Before I get started with today's podcast, I want to give a special shout out to Spooky
Savart. If you guys don't know who he is, he goes on Instagram or Instagram Reels or TikTok,
and he just makes quirky little videos where he finds, he records whatever he wants and
people love it. People keep calling him homeless, but he's not actually homeless.
And then there's this thing he does, right? Where he'll get keys, he'll look for faucets out in
public areas, and he'll see if they work. Nine times out of 10, they do. Sometimes they'd work
stronger than others. And every time he does, he has a little catchphrase going, yeah dog. And then
he does a little dance. Good for him. Anyway, I wanted to talk about something that I've been
looking into this week. This week, I had a lot of stuff on YouTube recommended, and I used to be
big into pirating and stuff. Not pirating movies, but the actual concept of pirates,
you know, the golden age of piracy and so forth. Let's talk about how dark it really was though.
Before I get started with this episode, I want to debunk one thing right now,
which is pretty funny to me actually. The thing is, I used to be a big fan of pirates, pirate movies,
Pirates of the Caribbean, bullshit like that. But the thing is, there's one thing that a lot
of people for some reason think is very common, which is walking the plank. That didn't really
happen. Like almost at all. In fact, it was exclusively done for people who were attempting
to mutiny a ship, but they failed. And it happened maybe a few times in recorded history. It happened
more in fiction than it did in real life. What was more common was keelhauling, which was admittedly
far worse, where you just get dragged underneath the ship and your body is just like beat to crap
because you're being carried underneath the ship. Which is covered in barnacles, lacerating your
skin and you'd most likely die of infection, drown, or suffer for a really bad head injury.
It's not easy, okay? It's fucked up. But I don't know why I had to dispel that rumor. Anyway,
welcome back to the Voodoo Podcast. This week I'm tired. I'm just tired. Not for the reason
you think. If you hear the echoing, a lot of stuff has moved around and this week has been eventful,
but I can't go into that. I will be blunt though. I thought by now podcasting would have paid more,
but I mean it does. It does enough. What I do like is the freedom that I have to say whatever I want
and talk about whatever I think is interesting. Which this week is the golden age of...
What's the term? Piracy. The golden age of piracy basically. Okay, but let's actually talk about what
was so dark about it, right? Well, one of the most common methods of execution wasn't...
It wasn't just straight up shooting them or anything. The gore factor is usually left out
of movies like Pirates of the Caribbean and in fact a lot of Hollywood things, they just don't
get it right. It wasn't swashbuckling, sword fighting, shooting. It was more of a display of
brute force and a lot of gore. Basically what they do is a lot of shit. They would intimidate
the people that they were trying to rob and if the robbers fought, or if the rob E fought back,
well then all hell would break loose. You'd get shot in the stomach, kicked over the bow of the
ship and sharks would eat you. Stuff like that was pretty common. And back then anyway, holy shit.
But there was another thing too. Either people who attempted to mutiny, which if you don't know
what a mutiny is, basically you're trying to take over the ship along with other people and if you
failed it was bad. It was very bad. They had this common thing where... You know, they had this
common thing where... I forget what it's called. They have marooning. There we go. Where what they
do is they leave you on a sandbar. It's not an island. It's a sandbar during low tide and they
would give you something to drink and a gun. That's all they would give you. Now if you know
anything about the ocean, when it's low tide and you're on a sandbar, you're already in a bad place.
The problem being is when the tide rises, you will drown. Period. But that's what the gun is for. In
fact, the whole point of the gun and the drink that they would give you, most likely rum,
what they would do is... It's a way of saying goodbye. It's like saying kiss your ass goodbye.
This is where you end. Very, very, very rarely did you survive that. In fact, you didn't. Period. I
don't... I haven't done any... I haven't found anything that says that people would survive a marooning.
And normally it wasn't just one guy. It'd be a whole bunch of them. Or if it was really bad,
yeah, it'd be one guy. But yeah, that's... It's fucked up thinking about it because, you know,
you get one bullet and that's for you. And the last drink and that's, you know, celebrate your life.
Unless you want to get keelhauled, in which case... I'd rather be marooned to be honest because that
way you just get drunk and shoot yourself in the head. Like, that's the end, right?
