44.080 --> 0:04:45.720 boot like photo shooting. 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.880 For the church. So thank you. We didn't hop the 0:04:47.920 --> 0:04:48.520 gate fully. 0:04:48.560 --> 0:04:52.440 We just peek through, which is fine, which is totally fine. 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:57.480 I'm Ben your nol and we're talking there we go 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:02.320 when most people today in the West think of historical pirates, 0:05:02.400 --> 0:05:05.400 not modern day pirates, which are definitely thing we kind 0:05:05.440 --> 0:05:08.680 of think in terms of larger than life fiction. Long, 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.880 John Silver's not the restaurant. I still don't know anyone 0:05:11.880 --> 0:05:13.760 who goes that restaurant. I don't know how they're open. 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:15.640 I do have one near my eyes. I do not go. 0:05:15.920 --> 0:05:18.640 It's like there's a Long John Silver and a red Lobster, 0:05:18.720 --> 0:05:22.200 sort of the last bastions of like fast food seafood, 0:05:22.440 --> 0:05:23.320 you know, yeah. 0:05:23.200 --> 0:05:26.200 Yeah, oh, and then Captain D's. I don't know if 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:27.000 that's still around. 0:05:27.160 --> 0:05:32.680 It's pronounced cap'n. It's like crunch. Okay, it's still around. Yeah, 0:05:32.680 --> 0:05:37.480 maybe I'm misconsuring my captain versus captains. Yeah, Long John 0:05:37.520 --> 0:05:42.479 Silver's and Captain D's I think famously not great, but 0:05:42.560 --> 0:05:44.719 I think they're part of one of the or at 0:05:44.800 --> 0:05:46.600 least Long John Silver is part of one of those 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:49.480 big hospitality groups that's like owns like a bunch of 0:05:49.560 --> 0:05:52.720 other fast food restaurants. You will sometimes see a combination 0:05:53.160 --> 0:06:00.279 Long John Silvers and uh whatever. Yeah exactly, so, yeah, 0:06:00.279 --> 0:06:00.960 you're right, you're right. 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:04.760 This is it's young brands, young brands who own so 0:06:04.960 --> 0:06:08.440 much stuff. That's that's exactly what you're talking about, nol. 0:06:08.520 --> 0:06:12.400 They they they're the same folks who own Pizza Hut, KFC, 0:06:12.600 --> 0:06:17.560 Taco Bell, and like hundreds of other things. Then Long 0:06:17.640 --> 0:06:21.719 John Silver's. Weirdly enough, you know, maybe we should do 0:06:21.880 --> 0:06:25.360 store fast food origin stories in a later episode. We're 0:06:25.400 --> 0:06:27.920 gonna get to the pirates. We're getting there with this 0:06:28.000 --> 0:06:31.880 segue long. John Silver's, the restaurant in the US is 0:06:32.080 --> 0:06:37.560 named after a character, a pirate in a beautiful novel 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:42.520 called Treasure Island by Robert Lewis Stevenson. And when we 0:06:42.680 --> 0:06:44.520 when we think about this, when we think about pirates 0:06:44.520 --> 0:06:46.640 in the West, we think about things like Johnny Depp 0:06:46.680 --> 0:06:50.200 and Pirates of the Caribbean, or that ride at Disney, 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:53.120 Pirates of the Caribbean, And there are Pirates of the 0:06:53.160 --> 0:06:56.200 Pancreas or Pirates of the Pancreas from It's. 0:06:56.160 --> 0:06:58.880 Ricksteil Probaly, don't insult the Pirates of the Pancress gets 0:06:58.880 --> 0:06:59.479 fair offended. 0:06:59.839 --> 0:07:00.960 That's true. That's true. 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.279 He's put a lot of energy into that one. And 0:07:03.360 --> 0:07:06.440 who are we to call someone's creative baby ugly? 0:07:06.920 --> 0:07:07.040 Uh? 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.680 And they're real pirates, They're not all like whitewashed like 0:07:10.040 --> 0:07:12.640 you know Disney pirates are right. I'm not going to 0:07:12.680 --> 0:07:16.240 say the next line because it is not culturally acceptable. 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:20.600 So so, Noel, when you and I were talking about this, 0:07:20.680 --> 0:07:23.920 when we knew it might end up being a two 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:25.360 parter or We're gonna see how it goes. 0:07:25.840 --> 0:07:27.800 But what do you think. 0:07:27.520 --> 0:07:31.720 Of when you hear the word pirate, like historical pirates, 0:07:31.760 --> 0:07:33.560 not modern day Somali pirates. 