A Classical Tale. Odysseus and the Great Unknown

Homer´s Odyssey is one of the classics of ancient literature.Some of the most fascinating parts of the book are Odysseus’ tales of fantastical lands as he travels home. Here Francesca Spiegel explores the book and tells us more.

Travelogues and travelogue-like passages appear in ancient literature in more than a few places. Some of the travel descriptions of ancient Greece which have been transmitted to us, appear to be dedicated to geographical and cultural education of the reader, seeing as to travel very far given the ancient transportation system was a noteworthy feat. Another sub-category of travelogue is the historiographic, in which the military exploits of an army and its men are recounted not only in terms of their skills in battle, but also expanding upon their courage and endurance at making their way to the location of the battle.

Land of the Lotos-Eaters (1863) by Robert Duncanson.

Homer’s Odyssey typifies the saga of the long return, the homeward journey from a faraway place. In the Odyssey, readers are first introduced to Odysseus as an absentee father who left behind his wife and young son in order to take part in the Trojan War, in his capacity as the king of Ithaca. The last part of the book focuses on how Odysseus eventually arrives back home after his long absence and is faced with a barrage of suitors to his wife, his mansions in decay and the city under very bad administration, all of which he has good mind to reclaim for himself. If we are to believe the legend, twenty years have passed since Odysseus was last in his home town: he fought for ten years in the Trojan War, and then took ten years to get back home. When he arrives, the youth has grown, nothing is like it was, and Odysseus himself, after the war and the long road, is quite a different man as well.

Sandwiched in between these scenes from Odysseus’ home at Ithaca, are the surreal and extraordinary tales of what Odysseus saw and did on his ten year long journey, which, as readers are informed, took so long because an angry Poseidon kept sweeping his ship astray – for revenge.

THOUGHTS ON THE ODYSSEY

In the story, Odysseus lives to tell the tale, so that his adventures among witches, ogres and monsters, his descent into the underworld, and visit to Lestrygonians, his shipwrecks, entrapments, and ingenious explorations out in the great unknown, have since become some of the most popular legends. Nearly everyone has heard of the Cyclops, the one-eyed giant who eats human flesh and lives in a cave, and whom Odysseus squarely overpowered by feeding him wine and blinding his one eye with an incandescent wooden beam. Or the beautiful sirens, whose enthralling charm and irresistible singing Odysseus was able to bypass by putting wax in the ears of all of his party.

Interpretations of the Odyssey have traditionally pointed out the strong focus on loyalty that is implicit in the will to take on challenge upon challenge only to come back home, and attached to this loyalty towards his home town and family, is a commitment to the Greek culture, of which the forms and values appear especially in relief by contrast to the strange lands wandered by Odysseus in the meantime. At Circe’s, the witch who can turn men into swine and wants to make Odysseus the king of her little kingdom it is said:

But venomed was the bread, and mixed the bowl,

With drugs of force to darken all the soul:

Soon in the luscious feast themselves they lost,

And drank oblivion of their native coast.

The fear of never making it home is ever-present, and the lure of the sometimes rather enticing propositions made by the fairytale-like creatures in equal parts attractive and revolting seems to intensify at each turning of the road. Here is another passage:

We plied the banquet, and the bowl we crown’d,

Till the full circle of the year came round.

But when the seasons following in their train,

Brought back the months, the days, and hours again;

As from a lethargy at once they rise,

And urge their chief with animating cries:

Is this, Ulysses, our inglorious lot?

And is the name of Ithaca forgot?

Shall never the dear land in prospect rise,

Or the loved palace glitter in our eyes?

BIZARRE CREATURES

The travelogue description introduces many episodes of arriving on strange shores and meeting unknown cultures and hybrid, half-awesome, half-scary species of character beings. The places Odysseus goes to seem to appear at first from a distance, enclosed either by walls, or thick vegetation, or water, so that they are each in their own way a closed universe and a microcosm in a capsule – at times it seems like the Odyssey draws up a map of warped microcosm after warped microcosm before our eyes, and each time, a new breed of phantasmagoric characters hop on the scenery as if they belong to a surreal film set. For example, Odysseus travels to:

A floating isle! High-raised by toil divine,

Strong walls of brass the rocky coast confine.

Six blooming youths, in private grandeur bred,

And six fair daughters, graced the royal bed.

These sons their sisters wed, and all remain

Their parents’ pride, and pleasure of their reign.

All day they feast, all day the bowls flow round,

And joy and music through the isle resound;

At night each pair on splendid carpets lay,

And crown’d with love the pleasures of the day.

This 1873 verse translation I have been quoting from is by T.A. Buckley and in the public domain. The digital media revolution increases the use of public domain books, but these books are often in the public domain by virtue of being 100 years old or more. Looking at this nineteenth century translation, which I very much enjoy for what it is and I hope you have as well, adds a specific flavor to the story. The Odyssey was very popular in the British colonial Empire and Odysseus’ character, by no means one beloved by all ages, had a distinct appeal with his explorer’s nature and experience of the great unknown. A contemporary of this translation was Tennyson, whose famous poem The Lotos Eaters conflates the pleasures of a Victorian opium smoker with the adventures of Odysseus on Lotophagi Island:

And round about the keel with faces pale,

Dark faces pale against that rosy flame,

The mild-eyed melancholy Lotos-eaters came.

Branches they bore of that enchanted stem,

Laden with flower and fruit, whereof they gave

To each, but whoso did receive of them,

And taste, to him the gushing of the wave

Far far away did seem to mourn and rave

On alien shores; and if his fellow spake,

His voice was thin, as voices from the grave;

And deep-asleep he seem’d, yet all awake,

And music in his ears his beating heart did make.

The painting at the top of this article titled Land of the Lotos-Eaters (1863) by Robert Duncanson also epitomizes the conflation of nineteenth century exoticism with Hellenism which is yet another aspect of the same phenomenon. As much as it is important to notice these identifications and projections, the real interest lies in finding out what the Odyssey can mean to ‘us’ now.

This article was provided by Francesca Spiegel from www.via-antiqua.com.

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Re-establishing Anglo-American Relations: John Quincy Adams in London

In 1788, John Adams left London, never to return to Europe. His son, John Quincy Adams, would assume his father’s post at the Court of Saint James 27 years later. While both men represented the United States in Great Britain after wars, JQA had a more successful time in establishing stronger ties between the two nations than his father had. This article by Steve Strathmann follows the first in the series here and details the ups-and-downs of John Quincy Adams’ time in London.

The Experienced Diplomat

John Quincy Adams first came to Europe with his father during the Revolutionary War. In addition to working for his father, he spent three years in Russia serving as secretary for an American mission at the tender age of fourteen. After graduating from Harvard, he was appointed Minister to the Netherlands by George Washington. During his time in The Hague, he travelled frequently to London on business, where he met his future wife Louisa Johnson, the American daughter of a Maryland father and English mother. In fact, the church where they were married, the Church of All Hallows Barking, still stands today near the Tower of London and has a plaque outside marking the occasion.

JQA would later serve terms as American minister to Prussia and Russia. While at St. Petersburg, he was asked to join the American group negotiating to end the War of 1812. After the Treaty of Ghent was signed, he hoped to return home, but was asked to serve as President Madison’s Minister to the Court of St. James. The offer was too tempting for Adams to refuse and he crossed the English Channel in May 1815.

John Quincy Adams by Gilbert Stuart, 1818 (The White House Historical Association).

Official Relations with Britain

John Quincy Adams presented his credentials to the Prince Regent on June 8, 1815. The prince did not seem prepared for the meeting, at one point even asking if JQA “was related to Mr. Adams, who had formerly been the Minister from the United States here.” The new minister established an office on Charles Street and rented a house outside of London in the village of Ealing. While in Britain, John Quincy and Louisa would have their whole family (sons George, John and Charles) together for the first time in six years.

Adams maintained good relationships with both Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh. His primary mission was to help negotiate a treaty of commerce with the British. The result of these negotiations would only be a commercial convention, but the Americans did make some gains. These included a prohibition on discriminatory duties, the opening of British East Indies ports to American shipping and ‘most favored nation’ status for the United States.

There were still outstanding issues left over between the two nations after the War of 1812. These included the impressment of sailors, the return of slaves that fled to the West Indies with British help during the war, and the opening of Canadian waters to American fishermen. Castlereagh said in response that these were issues that could be dealt with at a later date when the Anglo-American relationship was stronger. Adams did not press the foreign secretary, especially over the escaped slaves. A life-long abolitionist, Adams only brought up the topic because his diplomatic instructions called for it.

One area where significant gains were made was on the Canadian border of the United States. On January 16 and March 21 of 1816, Adams proposed to Castlereagh that there should be a reduction of arms on the Great Lakes. The foreign secretary agreed and the negotiations that followed led to the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817. This pact reduced the two lake fleets to four ships apiece that were to primarily deal with customs issues. This agreement was “the first reciprocal naval disarmament in the history of international relations”, according to historian Samuel Flagg Bemis. Others have added that it is also the most successful and longest-lasting deal of its kind.

Outside the Office

In addition to his good relations with Liverpool and Castlereagh, Adams struck up friendships with other notable Brits. One was the philosopher Jeremy Bentham. Though the two men had differing views on certain topics, they became friends due to their appreciation of each other’s intellect. John Quincy and Louisa also were invited to a wedding held at the Duke of Wellington’s home.

Adams enjoyed going to the theater and opera in London, especially to see the works of William Shakespeare. He read Shakespeare often, and his diaries contain reviews of London performances of Richard the Third and A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

John Quincy and Louisa were thrilled to have their family together and being able to watch their sons’ growth. George and John were enrolled in an Ealing boarding school, while Charles attended school during the day. While he loved his boys, JQA worried that they did not focus enough on their studies. According to biographer Fred Kaplan, he hoped that someday they “would be his intellectual companions” much like he was to his father.

Unfortunately, Adams did have to deal with some health issues during his London tenure. He injured his writing hand and also had several eye infections. These afflictions were especially hard on a man who was a vociferous reader and writer. Louisa helped during this period by taking dictation and reading aloud to her husband. Adams eventually healed and was able to resume all of his diplomatic duties.

In April 1817, Adams received a message from President James Monroe, asking him to return to Washington and become Secretary of State. Though John Quincy hesitated, the rest of his family were excited about the prospect of returning to the United States, including his elderly parents. He eventually decided that he would accept the cabinet post, and on June 10, 1817, the family left London for the long journey home.

In 1861, Charles Francis Adams would return to take the post that his father and grandfather held before him. His primary duty: keep the British out of the American Civil War. But that’s for next time…

We shall have the next article in this series next month.

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Sources

Kaplan, Fred. John Quincy Adams: American Visionary. New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 2014.

Remini, Robert V. John Quincy Adams. New York: Times Books, 2002.

Unger, Harlow Giles. John Quincy Adams. Boston: De Capo Press, 2012.

World War One – How did the Eastern Front differ from the Western Front?

The Eastern Front in World War One is often largely unknown to many Westerners. The situation there was quite different to that on the Western Front. Here, Rebecca Fachner follows up on her articles on Royal Family squabbles here and the spark that caused war to break out here.

The 100th anniversary of the first summer of World War One rolls onward, and with it commemorations of battles that everyone in the Western world seems to know instinctively - the Marne, the Somme, Ypres…  The war on the Western Front is very much alive in the Western consciousness, but what is so often forgotten is that it was actually a two-front war in Europe. Germany was not only fighting in the West against the French and British (and eventually the Americans), but also in the East against the Russian Empire.