It could have been much worse. There was another method they had, right? Where they'd put a rope
around your head and they would start twisting it. Twisting, twisting, twisting, applying more
pressure. Have you guys ever, like, gotten a piece of rope and started twisting it? You'd see how it
gets all tense. Now, imagine a rope much bigger than that attached to the outside of your head.
What this would do, unfortunately, if you tighten it enough around a person's head,
their eyes would pop out. This is in an era with very poor hygiene and even worse medicine. So,
you can imagine what that does to a person. You know, and it was around these times that
we would also have, you know, you got ships at sea, you got pirates, and okay, let's say these are
the illegal guys, you know? These are the guys who are pirates. They're criminals. What about the
law-abiding citizen? What about the ones who never interacted with pirates and were just doing their
job, you know, pirate, like piloting a big ship? Well, in many cases, they were out in sea for
months on end with very little food and only, only their, their compadres, only their men by their
side. There was a lot of, you know, a lot of stuff at sea that happens that is, you know, strictly
between the men and they, they don't tell that to anyone else. Having said that, there is something
that is very ominous. Things of the, things of the times, okay? Signs of the times, basically.
Lighthouse Keepers. If you guys have seen the movie The Lighthouse, you know what I'm talking about.
There is nothing scarier to me than schizophrenia and mental illnesses that make you go insane.
I've always discussed that on this podcast and this is gotta be one of the most terrifying ones,
the most terrifying examples, being lighthouse keepers. Because here's the thing, the way that
the lighthouses would move, like the light bulbs themselves, they'd basically be suspended in rivers
of mercury, like a really, really deep amount of mercury. And it wasn't, it wasn't healthy to breathe
in all the fumes. You know what mercury fumes do to you? They slowly deteriorate your mind. They
make you go a little crazier. So when you're basically on a, when you're on a cabin on stilts
out in the middle of the sea, close to shore, close enough to shore that you gotta guide people around
rocks. You know what I mean? But you know, you're basically letting them know, okay, you're near,
you're close, but that's not okay. Okay. Moving on. Okay. Imagine having to tend this giant fucking,
basically river of mercury that slowly the fumes are driving you nuts and they just start eating
away at your sanity. It's actually insane. Again, if you guys have never seen the movie The Lighthouse,
absolutely watch it. At first, I honestly thought it was about them going insane because of the
isolation. That's part of it as well. But that's not the only thing. You know, the contributing
factor is the mercury fumes. And if you look into the history behind it, a lot of them that finally,
you know, switched or finally were, were actually given up. A lot of these big lighthouses were
owned by big companies that the, if the company went under, they just never told the lighthouse
worker and they would work themselves to death. It was fucked up. There's actually a very famous
story regarding this subject that I highly recommend you guys look up. It's much more
terrifying than any movie you've ever seen because this actually happened. And it's very well
summarized, well documented. Thankfully. The thing is lighthouse keepers had to do a daily log while
they were working. And it wasn't just one light, one lighthouse keeper keeping documents on everyone
else. Everyone else had their own eyewitness accounts. They would take measurements of wind.
They do a lot of stuff while they were there. They kept busy, but that didn't stop them from
slowly going mad, which was exactly what happened in the smallest lighthouse tragedy. It's a well
documented phenomenon and it's brutal as hell. Like absolutely brutal. Basically a man who was
working with another one, another lighthouse keeper, both of them were working shoulder to
shoulder and they were doing fine until one of them had passed away. The problem is because they
were inhaling the mercury fumes, the person who was left alive was essentially going insane because
he would always see the corpse there. He actually built a makeshift coffin for the corpse, but he
wasn't, you know, he wasn't good at working with wood. So what ended up happening was at some point
there was a big storm that hit and it actually broke the casket. It broke it wide open and the
corpse was just there on display, which really fucks with your mind if you don't know anything
about that. And there's this thing right in the medical field that if you're surrounded by bodies,
basically you become, it affects you mentally really, really badly. In fact, I also noticed
another thing about this topic, right? A lot of people talking about the golden age of piracy and
life in the high seas, you know, stuff like that marooning life, I guess. When I talk about the
golden age, I mean the literal golden age, there's an actual timeline. It's the 1600s through the
1700s. A lot of people don't actually know that. Like they just kind of have this general idea as
to everyone being in like the Victorian era, something like that. You know what I mean?