0:07:34.040 --> 0:07:36.640 Yeah, I mean I think of what we were sort 0:07:36.680 --> 0:07:38.600 of joking about at the top of the show. I 0:07:38.640 --> 0:07:42.160 think of peg legs and parrots and you know, rum 0:07:42.360 --> 0:07:47.720 and body rhymes and and and sword fights, walk the plank, cap' hook, 0:07:48.000 --> 0:07:50.480 all that kind of stuff. But also I do think 0:07:50.480 --> 0:07:53.200 of like a crew, you know, like like a like 0:07:53.200 --> 0:07:55.440 a like a like a captain in charge of a crew. 0:07:55.600 --> 0:07:59.520 And I guess modern day pirates like that will perhaps 0:08:00.160 --> 0:08:03.040 hijack ships, cargo ships. I mean, it really was a 0:08:03.080 --> 0:08:07.200 lot of that, you know, basically heists on the on 0:08:07.240 --> 0:08:08.320 the high seas. 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:12.440 Right, Yeah, one hundred percent nailed it. These comedic takes 0:08:12.440 --> 0:08:15.880 on pirates in fiction, these romanticized takes, they can be 0:08:15.880 --> 0:08:18.320 a lot of fun, but parts of those tropes don't 0:08:18.480 --> 0:08:24.280 line up with real world pirates. Today, we're asking whether pirates, 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:30.600 these tremendously anti authoritarian criminals, whether they actually made a 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:34.920 government of their own. You see this reference in video games. 0:08:34.960 --> 0:08:38.640 You see this referenced in fiction and novels. And films. 0:08:40.000 --> 0:08:42.720 To answer this question, we have to look at something 0:08:42.800 --> 0:08:47.520 called the Golden Age of piracy. Depending on who you ask, 0:08:47.720 --> 0:08:49.959 this is from like the mid sixteen hundred. 0:08:51.240 --> 0:08:53.679 Yeah, Golden doo. It's funny you say that. 0:08:53.640 --> 0:08:58.319 Because, like so many historical ages, the name Golden Age 0:08:58.320 --> 0:09:02.280 of piracy doesn't become a thing until well after the 0:09:02.360 --> 0:09:04.160 actual age has passed. 0:09:04.280 --> 0:09:09.200 Now and most importantly, Ben it's a combination Long John 0:09:09.240 --> 0:09:12.160 Silvers at Taco Bell, which does exist. There's a whole 0:09:12.200 --> 0:09:16.120 Reddit thread devoted to this wondrous thing that exists, apparently 0:09:16.360 --> 0:09:19.000 upon the face of God's green Earth. I'll try their 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.520 case ideas. I don't know. I don't know. Long John 0:09:21.559 --> 0:09:23.040 Silver what you do is you go to the Long 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:25.720 John Silvers, get you some fish fingers, then go over 0:09:25.720 --> 0:09:27.600 to Taco Bell or do you a case of da 0:09:27.640 --> 0:09:30.679 and then just kind of combine them, you know, by hand. Right, 0:09:30.720 --> 0:09:33.439 So this time, this goldeny. 0:09:33.280 --> 0:09:37.720 Yeah, this halcion era is more complicated than we might 0:09:37.840 --> 0:09:41.320 initially assume, especially if we're only watching Disney movies about it. 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:45.360 Not all of the people we call pirates originally wanted 0:09:45.400 --> 0:09:49.000 to be criminals, and most didn't have a weird like 0:09:49.240 --> 0:09:54.080 specific er. Maybe pirate accent. They came from all parts 0:09:54.280 --> 0:09:57.920 of Europe and different parts of the world. They sounded 0:09:58.160 --> 0:10:02.120 like where they grew up, and sometimes they got Sometimes 0:10:02.200 --> 0:10:04.000 a lot of times people didn't want to be pirates. 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:08.120 They ship mutinat because the navies at the time really sucked, 0:10:08.920 --> 0:10:13.800 or they ended up getting kidnapped themselves and joining up 0:10:13.880 --> 0:10:15.679 because they needed a job. 0:10:16.120 --> 0:10:20.000 Guys, is the providence of the pirate accents? Is this 0:10:20.080 --> 0:10:23.240 sort of like it seems vaguely Irish or something, or 0:10:23.320 --> 0:10:25.760 vaguely European, But is it just does it sort of 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.560 just morph due to isolation? Is that sort of the 0:10:28.640 --> 0:10:32.640 idea that's implied with these bizarro pirate drawls. 0:10:33.080 --> 0:10:36.280 Yeah, a lot of times it does sound like it 0:10:36.360 --> 0:10:39.800 might be some kind of Irish. It's really it's a 0:10:39.920 --> 0:10:45.240 caricature of a dialect called West Country English. 