Russian troops on the move to the front line. From National Geographic magazine, volume 31. 1917.

As a fighting force, the Russian Empire was extremely contradictory. They were a formidable foe, but at the same time a very worrying ally. Their one huge advantage in warfare was the sheer numbers of troops that they had at their disposal. It was truly a staggering amount of men, millions upon millions of Russian troops, a “mass of bodies ready to bleed” in the words of one historian of the period.[1] The main disadvantage for the Russians was everything else. The army had miserably poor leadership, was woefully underfunded and was technologically backward. In the years before the war, the Allies, especially France, had spent enormous sums of money trying to improve Russia’s technological capability.

Railroads had been a particular target, as the movement of troops to the front as quickly as possible was of paramount importance. France knew that German war plans hinged on Russia’s inability to mobilize their troops and so planned on attacking France first, then moving on to Russia only after the French had been defeated. Therefore, if Russia could respond more quickly, and force Germany to divert troops in their direction earlier, so much the better for France.  Their efforts did do some good, but not enough, as was painfully demonstrated in the opening days of the war. It took weeks for the Russians to assemble a fighting force along the German and Austro-Hungarian borders.

DIFFERENCES WITH THE WEST

Russia began the war by invading eastern Germany. It was able to do so as Poland was not an independent country at this time meaning that Russia and Germany were contiguous. The first major engagement of the war was the Battle of Tannenberg, which was a resounding defeat for the Russians. The next week at the Battle of Masurian Lakes, the Russians were pushed back further, and would not fight on German soil for the remainder of the war. Despite the inauspicious beginnings, the Russians did enjoy some success, particularly against Austria-Hungary in the fall of 1914. By 1915, however, the Germans had made the Eastern Front their top priority and began to hurl troops at the Russians, managing to turn the tide of the eastern war permanently in their own favor. Russia never again enjoyed a significant advantage.

The geography of the war in the east was very different when compared to the west. Rather than a compressed front line, the Russians and Germans were eventually fighting over an area of more than a thousand miles. This spread the fighting, placing a much larger burden on military supply chains than in the west, and making Russian transportation problems an even bigger issue as they began to have supply problems soon after war broke out. One small, seemingly trivial problem added to the frustration, namely that Russian railroads were, and still are, on a different track gauge than parts of Europe further west. Railroad tracks in Europe (and almost everywhere else) are 4 feet 8 inches apart from each other, but in Russia the tracks are 5 feet apart. This means that trains from Europe don’t work in Russia and vice versa; to this day, if you are travelling by railroad into Russia it causes delays at the border. This created all kinds of chaos for supplying both armies and moving troops. All told, it generally slowed down the war in the east. Additionally, because the front line stretched over so large a territory, trench warfare, something that is so closely associated with the war in the west, was not a factor in the east. There was no need for trenches, as the armies had so much more room to maneuver.

Another significant and often remarked upon problem for the Russians was the personality of the men making the key decisions. Tsar Nicholas was a weak and largely ineffective leader, and enjoyed far too much command authority for a person with limited military experience. His two top commanders, Grand Duke Nicholas and Minister of War General Sukhomlinov, hated each other and constantly tried to undermine the other, often to the detriment of their command.  One of those commanders, it must be said, Grand Duke Nicholas Nicholaievich, was an extremely dedicated and able military commander, frustrated by the duplicity of his counterpart and the ineptitude of his boss.

THE TSAR TAKES CHARGE

This was not a recipe for success, and as the Russians continued to lose, blame was shifted around and around the command structure. Eventually the Tsar, frustrated and exasperated, decided to move to army headquarters to take personal command of the military. He hoped that his presence would inspire both the troops and the command structure and turn the tide of the war. On the face of it, this was not as poor a decision as it turned out to be, and at least the Tsar’s heart was in the right place, so to speak. Unfortunately, Nicholas’ presence had the opposite effect, and he was blamed by many for every single thing that went wrong with the war from that point on. This severely undermined his authority, not just with his army but also with his people, who had previously believed that the Tsar was close to divine, and blamed all the military failures on his generals. With his very visible presence at the head of his army, Nicholas was exposed as ineffective and weak, and the Russian people had no choice but to blame him for the manifest failures of his strategy.

Compounding the Tsar’s image problem was that he had left his wife in control in his absence. Empress Alexandra was dangerously unstable, and extremely unpopular, partly due to her association with the monk Rasputin; it was widely thought that she was under his direct control. Alexandra quickly assumed many of the governmental duties that her husband had left behind, which was very unfortunate, as she had little political acumen and no experience in government. What she did have was an unshakable faith in Rasputin, and a stubborn refusal to grasp how widely he was mistrusted and disliked. Alexandra careened from one disastrous policy to another, dismissing competent ministers and replacing them with self-serving yes men. Events continued to spiral out of control, and after years of war and shortages, poor management and an ineffective monarchy, it is actually extraordinary that the revolution didn’t happen sooner.

The Russian Revolution, at least the first one, didn’t end the war. The first Russian Revolution, in February 1917, deposed the Tsar but the Provisional Government that took his place did not want to end the war. Alexsandr Kerensky, the leader of the Provisional Government, had the makings of a political genius, and it is one of the frustrating what-ifs of the Russian Revolution to wonder what he might have achieved, but he was intent on continuing to prosecute the war. This proved to be the undoing of both the Provisional Government and Kerensky, as they underestimated just how war weary Russia was, and suffered the consequences when the Bolsheviks launched the October Revolution, promising, among other things, to end the war.  The Bolsheviks sued for peace, and the Germans forced them to sign a humiliating treaty, ending the war in the east.

A clip about the 1916 Battle of Lake Narocz on the Eastern Front is available here on the site.

[1] Massie, Robert Nicholas and Alexandra: the Fall of the Romanov Dynasty. P. 302

A Trip into the past with a Pirate

Peter Cornelius Hoof was taken captive by pirates nearly three centuries ago. But Laura Nelson has an intriguing connection to him. Here, she follows on from her first post (link here) and continues to tell Hoof’s intriguing story of capture and life on the high seas.

Of being in prison, Peter said there was never enough food or water. He was always thirsty and hungry. There were long hours of nothing to do but sit and think – think about how he would like to see his family again and how he had disappointed his father and broken his mother's heart. He thought of the sorrow he was causing them, how he should have returned to his family, and what he wouldn't give to hug his mother again and hear her voice.

 "Mr C. Pitt as the Bloodhound of the Bay", a portrait of a pirate in the Museum of London.

On 5 September 1717, unknown to the incarcerated pirates, King George I issued a royal proclamation for the suppression of piracy that included a pardon.

. . . we do hereby promise, and declare, that in Case any of the said Pyrates, shall, on or before the Fifth Day of September, in the Year of our Lord One Thousand Seven Hundred and Eighteen, surrender him or themselves, to one of our Principal Secretaries of State in Great Britain or Ireland, or to any Governor or Deputy Governor of any of our Plantations beyond the Seas; every such Pirate and Pirates so surrendering him, or themselves, as foresaid, shall have our gracious Pardon . . . (Pirate’s, 81)

This is important to note, because there is some debate as to when exactly the authorities in Boston became aware of the pardon. There is some speculation that they knew the arrival of the pardon was imminent and thus hastened the trial and execution before it did. “The proclamation was sent out to the governors in the West Indies and the American colonies, who then had the responsibility of contacting the pirates.” (Cordingly, 205) On 9 December 1717, the Boston News-Letter published the proclamation. The Whydah pirates had been tried and convicted in October.

While the pirates awaited their trial, the Reverend Cotton Mather ministered to them. The eight pirates from the Mary Anne were about the third group of pirates he had ministered to since the famous Salem witch trials of 1690. At one point during the course of these discussions, Mather noted in his diary, "Obtain a reprieve and, if it may be, a pardon for one [of the] Pyrates, who is not only more penitent, but also more innocent than the rest." (Woodard, 227) Unfortunately, inquiries into historical records in Boston failed to unearth any evidence that Mather ever took any official steps towards obtaining such a pardon, nor for which specific pirate he meant to do so.

Peter says that during one of his sessions, the Reverend Mather wrote a letter to Peter's parents for him. He told them how sorry he was for hurting them so much. He also apologized for being a bad son and for not being more dutiful to them.

During the interrogation before his trial, Peter gave exact information about the treasure aboard the Whydah:

" The money taken in the Whido, which was reported to Amount to 20000 or 30000 Pounds, was counted over in the Cabin, and put up in bags, Fifty pounds to every Man's share, there being 180 Men on Board. . . . Their Money was kept in Chests between Decks without any guard, but none was to take any without the Quarter Masters leave." (Trial, 319)

Tried alongside Peter were Simon Van Vorst, John Brown, Hendrick Quintor, John Shuan, Thomas South, and Thomas Baker. It was time for them to face the court, and what a court they faced!

His Excellency Samuel Shute Esq; Governour,

Vice Admiral, & President. The Honourable William Dummer Esq;

 Lieutenant Governour. The Honourable Elisha Hutchinson, Penn Townsend, Andrew Belcher, John Cushing, Nathaniel Norden, John Wheelwright, Benjamin Lynde, Thomas Hutchinson, and Thomas Fitch, Esqrs; of His Majesty's Council for this Province.

John Meinzies Esq; Judge of the Vice Admiralty.

Capt. Thomas Smart Commander of His Majesty's Ship of War the Squirrel, and John Jekyll Esq; Collector of the Plantation Duties. (Trial, 299)

The indictment “for Crimes of Piracy, Robbery & Felony committed on the high Sea” included several articles. First, the pirates “without lawful Cause or Warrant, in Hostile manner with Force & Arms, Piratically & Feloniously did Surprize, Assault, Invade, and Enter . . . the Mary Anne of Dublin . . . ." (Trial, 296) Second, they did "Piratically & Feloniously seize and imprison Andrew Crumpstey Master thereof . . . ." Third, they did "Piratically & Feloniously Imbezil, Spoil and Rob the cargoe of said Vessel . . . ." And fourth, they "over powered and subdued the said Master and his Crew, and made themselves Masters of the said Vessel . . . did then and there Piratically & Feloniously Steer and Direct their course after the above-named Piratical Ship, the Whido, intending to joyn and accompany the same; and thereby, to enable themselves better to pursue and accomplish their Execrable designs to oppress the Innocent, and cover the Seas with Depredations and Robberies." (Trial, 297)

After reading the indictments, the court declared "all and each of them ought to be punished by Sentences of the said Court with the pains of Death, and loss of Lands, Goods and Chattels, according to the direction of the Law, and for an Example and Terror to all others." (Trial, 297)

At this point in the trial, Simon Van Vorst asked for counsel for the pirates "that so they might be well advised on what to do." (Trial, 297) His request was granted, and one attorney, Robert Auchmuty, was appointed to defend all seven of the pirates, but after two of his motions were denied, he resigned. (Trial, 299) One of those motions was to allow Thomas Davis, a carpenter on the Whydah, to be brought in to give evidence on the pirates' behalf. The motion was rejected because Davis was also in prison for the same offense and his guilt or innocence had not yet been determined. (7) So the illiterate pirates were left to face the court alone. They all pleaded not guilty to the charges. They were given copies of the indictment and about two days to prepare for their trial. Weakened after months of confinement in a dark cell and a bread-and-water diet and compelled to stand during these proceedings, you can imagine how hard it was for any of the pirates to understand what the Advocate General was saying, much less what all of it meant. Mostly they understood that the entire proceedings were set heavily against them and they were in serious trouble.