There was also this misnomer or this misunderstanding of pirates and people
always think that, you know, they were out in the seas for, you know, months or years at a time,
basically living on the boat. When in reality, they would really go from port to port over and
over again, just kind of in between. And a lot of the ports that were available to most sailors,
most people who are, you know, boating, they would not be friendly to pirates, which, you know,
makes sense obviously. You don't want a bunch of criminals coming up and just taking everything.
And pirates in turn don't want to be surrounded by police and law-abiding citizens. They want to be
with their own kind. You know what I mean? It is what it is. There's two kinds of people in the
world, I guess. And it's funny thinking about people getting the two mixed up. It's like,
where did you think they would go just randomly? Do you think they're going to end up in the Los
Angeles harbor just going, yarr, harr, harr, you know? Speaking of which, that's another misconception.
Did a lot of pirates go, yarr, you know, that arr, arr, matey, you know that thing? It is kind of true,
but it's more of a, it's a regional thing. It's a, it's a regional accent. Most people just spoke
regular English back then. If not English, there were other languages they spoke, but a majority of
the time pirates weren't stuck here in, you know, English speaking countries. They would actually go
down, you know, different continents. Anything with a shoreline can be invaded by pirates.
Invaded by pirates. And there's another thing, one sad thing that I want to dispel a lot of people,
myself included, kind of thought that pirates were, you know, more open and free, right? Like if you
were of any race, it didn't matter. Pirates were racist. Okay. I didn't, I don't know if you had to
you had to know that, but pirates regularly traded slaves. The difference is they, they were way more
brutal with the slaves. In fact, it's almost, it's not so common knowledge that pirates kind of helped
to start the sugar plantations in some countries because of the amount of slaves that they brought.
Some of them who were free men to begin with that were now slaves. It's, it's brutal. It's kind of
fucked up, but why even talk about pirates, you know, piracy and the, again, the golden age of
piracy? Why even talk about it? Well, there's this thing, right? I've always thought this thing,
and a lot of people do follow my sentiment. Those who don't follow history are doing it repeated.
I got to tell you right now, that's never been more true than with the pirate age, because a lot
of people get so much wrong. In fact, there are modern day pirates. They're nowhere near as
romanticized as the ones back then, because the ones today have modern day technology. They got
AK-47s, tiny inflatable rafts that they take, they used to go really quickly on big ships and just
take over everything. It's still a thing. There's still a lot of pirates out there. It's just not
as glorified nowadays, because we can see it for what it is. It's just thievery. That's all it is.
You know, it blows my mind that some people still wanted to be a pirate back then,
but it's more understandable back then because it was a different time period. You can get away
with a lot more, and you had to be smart still. Okay, one last thing that I want to debunk,
or at the very least get into. Not even one last thing. There's quite a few.
The pirate captain, the captain of the ship, what did you think they did? When I say captain,
you think of the leader of the crew, right? You think of the guy that was in charge of everything,
the guy that was steering the ship. Sure, that's something they did do, but what else did they do?
What else were they in charge of? Were they in charge of looking through everything? Were they
in charge of diversifying the gains that they got whenever they were stealing from ships? No,
they didn't do any of that. A ship captain is just that. They guide the ship to where it's going to
go next, but what they did do is they guided the men during fights. Whenever there was fights,
they needed leadership, and the captain was there to work as that. But in reality, the one who did
everything, the guy who was actually pulling the strings and paying the workers, feeding them,
and making sure that no one was dead on the ship, was the quartermaster. In fact, the quartermaster
had more power over the people than the captain himself. The captain was paid a lot, sure. He was
paid double what the rest of them were paid, but here, let me put it this way. The captain, double
the pay, the quartermaster, pay and a half, the woodworker, or the, what's his name? Guy with the
saw, basically. The guy who could craft and fix the boat. Payment and a quarter, one times four,
you know, 1.4 of the salary, and the surgeon would be paid the same. The rest, they got an even
salary. Basically, it was evenly distributed amongst the crew members, but the thing that does
get me that I was surprised about was piracy, back then, at least, did pay handsomely.
