Coin find in US might explain where a notorious pirate fled to.

[JimW]

Thought this was a interesting tale though he's a nasty piece of work, not heard of Every but apparently was the world's most wanted man in his day, and his robbery of the Moghul pilgrim ship one of history's biggest ever:

Ancient coins may solve mystery of murderous 1600s pirate

WARWICK, R.I. (AP) — A handful of coins unearthed from a pick-your-own-fruit orchard in rural Rhode Island and other random corners of New England may help solve one of the planet's oldest cold cases.

apnews.com

 

[emanymton]

I like that he was able to hide by posing as a nice respectably slave trader.

 

[MrSki]

though he's a nasty piece of work

I think most pirates are/were. going around robbing, murdering & raping is in their job description.
I always found it weird that parents have Princess & Pirate parties. Not exactly a role model for kids.

 

[bmd]

I like that he was able to hide by posing as a nice respectably slave trader.

This just in: slaves loved the whole thing.

 

[Pickman's model]

I think most pirates are/were. going around robbing, murdering & raping is in their job description.
I always found it weird that parents have Princess & Pirate parties. Not exactly a role model for kids.

That's not entirely the case, it's more nuanced and varies over time and place depending on the circumstances. Robbing is of course core to piracy. But pirates have never operated in a vacuum and have always needed coastal communities to support them in what was an economy of obligation. Murder and rape might well be frowned on by landlubbers essential to piracy as bad for business. However where as in the eighteenth century piracy was routinely punished by execution pirates operating far from 'base' might feel less constrained, and would fight to the death to avoid capture.

Pirate was not of course a career many sailors made permanently but a swerve many sailors made temporarily, in and out of illegality. It could offer great riches and social mobility otherwise unobtainable - for example the pirate John Ward ended his days filthy rich in North Africa.

 

[Spandex]

I always found it weird that parents have Princess & Pirate parties. Not exactly a role model for kids

The pirates of popular imagination have had a place as folk heros since the golden age of piracy in the late 17th century. They were usually the down trodden - crews who had mutinied against cruel captains, freed slaves, the unemployed and destitute - who lived an egalitarian (amongst themselves) life of freedom on the seas, robbing the rich and splitting it amongst themselves. Pirate captains often only took a 1.5 or double share of the loot. They may have been brutal and ruthless, but there was a rebellious spirit to them - the golden age of piracy followed the rise of revolutionary thinking in the mid-1600s, the ranters and levellers and diggers, and these views fed into the pirate way of life. There was a Robin Hood view of them as standing up to the emerging capitalist class. That's why 17thC pirates continue to hold a place in the imagination in a way that Phoenician or Malacca or Barbary pirates don't.

 

[mauvais]

I always found it weird that parents have Princess & Pirate parties. Not exactly a role model for kids.

My daughters were invited to a 'Princesses and Heroes' party.

I suggested they go as heroes of the October revolution, and recreate the events of July 1918 in Yekaterinburg - round up the princesses in a basement, and execute them.

They preferred to go as Rapunzel.

 

[Bahnhof Strasse]

Pirate parties are no weirder than cowboys & Indians though, cowboys were generally just farming folk, but some Native American tribes such as Comanche were brutal beyond words, yet the idea of the the play seems to celebrate genocide.

 

[Yossarian]

The version of pirates kids get presented with tends to gloss over the killing, the raping, and even the piracy.

 

[discokermit]

I think most pirates are/were. going around robbing, murdering & raping is in their job description.
I always found it weird that parents have Princess & Pirate parties. Not exactly a role model for kids.

Though you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security; for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by knavery; but damn ye altogether: damn them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numbskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage. Had you not better make then one of us, than sneak after these villains for employment?

 

[discokermit]

You are a devilish conscience rascal! I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me! But there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure.

 

[JuanTwoThree]

"Historical accounts say his band tortured and killed the men aboard the Indian ship and raped the women before escaping to the Bahamas, a haven for pirates"


And then Ireland. That's a hell of a trip.

 

[tim]

Yes, but coins, including those from Muslim countries, have always circulated well beyond the borders of the countries where they were minted. The Austrian Maria Teresa thalerhas functioned as an international currency for centuries. It is a bullion coin so most are copies of the right silver weight.

This is a King Offa Dinar (him with the Dyke) which was minted in Mercia in the middle of the eighth century.

It's got the Muslim declaration of faith, "There is no God but Allah alone", on it because it's copied from an Abbasid coin. The original obviously got to the English midlands fairly quickly because it's also got the name of a Caliph whose reign was contemporaneous with Offa's. It's now in the British museum but they bought it at an auction in Rome. Offa used to give the Pope an annual gold bung.

 

[petee]

The version of pirates kids get presented with tends to gloss over the killing, the raping, and even the piracy.

View attachment 261362

this past halloween the administration (K - 8 school) announced a pirate theme and i had to ask, "pirates are criminals. why are we doing this?"

 

[JimW]

this past halloween the administration (K - 8 school) announced a pirate theme and i had to ask, "pirates are criminals. why are we doing this?"

Privateers then, the licensed version. All above board and on-deck.