During the trial, Peter declared in his defense that "He was taken by Capt. Bellamy in a vessel whereof John Cornelius was Master, That the said Bellamy's company Swore they would kill him unless he would joyn with them in their Unlawful Designs." (Trial, 306)

An interesting part of reading the trial transcript is that the prosecutor and witnesses have statements of one or more paragraphs, while the pirates' statements are sometimes only a sentence or two long. Obviously not much care was taken to record what each one actually said in his defense, an obvious bias by today's standards.

During their imprisonment, Blackbeard vowed to come to Boston to rescue them and actually did set out towards Boston from the West Indies. But before he had gone far, or had even left the harbor (depending on what source you read), he found out the authorities in Boston had blockaded the harbor with a man-of-war and several other ships. This represented way too much firepower for a pirate ship, so Blackbeard abandoned the rescue attempt. After the six pirates were hanged, he took out his vengeance on several ships from Boston, burning them to the waterline, cargo and all. One specific example was a ship called the Protestant Caesar, in the Bay of Honduras.

Although Peter’s trial was completed on 18 October, he and the other pirates were not hanged until 15 November 1717. All of them, except Thomas Davis, were found guilty of the crimes of piracy, robbery and felony on the High Seas. They were sentenced to be hanged until dead. Thomas Davis, a carpenter, was the only one whose plea of being a forced man was believed by the court. He was found not guilty.

In 1717 hanging was not like you see in Wild West movies where the noose is tied around the neck, a horse or wagon is kicked out from underneath the victim, his neck snaps from the force of the drop and, in a couple of minutes, he is dead. Hanging at this time was done by a method called the short drop. The noose was around the neck, but the body was only dropped a short distance, not enough to break the neck. What killed the person was the slow movement of the noose against the neck, causing a prolonged, torturous death by slow asphyxiation. The entire process took about fifteen to twenty minutes, during which time the body naturally struggled to breathe.

Hangings were a public event, attended by hordes of people, who jeered and taunted the victims. Even children were brought along to watch the victims choke to death. To get to the scaffold, the pirates walked through town to a canoe, where they were then rowed across to the mudflats at the Charlestown ferry landing to be hanged.

Cotton Mather accompanied them to the place of execution. Unfortunately, he did not record all of the conversations he had with the eight men during their several months of confinement. Aside from their interrogations before the trial, Mather only published his final conversations with them as they walked to the gallows. To add yet another unfortunate aspect to the lack of historical documents, he only wrote down these conversations after the hangings were concluded. He apparently was not accompanied by any sort of secretary or scribe to record the conversations as they happened. So their content must be seen through the filter of Mather's recollection.

He recorded his final conversation with Peter thusly:

CM: Hoof; A melted Heart would now be a comfortable Symptom upon thee. Do you find anything of it?

PH: Something of it; I wish it were more!

CM: To pursue the Good Intention, I will now give a Blow with an hammer, that breaks the Rocks to pieces. I will bring you the most Heart-melting Word, as ever was heard in the World. We find in the Sacred Scripture such a word as this; CHRIST, who is GOD, does beseech you, Be ye Reconciled unto GOD. That ever the Son of GOD should come to us, with such a Message from His Eternal Father! What? After we have so Offended His Infinite Majesty! After we have been so Vile, so Vile – and He stands in so little Need of us! To beseech such Criminals, to be Reconciled unto the Holy GOD, and be willing to be Happy in His Favour! O Wonderful! Wonderful! Methinks, it cannot be heard without flowing Tears of Joy!

PH: Ah! But what shall I do to be Reconciled unto GOD!

CM: Make an Answer, make an Echo, unto this Wonderful World of your SAVIOUR. And what can you make but this? – And for this also, you must have the Help of His Grace to make it; O my dear SAVIOUR, I beseech thee to Reconcile me unto GOD.

PH: Oh! That it might be so!

CM: A Reconciliation to GOD is the only thing that you have now to be concern’d about. If this be not accomplished before a few minutes more are Expired, you go into the Strange Punishment reserved for the Workers of Iniquity. You go, where He that made you, will not have Mercy on you; He that formed you, will shew you no favour. But it is not yet altogether Too Late. An Hearty Consent unto the Motions of the Reconciler, will prepare you to pass from an Ignominious Death, into [an] Inconceivable Glory.

PH: Oh! Let me hear them!

CM: First, You must Consent unto This; O my SAVIOUR, I fly to thy Sacrifice, I beg, I beg, that for the sake of That, thy Wrath may be turned away from me; I cannot bear to have thy Wrath Lying on me! Can you say so!

PH: I say it, I say it! CM: But then, you must Consent unto This also; O my SAVIOUR, I Cry unto thee, to take away all that is contrary to GOD in my Soul; and cause me to Love God with all my Soul; and Conquer my depraved Will; and bring to Right all that is Wrong in my Affections; and let my Will become entirely subject unto the Will of GOD in all things. Can you say so.

PH: I say it, I say it!

CM: lf it be heartily said, The Reconciliation is accomplished. But if you were to Live your Life over again, how would you Live it?

PH: Not as I have done!

CM: How then?

PH: In serving of GOD, and in doing of Good unto Men.

CM: God Accept you. Oh! That your SAVIOUR, might now say to you as He said in a Dying Hour, unto One, who died as a Thief, This Day thou shalt be with me in Paradise. I do with some Encouragement leave you in His Glorious Hands.

PH: O my dear JESUS! I lay hold on thee; and I resolve, never, never, to let thee go!

CM: May he help you to keep you hold, of the Hope set before you.

PH: My death this Afternoon is nothing 'tis nothing; 'Tis the wrath of a terrible GOD after Death abiding on me, which is all that I am afraid of.

CM: There is JESUS, who delivers from the Wrath to come; With Him I Leave you. (Mather, Instructions, 138-139)

On the scaffold, awaiting their hanging, Peter and Thomas Baker appeared “very distinguishingly Penitent.” (Mather, Instructions, 143) Nothing else is said about the appearance of the other pirates. John Brown gave a speech in “too much of the Language he had been used unto." (Mather, Instructions, 143)

No death certificate exists for Peter. Lacking burial records, modern researchers believe that after the pirates were hanged, their bodies were subsequently covered in tar and hung in gibbets near the harbor to rot and serve as a warning to sailors against becoming pirates. Absent other evidence, it would seem that this was the fate of the Whydah pirates.

Unfortunately, because of centuries of “wharfing-out,” the filling in and building up of land to extend the city farther into the harbor, it is no longer possible to walk the same ground that Peter did in 1717, as that ground simply no longer exists. The jail where he was held is long gone. The Old State House, where the trial was held, used to be almost at the harbor, but is now in the middle of downtown Boston (again because of the wharfing-out process). The building itself only vaguely resembles its original design. It has been re-purposed, restored, and re-built several times over the ensuing centuries. For example, the last time it was "re-worked," the architect installed a spiral staircase, which is not authentic to the building as the original design did not have one. Early in the 1900s the basement of the Old State House was excavated and turned into a subway stop now appropriately called the State station. It took public outcry to bring in legislation to prevent further commercialization of the building.  

While visiting Boston, I made a trip to Provincetown, on Cape Cod, to visit the Whydah Pirate Museum. There I was able to see even more artifacts of the wreck of the Whydah. I was able to touch more coins, some ballast stones, a cannon round, and a bar shot. And yes, I got the same energy drain that I experienced during the traveling Real Pirates exhibit. In fact, I almost fell over!

Through all of this, Peter has been a wonderful person to work with. He was a happy-go-lucky person before the pirates took him captive. He still has a wonderful sense of humor. He also has the manners of a gentleman, even though the class restrictions of his day prevented him from actually being one. This ability to walk in both worlds, the world of manners and the world of the pirates, allowed him to survive and function among the pirates. I hope that writing this article will help his soul to move forward as he hoped.

The lesson I wish for you to take away from this is that any one of us, even someone who considers himself or herself to be a nice person, as Peter did, can make a poor choice or a bad decision. In Peter’s case, his choices and decisions put him into a situation that he could not readily get out of. It can happen to anyone.

This article is provided by the Pirates and Privateers blog here.

If you have questions about Peter, you can contact Laura at PeterandLaura55@yahoo.com, or you can visit her blog via: PeterCorneliusHoof.blogspot.com.

Copyright 2013 by Laura Nelson.

Notes

1. Real Pirates tells the story of the Whydah and how she went from being a slave ship to a pirate ship. It’s a traveling exhibition sponsored by National Geographic with artifacts from the Whydah Pirate Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts and established by Barry Clifford, the underwater explorer who discovered the wreck of the Whydah off Cape Cod.

2. Peter Hoof is not the lover that is mentioned here. That person’s name is Andre.

3. A periaga, more commonly spelled piragua or pirogue, was a canoe favored by Caribbean pirates during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Both Alexandre Exquemelin and William Dampier described them in their books. Benerson Little provides more details on these favored boats in A Sea Rover’s Practice on pages 49-52.

4. Appointed chief physician to the Haslar Naval Hospital in 1797, Thomas Trotter observed young patients who were despondent. “He attributed this to the horror of the patients whose next bed neighbor might be a seaman hospitalized because of brutal lacerations and festering sores at the draining sites of whiplash wounds on his back and buttocks.” (Friedenberg, 31) The United States Navy abolished flogging in 1840.

5. Nowadays we call this phenomenon the Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages or captives identify with their captors and perhaps even to defend them. The name derives from a 1973 hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of six days of captivity in a bank, several kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts and afterwards refused to testify against their captors. The behavior is considered a common survival strategy for victims of interpersonal abuse. Two of the most famous examples are Patty Hearst and, more recently, Elizabeth Smart. See "Understanding Stockholm Syndrome" by Nathalie de Fabrique, Stephen J. Romano, Gregory M. Vecchi, and Vincent B. Van Hasselt in the July 2007 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, US Dept. of Justice, FBI, 76:7, 10-15.

6. Eastham is on Cape Cod.

7. Davis was tried separately and found not guilty.

Further information

Burgess, Robert F. Finding Sunken Treasure: True Story of the Pirate Ship Whydah. Spyglass Publications, 2012.

Clifford, Barry. Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World's First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her. Cliff Street Books, 1999.

Clifford, Barry, and Kenneth J. Kinkor. Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. National Geographic, 2007.

Cordingly, David. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Random House, 2006.

Dana, Richard Henry. Two Years Before the Mast. Penguin Books, 1840.

Dethlefsen, Edwin. Whidah: Cape Cod's Mystery Treasure Ship. Seafarer's Heritage Library, 1984. Friedenberg, Zachary B. Medicine under Sail. Naval Institute Press, 2002.

Lee, Robert E. Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times. John F. Blair, 1974. Mather, Cotton. "Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead" in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 4: 129-144.

Mather, Cotton. “Warnings to Them that Make Haste to be Rich, in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 4: 145-153.

The Pirate’s Pocket-Book edited by Stuart Robertson. Conway, 2008.

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Beacon Press, 2005. Reynard, Elizabeth. "The ‘Pyrats’ and the Posse," in The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod. Chatham Historical Society, 1993.

"The Trials of Eight Persons lndited for Piracy" in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 2: 289-319. Vallar, Cindy.

 "Cotton Mather, Preacher to the Pirates" at Pirates & Privateers [http://www.cindyvallar.com/mather.html], 2009.

Vanderbilt, Arthur T. Treasure Wreck: The Fortunes and Fate of the Pirate Ship Whydah. Schiffler Publishing, 2007.

Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Harcourt, 2007.

Special thanks to Bonnie Cormier of the Eastham Historical Society and Jessy Wheeler of the Boston Public Library for research help. Also to Cefton Springer for the stories of the use of the cat-o'-nine-tails in Barbados (his home country).

Thomas Jefferson – The President who re-wrote the Gospels

Thomas Jefferson is today known as one of America’s greater presidents. So much so that both Democrats and Republicans claim him as their own. But he also undertook another remarkable feat – he re-wrote the Gospels to make them less miraculous. William Bodkin explains.

Few people in American history have been picked over as much as Thomas Jefferson. Of the Founding Fathers, he is considered second only to George Washington, and of the presidents, only Abraham Lincoln may have had more written about him. This is all with good reason. Jefferson, alongside John Adams, formed the original American frenemies; together they forged the creative relationship that gave birth to the United States. Their influence, and conflicts, remain to this day. The United States runs for political office in the language of Jefferson, that of personal freedom and self-determination, but governs in the language of Adams, that of a technocratic elite managing a strong central government.

A portrait of Thomas Jefferson. Circa 1791.

In my last post, I considered John Adams’ Declaration of Independence, the May 15, 1776 resolution he believed to be the real Declaration, consigning Jefferson’s to a mere ceremonial afterthought.[1] Adams, eyes firmly locked on posterity, seemed to compete for immortality with Jefferson. However, despite recent efforts to rehabilitate the image of the second president, Adams, who knew he had made himself obnoxious to his colleagues[2], has largely lost this battle.

Jefferson, by contrast, is beloved as the genius Founding Father whom everyone claims as their own.  The Democrats revere him for founding their party, one of the oldest in the world. The Republicans, and the tea party movement in particular, love to quote his language of personal freedom and revolution, like invoking his statement that “the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.”[3] All agree that his “ceremonial afterthought” should be celebrated for all time.

And yet, though he has won history’s affections, there’s an excellent chance Jefferson would be irritated by being worshiped or followed today.  After all, Jefferson had “sworn eternal hostility” against “any form of tyranny over the mind of man,”[4] believing that one generation of humanity could not bind another with its ideas, or even its laws. Jefferson said that it was “self-evident” that “the earth belongs to the living.”[5] Indeed, were he alive today, he would probably encourage us to discard things such as the “original intent” of the Founding Fathers much in the same way he discarded the work of the Evangelists who wrote the Christian Gospels.

REWRITING THE GOSPELS

Jefferson was not known for his devotion to religion. Abigail Adams wrote, after Jefferson had defeated her husband John Adams for the presidency, that the young nation had “chosen as our chief Magistrate a man who makes no pretensions to the belief of an all wise and supreme Governor of the World.” Mrs. Adams did not think Jefferson was an atheist. Rather, Jefferson believed religion to only be as “useful as it may be made a political Engine” and that its rituals were a mere charade. Mrs. Adams concluded that Jefferson was “not a believer in the Christian system.”[6]

Jefferson, who always professed a high regard for the teachings of Jesus, found the Gospels to be “defective as a whole,” with Jesus’ teachings “mutilated, misstated, and often unintelligible.”[7] Jefferson seemed most offended by the accounts of miracles. The Gospels could be improved, he concluded, by removing the magical thinking - that is, anything that could not be explained by human reason.

Following his presidency, Jefferson reconciled with John Adams once Adams had recovered from the bitter sting of presidential defeat. Jefferson confided in his old friend about the project he had undertaken to rewrite the Gospels. Jefferson wrote to Adams that “by cutting verse by verse out of the printed book,” he was able to separate out “the matter which is evidently his (Jesus’),” which Jefferson found to be “as distinguishable as diamonds in a dunghill.”[8] Adams responded favorably to Jefferson’s project, commenting “if I had eyes and nerves I would go through both Testaments and mark all that I understand.”[9]

Jefferson, though, was not finished. He believed the effort he described to Adams was “too hastily done”.  It had been “the work of one or two evenings only, while I lived in Washington.”[10] Think, for a moment, how astounding that is. Jefferson’s first effort at reworking the Gospels came while he “lived in Washington,” meaning while he was president. So for fun, after steering the American ship of state, he rewrote the Gospels.

A NEW WAY OF THINKING

While working on his second Gospel revision, Jefferson described his complete disdain for the Evangelists. He found their work to be underpinned by “a groundwork of vulgar ignorance, of things impossible, of superstitions, fanaticisms and fabrications.” Yet he still believed that “intermixed with these” were “sublime ideas of the Supreme Being”, “aphorisms and precepts of the purest morality and benevolence,” that had been “sanctioned by a life of humility, innocence and simplicity of manners, neglect of riches, absence of worldly ambition and honors.” All had been expressed, by Jesus, “with an eloquence and persuasiveness which have not been surpassed.” Jefferson could not accept that Jesus’ purest teachings were the “inventions of the groveling authors who relate them.” Those teachings were “far beyond the powers of their feeble minds.” Yes, the Evangelists had shown that there was a character named Jesus, but his “splendid conceptions” could not be considered “interpolations from their hands.” To Jefferson, the task was clear once more. He would “undertake to winnow this grain from its chaff.”  It would not “require a moment's consideration”, as the difference “is obvious to the eye and to the understanding.”[11]

At the end of this process, Jefferson, in his seventy-sixth year, had completed his Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth, extracted from the Gospels in Greek, Latin, French & English, an account of the life of Jesus, bereft of any mention of the miraculous. No wedding feast at Cana, no resurrection of Lazarus, and ending with the disciples laying Jesus in the tomb, rolling a great stone to the door, and then departing.

Jefferson’s rewriting of the Gospels is a perfect distillation of his belief that each generation could take and shape the meaning of the Gospels, or really, anything, for their own purposes. Jefferson took these beliefs to his gravestone. Prior to his death, he chose to list there, of all his accomplishments, his three great contributions to the freedom of thought: “Author of the Declaration of American Independence and the Virginia Statutes on Religious Freedom; Father of the University of Virginia.” Jefferson hoped, perhaps, to inspire successive generations not to follow his words, but rather, to live by his example, and cast off the intellectual bonds of the past in order to create a new way of thinking.

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[1] See, Ellis, Joseph, Revolutionary Summer: The Birth of American Independence, Chapter 1 , “Prudence Dictates.” (Knopf 2013).

[2] Id.

[3] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to William Stephens Smith, Novmeber 13, 1787.

[4] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to Dr. Benjamin Rush, September 23, 1800.

[5] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, September 6, 1789

[6] Letter of Abigail Adams to Mary Cranch (her sister) dated February 7, 1801.

[7] Jefferson, Thomas. “Syllabus of an estimate of the merit of the Doctrines of Jesus, compared with those of others.” College of William and Mary, Digital Archive (https://digitalarchive.wm.edu/handle/10288/15130).

[8]Letter of Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, October 13, 1813.

[9] Letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson, November 14, 1813.

[10] Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Rev. F.A. van der Kemp, May 25, 1816.

[11] Letter of Thomas Jefferson to William Short, August 4, 1820.

The 3 most bizarre Tanks ever

Tanks have been integral to armies since World War One. But over the years a number of prototype designs have been made that never quite worked. Here, Adrian Burrows tells us about the most bizarre tank designs…

Since the Great War the mighty tank has formed the mainstay of any skilled (or unskilled) military commander’s army. The tank started its military career from fairly inauspicious beginnings.  Originally called ‘Landships’ - this name didn’t stick as military bods were concerned that such an overly descriptive title might give away what their secret weapon was to the enemy, so the name ‘tank’ was instead adopted - the tank really hasn’t changed a great deal in its design or function since its first use in battle. Yes, advances in technology have rendered a modern tank a distant relative to the first tank prototype (fondly named as ‘Little Willie’ by the British Military) but it still remains a relative nonetheless.

The classic image of a tank is of a hulking and box like central chassis, the twin caterpillar tracks either side in order to propel its vast form forward over any and all terrain, and a rotating turret to provide a 360 degree field of fire. Perhaps the core tenants of tank design haven’t changed because the initial concept was just so effective. Why try to fix what isn’t broken? Well, that didn’t stop people from trying. Allow me to present to you the top three weirdest tank prototypes of all time.

3. The Russian Tsar Tank

Caterpillar tracks are brilliantly effective at moving big heavy tanks across difficult terrain. Indeed, they were initially designed in order to allow tanks to climb up and over the trench-laden terrain of the Western Front. Yet, as thought by the Russian boffins Nikolai Lebedenko, Nikolai Zhukovsky, Boris Stechkin and Alexander Mikulin, if caterpillar tracks are great then surely two giant bicycle wheels would be awesome.

That was the primary design decision behind the Russian Tsar Tank - and what a sight it must have been. Each giant spoked wheel attached to the central hub of the chassis was a massive 27 feet in diameter, the idea being that such a vast wheel would be able to plough through any obstacles in its path (and the two 250 horse power Sunbeam engines would certainly help with that). The tank was ready for war armed with a giant 8-meter high cannon turret and plans for further cannons to be attached to the tank’s frame. The central casing itself was a massive 12 meters wide with thick armor to protect the soldiers inside. So far so good? Why on earth didn’t the Russian Tsar Tank take off?

Its Achilles heel turned out to be the small stabilizing wheel at the rear of the tank (giving it its tricycle appearance). During the first test run through a field the stabilizing wheel became firmly entrenched in a patch of mud. The entire mighty form of the Tsar Tank became rooted to the spot, making it a major target that resembled a giant penny-farthing. After the abysmal test run the tank never saw active service and remained stuck exactly where it was until the end of the war.

2. Ball Tank

Texan Inventor AJ Richardson had a noble goal, how best to ensure men could quickly and safely cover the distance of a mud and crater strewn No Man’s Land in order to close in on an enemy position? The answer he came up with? A giant metal ball. This mighty metal ball of death could not only protect the troops within it, but being spherical it could also outmaneuver anything else on the battlefield. The project was never developed due to one small problem that scientists at the time could not overcome… there was no way that the troops within could see outside of the tank. In theory though, it would have been amazing.

1. Antonov A-40 Krylya Tanka (Tank Wings)

Tanks are big and powerful but slow and cumbersome. If somehow their maneuverability could be increased then surely nothing could stand in their path as they rapidly out flanked the enemy’s position. The logical conclusion to this quandary? Invent a tank that can fly.

And that’s exactly what Oleg Antonov set about doing in 1942. A T-60 Light Tank (light being 5.8 tons) went on a crash diet under Antonov’s watchful eye by removing the vehicle’s armor, weaponry and headlights. The T-60 was also provided with a limited amount of fuel in order to decrease its total weight yet further. What was the next step? Attach some wings to the tank of course. Yes, they were literally stuck to the side of the tank, transforming it into the world’s most unlikely glider. The final step was to utilize a Tupolev TB-3 plane to lift the tank gently in to the air; once the plane had reached a sufficient height and speed, the prototype could be released, allowing it to glide majestically into battle.

Did it work? I would love to say yes, but no, no it didn’t.

Remarkably no one died in the experiment. The TB-3 had to ditch the tank in mid-flight due to the massive drag it caused, but apparently the T-60 did glide back down to earth before being driven back to base. This initial set back didn’t put off the Soviet Union. Over the next twenty years the country was able to develop the necessary techniques and equipment to para-drop BMD-1 vehicles with its crew on board.

