Dear That Kid Who Loves Pirates

Photo by Rick Kimpel

In my early days of teaching, I would often give my classes this poll question: Which is cooler, ninjas or pirates? Invariably, ninjas would win in a landslide. There was a brief uptick in pirate appreciation during the early to mid 2000s due to this guy. After that brief surge, however, it was all ninjas.

Why did ninjas always win? It is not that people hate pirates, swashbucklers just seem to cull an eclectic fan base, whereas ninjas have a broad array of fans. To put it in more modern terms, Ninjas are One Direction, pirates are BTS.

Ninjas are deadly, stealthy, dressed in all black. They move silently in the night and have cool weapons, like throwing stars and nunchucks. Pirates are more brash and loud; they often talk too much and drink too much. Ninjas are your together older brother who just completed his masters and is now a lead engineer at a tech startup. Pirates are your scruffy uncle who talks with his mouth full at Thanksgiving. The fact that pirates are rough around the edges is the key to their appeal. They are scrappy, boisterous underdogs who have problems following the rules and just want to party. So, basically pirates are high school students with swords.

17-year-old pirates waiting to see a rated aaarrrrr movie.

It was an interesting This American Life podcast that got me thinking about pirates again. The middle story on Somali pirates was interesting, but it was the two bookend stories that I wanted to share.

Stede Bonnet: "The Gentleman Pirate"

The first story was about Stede Bonnet, known as “The Gentleman Pirate”. He was basically a wealthy middle-aged guy who abandoned his family to become a pirate. Naturally, he was not a high-achieving pirate, which eventually precipitated a series of event that led to him being gravely injured in a botched pirating and retreating to recover in the Bahamas. This is where, interestingly enough, he ran into the much more infamous pirate-legend Blackbeard. You should listen to the podcast and read the wiki for more information on this fascinating pirate.

Ching Shih: Ruthless Pirate Boss

Equally fascinating is the tale of a Chinese native named Ching Shih, the most accomplished female pirate in history. The last story on the podcast is an interview the author Laura Sook Duncombe, who tells the story of this original girl boss. You might have seen her in Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End as Mistress Ching, one of the nine Pirate Lords. Ching Shih entered into piracy after marriage to a successful pirate named Cheng I. Upon the death of her pirate husband, she maneuvered to take command of the vast pirate fleet. This, as the podcast notes, was a total Khaleesi move. She instituted a strict code of conduct which punished violators by whipping their backs, cutting off their ears, or removing their heads. Ching Shih did not play. She eventually became so powerful that she was able to negotiate an insanely favorable surrender to the Chinese government. She ran a gambling house until her death at age 69.

Pirate boss asked for two sugars, not one. 

Hopefully ayyye provided some interesting tidbits for all the pirate fans out there. If you want some more, here aaarrrrrrrrrrrr some links to more pirate booty:

21 Pirate Puns

New England Pirate Museum 

Talk Like a Pirate

Rap Like a Pirate

Puppies Dressed as Pirates