I just watched a video about “walking the plank” and found out it is a myth. pirates never did this. They just killed traitors and threw their bodies overboard.
Golden age pirates were generally fairly rational economic actors, they wanted to terrorise you into a quick surrender and potentially recruit from the defeated merchant crew. Once you’d surrendered they usually had little need for theatrics like walking the plank, while there absolutely were brutes who’d dish out violence for the fun of it this wasn’t the favoured outcome generally because it’s expensive to the pirates. It’s why the pirate flag is so important, just possessing one is enough to hang you so it’s a reliable way of saying ‘we’re outside the ordinary rules of engagement, do you really want this fight?’
Of course, if you fight they might quite instrumentally make an example of you to enhance their reputation, and increase the chance of future surrenders. If every pirate captain did that to every ship though, he wouldn’t be in business long.
My understanding is pirate culture is totally different from people’s idea. For example the captain was either second in command or on same level of command as the quarter master, except in times of battle.
I forget which pirate it was but atleast one of them had a rule that was something like “any crew who forces themselves onto a woman without her permission shall be immediately executed” and some of them had curfew banning singing and drinking after sunset.
Or you’ll walk the plank.
I just watched a video about “walking the plank” and found out it is a myth. pirates never did this. They just killed traitors and threw their bodies overboard.
Golden age pirates were generally fairly rational economic actors, they wanted to terrorise you into a quick surrender and potentially recruit from the defeated merchant crew. Once you’d surrendered they usually had little need for theatrics like walking the plank, while there absolutely were brutes who’d dish out violence for the fun of it this wasn’t the favoured outcome generally because it’s expensive to the pirates. It’s why the pirate flag is so important, just possessing one is enough to hang you so it’s a reliable way of saying ‘we’re outside the ordinary rules of engagement, do you really want this fight?’
Of course, if you fight they might quite instrumentally make an example of you to enhance their reputation, and increase the chance of future surrenders. If every pirate captain did that to every ship though, he wouldn’t be in business long.
My understanding is pirate culture is totally different from people’s idea. For example the captain was either second in command or on same level of command as the quarter master, except in times of battle.
I forget which pirate it was but atleast one of them had a rule that was something like “any crew who forces themselves onto a woman without her permission shall be immediately executed” and some of them had curfew banning singing and drinking after sunset.