So, that’s my top 3 most bizarre tank prototypes of all time. Tanks with bicycle wheels, ball tanks, tanks that can fly… the weird and the wonderful. Perhaps your list would differ? If so I would love to read your top 3. There’s plenty to consider after all. Those that just missed out on a place in my top three include the Russian Screw Drive Tank that couldn’t go in a straight line and the British Praying Mantis Tank intended to shoot over obstacles. Both fine ideas ruined by issues of common sense. But then that’s what makes them so brilliantly barmy. Until next time!

Adrian Burrows works at Wicked Workshops, an organization that prepares great history workshops. Find out more about a World War One related workshop here.

Do you know a weird and wonderful tank? If so, let us know below...

What really happened in the Wild West? The Gunslinger Myth

The Wild West of nineteenth century America was at times a chaotic and unruly place, not helped by the lack of law enforcement officials. Even so, many myths have arisen about the period. Here, Robert Walsh debunks the myths and shares what really happened.

The Wild West was the home of many colorful (often disreputable) characters. Native Americans, gold prospectors, gamblers, cattle ranchers, miners and immigrants scrambled to extend the new frontier. They spread further West in search of their fortunes. With law-abiding, hard-working citizens came criminals. The most notorious were gunslingers, hired guns who would rob a bank one month, protect a cattle baron the next and then be hired as a town marshal the month after that. Being a gunslinger didn’t automatically make a man a criminal; some of the best known were both law enforcers and lawbreakers at different times.

A stylized version of a Wild West gunfight.

Gunslingers in popular culture

The popular image of gunslingers comes from cheap novels and films and it is far more fiction than fact. Hollywood would have us believe that hired guns were either all good (like Gary Cooper’s portrayal in the classic film ‘High Noon’) or all bad (like Michael Biehn’s portrayal of Johnny Ringo in ‘Tombstone’). This black-and-white idea doesn’t reflect reality. Pop culture’s image is often a slow-talking, fast-drawing lone gunman riding into town, taking on several men at once while wearing one or two pistols in low-slung hip holsters and, naturally, letting them draw first before instantly killing all of them. He’ll probably indulge in a drawn-out, climactic gunfight, standing opposite his opponent in the middle of a street for several minutes, each waiting for the other to make the first move. The ‘good guy’ lets the ‘bad guy’ draw first but still wins, naturally.

This portrayal is, frankly, grossly inaccurate. Gunslingers weren’t even called gunslingers during the ‘Wild West’ period. They didn’t wear the standard ‘gunfighter’s rig’ of a low-slung hip holster tied to their thigh for a faster draw. Many didn’t favor the pistol as their primary weapon. Drawn-out standoffs were almost non-existent, as were single gunslingers choosing to fight multiple opponents single-handed unless they absolutely had to. Few made public show of their skills with trick shooting or fancy pistol twirling in saloons or on street corners (notable exceptions were ‘Wild Bill’ Hickok and the infamous John Wesley Hardin). They were seldom always lawmen or outlaws and frequently both at different points in their careers (some even managed to hold public office as sheriffs or marshals while operating as vigilantes, assassins, extortioners and general criminals). Pop culture’s version of the gunslinger hasn’t made them more interesting; it has dumbed down who these men were, what they did and how they did it while ignoring the more complex aspects.

‘Shootists’ – The reality

According to etymologist Barry Popik the word ‘gunslinger’ didn’t come into use until the 1920 movie ‘Drag Harlan’ and then in the novels of famed Western author Zane Grey who first used it in his 1928 novel ‘Nevada’. The word ‘gunfighter’ first appeared in the 1870s. Wild West gunmen were more commonly known as ‘shootists’, ‘badmen’, ‘pistoleers’ or ‘pistoleros’ (a Spanish word for ‘gunman’). Granted, the word ‘gunslinger’ sounds good, but it first appeared long after gunslingers themselves ceased to exist. Feared gunman Clay Allison is believed to have coined the most popular term of the period when asked about his occupation by replying “I’m a shootist.”

Pop culture would also have us believe that gunmen wore customized gunbelts and holsters, the standard ‘gunfighter’s rig’. They didn’t. The stereotypical ‘gunfighter’s rig’ beloved of movie directors the world over didn’t exist during the period. It came into being in the 1950s when ‘quick draw’ contests with blank-firing revolvers became a competitive sport. The low-slung holster tied down to a man’s thigh simply didn’t exist.

Also almost non-existent was the idea of two fighters walking out into a street, facing each other and then fighting a ‘quick draw’ duel. If a real gunfighter drew quickly it was usually because an opponent had tried to ambush him. Most one-on-one gunfights resulted from personal disputes such as over women or during card games where insults were exchanged and guns drawn immediately. The idea of Wild West gunfights having any resemblance to European dueling is best left in dime novels and movie theaters where it belongs. Only two such face-to-face duels are on record as having actually happened, between ‘Wild Bill’ and Davis Tutt (Hickok killed Tutt with a remarkable single pistol shot at a range of over fifty meters) and between Jim Courtright and Luke Short (Short killed Courtright with a volley of four bullets, not a surgically-delivered single shot). Gunfights like those in the ‘Spaghetti Westerns’ directed by Sergio Leone are wonderful viewing, but bear almost no relation to reality.

Gunfighters of the time were also far more sensible than to tackle multiple opponents single-handed unless they absolutely had to. One extremely rare example was the notorious ‘Four dead in five seconds’ gunfight in Austin, Texas. Gunfighter Dallas Stoudenmire (employed as town marshal at the time) used his two pistols to kill four men, three of whom had ambushed him. Unfortunately the fourth was an innocent bystander already running for cover when the shooting started.

Tools of the trade

Another myth is that gunfighters all preferred revolvers. In films they draw one or two pistols, empty them without seeming to aim and, naturally, kill every opponent without missing or accidentally shooting anybody else. Any pistol marksman will tell you that holding a revolver with one hand and fanning the hammer with the other is the worst way to shoot accurately. In reality, most gunmen favored the ‘coach gun’ (a short-barreled shotgun used by stagecoach guards, hence the phrase ‘riding shotgun’) or rifles like the 1873 Winchester. Legendary gunman Ben Thompson was a firm devotee of the shotgun, as was John ‘Doc’ Holliday’ of OK Corral fame. Billy the Kid always preferred a Winchester rifle. The reason was simple. Shotguns and rifles are more accurate than pistols so killing with the first shot was more likely. It was pointless drawing a pistol quickly if you couldn’t hit your target before they hit you. As Wyatt Earp once put it: “Fast is fine. Accurate is final.”

Some gunfighters bucked that trend. Clay Allison, Dallas Stoudenmire and Frank and Jesse James all preferred pistols, but they were exceptions. Small pistols like the Derringer were tiny, often firing only one or two shots instead of the six rounds in a typical revolver. They were easily concealed ‘hideout guns’ often hidden in waistcoat pocket or by gamblers for use at a poker table. Similar guns were made for women and nicknamed ‘muff pistols’ because they were often carried in the fur-lined hand-warmers fashionable among women of the time. Whether picking a fight over a poker game or trying to rob a female stagecoach passenger, these small guns often fired large-caliber bullets, much to the distress of many an outlaw.

As time went on single-shot, muzzle-loading weapons were replaced by ‘repeating’ guns like the revolver, shotgun and breech-loading rifles such as the 1873 Winchester. Gunfighters now had weapons enabling them to deliver greater firepower with less time spent reloading their weapons. Samuel Colt’s ‘Peacemaker’ revolver was accurate, powerful and instantly outdated other revolvers by being the first to use all-inclusive metal cartridges. The new cartridges rendered old-school ‘cap and ball’ revolvers obsolete almost overnight. These require the user to fill each individual chamber with gunpowder, add a lead pistol ball and some wadding, ram the ball, powder and wadding into each chamber using a lever under the barrel and then fit a percussion cap over each chamber. Only then is a ‘cap and ball’ revolver fully loaded. The ‘Peacemaker’ could be reloaded simply by shaking out the spent metal cartridges and replacing them. Improved weapons meant increased firepower. Increased firepower was essential in the evolution of the gunslinger.

‘Wild Bill’ Hickok, the first legendary gunslinger, in the 1870s.

Rise of the hired gun

So what created the gunslinger? Why was there a need for hired guns rather than the police forces we know today? In a word, necessity. Law enforcement was at best basic. Individual US marshals could find their territory extended over hundreds of square miles. County sheriffs had the same problem. There was simply too much ground containing too many people for such limited law enforcement to deal with. Outlaws could easily evade even the most persistent marshals and sheriffs simply by crossing State lines, putting themselves beyond the legal jurisdiction of their pursuers. The court system on the frontier consisted largely of ‘Circuit Judges’ (a term still used today). Individual judges were allotted a ‘circuit’ of towns and rode round and round conducting trials and any other legal business that had amassed since their last visit. Jails were insecure and their staff often corrupt, so even when criminals were arrested they often easily escaped. Authorities could also offer rewards for wanted outlaws on a ‘dead or alive’ basis, encouraging many gunslingers to work as bounty hunters. With rewards offered ‘dead or alive’ many bounty hunters found it safer to simply kill wanted outlaws, deliver their bodies and collect their reward. It was safer than the additional risks associated with delivering live outlaws into custody for the same amount of money. Bounty hunters of the time were sometimes referred to as ‘bounty killers’ because, to them, fugitives were worth the same alive or dead.

The gunfighter - Hero or villain?

With the vastly inadequate official systems available, many towns hired their own sheriffs and marshals. Naturally, the job required men who were expert with guns and bold enough to fight when necessary. Not every expert marksman was also prepared to face ruthless criminals for a sheriff’s wage. So townsfolk often turned to whoever was prepared to do the job, often hiring gunfighters based on their fearsome reputation rather than their regard for the law. Notorious outlaws ‘Curly Bill’ Brocius (later killed by Wyatt Earp) and William Bonney (known as ‘Billy the Kid’) were also sheriff’s deputies at one time. Even the infamous John ‘Doc’ Holliday, one of the most feared gunmen of the Wild West, was deputized by his long-time friend and Deputy US Marshal Wyatt Earp after the famed ‘Gunfight at the OK Corral’ in Tombstone, Arizona. Equally notorious killer Ben Thompson became Chief of Police in Austin, Texas, despite having previously served a sentence for murder.

Businessmen also hired groups of gunslingers to protect their lives and their interests. Famed cattle baron John Chisum once employed ‘Billy the Kid’ as a gunman to protect his livestock against cattle rustlers. Mining companies often employed notorious gunmen such as Butch Cassidy to escort shipments of newly minted bullion and payrolls, ensuring their safe arrival by hiring gunmen who might otherwise try robbing those very shipments. In the absence of adequate official law enforcement many people sought their own version by employing as sheriffs and marshals exactly the kind of people they hoped to be protected from. Famed marksman Tom Horn (later hanged for murder) was a sheriff’s deputy and a Pinkerton detective while performing contract murders at the same time. Jim Courtright was a town marshal when he fought his famous duel with Luke Short. Being town marshal hadn’t stopped Courtright from trying to extort Short. It didn’t stop Courtright killing him, either. Wyatt Earp was heavily involved in gambling (and, some say, pimping) while also serving as a Deputy US Marshal.

Men of dubious reputations weren’t everybody’s first choice as law enforcers, but then they were often the only men available to do the job. The frontier territories, with their cattle ranches, mining towns, railroads and various other lucrative businesses and limited law enforcement, offered rich pickings for outlaws prepared to rob, extort and kill anybody opposing them. Law-abiding citizens had to hire their own gunmen and sometimes resort to vigilante justice through lynch mobs. Until the law was fully established the gun took precedence.