Here's what things got, here's where people got it right. In the modern day world, I want to stress
this out. Crime does not pay in the modern day world, okay? However, back then, one successful
run, one successful plunder, could give a man an entire year's worth of pay. In fact, more than
that. Working on a ship as a regular human being, as someone who is a law-abiding citizen, you would
get a decent amount, you would get okay amount, but that would be considered minimum wage compared
to what pirates were making. Pirates were making a shit ton of money, and well, the only problem
they had was they couldn't really put it in a bank. However, that's, you know, there's a whole
rumor about like, oh, we bury the treasure, and that didn't happen. Pirates spent their money,
they spent it well. On prostitutes, on liquor, a lot of liquor, mostly rum, people know that one,
and just having a good time, basically. Pirates were people who were adventurous. They were
people who wanted high risk, high reward, you know what I mean? And the reason they were paid so much
is because there was a very, very likely high amount, a very big chance that in the plundering,
they were going to be very, very hurt. The peg leg was a real thing, okay? And the funny part is,
now we're talking about things that we got wrong, let's talk about things we got right, you know,
I mentioned that earlier, but this is one thing they got right. They did get paid a lot.
Pirates were basically rich. They would have flexed all their money. I hate saying that,
but you know, that's, that's kind of accurate. And pirates can easily buy like hundreds of slaves
individually. I'm talking about a regular pirate, not a, not a captain. But the funny part is,
if you were with the pirate crew and you were done, there was no harm, no foul. At that point,
you'd sign a contract every time we were about to start a plunder, but once it was done, you could,
you could get off the ship and just go either join another crew or just relax a bit, you know? In
fact, most pirates actually spent a lot of their time on land enjoying their wealth. A lot of them,
when they went out to plunder, it was a one-off thing. It was, you know, like, oh, we heard a
merchant vessels coming this way and it'd be like, get on the boat, man. We're going to go get it.
Three or four days later, they'd come back and that was it. They had a successful plunder. They
would go to somewhere else, somewhere where they could lay low for a bit, maybe fix the ship if it
needed repairs. The only problem is they could not get repairs near where they, where they stole,
where they stole items from. Basically, the East coast of the United States was a good example
and Spain, places like that. They couldn't go there. They had to go places like the continent
of Africa on the edge where they could get their ships repaired and, you know, no questions asked.
The problem is because they had to go so far to get repairs, they did last a bit more longer on
the boat and at that point some people would die from their injuries, which again, you were being
paid more than anyone ever had in their life. So you did have, damn, the moment I started saying
that piracy pays is the moment the FBI calls me to shut up. Anyway, let's move on to the next topic.
Anyway, so pirates were well known throughout the Mediterranean, throughout all these places,
right? Throughout the 16 to 1700s, right? That's a whole hundred years where they could do whatever
they want. Their names are spread. You have people like Stede Bonnet, who was one of the most notorious
pirates who ever lived, who originally started as the gentleman pirate because he never hurt anybody.
His whole thing was he goes into the ship, he goes, hi, we're going to take your valuables. We don't
want to hurt you guys, but if you guys make it rough, then, then we're going to have to, but we
don't want to hurt anybody. But that was his reputation. Stede Bonnet never hurt anybody.
