Golden Age of Piracy

could be wrong but wasn't a large part of Blackbeard's mythology a deliberate fabrication on his part to ensure people would rather surrender than fight back?

Yeah, it's highly debatable that he even killed anybody.

given his occupation it would be reasonable to assume he had a few death's on his name, at the very least he likely killed people during the event that led to his own death

what could be debatable is if he ever murdered someone

Same can be said for many historic figures who based careers off their reputation.

Oh, we well know Teach killed both in combat, and in cold blood. Probably not in the numbers reported, but we have several eye witness accounts of him killing men in arguments or outright murder in the Carolinas.

I think on one instance he simply killed one of his own crew because he felt they weren't afraid of him enough.

Who was that pirate who was marooned on an island, and made it out to sea? I think he got a job on a merchant ship only to be found out by another worker on the same ship who had seen him before, he was then tried and executed.

If you don't make it ww2 or christianity related Veeky Forums isn't going to talk about it

Fuck that noise.

DISCUSSION START: What would be your choice of personal arms for shipboard combat between 1660-1760? Preferably one melee, 1 fire arm and one "other"?

Ah yes, the joys of spending weeks out at sea with a third rate ship trying to catch one merchant vessel but are too slow so you get no bounty and are forced to go back to port and beg for food or kill and eat weaker crew members and even if you do score a large haul half your crew is killed in the battle and the EIC decides they want their money back so they send ships tp capture you alive so they can publicly execute you.
Pirates were the most desperate of men, it wasn't some fun swashbuckling adventure.

Yes, yes, we all know pirates were just sailors who made bad life choices. The point is, that the hope of a big pay off was worth the risk for many, as was the potential to make bank on pardoned privateering etc.

Its a romantic notion that attracts many today, but the same can be said for 99% of history.

is it worth playing?

Well no shit the press ganged guys who couldn't bear navy duty were desperate.

I choose 10,000 flintlocks

Privateers wouldn't be tied to EIC, especially considering in their heyday they mostly preyed on Spanish merchants in West Indies

Did they really bury treasure on mayan island and shieeet?

You now have 100 crates of pic related, and no weapons. Congrats, you're our first prize.

Yes. Game mechanics are fun as fuck, as is the voice acting. Fantastic gameplay in general.

Voice acting is top tier, with live recorded sea shanties playing while you sail the Caribbean, stopping of at desert, tropical islands, and so on... You can do it for hours, it's so beautiful.

The story, when it isn't focused on bullshit templar stuff, is pretty fun; edward kenway is a surprisingly interesting character who grows throughout the story. There are some truly poignant moments in the story, which are accentuated through the skilled voice acting of the cast.

It's definitely worth a buy; it will bring back the nostalgic sense of wonder you may have had as a kid, when reading a picture book about pirates.

Avoid getting boarded and sell them to a colonial militia or something

Proof of the brutishness of anglos

It might actually be only AC worth playing

barbary corsair is underrated desu

there was this one dutch guy who become a slave after a turkish raid, converted to islam and led turks and north africans corsair to raid iceland(lol). which was so random they got a word for that specific event in iceland.

the same guy allegedly also brought the first muslim communities to america and likes to kill nigggers there

You are very generous. The only good thing about it is the OST.

>Avoid getting boarded
You best hope so without weapons.

> sell them to a colonial militia or something
Negative. You'd have to sell them to a gunsmith or state institution. Militias need usable arms more than parts that are not guaranteed to fit.

A cutlass, a blunderbus and can I count an extra pistol as "other"?

Kill yourself.

There are several of those

The guy you mentioned

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jan_Janszoon

Bonus

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Ward

why u mad? pirates killed you're parents

>can I count an extra pistol as "other"?
Anything you want. Another pistol, grenados, a boat hook...

Nah. I'll pass.

Pirate clowns. We honk upon the high seas.

lol then sell them to a colonial admistration that can turn them into working guns, answered it yourself bruv
if they ain't got money get it in trade goods, then take it back to europe and sell it for a good profit

Would you knock on some random Mayor's door and try to sell him 10'000 possibly stolen gun parts?

>Some schlub shows up to a government building randomly with 10,000 loose lock mechanisms with no business contacts, and expects to sell no-name weapons parts without documentation that they didn't order.

OK user.

>HI! BUY MY FLINTLOCKS! THEY ARE TOTALLY NOT STOLEN!

And thats the story of how user was hung for piracy before ever picking up a sword.

A pirate I was meant to be
Trim the sails and roam the sea!

Bartholomew Roberts had a fleet...I think.

We're whalers on the moon
We carry our harpoons

Yes
I fail to see what the problem is, they're in good working order, apart from lacking a barrel and stock.

Grats senpai, you just had all your munitions confiscated and you're hanging from a rope.

>No barrel
>No stock
>No trigger mechanism
>No record of where they came from
>No record of who made them
>Just some random nobody with 10,000 gun parts expecting your to buy them no questions asked.