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.439 Okay. And so the. 0:10:47.440 --> 0:10:51.440 Reason we have this come about is because of those 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.760 works of fiction. Treasure Island comes out in nineteen thirty 0:10:54.800 --> 0:11:01.840 four and then Captain Blood starring Errol Flynn. It's strange 0:11:01.920 --> 0:11:04.960 because we see it's kind of like how Santa Claus 0:11:05.600 --> 0:11:08.240 as we know it was made by the Coca Cola company. 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:12.079 The pirate accent is a work of entertainment. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.200 Percent And you bring up a really great point in 0:11:16.240 --> 0:11:19.520 this outline ban it's important to establish when we're talking 0:11:19.559 --> 0:11:23.240 about this golden age of piracy. Uh, sometimes we're talking 0:11:23.240 --> 0:11:27.240 about the wrong thing. Pirate is not the same as 0:11:27.280 --> 0:11:33.360 a privateer. Oh Yeah's let's establish some terms upfront, because 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:37.920 what allowed this profession to flourish was the fact that 0:11:38.000 --> 0:11:40.720 it was technically on the right side of the law 0:11:40.920 --> 0:11:44.199 and could be considered just that a profession. 0:11:44.720 --> 0:11:47.959 Yeah, it's really sketchy. It's kind of like I started 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:50.080 to think of a modern analogy, dude. It's kind of 0:11:50.160 --> 0:11:53.880 like bounty hunters, which are technically, you know, they're on 0:11:53.920 --> 0:11:55.800 the right side of the law. They bend the law 0:11:55.880 --> 0:11:59.920 pretty often. Not all pirates are created equal. Like you said, 0:12:00.720 --> 0:12:03.920 there were several distinct names for groups that sailed the 0:12:04.000 --> 0:12:06.360 high Seas, And we don't have to get into all 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:10.360 the differences and details and nuts and bolts of buccaneer 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:14.840 versus pirate and so on or corsair, et cetera, but 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:19.480 we do need to know the difference between privateer and pirate. 0:12:20.000 --> 0:12:24.240 Pirate is the most general term for outlaws on the 0:12:24.360 --> 0:12:28.600 high seas law in order maritime crimes. It comes from 0:12:28.640 --> 0:12:33.520 a Greek word, the purates, which means brigand, and it 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:37.760 was since like the thirteen hundreds, pirate has been a 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:42.000 term used for anyone who's committing crimes on the ocean, 0:12:42.400 --> 0:12:44.880 and usually the folks who are thinking of when we 0:12:44.880 --> 0:12:48.040 think of pirates, they're bandits on the water. They're violent, 0:12:48.080 --> 0:12:51.440 they intimidate people, they raid ships at sea, or you know, 0:12:51.600 --> 0:12:53.800 Viking style, they raid coastal settlements. 0:12:54.000 --> 0:12:56.800 Isn't that funny too? How the word then became associated 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:01.680 with like bootlegging stuff, you know, like pirate music or whatever, 0:13:01.840 --> 0:13:05.120 or like piracy in terms of like copyright infringement. I 0:13:05.160 --> 0:13:07.800 wonder when that started to kind of come into being, 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.520 and if it was just sort of like an accident 0:13:10.640 --> 0:13:12.880 maybe like a term that sort of took off and 0:13:12.920 --> 0:13:16.800 got popular, or if there is some etymological crossover there. 0:13:17.200 --> 0:13:20.720 I bet there's also a pr spin because remember the 0:13:20.760 --> 0:13:23.360 three of us are the generation where you would go 0:13:23.400 --> 0:13:25.840 to the movies once upon a time and you'd see 0:13:25.840 --> 0:13:28.960 those PSAs that were like, you wouldn't download a car? 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:33.840 Would you stop piracy? I think it helped the powers 0:13:33.880 --> 0:13:39.640 that be to compare people downloading stuff illegally to pirates 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:40.800 raiding ships. 0:13:41.200 --> 0:13:43.800 But it does look as well like the term piracy 0:13:43.960 --> 0:13:47.520 began to be used in its more current form due 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:51.240 to some court cases, some old court cases that began, 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:54.640 like in the in the eighteenth century, piracy was being 0:13:54.760 --> 0:13:59.360 used to describe the act of infringing on one's copyright. Nice, yeah, 0:13:59.480 --> 0:14:00.680 the idea being theft. 