Pirate Time!
"This is just shallow waters compared to the seven seas of knowledge."
Published
So basically I am not sure how this is going to go but pirates are super cool and I want to know more about them so I am going to research them and then write about them to those who want to read. This is just shallow waters compared to the seven seas of knowledge. (I really tried making a pirate reference/pun there, sorry).
So to start my research I am learning about the top ten most famous pirates of all time according to historylists.org. Seems credible enough for me.
Okay Jesus Christ I just read the description on William Kidd. So he lived from 1645-1701. I didn’t know however that he was, spoiler alert, executed horrendously. But super cool fun fact, he started out as a worker in New York getting rid of pirates and then he crew was all like “yo let's be pirates you’re pirate captain now” and he was almost very literally like “mmmm.... I guess” because according to this article he very reluctantly became a pirate. He was executed in England because he attacked an East India Company ship. Honestly in my opinion he was doing history a favor since colonialism was actually terrible and at the time England was the actual worst. But returning to Captain Kidd, when they tried to execute him it took the executioners three tries because the first two the noose broke, which honestly I think was on purpose. And then, as if that wasn’t bad enough after he was finally executed they for some reason put his body in tar. Congrats I guess England, you have a burnt sticky corpse.
(Okay side note that reminds me of this actually amazing cartoon I used to watch in eighth grade about two children in the colonies during the time of the American Revolution. One was a true-blooded American and the other moved there temporarily from England but the two were friends and apprentices of the Benjy Franks. The reason this reminds me of it is because the Americans used to tar and feather the tax collectors and this cartoon showed one of the tax collectors after they removed the tar and how much pain he was in. I’m going to take a quick side tour from this live research to go find the name of this cartoon so I can recommend it to you. I FOUND IT YOOOO!!!! IT’S CALLED “LIBERTY’S KIDS” AND HONESTLY IT’S ALREADY PAST MIDNIGHT BUT AFTER I FINISH THIS RESEARCH I THINK I’M GOING TO REWATCH IT.)
So I’m skipping past a few of these pirates because I’m just looking for some interesting pirates I haven’t heard of before but deserve some spotlight in this little research adventure. Here’s a cool pirate, Anne Bonny of Ireland. She married a poor sailor for love but eventually grew bored because he was a loser, (the official words used are “his lack of valor” but let’s be real) so she pretended to be a man and joined a pirate crew. Apparently she even convinced the crew to pull more dangerous stunts and was an intense fighter. There was another female pirate in the crew named Mary Read (is it wrong of me to assume they were lovers) and they fought alongside one another as a part of this crew. They were eventually caught and sentenced to execution but Anne and Mary claimed pregnancy and avoided execution. (Bless them ovaries am I right.) Unfortunately Mary died in jail of unknown causes, and no one is really sure how Anne’s story ended but it’s believed she either went home to her husband or back to live with her parents.
Listen being a pirate sounds so wild and cool. I know there are still pirates (all that Model United Nations research wasn’t for nothing I guess) but sadly with GPS and sonar tracking as well as drones and bomber planes it’s much more high stakes and doesn’t contain the same romantic mystery the original idea of living as a pirate on the high seas used to have.
#borninthewronggeneration
#eractuallycentury
#ormaybemillenium
#uhhhh
#howmuchdoesabigsailboatcost
#thatseasier
(But also those times were terrible and I really like this world with soap and arguably less discrimination.)
Moving on, let’s talk about one more pirate because three is enough for one evening.
Woah okay so I just read this description and have now discovered the coolest person in history. Pirate Ching Shih was a beautiful (literally is described as beautiful in every description I find) former prostitute who took over her husbands fleets after he died. However, she was already in command of her own equal amount of fleets, and basically commanded 1500 fleets of ships, aka 80,0000 pirates as if it was nothing. That is more than all of the other pirates at the time combined. She married her adopted son, but hey no judgement (from my understanding he was already an adult when they met). And get this, the Chinese government and basically the whole world was so scared of her they granted her amnesty in return for her retirement. And she takes care of her own. Her pirates under her command kept their riches and were given jobs in the military. And what did she do with the rest of her 69 (nice) years of life? Oh just started and commanded some casinos and a brothel. Truly the role model we were all missing and needed in our lives.
Thank you for joining me on my live research adventure about pirates. They’re super cool and we should always expand our knowledge when possible (which is I’m assuming why most of the people listening to this went to college). Thank you to historylist.org for getting me started on this research. Do I need a works cited? I’ll include a works cited.
“List of 10 Most Famous Pirates in World History.” List of 10 Most Famous Pirates in World History - History Lists, historylists.org/people/list-of-10-most-famous-pirates-in-world-history.html.
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