One last thought on the gunslinger myth is that pop culture isn’t entirely to blame. To develop and keep their credibility gunmen had to be regarded as people to both respect and fear. The more feared they were, the fewer challenges they were likely to face. With that in mind, many gunfighters built myths around themselves and made themselves seem as skilled (and therefore deadly) as they could get away with. John Wesley Hardin was a notorious braggart. Clay Allison was the same. If gunfighters are so badly misrepresented in the modern world then they are also to blame.

Did you find this article interesting? If so, tell the world! Like it, share it, or tweet about it by clicking on one of the buttons below.

References

http://www.barrypopik.com/index.php/texas/entry/gunslinger_or_gun_slinger/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHt6i5Wi02s

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/we-outlaws.html

http://www.historynet.com/wild-west-outlaws-and-lawmen

http://www.elpasotimes.com/125/ci_3767809

http://www.historynet.com/dalton-gang

http://www.legendsofamerica.com/WE-BatMasterson5.html

Image sources

http://www.modernmythmuseum.com/m%20saga%203%2055%20holliday.html

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wild_Bill_Hickok#mediaviewer/File:Wild_Bill.jpg

A personal journey with a pirate

Peter Cornelius Hoof was taken captive by pirates nearly three centuries ago. But Laura Nelson has an intriguing connection to him. Here, she tells Hoof’s intriguing story of capture and life on the high seas.

My interest in Peter Cornelius Hoof began when I attended the Real Pirates Exhibit in Denver, Colorado, in June 2011. (1) Like many people, found the exhibit fascinating and came away with two books about piracy and what I thought, at the time, was a new interest in pirates. While reading these books, I became conscious of Peter Hoof and began to have a particular interest in him. Why his name leapt out at me from the pages of these books, I do not know. I may never know. All I know is that it happened, and my life has been enriched ever since.

At one point in the exhibit, there was a display where visitors could actually touch coins from the wreck of the Whydah. While touching them, I felt a whooshing sensation and a drain of energy. I put it down to having been in the exhibit for a long time with no food or water. I just figured I must be really hungry and, once I got something to eat, I would feel better.

During the next month, I did a lot of research on pirates. They were definitely a new obsession. Not only was I doing a lot of research, I wrote about them, too! I had done some writing while in college, but following graduation I never seemed to write for more than a paragraph or two. After attending the exhibit, my dreams involved sequences of events surrounding pirates. When I wrote down the most recent sequence, the events in the dreams moved forward. Neither the writing nor the dreams was sequential. There was, however, one common theme: a pirate with brown hair and eyes, who either sought me out or appeared out of nowhere to protect me from a dangerous situation.

A month after my first visit, I returned to the exhibit. The second visit was in some ways more amazing than the first. When I approached the coin display, I discovered that, conveniently, no one else was around. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and asked if I had a connection to the wreck. I touched all of the coins, one or two at a time. Toward the end, a voice told me I was not on the Whydah, but that I lost a lover in the wreck. (2) Then I experienced the same whooshing sensation and drain of energy I had felt the first time I touched the coins.

About a month after my second visit to the exhibit, I chanced to run across a medium, who did past life regression, at a county fair in Denver. I told her what had been happening to me, and she confirmed I was not a pirate myself, but that I did know many of them. Several members of my immediate family left with the pirates, which angered me because I was a female in that past life and thus could not go with them.

During a second session with the medium in December 2011, Peter asked me to tell his story. His soul was stuck and telling his story would help him to move forward and go on. So I told his story to several people, but had a feeling while doing so that this was not the way to go. One friend said that even if it wasn't a best seller, I had to get his story out there. On that day, the idea for this article was born. Peter was not a captain among the pirates, but he was hanged for piracy, and for that reason his name is recorded in the record books.

As part of his interrogation before his trial, on 6 May 1717, Peter stated:

That he was born in Sweden, is about 34 Years old, and left his Country 18 Years ago. He Sail’d for the most part with the Dutch on the coast of Portobello, and has been with the Pirates fourteen Months. When he was taken by Bellamy in a Periaga, he belong’d to a Ship whereof one Cornelison was Master . . . (Trial, 318) (3)

At the time Peter was taken captive, Sam Bellamy still sailed with a pirate named Benjamin Hornigold, who sailed in consort with the French pirate, Louie Labous (also known as Olivier Levasseur or La Buse). La Buse got the nickname of "The Buzzard" for the swift and merciless way he had of attacking his victims.

Peter was considered to be “[a]mong the most prized of the new recruits.” (Clifford, 137) His previous seventeen years of sailing along the Spanish Main provided him with extensive knowledge of the southern Caribbean, and greatly added to the pirate’s navigational knowledge.

A lot of you are fairly familiar with how pirates in the Golden Age took captives. They came upon a boat swiftly and used methods calculated to instill the maximum amount of fear in their targets. Imagine the scene: A large number of armed, screaming pirates come pouring over the side of your vessel after firing a shot across the bow of the ship. The captain of your ship has only put up a paltry defense and stopped his ship based on the theory that giving in to the pirates will prevent them from doing any more damage than is necessary to passengers and crew. You are forced into a corner and made to kneel to reduce the chance of you retaliating.

Sailors in these days were poorly paid, some as little as a few shillings a month, so you have next to no personal possessions to speak of. Now the little that you own is in jeopardy of being taken away by the pirates.

Then the captain of your vessel is forced to relate the skills and marital status of each member of the crew. Some volunteer to join the pirates, wanting a life of lawlessness and plundering.

But not all go willingly. You are forced to accompany the pirates because of your knowledge and experience. You do not wish to join them, but your feelings in the matter are not considered. On the pirate vessel you are considered a prisoner. All of the status you spent your life working for is now gone. These people are not your friends. You have left behind the life you knew and the friends you made.

That night, you are lifted to your feet, blindfolded, and marched to you know not where. When the blindfold is torn off, you face a sort of tribunal of the most senior of the pirates. Keep in mind that on the old sailing vessels the areas below decks were poorly lit, so you cannot see well.

You face this tribunal alone. They sit behind a table. The rest of the pirates are amassed behind you, so there is no escape. If you refuse to sign the articles, you will be shot and your body will be summarily disposed of in the sea. So you sign, because you wish to live and have no alternative. After you sign, you realize that your life as you have known it is over and you feel as though you have made a deal with the devil.

During interrogation before their trial in Boston, Massachusetts, one of the Whydah pirates, John Brown, testified that Peter “was once whip’d for attempting to Run-away . . .”. (Trial, 318) In his examination, Simon Van Vorst relates that while on the island of St. Croix, “ (3) of their Men Ran away, and one of them being brought back was severely whipped.” (Trial, 319) But he did not give specific names.

The impression I got from Peter was that he felt this was his last chance to escape the pirates and return to his normal life. I also got the impression that at the "advanced" age of thirty-four, he wanted to return to a relationship with someone he had met in the past.

Flogging (whipping) in Peter's time was done with a cat-o'-nine-tails, a device with a handle and nine ropes, usually with a piece of lead at the end of each one to tear the skin. All descriptions I have seen of this punishment describe it as being excruciatingly painful.

During my next session with the medium, Peter described some of the ordeal: " After they were through whipping me, I could not move on my own. I slumped to the deck, helpless, tears streaming from my eyes, my throat raw from screaming, my body shaking uncontrollably with the pain. Eventually, someone took pity on me and picked me up, taking me to a dark quiet place where I was lucky that there was a doctor on board who cared enough to clean and stitch me up. My hands continued trembling for a long time; the pain is tremendous. I laid there nearly unmoving for three days. I had to be helped to the head and brought food. It was agony to eat. Eventually I was able to move on my own again, slowly at first, to keep the wounds from opening. I was lucky and my wounds did not become infected."

According to Thomas Trotter’s observations of flogging victims, "such whipped patients were so psychologically disturbed that they frequently went into fits of hysteria, weeping, and delirium, while the other men in the wards silently looked on and wept in sympathy, and finally turned their heads away." (Friedenberg, 31) (4)

Peter told me that he eventually became a pirate, but he did not torture or beat any prisoners or captives and did not approve of the pirates' treatment of women. The lesson he wished for me to take away from his experience was that you can do something bad, but not necessarily participate in every aspect of the bad thing.

Some pirate historians doubt that men were pressed into serving on pirate ships. Some insist they only pretended to be forced to hide the fact that they actually wanted to go with the pirates and share in the booty and freedom of the pirate lifestyle. Claiming to have been pressed was a common plea by those accused of piracy at their trials. During his interrogation, Peter stated that "[n]o married men were forced" (Trial, 319), which to me means that some men must have been pressed, otherwise why be concerned about whether or not a man was married? Unfortunately, the transcript gives only his responses, and not what the actual questions were. Also, the interrogations were written down after the fact.

In further defense of the idea that men were pressed into piracy, John Brown said, "there were about 50 Men forced, over whom the Pirates kept a watchful eye . . . ." He then goes on to say that "[t]he names of the forc[e]d Men were put in the watch Bill and fared as others"; meaning they were on the ship's duty roster and did the same shipboard tasks as the pirates. (Trial, 318)

But consider the situation: you have a person, forcibly taken from his job and his friends. He is threatened with death if he does not "sign on" as a pirate, and bullied and belittled by nearly everyone aboard. Peter testified during the trial, "Bellamy’s Company Swore they would kill him unless he would joyn with them in their Unlawful designs." (Trial, 306) (5)

When Peter was taken captive, Sam Bellamy was sailing as a member of Benjamin Hornigold's crew. Bellamy had joined Hornigold to learn the ropes of piracy. At the time of Peter's capture, Sam had taken it upon himself to attack Peter's ship while Hornigold was away getting supplies.

Three weeks after Peter was taken, a difference arose amongst Hornigold's crew about whether or not to attack English ships. Hornigold did not wish to attack them, but Sam and others felt they were missing out on too many potentially lucrative targets. Following pirate tradition, the entire crew voted. Sam was elected captain and sailed away with half of the crew and some captives. Hornigold went his own way with the dissenting pirates, including a man named Edward Teach, who would later become known as Blackbeard.

Bellamy and his crew of pirates traveled through Baya Honda, Cape Corrientes, and the Isle of Pines, then around to the eastern tip of Cuba. From June to August 1716, they were on the north coast of what is now Haiti. In September, they were in the area of present-day Puerto Rico. In October, they sailed from Samana Bay to Cape Nicholas, Hispaniola.

Around November or December 1716, Bellamy captured a galley called Sultana in the vicinity of St. Croix. With a few "piratical" alterations, he made her his new flagship. In January 1717, La Buse and his crew decided to leave Bellamy's company and head in another direction. Their parting was friendly.

Early in March, Bellamy was made aware of, either by unknown sources or by spotting, the Whydah, which was setting out on her return voyage to England after making the trip from Africa and the Caribbean (the "Middle Passage") to buy and sell slaves. Bellamy, who was seeking a "Ship of Force" so he could take larger prizes, pursued her. (Trial, 319) Peter's extensive knowledge of the South Caribbean was instrumental to the success of this pursuit, which lasted three days.

Once they caught up to the Whydah, Bellamy only had to fire one or two shots across her bow to make Captain Lawrence Prince surrender. After taking over the ship, Bellamy allowed Captain Prince and some of his men who did not wish to become pirates to sail away in the Sultana with a few provisions and some silver and gold. After taking a few days to re-fit the Whydah to suit the purposes of pirating, Bellamy continued sailing, turning towards the east coast of America.