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.600 And we'll get to why that rings true a little 0:14:04.679 --> 0:14:07.800 later in our show today. All Right, privateers make the 0:14:07.880 --> 0:14:12.640 sexcellent point. Privateers are pirates with a co sign I 0:14:12.679 --> 0:14:15.320 would call them. They get these letters of mark, kind 0:14:15.320 --> 0:14:18.200 of like it's similar to the patent letters or letters 0:14:18.200 --> 0:14:21.120 of patent we talked about snake oil. Right, So, a 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:24.760 country's authorities in the midst of the big colonial powers 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:28.880 all trying to take possession of the land across the Atlantic. 0:14:29.360 --> 0:14:34.440 These big colonial powers will issue commissions to privately owned 0:14:34.520 --> 0:14:38.160 vessels and they'll say, hey, if you see a ship 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:41.720 from another country or someone who doesn't work for us 0:14:42.320 --> 0:14:46.120 trying to move goods, blood and treasure, then go get them, 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:50.560 sick them, and you've got our approval to do that. 0:14:51.000 --> 0:14:54.600 They were private armies, they were mercenary armies. Often whenever 0:14:54.640 --> 0:14:57.760 there was a war, a lot of letters of mark 0:14:57.880 --> 0:15:01.400 went out and a lot of privateers went to seek 0:15:01.440 --> 0:15:05.080 their fortune. But just like our pal Jesse James, you know, 0:15:06.000 --> 0:15:10.280 when the war ends and your only skill set is 0:15:10.840 --> 0:15:15.040 waging war, sometimes you just keep doing it on the 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:15.680 other side. 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:26.080 Of the wall. That's exactly right. Once maybe some of 0:15:26.120 --> 0:15:30.320 the more legitimate prospects dried up, a lot of these 0:15:30.360 --> 0:15:33.320 folks just kind of went and forged their own path. 0:15:33.640 --> 0:15:37.200 Good example is sixteen ninety one, a guy named Thomas two, 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.600 who was born into a British colony in what is 0:15:40.600 --> 0:15:44.600 today Rhode Island, took one of those charges that you mentioned, Ben, 0:15:44.680 --> 0:15:48.880 one of these commissions from the Governor of Bermuda for 0:15:49.080 --> 0:15:54.600 a privateering vessel a voyage to Africa to take over 0:15:54.680 --> 0:15:58.560 a French fort that was located on the Gambia River. However, 0:15:58.840 --> 0:16:04.800 instead of following instructions and attacking the French forts as instructed, 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:07.800 he and his crew decided to sail to the Indian 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.680 Ocean and plundered a ship, a Moughle ship which was 0:16:12.920 --> 0:16:15.080 that would have been what like an Indian trading vessel, 0:16:15.920 --> 0:16:19.680 probably loaded down with spices and all kinds of valuable 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:20.960 trade goods. 0:16:21.240 --> 0:16:23.960 Yeah, a lot of stuff that you just couldn't get 0:16:24.080 --> 0:16:24.680 in Europe. 0:16:24.880 --> 0:16:27.880 So this guy went rogue right away. He didn't like 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:30.200 wait for he didn't do the job and then be like, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:31.880 you know what, I think I could do better, strike 0:16:31.920 --> 0:16:33.600 out on my own. He just like like, screw this, 0:16:34.040 --> 0:16:38.600 I'm doing the I'm gonna knock over this Spice ship. 0:16:38.880 --> 0:16:41.760 I like to say knockover too. Yeah, he was just like, guys, 0:16:42.920 --> 0:16:47.200 who's gonna stop us? The king isn't here on the boat. 0:16:47.520 --> 0:16:53.120 It's us, bros. Let's hurt people. So privateers were crimes, right, 0:16:53.160 --> 0:16:56.840 Let's do crimes. So privateers were mercenaries. And the key 0:16:56.920 --> 0:17:00.680 difference again was just the approval of a colone power. 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:04.160 Oh there's one other big difference. Unlike out now pirates, 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:09.120 privateers are expected to share their loot with their patron government. 0:17:09.240 --> 0:17:12.720 So you can go, h you can go rob and 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:15.720 pillage a Spanish ship, but you have to go back 0:17:15.760 --> 0:17:18.720 to the nearest English governor and give them their cut. 