Up until the end of his career, because afterwards he was trying to 1v1 Blackbeard, which is not an
easy thing when you're not an experienced pirate, especially Blackbeard, because surprisingly,
people don't know this about Blackbeard. He wasn't that financially successful. In fact,
he was a great leader, but aside from that, that's pretty much all he was. He was illiterate. He had
a father who died when he was young, but Blackbeard also did have this thing where he would light
matches, put them in his beard and he'd make a quote unquote smoke screen, which made it look,
it made him look more fantastical than he was, which is why his name is so legendary. But there
was another reason for this. The reason he did that is so that the smoke would obscure the vision of
whoever was attacking him. And let's say someone has a flintlock pistol and shoots at him. They'll
miss his head. That's the point. The point is he's essentially in a cloud, you know, he's essentially
got a fog, a shroud around him. And admittedly, it was brilliant. All you would see through it was
his eyes, but even then you kind of know where his head was. Truth is you wouldn't really see his eyes,
but you'd see little bits of match heads and you would think they're his eyes, which it's kind of,
what's the term? It's kind of like a peacock effect where they open their tail and there's a bunch of
eyes. It's that effect. It's actually, it's actually brilliant. I've never seen a person use it then or
since, you know what I mean? So we've established at this point, pirates were well known through
1600s, 1700s. There was a big period of it, right? So how did they keep doing it? How did people
always get plundered by pirates? If you know that the pirate ship is coming, your instinct is to run
away, right? That's the point. Pirates were famous and they knew it. So whenever there was a pirate
ship, they would disguise as a regular merchant vessel, one that was absolutely loaded with goods
ready for the trading. Cause there was a thing that they did back then, right? If you're in the
middle of the sea, you want to trade with someone, you want to get more materials. And what the pirates
would do is they would actually cover their cannons with a canopy. Try saying that three times fast.
They would try to cover it, but I can't say it one more time. Okay. Anyway, they would blanket
over them from a distance. It looked very good, very convincing from up close. It was very clear
that it was just a tapestry painted to look like wood, but the moment that they got too close and
they noticed, well, it was too late to do anything about it. The flag as well. The famous iconic skull
and crossbones was a very crude rag. Basically they would make it on the fly. You'd have someone
who could stitch it. One guy in the crew could stitch it. That's it. His whole point was to make
the flag, but they never actually raised it unless they were within close proximity of someone close
enough that they couldn't escape. That's where the canopy comes in as well. What you do is you
disguise yourself and you would also put as much items on the surface of the boat near the edge
where anyone with a telescope could see you from a distance and they'd, they'd see you waving them
down saying, Hey, we want to trade. And they would approach you thinking that it was just going to be
a basic trading. And here's where the best part comes in. As soon as you are within,
the term was 576 paces, something like that. Basically within, what's the term again?
Within, wow, I'm struggling to remember the word. There's a term for it. When a gun, okay,
point blank range. That's what it's called. When you're in point blank range, then they would remove
the canopy because at that point, every single cannon would be aimed at your boat. And you
would not be able to escape the moment those are fired. Every single one's going to hit.
You might as well surrender. That's the point though. And the problem is other boats try to
do the opposite. It's a chameleon effect where other boats in order, like these are people who
aren't pirates, people who weren't pirates would disguise their boat with cannons. Unfortunately,
these cannons were fake. They were made of wood and they could not fire. They were not good for
defense. They were good for quote unquote deterring pirates. The problem is pirates are smart. They
know, they know a bluff when they see it. So it was very easy to just, you know, paddle right up to
them and go money or your life. That's it. Here's the fun part. You would be surprised to see
the reaction of the people that were being robbed. Some of them, not all of them, but some of them,
we're very glad to see pirates, which is something I never thought I'd say.
The reason being is one thing. Think of it like this. There are sometimes boats where the captain
is a major asshole and everyone hates him, but they can't do anything about it. So when the
pirates come, they give them a chance to do what's called ramshacking where was it term ramshacking?
Basically, I don't remember the term, but basically what they would do is they would tie up the
captain and they would give the crew options. They would say, do you have anything to say about your
captain? And a lot of them would roast the out of the captain. And unfortunately this usually
led them to captain dying, just straight up dying. The worst, the offense, the worst, the response.
And in some cases they would be keel hauled, which we mentioned at the beginning of the episode.
You do not want to be keel hauled, especially in a moment where anesthesia and disinfectant is not a
thing. Everyone is dirty. Everyone is dying from infection. If you get cut, it's a bad time. But
imagine being the captain turning around and seeing your entire crew say, fuck that guy, you know, all
of them saying that essentially your entire crew has become pirates and the captain is gone. You,
in this case are gone. The problem is at this point, your entire crew has become pirates.