Its a short drop and a hard stop.

>you had all your munitions confiscated
Bit generous to call a bunch of actions munitions, innit? No worse than selling lower receivers to a pawn shop.

Well, I mean, given the lack of documentation, I suppose I would have to offer them quite a cheap rate, but hey one works with the capital they have.
In any case, I think the greater question would be why I have a bunch of flintlock actions and nothing else, which would be a swell story to recount

Saber,Saber, 2 pistols, grenades

No shit nigga, just like being an associate of the mafia seems glamorous but is equally as miserable. Kys

Posting thread theme
youtube.com/watch?v=ggyC0FOzqHM

>the only good thing
Come on, son.

Firepot grenades, warpaint and burning slowmatch in my hair and a fuckhuge sharktooth axe like pic related. Let them think im the actual devil.

All the Ass creed games are terrible and you know it.

I've always wondered how pirates returned to their home countries with their ill-gotten gains. Granted, law enforcement was nowhere sophisticated today and you could get away with a false identity much easier than now. But if you started spending gold, the authorities want to know how you obtained it, they'll tax you, and will wonder if you're a criminal.

Like say you're some lucky bastard that managed to acquire cash after carefully fencing your plunder to a legitimate merchant whose looking the other way. You have no criminal record and any witness was killed off. What do you do next. Remain in the Caribbean and drink your loot to an early death or poverty? Risk going back to Europe and have people ask what you've been doing overseas?

The only sensible option is to discreetly board a ship to Europe, hitch passage to the New World as a respectable immigrant who wants to strike his fortune in the colonies (with all your money carefully hidden). You discreetly purchase land and/or business interests to launder your loot and live the rest of your life as a law-abiding member of the community.

Impossible to pull off? Or was it more common than we thought?

You can actually BUY pardons or even letters of marque if you have the dosh.

Or you just bring a large enough gift to an enemy nation and step on your old flag.

It's too bad there's not enough good television on early colonisation of the new world, especially the Caribbean. Imagine stepping off that boat for the first time and finding the most alien, strange world.

Yeah the Barbary corsairs were the terror of the Mediterranean for centuries. The fledgling US republic has enough of their extortion and launched its first overseas war. Thanks to our resounding success in standing up to the Barbary states, the European powers soon followed.

The US has another war against privacy in Indonesia during Jackson's presidency. US traders based from Salem were the preeminent pepper merchants of the world. Local chieftains considered Salem to be its own sovereign nation and unfortunately some greedy villages decided to prey on US shipping. The Navy was pissed and wrecked their shit at Kuala Batu.

Clownbro mentioned Black sails, and desu, it starts slow, but by episode six, it ramps up and keep going through the end of season 3. Still waiting on season 5, but I got high hopes.

Henry Avery got screwed over by the people who offered to fence his plunder. crew members probably managed to get away undetected though. Not a lot of pirates really escaped justice all in all, except the ones who accepted pardons and could actually resist not returning to a life of piracy.

Yeah I know about those, but what if said pirate doesn't want anyone to know what they did and wants to genuinely go back to being an honest working man again? Like not wanting to shame his family like or not wanting to be ostracized by polite society.

Literally just retire in Scotland

Recommended Reading

Yeah I heard about his particular case because the English government launched a manhunt for what Avery did to the Mughal ship that got plundered.

If I was one of those lucky bastards, I'd make damn sure I'm clean cut and properly fence my jewels. I'll even try to seek out someone I can bribe to mint my foreign coinage to English currency. And then it's off to the 13 Colonies to set up shop because no way in hell would I step foot in Britain or Ireland.

I can dig it.

It helps that most pirates were literal nobodies. You could say were sailing on a merchant vessel, made a good haul with bonuses, struck it rich in a foreign land etc. No one cared.
Ooh, is that a period account?

yeah, but so much property like jewels and gold are easy to render down to material components, or just claim it was booty recovered from fighting pirates etc.

Blackbeard drinks gunpowder with rum, how is this not poisonous?

Because its blackpowder, not modern gunpowder Sulfur, charcoal and saltpeter. You can buy several rum brands and chili mix with black powder in it.

I know a guy who uses it to to sear brisket, by mixing it with his dry rub.

Pirates had a strict bedtime, sounds shit.

Most ship crews did. At least two shifts of men to keep the ship running.

What happened to the other half of his crew he ditched in the Indian ocean is even weirder.

Apparently they settled in Madagascar and used their guns and cannons to subjugate the islands various warring tribes. According to Charles Johnson (See book posted above) they lived out the rest of there days as chieftains siring multiple children with the native women.

That's true. If you had a good enough story to bullshit about being a lawful sailor on an Asian-bound merchantman, it's likely nobody would assume too much. But going to the American colonies and living far from ports would be the safest bet. You live out your days as a farmer, shopkeeper, cooper, blacksmith, miller, or whatever thanks to your loot as capital.

