The Golden Age of Pirates as Reported by Newspapers of the Day
Arrrgh. Shiver me timbers. To honor International Talk (or Blog) Like a Pirate Day, I thought I’d write about the real thing. And what better way to get the scoop about real swashbucklers than via historic newspapers? To help, I tracked down the legendary Timothy Hughes of Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers. By the way, Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers recently launched an exciting new blog called History’s Newsstand. Check it out.
According to Tim, “the ‘golden age’ of pirate activity was around 1700 thru 1730. There was reporting in newspapers of the day, typically very brief mentions of various ships having been seized, but occasionally there were half column articles when considerable details were known.”
Or, in this case, there were reports of hidden treasure left behind by pirates.
“Pirate activity was covered in the newspapers simply as a matter of reporting news of the day. Pirates interrupted the growing trade with the American colonies and as such became a serious problems for merchants in England,” said Tim.
Here is a great, but very brief newspaper report on the death of the famous pirate known as Captain Kidd. According to Tim, most pirate reports from this time were quite brief.
Edward Teach is arguably the most notorious pirate in history and spent most of his time in the Caribbean Sea and Atlantic. Known better as Blackbeard, he’s the pirate that most pirate portrayals are fashioned after, including Johnny Depp’s character in Pirates of the Caribbean.
“The death of Blackbeard was reported in the Boston Weekly Newsletter in 1719 but American newspapers from this era are quite rare,” said Tim. “It was also reported in the Post-Boy from London as we sold it some years ago. Here is how the Boston Newsletter reported Blackbeard’s decapitation by Lieutenant Robert Maynard:
Maynard and Teach themselves begun the fight with their swords, Maynard making a thrust, the point of his sword against Teach’s cartridge box, and bent it to the hilt. Teach broke the guard of it, and wounded Maynard’s fingers but did not disable him, whereupon he jumped back and threw away his sword and fired his pistol which wounded Teach. Demelt struck in between them with his sword and cut Teach’s face; in the interim both companies engaged in Maynard’s sloop. Later during the battle, while Teach was loading his pistol he finally died from blood loss. Maynard then cut off his head and hung it from his bow.
Newspapers containing pirate reports – particularly those relating to famous pirates like Blackbeard and Captain Kidd – can be very scarce and therefore very expensive.
According to Tim, “I don’t recall reading of any reports prior to the late 1690s, and the amount of pirate activity dropped off considerably post-1725 when the government officials along the Atlantic coast of the colonies got more strict in controlling their coastal waters.”
“One of the problems with finding many pirate reports in period newspapers is the simple lack of ‘newsy’ newspapers from the era,” said Tim. “Save for the Boston Newsletter there were essentially no newspapers in America from the ‘golden age,’ and many of the British titles were more coffee-house type which were dialogue in format and did not cover news of the day. The Post-Boy from London was a great ‘newsy’ newspaper and we’ve discovered many issues with small pirates reports, some I suspect will be found here and here.”
For more history of pirates, Tim suggests this site.
Thanks, Tim, for making International Talk (and Blog) Like a Pirate Day special!
