Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Menkey's Cabinet of Curiosity is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Radio and Grim and Mild. Our world
Speaker 1: is full of the unexplainable, and if history is an
Speaker 1: open book, all of these amazing tales are right there
Speaker 1: on display, just waiting for us to explore. Welcome to
Speaker 1: the Cabinet of Curiosities. The lives of seventeenth and eighteenth
Speaker 1: century pirates have been glamorized by modern media. Hard drinking,
Speaker 1: fun loving ne'er dwells who charmed the ladies and challenged
Speaker 1: authority have graced pages and screens for generations. Well, reality
Speaker 1: says you shouldn't believe everything you read. Pirates never made
Speaker 1: anyone walk the plank, and they were often ruthless killers
Speaker 1: who didn't follow a code of honor. Pirates harmed anyone
Speaker 1: and everyone who got in their way, especially in pursuit
Speaker 1: of gold or jewels. They weren't endearing swashbucklers wearing too
Speaker 1: much eyeshadow. However, one thing Hollywood and publishing got right
Speaker 1: was the pirates need for freedom. They rebelled because they
Speaker 1: felt they were being controlled by governments that weren't working
Speaker 1: for them, high taxes and high poverty, left many people
Speaker 1: in dire straits, and piracy was their only way out
Speaker 1: of squalor. These men and women set out on the
Speaker 1: high seas to take control of their destinies and forge
Speaker 1: their own paths. Much like one pirate, Captain James Missan
Speaker 1: in the late sixteen hundreds, Massan had an idea for
Speaker 1: a land where pirates could truly be free, free from
Speaker 1: the tyranny of oppressive regimes and military interference. An oasis meant,
Speaker 1: as he described it, for vigilante guardians of the people's
Speaker 1: rights and liberties. Captain Mason had come from Provence, France,
Speaker 1: serving aboard the Worship Victois. His father had been a
Speaker 1: wealthy man, but Missan himself had little as he had
Speaker 1: numerous links to contend with. While on leave in Rome,
Speaker 1: he met a priest named Karachioli who accompanied him aboard
Speaker 1: the ship. Massan had lost faith in his religion as
Speaker 1: well as the papacy, and it seemed his new friend
Speaker 1: had too. The priest was a deist. He despised organized religion,
Speaker 1: believing it was being used as a tool to keep
Speaker 1: the classes in line. He often talked to me San
Speaker 1: and the crew about how man was born to be
Speaker 1: free and should always remain free. Massan agreed wholeheartedly, and
Speaker 1: eventually the crew did too. After the Victois captain was
Speaker 1: killed in action, the men of the ship declared Missan
Speaker 1: their new captain. His first order of business to abandon
Speaker 1: the military and begin a new chapter in their lives.
Speaker 1: They became pirates, calling no country home. Fighting for themselves
Speaker 1: and the family they'd created, they sailed to South Africa,
Speaker 1: where they freed slaves and invited them to join the
Speaker 1: crew as equals. The men also gained a reputation for
Speaker 1: how well they treated the captains of the ships they pie.
Speaker 1: It did unlike their more vicious counterparts, Misson and his
Speaker 1: men almost never killed anyone unless absolutely necessary. It would
Speaker 1: have been uncivilized. After a brief stay on an island
Speaker 1: off the East African coast, Captain and crew headed for Madagascar.
Speaker 1: It was there where Misan found his calling. He decided
Speaker 1: to establish a new colony, one where each man would
Speaker 1: have a little slice for himself and their joint efforts
Speaker 1: would go towards the betterment of the community. They called
Speaker 1: it Libertalia, sometimes known as Libertatia. They disowned their countries
Speaker 1: of birth, choosing to call themselves liberty Instead. A new
Speaker 1: language was born as well, piece together from the various
Speaker 1: languages and dialects of the incoming settlers, and it didn't
Speaker 1: take long for the town to grow. There was livestock, farmland,
Speaker 1: docks were built to conduct shipping business with other lands,
Speaker 1: and some pirates continued to do what they did best,
Speaker 1: plunder the fortunes of other ships. Everyone contributed, and everyone
Speaker 1: enjoyed the fruits of their labor Quali. Eventually, Massan and
Speaker 1: another leader, a privateer turned pirate named Thomas Too, attempted
Speaker 1: to shift their socialist government to a more democratic method,
Speaker 1: one where a leader would be chosen by the men. Unsurprisingly,
Speaker 1: Missan was elected without question, but his victory was short lived.
Speaker 1: Libertalia suffered an attack from the native people on the island,
Speaker 1: who killed a large portion of the settlers, including Carracioli.
Speaker 1: Missan and forty men fled with a fraction of their treasure.
