Welcome in, everyone. We're so thrilled to have
you joining us today for this deep dive. Absolutely.
Whether you are prepping for a big meeting, out
for a walk, or just insanely curious about the
world, you are in the right place. The exact
right place. Today, it's a really special one.
It really is. Today's deep dive centers around
a single Wikipedia article, and it details the
life of a 1670s Scottish Barbadian buccaneer
named Redlegs Greaves. And I mean, it is a wild
narrative. It spans this massive spectrum of
human experience. Oh, totally. We're going from
colonial servitude right into high seas piracy
and then into something just entirely unexpected.
So the mission for our deep dive today is twofold.
First, we are going to explore what is genuinely
a cinematic tale of survival. Uteny's hidden
treasure. Last minute escapes, all of it. But
then, we're going to pull back the curtain. We
want to see what this specific story teaches
us about the nature of history itself. Right,
how the things we accept as fact actually get
written down. Exactly. Okay, let's unpack this.
To really understand the world this man navigated,
we have to start with the historical context
of his birth. Which is rough. Very. According
to the accounts, Greaves was born around 1649
in Barbados. But his family wasn't in the Caribbean
by choice. Right. His parents were supposedly
royalists and covenanters who had been tried
for treason and basically sent into servitude.
For those of you listening who might be a little
rusty on 17th century British history. What exactly
does it mean to be a royalist and a covenanter
back then? Well, the mid -1600s in the British
Isles were totally defined by the wars of the
three kingdoms. Just brutal civil conflicts.
Exactly. Involving England, Scotland, and Ireland.
The covenanters were a powerful Scottish Presbyterian
movement. And depending on the year, you know,
shifting alliances. As they always do. Right.
They sometimes fought against the king, sometimes
for him. And being on the losing side of these
incredibly bloody wars. had consequences severe
consequences yeah forced exile and servitude
in the new caribbean colonies was a very common
punishment so his parents are stripped of their
life shipped across the atlantic and forced into
hard labor and the sources point out his nickname
red legs where does that actually come from that's
a very specific social marker The term red legs
was used historically for the class of poor whites
living in colonial Barbados. Because it was highly
stratified society. Extremely rigid, built on
forced labor and massive wealth inequality. The
nickname itself supposedly comes from the severe
sunburns these European laborers would get working
out in the tropical heat. Just a miserable existence.
Yeah, it sets the stage for his early life. He
is born into the absolute bottom rung of a ruthless
colonial hierarchy. And the documentation. points
out that things go from bad to just unimaginably
worse. Yeah, they really do. He's born right
after his parents arrive. Initially, he serves
a relatively kind master, but then tragedy just
strikes back to back. Both of his parents die.
And then that first master dies shortly after.
Leaving him completely orphaned. And totally
vulnerable. You have to remember there was no
social safety net back then. None at all. Indentured
servants and their kids were essentially property.
They just got transferred. Which leads to him
being sold to a new master. And the sources emphasize
this new guy was incredibly violent. Brutal.
Greaves allegedly endorsed severe beatings throughout
his entire teenage years. What options did a
kid in his position even have? Virtually none.
When a human being is pushed into a corner like
that with zero legal or social recourse, survival
instincts just take over. Because the courts
aren't going to care about a poor orphan. Exactly.
And running away was highly dangerous on an island.
You could be hunted down easily, but, you know,
the alternative is being beaten to death. So
his survival instinct tells him to swim. The
account says Greaves actually manages to escape
by plunging into the water and swimming all the
way across Carlisle Bay. That's a serious swim.
Right. And he successfully stows away on a ship
that's preparing to leave Barbados. Just think
about the sheer relief he must have felt. Oh,
absolutely. Thinking he's hiding on a merchant
vessel, heading off to start a fresh life somewhere.
But the reality waiting for him on that deck
was just a cruel twist of fate. Yeah, it wasn't
a merchant ship. Not even close. It was a pirate
ship. And not just your run -of -the -mill privateer.