Around 9:00 a.m. on 26 April 1717, Bellamy and his crew captured a ship called the Mary Anne. Seven names, including Peter's, were read off the watch bill and these were the men sent to board the prize. Five were armed with pistols and cutlasses. They took charge of the ship while sending five of her crew and captain to the Whydah to show Captain Bellamy their papers and be held as prisoners. The remaining crew members were kept on board Mary Anne to help sail the ship.

The pirates soon learned that her hold was loaded with casks of Madeira, however the hatch was covered with heavy cables, making it too difficult for them to get into right then. The pirates had to content themselves with some wine they found in the cabins. A second small boat came over from the Whydah to get some wine to take back there. They also took some of the crew's clothes.

Around 3PM, fog started to settle around the flotilla. This, in addition to being drunk, caused the pirates to have trouble following Bellamy's order to follow the Whydah and keep the vessels together. During the course of the evening, as the weather deteriorated, seven of the eight pirates aboard the Mary Anne worked on moving the cables off of the hatch to get at the Madeira in the hold. Once inside, they broke open the first barrels while taking turns at the helm.

Realizing the Mary Anne was falling behind, Bellamy slacked off long enough to allow them to catch up. He yelled at the pirates to "make more haste." In response, John Brown swore he would make the vessel "carry Sail till she carryed her Masts away." (Trial, 303)

The pirates then ordered their captives to help handle the sails and man the pumps, because the hull of the Mary Anne was leaking. By the time darkness fell, the helm was completely turned over to one captive, Thomas Fitzgerald. The storm was in full force by 10:00 p.m. Twenty to thirty-foot seas battered the Mary Anne. Eventually they lost sight of the Whydah, and found themselves among the breakers where the ship ran aground.

At this point, one or several of the pirates (unnamed), cried out, "For God's sake let us go down into the Hould & Die together." (Trial, 304) The pirates and their captives did spend the night in the hold. Thomas Fitzgerald, in response to a request from the pirates, read from the “Common-Prayer Book, which he did about an Hour . . . ." (Trial, 304)

On the morning of 27 April 1717, the men found that one side of the ship was on dry land and they could walk on to what proved to be an island without having to get their feet wet. They broke open a chest and ate sweetmeats (sugared fruits) and other food they found and drank more wine. A local named John Cole spotted them and, mistaking them for shipwrecked mariners, came across in a canoe to bring them ashore just outside Eastham, Massachusetts. (6) According to local folklore, while at Cole’s house, Peter gazed out the south window of the great room and saw men approaching the house. This posse was led by Cole's son, who had snuck out of the house to inform the authorities about the pirates. Justice of the Peace Joseph Doane finally went with him to check out the situation.

The pirates fled, but stopped at a tavern in Eastham. Legend says that Mr. Doane and the posse caught up to them at the tavern. He used liquor to loosen the pirates’ tongues. Later both the posse and the pirates went to sleep in the taproom. During the night, the pirates woke up and snuck out of the tavern.

Continuing to stick together, they struck out for Rhode Island, which was known to shelter pirates. Before noon, the posse overtook them. They were taken to Boston under a heavy, mounted guard. There they remained in Boston's hot, foul prison until Friday, 18 October 1717, when they were led into the Admiralty Court. (Reynard) They wore the same clothes they had worn the night of the shipwreck.

We shall continue the intriguing story of Peter Hoof in a blog post that will be published very soon.

This article is provided by the Pirates and Privateers blog here.

If you have questions about Peter, you can contact Laura at PeterandLaura55@yahoo.com, or you can visit her blog via: PeterCorneliusHoof.blogspot.com.

Copyright 2013 by Laura Nelson.

Notes

1. Real Pirates tells the story of the Whydah and how she went from being a slave ship to a pirate ship. It’s a traveling exhibition sponsored by National Geographic with artifacts from the Whydah Pirate Museum in Provincetown, Massachusetts and established by Barry Clifford, the underwater explorer who discovered the wreck of the Whydah off Cape Cod.

2. Peter Hoof is not the lover that is mentioned here. That person’s name is Andre.

3. A periaga, more commonly spelled piragua or pirogue, was a canoe favored by Caribbean pirates during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Both Alexandre Exquemelin and William Dampier described them in their books. Benerson Little provides more details on these favored boats in A Sea Rover’s Practice on pages 49-52.

4. Appointed chief physician to the Haslar Naval Hospital in 1797, Thomas Trotter observed young patients who were despondent. “He attributed this to the horror of the patients whose next bed neighbor might be a seaman hospitalized because of brutal lacerations and festering sores at the draining sites of whiplash wounds on his back and buttocks.” (Friedenberg, 31) The United States Navy abolished flogging in 1840.

5. Nowadays we call this phenomenon the Stockholm Syndrome, where hostages or captives identify with their captors and perhaps even to defend them. The name derives from a 1973 hostage incident in Stockholm, Sweden. At the end of six days of captivity in a bank, several kidnap victims actually resisted rescue attempts and afterwards refused to testify against their captors. The behavior is considered a common survival strategy for victims of interpersonal abuse. Two of the most famous examples are Patty Hearst and, more recently, Elizabeth Smart. See "Understanding Stockholm Syndrome" by Nathalie de Fabrique, Stephen J. Romano, Gregory M. Vecchi, and Vincent B. Van Hasselt in the July 2007 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin, US Dept. of Justice, FBI, 76:7, 10-15.

6. Eastham is on Cape Cod.

Further information

Burgess, Robert F. Finding Sunken Treasure: True Story of the Pirate Ship Whydah. Spyglass Publications, 2012.

Clifford, Barry. Expedition Whydah: The Story of the World's First Excavation of a Pirate Treasure Ship and the Man Who Found Her. Cliff Street Books, 1999.

Clifford, Barry, and Kenneth J. Kinkor. Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. National Geographic, 2007.

Cordingly, David. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates. Random House, 2006.

Dana, Richard Henry. Two Years Before the Mast. Penguin Books, 1840.

Dethlefsen, Edwin. Whidah: Cape Cod's Mystery Treasure Ship. Seafarer's Heritage Library, 1984. Friedenberg, Zachary B. Medicine under Sail. Naval Institute Press, 2002.

Lee, Robert E. Blackbeard the Pirate: A Reappraisal of His Life and Times. John F. Blair, 1974. Mather, Cotton. "Instructions to the Living, from the Condition of the Dead" in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 4: 129-144.

Mather, Cotton. “Warnings to Them that Make Haste to be Rich, in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 4: 145-153.

The Pirate’s Pocket-Book edited by Stuart Robertson. Conway, 2008.

Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Beacon Press, 2005. Reynard, Elizabeth. "The ‘Pyrats’ and the Posse," in The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod. Chatham Historical Society, 1993.

"The Trials of Eight Persons lndited for Piracy" in British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. Pickering & Chatto, 2007, 2: 289-319. Vallar, Cindy.

 "Cotton Mather, Preacher to the Pirates" at Pirates & Privateers [http://www.cindyvallar.com/mather.html], 2009.

Vanderbilt, Arthur T. Treasure Wreck: The Fortunes and Fate of the Pirate Ship Whydah. Schiffler Publishing, 2007.

Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. Harcourt, 2007.

Special thanks to Bonnie Cormier of the Eastham Historical Society and Jessy Wheeler of the Boston Public Library for research help. Also to Cefton Springer for the stories of the use of the cat-o'-nine-tails in Barbados (his home country). 

“Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know” - The inimitable and intimate life of Lord Byron

Lord Byron has become an icon in history and literature, and not just thanks to his beautiful and unparalleled command of the English language. Throughout his 36 years, Lord Byron infamously acquired a litany of lovers, some of whom caused controversy, and some who inspired a handful of the most important and beautiful poems ever written. Georgie Broad explains more…

George Gordon Noel Byron was born in 1788 to a small aristocratic family that was rapidly losing its luster. As a whole, Byron’s family life was the epitome of dysfunctional. His father left the family while Byron was a young boy, his mother suffered from schizophrenia and he was put under the care of an abusive nurse. The only place where the young Byron could find familial respite was with his sister Augusta… but more on that relationship a little later.

In 1803, at the tender age of fifteen, Byron fell in love with his distant cousin Mary Chaworth. This love was not reciprocated however, and as is often the nature with unrequited love, his feelings for Mary inspired several of his earlier poems. A few years later Byron began his intermittent studies at Trinity College, Cambridge. While there, studying wasn’t exactly at the forefront of his mind; instead he turned his attentions toward sports, gambling (which forced him deeper into debt) and a great many sexual escapades thanks to how naturally handsome he was.

Lord Byron.

EARLY CONNECTIONS

During his time at Cambridge, though, Byron made some of his first important steps to becoming the man we know so well today. He met John Cam Hobhouse, a lifelong friend who aided his induction into the ideals of liberal politics that remained with him for the rest of his life,and during his last year at Cambridge, he wrote Hours of Idleness, a compilation of poetry. Upon its publication, it received harsh and damning reviews, though they couldn’t have been better for Byron’s success. As a reaction to these scathing reviews, Byron published English Bards and Scotch Reviewers, a satirical piece that openly attacked the literary community with wit and without fear that actually earned him high acclaim throughout the very community he criticized.

At the age of 21, Byron began an intrepid journey around the Mediterranean with his friend Hobhouse, and continued to indulge his two passions on the trip: poetry and a fair few lustful tristes; however his adventure was cut short when he had to return home following the death of his mother. Although in his childhood the two never had a picture postcard relationship, the passing of his mother plunged Byron into a period of deep and desperate mourning. As was characteristic of Byron, he was pulled out of his despair through praise of his work from respected London critics and another string of lovers.

One such lover was the novelist and aristocrat Lady Caroline Lamb who uttered the infamous description of Lord Byron as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”. Caroline and Byron had a whirlwind romance; passionate, intense, and short lived. Caroline had no qualms about making their love affair very public, and wouldn’t shy away about being demonstrative about her feelings. After their affair ended, Caroline was plunged into depression and turned to drinking to deal with the loss of her love. She also wrote a book, Glenarvon, which detailed their tempestuous romance.

It was at this time, amid the love of Lady Caroline and Lady Oxford, rumors began to circulate about the relations between Byron and his married half-sister, Augusta. To dispel the gossip and to seek a little respite from his Lothario-like ways, Byron proposed marriage to Annabella Millbanke. The marriage was something of a train-wreck from start to finish, and crumbled rapidly due to financial debts, the persistent rumors of incest surrounding Byron and Augusta, and gossip about his sexuality. (Today, it is widely accepted that Lord Byron was bisexual given the accounts of his sexual exploits during his time at school and university with men and women). Although Byron and Millbanke had a daughter, after the ending of their marriage, Byron saw neither his ex-wife nor his daughter again. It was around this time that Byron penned the immortal poem She Walks in Beauty, supposedly about a married woman he met at a ball. The poem has since become an iconic piece of literature and a cornerstone of romantic poetry.

SAILING AWAY

In 1818, Byron set sail for Europe, never to return to England. He saw the European attitude as more romantic, liberal, and accepting of the way he conducted himself. True to form, Byron carried on his womanizing ways while he travelled around with the mother of sci-fi, author Mary Shelley, her husband and her sister - with whom Byron fathered another daughter, Allegra. During these travels, the infamous Don Juan was written, arguably one of Byron’s most successful and important works, a witty and satirical poem that detailed many romantic encounters and was remarkably similar to his own life.

