Blog Post 2

Sir Francis Drake was a protuberant figure that can be found in the history books. These books and accounts reflect on his naval ability and coated him to be an honorable commander that was loyal to his home nation serving the queen unquestioningly. But, on the flip side of things there is another side of the story that hasn’t been told yet. Under the Black Flag makes Sir Francis Drake out to be a fabled privateer who preyed on the Spanish near the treasure port of Nombre de Dios and returning all of his plunders faithfully back to queen Elizabeth in England. It defines the bounty as being worth over 68 million dollars in today's day and age. It continues to say that he dumped 5 tons of silver into the Royal English courts even though he really kept 21 tons for himself. This raised a question, "Was Sir Francis Drake really that noble?" It is a very difficult question to answer because of the absolute difference in facts about Drake but in my opinion based on the fact that he kept the vast majority of the silver that he was supposed to claim for his queen and country prove to me that he is more of a pirate that a nobleman.

Blog Post 10

This semester I learned so much about pirate that it shocked me. I learned about what different flag colors meant and their significance. I was able to learn about how pirates were able to navigate through the ocean and how they had impaired vision navigating. I also learned about some of the pirate weaponry that was used during the pirate era. During my presentation I learned so much about black Piracy and how black people influenced the pirate world as a whole and the roles that they played to help make it what it was. Black Beards branding was another thing that I learned about I learned that he intentionally did things so that his name could get out there as a fierce pirate that he is. I also learned about some of the food that pirates would partake in like for example the crackers that they had to keep dry in order for them to last the long voyages across the sea. All in all this semester taught me so much about the pirate lifestyle and everything that it compassed from the different punishments that the crew members would receive upon breaking a pirate code to the rewards that they would get for successful raids, this semester taught me more about pirates than i've ever known.

Blog Post #4 Fact vs Fiction

The two books Under the Black Flag and Buccaneers and Pirates have information that contradict each other. In under the black flag when it highlights the voyage of captain Henry Morgan it gives a totally different account to how the event happened than in Buccaneers and Pirates Some of the things we saw was that in Under the Black Flag were some of Sir Henry Morgan's accomplishments like the raid on Panama and the successful robbery of 250,000 pesos. And the fact that he was never punished for any of his crimes in fact he was even rewarded and made a Lord but in Buccaneers and Pirates this is very different.

Blog Post 9

My research project was about black pirates and their influence on the pirate world past and present. I tried to make a comparison between Black pirates that operated in the Caribbean back in the 17th century and the black pirates that operate of the east and west coasts of Africa in the 21st century. In my research project I was able to highlight the important Black Pirate figure heads past and present. In my research project I highlighted some pirates like Black Caesar, Henri Caesar, Abduwali Muse  and Tom Polo as some of the main pirates past and present that were highlighted. Because today piracy was still one of main global issues that the world was facing. Major businesses and corporations have had people and assets held to ransom and destroyed by these individual pirate groups and organizations. They've also collected large ransoms from these corporations to have their assets and people freed and unharmed. In my research I also looked at the reasons Black People got into slavery. During this era slavery was a very big business and Slaves were very expensive but many of these slaves often escaped slavery either by secret or by force and they would usually end up becoming pirates. The motive of most black pirates today is poverty being so poor that they have to rob in order to survive.

Edward Teach aka Blackbeard

Blackbeard was one of the worlds most notorious Pirates. Little is known about his early life. He is reported to have served as a privateer during Queen Anne's War (1701 - 1714), and turned to piracy sometime after the war's conclusion. His ship was called the Queen Anne's Revenge some artifacts from his ship are still around till this day. Sometime in 1716, Teach moved the source of his operations from Jamaica to New Providence in the Bahamas. He served an apprenticeship under Captain Benjamin Hornigold, who was the fiercest and ablest of all pirates regularly operating out of the island of New Providence. Jointly they captured and looted a number of large merchant vessels. Having amassed a sizeable fortune and recognizing that the profitable days of piracy were nearing an end, Hornigold in early 1718 retired from piracy and took up the honest life of a planter on New Providence. He took full advantage of the king's pardon when Woodes Rogers came to Nassau on 27 July 1718 as the newly appointed governor of the Bahamas Islands.