The captain was a man named Hawkins. What do
the historical accounts say about him? Hawkins
is depicted as this notoriously cruel figure
operating in the Caribbean. I mean, the typical
pirate captain of that era might be ruthless
for business reasons, sure. Right, it's a violent
industry. But Hawkins went out of his way to
be brutal. He routinely tortured captives. The
accounts specifically note his cruelty toward
women. Wow. He rarely showed mercy to any crew
he attacked. He's this quintessential, terrifying
pirate captain. Feared by his own men? but kept
in power because he brought in the gold. So this
exhausted teenager is found hiding below deck
and dragged out to face this monster, and the
phrasing from the sources detailing his initiation
is incredible. It's very evocative. He's forced
to join the crew, and the legend says he was
offered the articles on a platter along with
a pistol. That phrase perfectly encapsulates
the psychological weight of it all. The articles
are the ship's code. The pirate contrast. Exactly.
The rules of the ship and how they divide the
plunder and that pistol resting next to it. That's
the alternative. Death. Death. No negotiation.
He is violently coerced right into a criminal
underworld. He escapes one brutal servitude just
to be first into another one at gunpoint. Yeah.
But to his credit, the lore suggests Greaves
actually shows real promise. He's reluctant,
obviously, but he quickly gains a reputation
as a highly capable sailor. Competence is your
only survival mechanism in that environment.
Right. If you're forced into a lawless society,
making yourself indispensable is your best shield
against a cruel captain. But competence doesn't
mean compliance. Inside, he is developing a profound
resentment. Boiling over. The sources say he
absolutely despises Captain Hawkins. He hates
him for forcing him into piracy. But he also
just has a real moral distaste for the sheer
brutality Hawkins inflicts on innocent people.
It's bound to hit a breaking point. And it does.
It builds to a massive duel between Greaves and
the captain. How does a mutiny like that actually
unfold? Well, the accounts offer two main theories.
Sons say it started directly over the torture
of a prisoner. Which tracks perfectly with his
developing moral compass. Exactly. Other versions
say Hawkins simply attacked him for disobeying
an order. But regardless of the spark, a pirate
duel isn't just a knife fight in the dark. It's
a public challenge. A direct challenge to the
power structure of the entire ship. And Greaves
wins. He kills Captain Hawkins and the crew,
who apparently feared the guy just as much, immediately
elect Greaves to take command. Here's where it
gets really interesting. He refuses to just take
the wheel and do piracy as usual. Yeah. He fundamentally
overhauls the culture of the ship. The very first
thing he does is rewrite those ship's articles.
The same ones forced on him. Right. He institutes
strict new rules. He explicitly prohibits the
mistreatment of prisoners. He openly allows merchant
captains to surrender peacefully during a battle
without being slaughtered. He even refuses to
participate in raiding poor, undefended coastal
villages. He basically constructs this identity
of an anti -pirate pirate captain. It's fascinating.
During an era defined by extreme violence, he
implements a strict code of humane conduct. This
philosophy is what transforms him into a legend
across the Caribbean. And nothing cements that
legend quite like this massive operation he pulls
off around 1675. Oh, the Margarita Island raid.
Yes. The notes highlight this raid. What actually
happened there? It's described as his crowning
tactical achievement. Greaves and his crew managed
to capture a local Spanish fleet right off the
coast of Venezuela. Which is huge on its own.
Taking on heavily armed vessels. Exactly. But
then he takes their guns, turns them against
the coastal defenses of Margarita Island, and
successfully storms the town. A surgical military
strike by a ragtag pirate crew. It requires immense
discipline. And they secure a massive haul of
pearls and gold. But the part that stands out
isn't the treasure. It's what happens after.
Right. They simply leave. They take the gold,
the pearls, and they depart. No further looting.
No burning the town down. No harming the inhabitants.
If you contrast this with typical 17th century
piracy, where towns were routinely burned and
citizens tortured for weeks to find hidden valuables,
Grieve's actions are astounding. It's a highly
professional operation driven by that strict
ethical code. Exactly. You'd think a hall of
that size would be the perfect note to end on.