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.320 This is organized crime, oh absolutely. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.000 And for like a colonizing force like the British government, 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:26.399 this sort of is a way of extending their naval 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:30.720 reach right like and and keeping those that maybe would 0:17:30.720 --> 0:17:35.000 seek to uh overturn their supremacy at bay, right, like 0:17:35.119 --> 0:17:38.640 just because you know, by by promising treasure and glory 0:17:38.640 --> 0:17:41.200 and all that stuff, you essentially not having to pay 0:17:41.240 --> 0:17:43.960 these people because they're getting paid with what they get 0:17:44.440 --> 0:17:47.400 and then you're taking your cut, your tribute. But they're 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:53.280 also like wreaking havoc on all these foreign vessels, right, yeah, exactly. 0:17:53.760 --> 0:17:59.160 This is the this becomes a revenue stream for these 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:03.199 colonial power hours. For instance, in fifteen sixty eight, a 0:18:03.240 --> 0:18:07.520 privateer we may know named Francis Drake takes part in 0:18:07.560 --> 0:18:11.600 an excellent rapper. Yes, yeah, yeah, before he got into wrap, 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.879 even before Degrassi, he was a privateer and he was 0:18:15.920 --> 0:18:19.520 in the Battle of San Juan de Ulua in modern 0:18:19.560 --> 0:18:22.840 day Mexico, and he fought the Spanish and even though 0:18:23.040 --> 0:18:26.720 he did get he did get whooked. When he came 0:18:26.880 --> 0:18:31.840 back he had over forty thousand British pounds worth of 0:18:31.920 --> 0:18:35.760 gold and silver. This was great news for the Crown. 0:18:36.160 --> 0:18:40.480 These people were called Elizabeth's sea dogs for a while because, 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:42.040 like you said, they were kind of an off the 0:18:42.040 --> 0:18:45.159 books army, and they got sent around not just to 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:49.600 rob resources from other colonial powers, but they also got 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.760 sent around because the monarchy wanted to make money off 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:53.800 the slave trade. 0:18:54.000 --> 0:18:56.840 Yikes. And this was like early days of the slave trade. 0:18:56.880 --> 0:18:59.240 I mean, at least in terms of you know, a 0:18:59.359 --> 0:19:04.359 global slave trade. So I mean these Sea Dogs and England, 0:19:05.000 --> 0:19:08.240 if you can imagine, really were kind of the layers 0:19:08.280 --> 0:19:12.600 of the groundwork for this whole you know, despicable industry 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.640 that would inevitably take the world by storm. 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:16.560 One hundred percent. 0:19:16.680 --> 0:19:16.960 Man. 0:19:17.080 --> 0:19:20.840 And what we're saying it was a chaotic time. The 0:19:20.960 --> 0:19:28.200 colonial powers were functioning like large international criminal syndicates France, Spain, England. 0:19:28.440 --> 0:19:32.399 They're making them breaking alliances. They're all trying to grab 0:19:32.760 --> 0:19:36.600 a piece of what they called the New World. And yeah, spoiler, No, 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:39.760 they didn't ask the people who already lived there for 0:19:39.840 --> 0:19:40.560 their opinions. 0:19:41.040 --> 0:19:43.440 Absolutely not. And Ben, I think it's something that we've 0:19:43.480 --> 0:19:47.320 all seen, like in you know, whether it be sortain 0:19:47.359 --> 0:19:51.320 sorcery type shows or maybe historical dramas, the idea of 0:19:51.440 --> 0:19:56.040 you don't steal from certain folks, right like like if 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.720 someone is under the protection of a certain government, you know, 0:19:59.800 --> 0:20:02.800 and and then you maybe do go rogue and steal 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:06.760 from the wrong crew. Because of the whole criminal nature 0:20:06.800 --> 0:20:08.560 of the enterprise. Let's just call it what it is. 0:20:08.840 --> 0:20:13.159 You could then be coming home to a real problem, 0:20:13.200 --> 0:20:14.320 having a price on your head. 0:20:14.520 --> 0:20:18.960 Oh absolutely, yeah, and that happens throughout history. And