Life at shore depended on the success of their sea escapade. If lucky, they would motley spend all their loot in the pleasures of taverns on food, rum, wine and gambling!
Though it wasn’t all fun for a successful pirate. After each voyage, the ship would need to be careened, sails and rigging o be replaced or repaired. Also, an important task was to stock the ship with food and water for the next voyage.
During an attack, pirates were usually out numbered and would mostly have a much smaller vessel and lightly armored. But their ships were highly maneuverable and they boarded and retreated from a ship quickly. They employed various scaring tactics which paralyzed their victims.
Posted in What was a pirates Life Like? || No Comments
Unlike modern beliefs and cinema, most pirates lived and ate poorly. Pirates readily accepted outcasts from the society. Even though they raided ships, most did not bury their treasure. The ‘treasure’ was often stolen food, water, alcohol, weapons or clothes. During the age of British imperialism, law required merchants to use trade vessels to ferry goods.
These were protected by warships; living conditions were horrible; worm infested food, scurvy and other diseases; brutal captains; gang boys being forced to replace crippled or dead crew. Many crews would mutiny during an attack and offer themselves and their ship to pirates as a new vessel and crew. These were skilled seamen with intolerance for absolute authority; that’s probably why the captain of pirate vessels was always chosen unanimously by the crew.
Life constantly at sea was a bore for pirates, and conflicts and fights were common. The captain could interfere but not do much since pirate vessels were run democratically. For the long voyages, they would stock up on bottled beer since water would be too salty. Hard tack or long –lasting biscuits and lime for vitamin C would be the staple diet. If lucky they would have a few hens onboard for eggs and meat. Mostly they would easily catch turtles, especially abundant in the Caribbean.
Posted in What was a pirates Life Like? || No Comments
Piracy is a robbery committed at sea or on the shore. The earliest documented instances of piracy are in the Mediterranean seas in 13th century BC. By the 1st century BC, there were pirates along the Anatolian coasts threatening the commerce of the Roman Empire.
On a voyage, Julius Caesar was kidnapped and held for ransom by pirates. The most famous pirate utopia is of Captain Mission and his crew who formed a free colony called libertatia in Madagascar in the late 17th century. The most colorful were the Caribbean pirates, namely, Henry Morgan and “blackbeard” or Edward Teach.
Posted in What was a pirates Life Like? || No Comments
Whatever it was that Pirates actually did wear, the overall look was, more often than not, a ‘tattered’ look. To make your Pirate look appear authentic, take a piece of rope to tie around the waist for a belt. Roll up the shirt sleeves to the elbow. Also, use a scarf, or a wide piece of fabric to be tied around the shirt collar.
The intensity of interest of children in what Pirate wore can be gauged from the fact that Pirate costumes have become highly popular for a ‘fancy dress’ look! One who wants the look to be nothing less than perfect leaves no stone unturned, searching stores for all that Pirates used to wear. No wonder, you can find amusing variations of Pirate costumes!
Posted in Uncategorized || No Comments
Along with their clothing, the Pirates had some kind of ‘accessories’ that most of them loved to wear to get a typical look – things like eye patches, fake teeth, and hooks – which can be purchased to enhance the ‘Pirate’ look! No pirate costume is complete with only the basic outfit.
Piracy was always considered a dirty, rough business, and the Pirates required all the tools of the trade to regulate the seven seas with an iron hand. Of course, the peculiar ‘Pirate’ look was generally incomplete without a ‘Pirate’ hat. To add to the costume, if you cannot lay your hands on a hat, you can try a Pirate ‘head wrap’ as an alternative.
Pirate wear is never effective till their special pirate weapons are included too. When children pick a particular Pirate costume, they mostly take their pick from a collection of such weapons - which ranges from Pirate Guns to Pirate Cutlasses! Some of the Pirates went barefoot; otherwise what they wore was accessorized with black or brown shoes or boots.
You can find the varied styles of clothing that Pirates used to wear, by searching second-hand stores for used clothing. The colors that the Pirates mostly favored, and are most popular in Pirate costume pants, were - black, brown, dark green and burnt orange White, ivory, purple, red or blue were the color choices for shirts. For a perfect ‘Pirate’ appearance, pick up pants and shirts that are at least one to two sizes too large for you.
Posted in The who, the what, the how? || No Comments