They've just been given new jobs that pay way better and your boat is gone too. When they take
the whole boat, you're fucked. That is that simple. And bam, you've just successfully plundered an
entire vessel ship. That is how pirates did it. It's that simple. There were, it wasn't always the
case though. Sadly, sometimes people would fight back. Pirates were not nice, period. They weren't
going to swashbuckle. They weren't going to grab a sword and go, hi-yah, you know, like that wasn't
the case. They had guns. Okay. It's that simple. If you, if you try to fight back, pull out the
pistol, shoot him out and it gets worse. Pirates, if you didn't tell them where all your stuff was,
they would just tie you up and torture you. Like that was absolutely on the table. They would
torture one guy so the rest of them would see him and everyone would talk essentially. It's worse if
you don't give up your stuff. Basically, regardless of what you do, if a pirate gets on the boat,
you've already lost. Pirates were stupidly powerful. Like first off, you got a bunch of cannons aiming
at your boat, ready to sink it at any moment. You got a bunch of people who have nothing to lose,
guns, swords, and it's fucked. You know, you're screwed at that point. Speaking of hooks, there's
one thing that people get wrong. There is no recorded pirate in history that had a hook on his
hand. That was never a thing. That is entirely fictional. That was never real. Peg legs were real.
That is... it's funny. It's funny hearing about that. Why was a hook hand was... why a hook hand
was like a thing? I think it was because of Peter Pan. Captain Hook. Captain Hook was never real.
Period. That was entirely made up by Disney? I think so, yeah. And I don't know. It's funny
seeing how works of fiction eventually work themselves into what we think is just common
knowledge, but it's really not. I just wanted to dispel that. Also, the Mythbusters don't have
a hook hand. The Mythbusters did an episode where they were talking about how pirates would have a
patch over their eyes so that they can see in the dark. Never in the history of piracy was that
recorded. And the thing is, pirates, their captains especially, could write and read. Most of them
could anyway. And a lot of them would document or dictate whatever they did, you know, just so that
lasted. But never was that the case. Wow, I just burped so bad. In conclusion, Pirates of the
Caribbean got a shit ton of things wrong. And I'm still a fan of the idea. It's more of an idealized
version of piracy, you know what I mean? Which is, it's funny thinking back about how this should
have been common knowledge, you know? Like, yeah, pirates are just fucking thieves. That's it.
But movies like Pirates of the Caribbean, a lot of pirate movies have gotten everything wrong.
There's never been one that's too accurate. There is one thing though. I want to bring up a key
thing. Jack Sparrow. Okay? It's funny seeing this. Because a lot of people get this detail and they
don't realize it. When Captain Jack Sparrow is walking in the movies, he's walking like he's
drunk, but in reality, he has what's called sea legs. Which, when you've been on a boat for a long
time, there's actually footage of this online. Look up sea legs or walking on a boat and you'll
see what I mean. Because a lot of the times on a boat, when it's moving and you're under the vessel
or like inside the vessel walking around, you're going to rock back and forth and your legs are
going to have to adjust. This is actually seen in every animal that's on a boat for a long period
of time, especially dogs. Well, especially humans, but you know, dogs come up second place.
And one more thing, pirates, it wasn't common, but it did happen. Pirates had pets. Parakeets.
Two recorded counts of parakeets as pets is recorded in history. And that's all we have
because, you know, thieves normally don't write down what they do. Anyway, that's going to do it
for this episode of the Meatweed Podcast. If you learned something new, let me know. My email is
open. Be sure to follow me on Twitter or X, whatever you call it. And I'll see you guys
next time. Subscribe on YouTube if you're listening there. If you're on New York City Podcast Network,
vote up this episode. We've recently been getting a lot of episodes at our staff favorites. If
you're on Patreon, you know, please subscribe there. I want to give a shout out to La H.
Thank you. And what else? What else is there? We still have the merch shop available. I actually
still have my books up for sale if you want to look at that. And other than that, I will see you
guys all next week. Oh, right. Forgot about something. There is an announcement coming up
next week. I want you all to perk up your ears next week. Save the date. I don't have the date
saved, but you know, next Friday. It's always Friday these episodes come out. Be sure to save
the date. We have something coming up. I got an email recently and I've just been really excited
about it. Also, I want to thank Sage and I want to thank Nick for being on the episode of Cycle Paths
of Morbid Universe. I want to thank that. By the way, new episode's out now. So thank you all very
much for listening. I'll see you next week. Bye.