Okay, 0:20:19.000 --> 0:20:22.680 so most of the pirate fiction we mentioned earlier, it's 0:20:22.720 --> 0:20:25.280 based on this one period of time, just like so 0:20:25.400 --> 0:20:30.000 many Great Western films are based on the Yeah, based 0:20:30.000 --> 0:20:33.560 on a relatively short period of time called the Wild West. 0:20:34.400 --> 0:20:39.040 Like we said, gold nature piracy refers to You'll get 0:20:39.040 --> 0:20:42.840 some different opinions, but like anywhere, from the mid sixteen 0:20:42.880 --> 0:20:46.119 hundreds to the seventeen thirties, pirates were roam in the 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:51.000 ocean everywhere. In general, there are like three distinct periods. 0:20:51.040 --> 0:20:55.000 The buccaneers from sixteen fifty to sixteen eighty, those guys 0:20:55.040 --> 0:20:58.760 were more focused in attacking settlements and ports. And then 0:20:59.040 --> 0:21:02.000 the second age would be something called the pirate round. 0:21:02.680 --> 0:21:05.200 It's around because if you look at a map, it's 0:21:05.200 --> 0:21:11.720 a predictable trade route that follows maritime commerce. So whatever 0:21:11.800 --> 0:21:15.200 wherever these ships piled with goods are going, where places 0:21:15.240 --> 0:21:18.760 like the East India Company go, the pirates follow in 0:21:18.800 --> 0:21:23.000 their wake, sometimes with the approval of other countries, other 0:21:23.080 --> 0:21:24.120 colonial powers. 0:21:24.520 --> 0:21:27.359 Then we also have, you know, an era that comes 0:21:27.480 --> 0:21:32.080 right after the War of Spanish Succession, which you know, 0:21:32.480 --> 0:21:36.520 it ends up leaving a ton of Anglo American sailors 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:41.720 and these privateers looking for work. So they've got you know, 0:21:41.760 --> 0:21:44.240 we talked about that skill set, right like Jesse James 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:46.199 and all that. They know how to sail, but they 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:48.280 don't have an army to sail for. They don't have 0:21:48.400 --> 0:21:51.000 the co sign of a government. So they're like, not 0:21:51.040 --> 0:21:53.720 going to starve, They're going to apply their trade. Right. 0:21:54.440 --> 0:21:56.520 So in a lot in a lot of ways, these 0:21:56.520 --> 0:22:00.320 governments made their own monsters, didn't they you know what 0:22:00.359 --> 0:22:02.680 I mean, they very much did. Yeah. So these folks 0:22:02.720 --> 0:22:06.480 are now like, you know what, to the Caribbean, where 0:22:06.480 --> 0:22:10.159 we will become the titular pirates of said Caribbean or 0:22:10.240 --> 0:22:14.320 the Indian Ocean or the West African coasts. Yeah. 0:22:14.400 --> 0:22:18.600 And during each of these three periods, piracy in the 0:22:18.680 --> 0:22:23.200 Caribbean rises when conditions are right, and it fizzles out 0:22:23.280 --> 0:22:26.600 when those conditions change. So what made the Golden Age 0:22:26.840 --> 0:22:27.640 so golden? 0:22:27.760 --> 0:22:28.520 For piracy? 0:22:28.560 --> 0:22:32.639 First, you need a lot of unemployed, able bodied young men, 0:22:32.800 --> 0:22:35.560 people who are out of work. They're desperate to survive. 0:22:35.880 --> 0:22:40.120 You need a clear network of shipping and commerce. Right, 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:43.920 you need prey for predators to exist. These pirates they 0:22:43.920 --> 0:22:47.640 need dev guns and ships and weapons. Most importantly, there 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:50.840 has to be little to no rule of law. I 0:22:50.840 --> 0:22:52.960 don't want to give a shout out to eleanor Evans 0:22:53.320 --> 0:22:57.320 over a history extra who in formed a lot of 0:22:57.320 --> 0:22:59.960 what we know about the difference between privateers and pirates. 0:23:00.760 --> 0:23:02.560 And then just to your point about the wild West, 0:23:02.680 --> 0:23:05.520 that lack of rule of law is always what really 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.199 set things off in some of these border towns, and 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:10.040 you know, some of these kind of frontier towns. You 0:23:10.119 --> 0:23:13.520 might have yourself a sheriff, you know, but that's not 0:23:14.000 --> 0:23:16.359 going to be merely enough in the face of like 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:19.159 all of the lawless nests that came with that period. 0:23:19.280 --> 0:23:23.080 And with this we're talking about the open seas, man, Like, 0:23:23.119 --> 0:23:26.560