Blog Post 6

Some of the many punishments that pirates had to face were some of the most cruel and extreme. These punishments were often carried out to those Pirates that disobeyed the Pirate codes. Some of the main pirate punishments included Keelhauling, Marooning , Dunking, Flogging , tied to the mast, and Slavery. When a pirate was Marooned he was  left to die without water and food on uninhabitable islands. Pirates were given, however, means to commit suicide, being left with a knife or pistol to put an end to the torture of marooning. Keelhauling was when A rope was tied beneath the belly of the ship and the offending pirate would be tied to the rope and hauled underwater, dragging underneath the pirate ship. The ship’s hull, covered in sharp barnacles, would cut like razors making for a very slow and painful death. Dunking was when A pirate was attached to a wooden beam and dunked into the water repeatedly. When performed during a ceremony, this was seen as an honor, when performed as a punishment, you would be sure that the dunking was a lot harder and deeper. And then flogging was when was perhaps the most common form of punishment for mild indiscretions upon ships, although it was less common on pirate ships because it was associated with the discipline enforced onboard naval vessels.

Blog Post 5

When I went back in time to hang out with Anne Bonny and Mary Read it was a very interesting experience. They were both ferocious females and very tough. They didn't tolerate any nonsense from anybody. Female pirates came from a tough background they were from a society that didn't view women as much of humans. They had to dress up as men just to survive on a Pirate ship some of the women would often get raped and prostituted out to the crew members by the captain if caught. Even crew members would be punished for bringing women on ships. But some of the most notorious female Pirates included Ching Shih, Sadie the Goat , and Jeanne de Clisson.

As we see in the chapters Plundering the treasure ports and Sir Henry Morgan we see two pirate lords who raid the high seas and look for treasure to steal we that Sir Francis Drake raided a mule train in central America and came away with a treasure of about 12 million pounds when he captured a Spanish ship in Cacafuego. Sir Francis Drake also came away with a 68 million pound reward worth of treasure. Sir Henry Morgan had a similar story he ransomed the city to the president of Panama for gold and silver worth 250,000 pesos, in 1688 he led the capture of portobello by using the residents there as human shields, he also became the admiral for the brethren of the coast when he was 32 years of age. In Chapter 2 of Buccaneers and Pirates we see that its different from the two readings in under the black flag because in Buccaneers and Pirates we see that it highlights who Buccaneers were at sea and the fact that they opened their schools in the Caribbean sea. But the two books were similar because they both talked about the life of Sir Francis Drake and his endeavors with the Buccaneers.

Captain Morgan

During Captain Sir Henry Morgan's raid on panama at 7:00 am on January 28 1671 sir henry Morgan gave the order for his men to advance into Panama. They were in 4 squadrons and carried red and green banners. during the battle Captain Morgan's men killed most of Don Juan's men on the beach but Don Juan had a secret weapon which was to use oxen but that was thwarted by captain Morgan's Buccaneers. After the fact Sir henry Morgan walked away with about 250,000 pesos. And an empty City of panama.The problem was that they thought that they were going to be walking away with more loot than they thought that they were going to get. Also Don Juan made sure that if he had lost the battle that captain Morgan would be walking into an empty panama. Don Juan made sure that all of the wooden houses were set on fire.  His punishment however was not getting enough money after walking away. But he was rewarded with knighthood and was granted a post of Lieutenant Governor Morgan declared martial law and mobilized militia's and built two new forts in Port Royal harbor.

The book under the Black Flag Introduction & Wooden Legs and Parrots and Buccaneers and Pirates The Bold Buccaneers the first chapter are very different yet somewhat similar. Some similarities that the two books share is that they both give an account of pirate life and some of the activities that pirates were engaged in. Yet they were very different when we look at Under the Black Flag we see that it gives a very detailed factual account of the life of a pirate they described pirate attire what they wore and how they moved. In Buccaneers and Pirates it was more of a historical fiction meaning that it is a story about pirate life but a factual story. The First chapter was looking at the life of an individual who's dream was to become a pirate and rule the high seas. In the Introduction of Under the Black Flag we see that they go somewhat into describing what Buccaneers were and what they did.