QUARANTINE BLOG # 614

December 4, 2021

There was real money to be made from a new trade: privateering. Privateers were sailors from one nation who had been given permission by their monarchs to attack and capture enemy ships. A pirate attacked anyone he came upon, and he was hanged on sight if captured. Privateers were supposed to share their treasure with the nation they represented. Pirates kept what they stole. 

Privateering was invented by a cash-strapped Henry III of England, who had no navy to attack the French (it having been sold by Parliament to pay his debts); he came up with the idea of issuing commissions to private captains for the purpose of attacking French shipping.

Henry III

Piracy threaded through the history of all seafaring nations. A young Julius Caesar had been captured by pirates and after he won his release, he hunted them down and crucified all of them. 

A bust of Julius Caesar

St. Patrick was seized by pirates, who sold him as a slave in Ireland. 

The ship of Miguel de Cervantes, later the author of Don Quixote, was intercepted by Barbary pirates, and he spent five miserable years as an Islamic slave.

Many became pirates because of an unusual opportunity presented to them. If their ship was taken by pirates, the survivors were offered the chance to join up. Any man who joined up would get an equal share. Certain occupations – carpenter, navigator, doctor – were always in demand, and whether willing or not, they would be pressed into service. But everyone else was free to choose. If they were captured by ships of the Crown, all of the volunteers would hang. Those conscripted, if they could prove it, would be set free.

As Henry Morgan sailed out on his first raid as a captain of buccaneers, he wore his beard short and pointed, in the style of Sir Francis Drake, and around his forehead tied a scarlet kerchief. In later expeditions he’d pack a wig, in case he was called to accept a surrender from a Spanish noble. 

Sir Francis Drake

Captains liked to dress well: In 1722 captain Black Bart Roberts was described as being “dressed in a rich crimson damask waistcoat and breeches, a red feather in his hat, a gold chain round his neck with a diamond cross hanging around it.”

Black Bart Roberts

Buccaneer expeditions followed a routine. The privateers would meet on the captain’s flagship. The first order of business was fresh meat, especially tortoise. 

What the bison was to the American settler in his wagon train, the tortoise was to the pirate: Without the sustenance that animal provided, it’s unlikely that the buccaneers could have achieved half their victories. One visitor to Jamaica wrote in 1704, “The flesh looks and eats much like choice veal.” After supper, the Brethren would agree on a target, and the real drinking would begin in earnest.

Here on the eve of Morgan’s first expedition is where one John Esquemeling enters the story. He accompanied Morgan on some of his raids, and wrote a memoir, The Buccaneers of America. Esquemeling’s stories of the buccaneers almost single-handedly created the pirate craze that enchanted Robert Louis Stevenson and gave birth to our image of  pirates. And his accounts give us many of the details of our story today.

Esquemeling’s The Buccaneers of America

Once they had a confirmed destination, the buccaneers agreed to the articles that governed the ship for the duration of the voyage. They voted on how many shares of treasure each pirate would get. The most extraordinary clauses in the articles were the ones addressing the reward if a pirate was either wounded or maimed in his body, suffering the loss of any limb.

Some articles even awarded damages for the loss of a peg leg. Prostheses were so hard to come by that the loss of a good wooden leg was worth as much as the loss of a real one. 

There was generous medical insurance, incentive pay, and considerable employee input: Most modern American corporations would not match the pirates’ articles until well into the 20th century, if then.

Morgan’s fleet sailed toward the Yucatan Peninsula, a journey into blankness, only here and there illuminated by a known landmark or a familiar current. 

There were no charts to guide Morgan, no way of measuring longitude. Dead reckoning was a primary tool – starting at a known or assumed position, the navigator used the ship’s compass heading, the ship’s speed, the time spent on each heading and at each speed. Most pirates could attest to the truth of what a French soldier bound for the New World wrote in his journal, “We saw nothing but sky and water and realized the omnipotence of God, into which we commended ourselves.”

Once the buccaneer ships had passed the western tip of the Yucatan Peninsula, they tacked into the Bay of Campeche. Their target was Villahermosa, the capital of Tabasco province. 

Villahermosa was hundreds of miles away from pirate haunts, and its citizens believed they were safe. Guards slept at their posts; the shot for the cannons rusted in the night air until they’d no longer fit into the mouths of the guns. Keys to chests full of gunpowder were lost. So when Morgan’s men burst into the town square, the Spanish defense collapsed, and they quickly plundered the village.

Sailing back, they prepared for a raid on Trujillo. 

It had become a destination for epic journeys. Over 150 years before, Christopher Columbus, on his fourth and final voyage to the New World, had made his first landing on the American continent. His men said the first Catholic mass ever celebrated in the Americas. Now Morgan added his name to the list, as his men crashed into the town, quickly stormed the fort, carried away everything of value, including a Spanish vessel.

Next week: The pirates strike against England.

👉  Today’s close, “The Vicious Cycle Broken,” is from Celebrating Abundance, by Walter Brueggemann.

“He shall judge between the nations, and shall arbitrate for many peoples; they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4).

It is written in Deuteronomy that the poor will always be with you (15:11). It is written elsewhere that there will always be wars and rumors of wars. It is written in the American psyche that the big ones will always eat the little ones. It is written in the hearts of many hurting ones that their situation will always be abusive and exploitative. It is written and it is believed and it is lived, that the world is a hostile, destructive place. You must be on guard and maintain whatever advantage you can. It is written and recited like a mantra, world without end.

In the middle of that hopelessness, Advent issues a vision of another day, written by the poet, given to Israel midst the deathly cadence. We do not know when, but we know for sure. The poet knows for sure that this dying and killing is not forever, because another word has been spoken. Another decision has been made. A word has been given that shatters our conventions, which bursts open the prospect for life in a world of death.

Watch that vision, because it ends in a dramatic moment of transformation. The old city is full of blacksmiths who have so much work to do. Listen and you can hear the hammer on the anvil. The smiths are beating and pounding iron, reshaping it, beating swords into plowshares and spears into tools for orchards. They are decontaminating bombs and defusing the great weapons systems. The fear is dissipating. The hate is collapsing. The anxiety is lessening. The nations are returning to their proper vocation – care of the earth, love of creation, bounty for neighbor, enough for all, with newness, deep joy, hard work, all because the vicious cycles are ended and life becomes possible.

This vision sounds impossible. It sounded impossible the first time it was uttered; it has not become more realistic in the meantime. Advent, nonetheless, is a time for a new reality. There is a new possibility now among us, rooted in God’s love and God’s power. Power from God’s love breaks the vicious cycles. We have seen them broken in Jesus, and occasionally we have seen them broken in our own lives. It is promised that the cycles can be broken, disarmament will happen, and life can be different. It is promised and it is coming, in God’s good time.

God of love and suffering power, speak again your word of transformation in the midst of our weary world. We so easily capitulate to despair, to numb acceptance of deathly orders. Break the vicious cycles, and kindle in us once again a passion for the possible. Amen.

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