Speaker 1: To suggested that he go to America to try again,
Speaker 1: but Massan had had enough. He couldn't bear to go
Speaker 1: through the trouble of starting yet another colony, and he
Speaker 1: never got the chance either. A captain and his remaining
Speaker 1: crew got caught in a bad storm. After the attack,
Speaker 1: the ship was lost, and with it one man's dream
Speaker 1: of a pirate utopia. There are some who say, Libertally
Speaker 1: it was a fictional land, one concocted from the mind
Speaker 1: of a British writer too scared to voice his progressive
Speaker 1: views in public instead, and it is said he wrote
Speaker 1: them in the form of a story about pirates and
Speaker 1: a fable land where they lived as free men. Still
Speaker 1: it hasn't stopped people for hunting for the proof. It's
Speaker 1: possible that somewhere out there is a remnant from James
Speaker 1: Messan's failed experiment, like a sign or a plaque, or
Speaker 1: the ruins of a Libertalian home. But even if there isn't,
Speaker 1: even if it was all just fiction, the dream of
Speaker 1: a place where people take care of one another lives
Speaker 1: on today. Inspiring for sure, and also more than a
Speaker 1: little curious. All life eventually ends. We hope we live
Speaker 1: long enough to see our children grow up start families
Speaker 1: of their own, before we pass away peacefully to a
Speaker 1: better place. As for our bodies, we have several choices.
Speaker 1: We can be buried in a cemetery or cremated and
Speaker 1: have our ashes preserve for our loved ones to cherish.
Speaker 1: There are even services out there that let us turn
Speaker 1: our ashes into diamonds, so the ones we love can
Speaker 1: keep us close wherever they are. But what about those
Speaker 1: who don't have people to care for them. Where do
Speaker 1: they go when they die? There was a question posed
Speaker 1: by one particular group for many years until someone came
Speaker 1: up with a solution in the eighteenth century, when one
Speaker 1: island became the final resting place for some of history's
Speaker 1: most colorful characters. The spot was located on Yel Santa Marie,
Speaker 1: a small island off the eastern coast of Madagascar in Africa.
Speaker 1: Il Santa Marie had it all, rich flora, interesting culture,
Speaker 1: and beautiful ocean views. It was the perfect place for
Speaker 1: pirates to kick back and relax as a kind of
Speaker 1: vacation spots. There were even a number of coves and
Speaker 1: bays where they could stash their ships out of view
Speaker 1: of merchant and military vessels going by. But Il Santa
Speaker 1: Marie was also an unavoidable spot along the trade routes,
Speaker 1: so pirates had plenty of targets who were flushed with
Speaker 1: valuable cargo to take advantage of as they passed by.
Speaker 1: The area was known as the Island of Pirates, and
Speaker 1: it was started by one man named Adam Baldridge. In
Speaker 1: Baldridge had been charged with murder in Jamaica and escaped
Speaker 1: prosecution to Yell Santa Marie. He didn't just start a
Speaker 1: new chapter of his life there, though, he began writing
Speaker 1: a whole new book. Within a year, Baldridge had become
Speaker 1: the head of his own organization, controlling commerce to and
Speaker 1: from the island and mediating conflicts between the local tribes,
Speaker 1: all for a price. And because other pirates found the
Speaker 1: island to be quite welcoming to their kind, Baldridge often
Speaker 1: rented them out to merchants willing to pay their high
Speaker 1: fees for their services. He didn't stay too long on
Speaker 1: the island, though, after it was discovered that he'd been
Speaker 1: selling the indigenous people as slaves. He fled to the
Speaker 1: American colonies, leaving his paradise behind. But despite the loss
Speaker 1: of its founder, Eel Santa Marie flourished. Almost a thousand
Speaker 1: pirates descended upon its shores over the next hundred years.
Speaker 1: Of course, that's a long time, and most pirates don't
Speaker 1: live to a ripe age. Those who died had to
Speaker 1: be put somewhere, and that's when it was decided a
Speaker 1: cemetery had to be erected to handle the deceased. A
Speaker 1: graveyard was established on a hilltop set off from the
Speaker 1: wooden huts of the village. It overlooked the water, providing
Speaker 1: the dead with a final resting place near their one
Speaker 1: true home. The open ocean. Headstones were erected as well,
Speaker 1: many of which had been etched with a skull and
Speaker 1: crossbones like the flags flown atop their ships when they
Speaker 1: were still alive. It said that William Kidd, the Scottish
Speaker 1: pirate captain who buried treasure all over the world, made
Speaker 1: e l Santa Marie his home for a time, and
Speaker 1: despite being executed in England in seventeen o one, with
Speaker 1: his body put on display over the River Thames for
Speaker 1: three years, Captain Kidd eventually made it back to Pirate Island.
Speaker 1: He was laid to rest in a cemetery inside a
Speaker 1: giant black tomb, but he was not made comfortable. Kid
Speaker 1: was oriented upright rather than lying down as punishment for
Speaker 1: his actions while he was still alive. Between the late
Speaker 1: seventeen hundreds and the early eighteen hundreds, any remaining pirates
Speaker 1: were forcibly removed from the El Santa Marie by the French,
Speaker 1: who reclaimed the island and turned it into a penal colony. Today,
Speaker 1: only about thirty headstones remain. However, despite its shrunken size,
Speaker 1: the graveyard at El Santa Marie represents the only pirate
Speaker 1: cemetery in the world and a grim reminder of a
Speaker 1: time when pirates ruled the high seas. I hope you've
Speaker 1: enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet of Curiosities. Subscribe
Speaker 1: for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn more about the
Speaker 1: show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com. The show was
Speaker 1: created by me Aaron Manky in partnership with how Stuff Works.
Speaker 1: I make another award winning show called Lore, which is
Speaker 1: a podcast, book series, and television show, and you can
Speaker 1: learn all about it over at the World of Lore
Speaker 1: dot com. And until next time, stay curious.