The last and most enduring of his romantic affairs was that with Teresa Giuccioli, a married countess of only nineteen, compared to his 30 years of age at the time. He described her “as fair as sunrise – and as warm as noon” and the two, unlike many affairs of Byron’s before, carried on their relationship unconsummated until Teresa separated from her husband. Although by today’s standards, the relationship seems unconventional, Teresa’s father actually liked Byron, and initiated him into the Carbonari, a group of Italians who sought the independence of Italy and helped bring about the Risorgimento (the process of Italian unification).

Byron died in 1824, aged 36, and was buried in a family vault. He was, and remains, a legend of the literary world, having penned some of the most iconic verse in English literature. He was the king of sharp wit and satire and defined a genre of writing that is still revered to this day. His private life was as turbulent and passionate as his writing, and he can truly be considered one of the masters of romance.

You can read Georgie’s previous article on why King George IV may have been the worst king of England by clicking here.

References

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/love-sex/romance-passion/great-lovers-a-celebration-of-true-romance-1895508.html?action=gallery&ino=5

http://www.biography.com/people/lord-byron-21124525#last-heroic-adventure&

http://www.bl.uk/people/lord-byron?ns_campaign=disco_lit&ns_mchannel=ppc&ns_source=google&ns_linkname=Lord%20byron&ns_fee=0

An alternative Founding Father – Theodore Roosevelt and the American Conservation Movement

Theodore Roosevelt was an impressive president for a number of reasons, but in many ways he is still quite hard to pin down. In this article, Wout Vergauwen looks at Roosevelt and his presidency through the prism of his one his more unknown policy areas, that of conservation.

There can nothing in the world be more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all unmarred.

 - Theodore Roosevelt, twenty-sixth President of the United States

Ever since Theodore Roosevelt left office in 1909, politicians, historians and naturalists have debated who the twenty-sixth president really was, and how he should be remembered: as a politician, a cowboy, a soldier, a historian, an author, a conservationist, or a hunter. However, Theodore Roosevelt could not be pigeonholed, and that is why he is now remembered as one of most versatile presidents since Thomas Jefferson. Though many aspects of his multi-faceted presidency have been covered by historians, his conservation efforts remain largely underexplored. 

Theodore Roosevelt when in the Rough Riders during the 1898 Spanish-American War. From Harper's Pictorial History of the War with Spain, Volume II. Published in 1899.

The key is to understanding Roosevelt’s conservation policy is that his efforts were not strictly political, but also personal. From his youth onwards, Roosevelt always felt passionate for the nature in which he found comfort while battling illness.[1] As a result, he entered Harvard on the brink of adulthood “intending to become […] a scientific man of the Audubon, or Wilson, or Baird, or Coues type – a man like Hart Merriam, or Frank Chapman, or Hornaday, to-day.”[2] Disappointed in the way science was practiced at university - through the microscope and in the laboratory with little field work - he decided to pursue his fascination for nature elsewhere. In 1888, he founded the Boone and Crockett Club, a foundation concerned with the preservation of big game species and their habitat that quickly became one of the most effective conservation organizations of its day.[3] Prior to his arrival in the White House, several other efforts followed, but the scale of his efforts drastically enlarged once he succeeded William McKinley as president. In his first annual message to a joint Congress, Roosevelt used McKinley’s assassination as a political opportunity to set the domestic agenda of his administration. He indeed managed to get hold of Congress’ attention and shifted it toward what he thought was important - conservation. After that, it was not long before he created his first - and the country’s sixth - national park: Oregon’s Crater Lake.[4]

PROBLEMS, PROBLEMS

Creating a national park, however, was not as simple as one might think, especially since Roosevelt had to create a new mindset. Indeed, Roosevelt did not only need to persuade Congress, but he also needed to invent a whole new policy domain that was understood by the people. Public support was almost nonexistent, or as Roosevelt noted himself in his autobiography: “the relationship between the conservation of natural resources and the ‘national welfare’ had not yet ‘dawned on the public mind’.”[5] The establishment of his conservationist ideals as the hallmark of his presidency was no easy task. Therefore, one should ask how he accomplished what he did and how he profiled himself as the founder of the conservation movement, even though he did not create the first national park, and neither did he establish the National Park Service, Woodrow Wilson’s accomplishment in 1916. Thus, the area that really needs to be addressed first is about the source of his powers, the way he obtained them, and the way he used them. Be sure, these powers were needed. From the beginning onwards, Roosevelt faced fierce opposition, not only from Congress, but also from ranchers, mine operators, loggers, power companies, and the Western states who protested his conservation efforts because they limited the exploitation of natural resources.[6] Even so, within the boundaries of the law, Roosevelt continued to protect the environment and resources for the generations to come, although he dealt rather creatively with Congress and legislation.

A remarkable though interesting way to approach the power issue is through one of the nation’s most popular historical myths: The Frontier Myth. Unlike other rhetorical presidents however, Roosevelt did not just use it, he altered the myth so it could serve his purposes.[7] Being perceived as a frontiersman himself, he used this image to rearticulate the myth and link it to his conservation purposes, thereby promoting his policies. Roosevelt thus needed to persuade his audience and confronted two rhetorical challenges to do so: “First, he had to create a sense of exigency, an urgency to resolve the environmental crisis. Second, he had to formulate a nexus between conservation and values and attitudes that his audience embraced.”[8] In doing so, Roosevelt did not only use the altered Frontiers Myth, but linked his alterations to both the Constitution and Thomas Jefferson. Although, these cannot be seen as “values and attitudes” in a literal way, they serve the purpose perfectly.

The Jefferson link becomes clear when reviewing the first alteration, that of the frontier’s hero. Once perceived as a Jeffersonian yeoman farmer, the myth’s hero had evolved toward the Old West cowboy whose brutal character and limitless exploitation of nature had been turned into virtues by the end of the century. Roosevelt linked the then contemporary farmer to his Jeffersonian counterpart, thereby restoring the “American hero that could symbolize the conservation of the nation’s resources”[9] and thus revitalizing the ‘original’ Frontier Myth. A second alteration dealt with the finite character of the Frontier, where Roosevelt played the commercial, rather than the environmental, card: “if you do not want to preserve nature for nature itself, at least support it for commercial interest.”

STRUGGLES WITH CONGRESS - A BATTLE FOR POWER

After signing the Crater Lake Bill, Roosevelt did not take the time to enjoy the creation of his national park, but started looking for another natural gem worth saving.  He found many, and continued his efforts to create national parks in order to protect them against human exploitation and to save them for the children of the future. In his fourth annual message to Congress, he announced the creation of a National Forest Service: “[…] neither can we accept the views of those whose only interest in the forest is temporary; who are anxious to reap what they have not sown and then move away, leaving desolation behind them […] The creation of a forest service in the Department of Agriculture will have […] important results”[10] Two months later, under the governance of Gifford Pinchot, the Forest Service was indeed put in place. Soon after its creation, the Forest Service accumulated power, so becoming independent from Congress.[11] Because of this, lawmakers were not very accommodating to the president’s following conservation policies and saw an opportunity to make this clear by delaying Roosevelt’s efforts to gain Federal protection for Wyoming’s Devils Tower - often described as the strangest molten rock configuration in North America - the Grand Canyon, and several other sites. Although Roosevelt tried to push this through, Congress did not approve it and the body adjourned for the summer in June 1906.

NATIONAL MONUMENTS - A SMART MOVE

Roosevelt, however, held the upper hand and revealed himself as an even stronger defender of nature. During the spring of 1906 he had gathered a team of preservationists to draft a bill declaring: “that the President of the United States is hereby authorized, in his discretion, to declare by public proclamation historic landmarks, historic and prehistoric structures, and other objects of historic or scientific interest that are situated upon the lands owned or controlled by the Government of the United States to be national monuments.”[12] The language of the legislation was carefully chosen and sounded inoffensive. Without realizing what they had approved, Senators passed the bill on May 24, 1906, and the House, also not fully understanding the impact of the bill on the floor, followed suit on June 5. Roosevelt signed the bill on June 8, and before apprehending that they were outsmarted by the president, Congressmen went home on June 30 - not to return before the start of their next session on December 3, 1906.  A lot of irony is to be found in this situation since Congress granted, unknowingly, their president the power they tried to hold on to. The newly ‘invented’ National Monuments did not need Congressional approval - as opposed to the National Parks - and gave the president free reign to protect whichever natural site he wanted to, something that he did. Wyoming’s Devils Tower was proclaimed the first national monument on September 24, and before the end of the year three others – El Morro (NM), Montezuma Castle (AZ) and the Petrified Forest (AZ) – would be added to that list. When Roosevelt left office in 1909, fourteen additional national monuments were created; whereas no new national parks were added to the list until Roosevelt’s successor, William Howard Taft, added Glacier National Park to the list in 1910.

This circumvention of Congress was only one example of what Theodore Roosevelt tried to accomplish: making the presidency more powerful. He never made an effort to hide his belief that the executive should be the most powerful branch of government and accomplished this in many ways.[13] Accusations that he usurped congressional powers were publicly ridiculed which made Congressmen yearn openly “for the day when [Theodore Roosevelt] would no longer lead – when [Congress] would have again a President in the mold of McKinley.”[14]

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[1] D. Brinkley, The Wilderness warrior. Theodore Roosevelt and the crusade for America, New York (NY), Harper Perennial, 2010, p. 22.

[2] O.H. Orr, Saving American Bird: T. Gilbert Pearson and the Founding of the Audubon Movement, Gainesville (FL), University Press of Florida, 1992, p. 74

[3] S. Marvinney, “Theodore Roosevelt, Conservationist” In: New York State Conservationist, 50 (1996), 6, [retrieved from: web.ebscohost.com on November 23, 2013]

[4] Already existing national parks were: Yellowstone, Sequoia, General Grant, Yosemite, and Mount Rainier.

[5] L.G. Dorsey, “The Frontier Myth in Presidential Rhetoric: Theodore Roosevelt’s Campaign for Conservation” In: Western Journal of Communications, 59 (1995), 1, p. 2.

[6] D.O. Buehler, “Permanence and Change in Theodore Roosevelt’s Conservation Jeremiad” In: Western Journal of Communications, 62 (1998), 4, p. 446.

[7] L.G. Dorsey, art. cit., p. 3.

[8] D.O. Buehler, art. cit., p. 441.

[9] L.G. Dorsey, art. cit., p. 8.

[10] T. Roosevelt, Fourth Annual Message to Congress, December 6, 1904 [retrieved from: http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu on November 29, 2013]

This is part of a larger excerpt: “The forest policy of the government is just now a subject of vivid public interest throughout the West and the people of the United States in general […] The forest reserve policy can be successful only when it has the full support of the people of the West. It can not safely, and should not in any case, be imposed upon them against their will. But neither can we accept the views of those whose only interest in the forest is temporary; who are anxious to reap what they have not sown and then move away, leaving desolation behind them […] The creation of a forest service in the Department of Agriculture will have for its important results: First. A better handling of all forest work […] Second. The reserves themselves […] will be more easily and more widely useful to the people of the West than has been the case hitherto […] Third. Within a comparatively short time the reserves will become self-supporting.”

[11] W.H. Harbaugh, op. cit., p. 323.

[12] “An Act For the preservation of American antiquities.” In: US Statutes at Large, Volume 34, Part 1, Chapter 3060, p. 225.

[13] L.G. Dorsey, art. cit., p. 2.

[14] W.H. Harbaugh, op. cit., p. 333.