The jewels could probably be handwaved as a gift for a future wife or a family heirloom or something. And it acts as security in case of an emergency. It's lightweight and can be converted to cash due to its high value.

Worst pirate?

try selling 10,000 lower recivers to a pawnshop stateside and watch as the ATF rams a microscope up your ass and interrogate you for hours.

It's a better prospect than a hangman's noose in Europe.

I'm surprised they didn't just murder all the witnesses in the Mughal ship they plundered. Dead men tell no tales. And burn the ship because it's highly unlikely anyone would find out about it.

I would'be taken my share of the loot and live in Siam or some other Asian entrepôt where a European sailor could settle down and marry some local qt.

It was written in 1724 and supposedly Johnson used pirate hunting captains and former crew members (who could have very well just been homeless people looking to make a quick buck) as his sources. It's believed he may have over exaggerated the details a bit in order to gain popularity with English readers who often enjoyed exotic tales from the new world.

Awesome, gonna have to look that up at work.

I'd use my plunder to buy land in Africa or India, set up a plantation, and fill it full of slaves. I can see it now sitting on my ivory balcony sipping Indian Gin, watching the sun go down over my vast open fields, and reflecting on the time my captain caused a major diplomatic incident by capturing a Mughal treasure ship and raping the emperor's daughter.

>that Jew nose

Check out Blood & Gold: Caribbean for a Pirate themed Mount & Blade game.

Well, if they've magically appeared in my inventory whilst browsing a colonial gunsmithing board, there's not exactly any dirt they can find on me.

nah it kinda sucks and devs have abandoned it. it would have been great as a mod or DLC but on it's own it's pretty shitty

Axe, two pistols.

its a pretty fun read even if his old timey prose is a bit hard to swallow. probably the work most responsible for our current idea of pirates, along with treasure island. some people think daniel defoe wrote it under a pen name

>you chose the basic bitch
y didn't you romance a spanish hottie, papi?

Im totally ok with that. Reading 18thC prose is part of my dayjob.

Is the brisket any good?

Bump, me harteys!

Cutlass, 22-26 inch blade.
Double-barrel flintlock.
Large knife, 6-8 inches.

Not all fighting takes place above-deck, and we might want what's in the hold. Silks and wines go for better prices than locks, anyway.

Its fucking magnificent. Its a final rub before serving, after its been slow cookinging. It sears the outside, and leaves the inside juicy.

My bro is fatter than me, and does competitive BBQ contests. He knows his brisket. A true buccaneer (Which, thread related, is from the French "boucanier", who were independent hunters/meat smokers on the island chains who would sell to ships and sometimes act as wreckers and pirates against the Spanish. The origin of barbecue boucan)

Pic is of boucaniers of the islands that would become Hispaniola, depicted in Nicolas De Fer's 1698 map L'Amérique. Note the game-butchering knives and hunting dogs on the man in the foreground, and the men prepping feral pig for the smokehouse in the background.

I would also argue that with the Treaty of Utrecht the British severely downsized their Royal Navy, something like ~60,000 sailors to ~15,000. This forced a lot of young men to turn to piracy out of desperation. Got this from "Under the Black Flag" by David Cordingly, great read btw.

I think it is funny that the Brits unintentionally made piracy worse for themselves.

>Treaty of Utrech
I am honestly not too intimate with the Treaty past the basics, myself, but I do know that the Admiralty used the surge of piracy cause by it to push for massive budget increase and modernization that would of course, bring the Brits to be even more of a fearsome sea power.

youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwzRkjn86w

Because the fake stories are better than reality. Piracy wasn't full of swashbuckling tales of adventure. It was mutineers, criminals, random criminals, etc., going around looting and killing what they could. And it wasn't all THAT common since all the major empires would track them down to kill them, pushing pirates to the farthest fringes rather than being all out in the open like the fictional tales.

As we've gone into great detail about already, we came to the conclusion that history in general is shitty, and we celebrate the romantic notions of high seas adventure, rather than violent, syphilitic sea-rapists.

Yeah that is true and I would add that this support was largely generated in the colonies. When the treaty was signed, many governors immediately started writing to HM for naval support.

They were some of the only real anarchists to have ever existed.

>he can't tell the difference between a Roman nose and a Jew nose

spot the untermensch

You guys should read up of the Orang Laut and the Bugis; they were the pirates of Indonesia and Malaysia. Piracy in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea is fascinating as fuck.

Actually, they were democratic microgovernance more than anything, with individual ship crews essentially being states unto themselves. Captains and other "officer" positions tended to be elected by merit and ability to successfully provide and command, but could be overturned at any time other than active combat by the crew.

A ship cannot function without some form of command.

Who else ITT drinking based GROG atm?

>mfw reenactment recipe
>one part Mt GAY rum, one part lime juice, two parts water

good for what ails you