{"id":376,"date":"2015-09-19T20:23:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-19T20:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/19\/pirate-flags-2\/"},"modified":"2015-09-19T20:23:00","modified_gmt":"2015-09-19T20:23:00","slug":"pirate-flags-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/2015\/09\/pirate-flags-2.html","title":{"rendered":"Pirate Flags"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n<\/p>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
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\nSeptember 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  I suppose it is no more unusual than days
\ndedicated to librarians, teachers, dentists, or family pets. The origin of this
\nspecial day can be found in a great website www.talklikeapirateday.com<\/a>.  Seems as thought 2 friends John and Mark
\nstarted, in jest, the notion between them and a few friends joined in.  Later they emailed Dave Barry, the
\nsyndicated columnist, and the rest, as they say, is history.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n
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\nActually,
\nthe history of pirates is a well- documented account of profiteering, violence
\nand the dangers of the sea.<\/span>  <\/span>Mostly, we
\nhear the romanticized version, of swashbuckling seamen and buried treasures on
\ndeserted islands.<\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nLet
\nus look at some facts about these guys. 
\nFirstly there is a difference between privateering and piracy.  Privateers were privately owned and manned
\narmed ships commissioned by a government to attack and capture enemy ships,
\nespecially merchant vessels. They flew the national flag of the country
\nsponsoring them, adding additional symbol flags, such as red flags for warning
\nand, good old, \u201cJolly Roger\u201d, meaning bad things were coming your way if you
\nresisted.  Without flying a national
\nflag, these ships were considered pirate vessels acting on their own.  There are some accounts of ships flying
\nnational flags and banners of other countries (not their own) to entice
\nunsuspecting ships and although this smacks of cheating, as long as they
\nreplaced the false flag with the correct national flag, this was considered ok
\nunder the rules of war.  Privateers were
\nalso known as \u201csea beggars\u201d.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nPirate
\ncrews were not \u201cshanghaied\u201d and dragged into service, rather, when a well-known
\ncaptain announced his ship was \u201cgoing on an account\u201d, members of his previous
\ncrews were given first preference and then others who wished to join came next.
\nAnother interesting fact is that these crews were actually very
\ndemocratic.  The Captain and the quartermaster
\nwere elected, this insured the fair treatment of the crew.  Further, subsequent votes could be taken at
\nany time. Articles of Agreement, signed by all, spelled out various duties and
\nshares of any spoils.  The crew pledged
\nnot to betray each other, desert or abandon ship in battle.   In reality, most pirate crews preferred
\ntaking a prize ship without a fight.  If
\nthe warned ship surrendered, there was little danger to the crew, however, if
\nthere was resistance it was met with much violence, the crew, to a man, would
\nbe slaughtered.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
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\n<\/div>\n
\nOf
\ncourse there needed to be a factor of intimidation to the victim ship.  Pirate flags conjured up fear, accompanied
\nwith the reputation of the pirate captain. 
\nEach captain had a variation of the skull and cross bones and additional
\nsymbols were often combined. The skull was s symbol of death as was the crossed
\nbones, dancing skeletons did a jig with death and weapons such as spears and
\nswords promised violence was a\u2019comin.<\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nPirate
\nflags were sewn by the crew, and some, were commercially made by widows of sail-makers, who often accepted payment in brandy  <\/o:p><\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
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\n                                                                                       Calico Jack Rackman<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n<\/div>\n
\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n                                        <\/span><\/div>\n
\n                                                                                         Henry Every<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n
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\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n                                                                                    <\/span><\/div>\n
\n                                                                                        Edward England<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n
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\n
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\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n
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\n                                                                                                                                                             Christopher Condant<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n
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\n
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\n
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\n
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\n<\/a><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n                                                                                     Edward Teach ( Blackbeard)<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n
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\n
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\nSo, avast maties, think Johnny Depp, and unlock your treasure chest, get your map, and feed your parrot!<\/span><\/div>\n
\n
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\n
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\n<\/div>\n
\n
<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day.  I suppose it is no more unusual than days dedicated to librarians, teachers, dentists, or family pets. The origin of this special day can be found in a great website www.talklikeapirateday.com.  Seems as thought 2 friends John and Mark started, in jest, the notion between them…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-pirate-flags","category-talk-like-a-pirate-day"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/376\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cinnamonstudio.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}