And according to the narrative, he actually tries
to ride off into the sunset. He leaves piracy
and settles down to be a gentleman farmer on
the island of Nevis. A peaceful retirement. That
does not last. Not at all. One day, he's recognized
by a former victim who turns him in for the bounty
on his head. And despite his reputation for being
honorable, the courts show zero leniency. They
don't care about his new rules. No. Greaves is
tried, found guilty of piracy, and sentenced
to be hanged in chains. It's the ultimate betrayal
of his attempt to live a reformed life. He finds
himself languishing in a dark stone dungeon,
literally awaiting execution. And colonial dungeons
were horrific. Heat, disease, total isolation.
So he's sitting there waiting for the noose and
then an extraordinary event occurs. A massive
earthquake strikes. An act of God. Literally.
The tremors are so violent the town is entirely
submerged. Yet miraculously, Greaves survives
and is rescued by a passing whaling ship. I mean,
how do you even survive a submerged dungeon?
Well, as incredible as that sounds, this is the
exact moment where, as an analyst, I have to
step in and point out some fascinating inconsistencies.
The cracks in the story. Right. When historians
look closely at this miraculous escape, the timelines
get very blurry. Some versions claim this was
the famous 1692 earthquake that destroyed Port
Royal, Jamaica. Where half the city literally
sank into the sea. That's a real documented event.
Exactly. But other accounts insist he was imprisoned
on Nevis. Right. Totally different island. And
while Nevis did suffer its own catastrophic earthquake
and tidal wave, geological records place that
in either 1680 or 1690. So the dates and coordinates
are constantly shifting. Which is a massive red
flag when you're trying to pin down a historical
record. Still, regardless of the coordinates,
the narrative gives him a phenomenal third act.
In gratitude for being saved, he joins the whaling
ship crew, works his way up, and transitions
from pirate to pirate hunter. Which sounds crazy,
right? Yeah. Did the authorities really just
trust a former convicted pirate to hunt his own
kind? Was that common? It happened occasionally.
British authorities were desperate for capable
captains who knew buccaneer tactics. You know,
the poacher becomes the gamekeeper. And he uses
all that insider knowledge. He eventually captures
a pirate ship that was aggressively raiding local
fleets. His success is so undeniable he earns
a royal pardon. A full legal exoneration from
the crown. Incredible. He retires for a second
time, buys a plantation, and the story concludes
with him spending his later years as a wealthy,
highly respected philanthropist. Donating huge
portions of his wealth to island charities. Dying
of natural causes. It is this perfectly structured,
incredibly satisfying conclusion to a wildlife.
What's fascinating here is there is a massive
catch to everything we've just discussed over
the last 15 minutes. The rug pull. The ultimate
rug pull. When modern historians actually go
looking through the archives for red... legs,
Greaves, they find absolutely nothing. Wait.
Zero historical records of his existence. How
is that even possible? We just walked through
his parents' exile, the duels, a specific military
raid on Margarita Island, a royal pardon. And
none of it exists in the historical record. No
period accounts of the Margarita raid involving
a Captain Greaves. No trial documents from Nevis
or Jamaica. Wow. No records of his. Pardon his
philanthropy or his birth, he is almost certainly
a completely fictional character. That is mind
-blowing. How does an encyclopedic level of detail
just get made up and then passed off as actual
history for decades? Where did it come from?
To find the source, historians had to fast forward
a couple of centuries. The story actually first
appears in print in a 1923 book by an author
named A. Hyatt Verrill. The book was called In
the Wake of the Buccaneers. I am going to assume
Verrill did not provide any rigorous historical...
citations for this amazing tale. Not a single
one. Now, he did travel widely in the West Indies.
He might have heard a local folk tale in a tavern
and just wrote it down. But Verrill also had
a very well -documented reputation as a sensationalist.
Ah, there it is. He frequently fictionalized
his travelogues and outright invented material
to make his books more exciting. But a 1923 travelogue
by a known sensationalist doesn't usually make
it into history books. How does a tall tale jump
into modern encyclopedias? Because of a massive
failure of the historiographical process the
very next year. In 1924, a man named Philip Goss
published a highly influential book called The
Pirates Who's Who. And let me guess. Goss simply
lifted the story of Greaves directly from Verl's
book and presented it as hard historical fact.
Wow. Once a story is packaged in a formal alphabetical
reference format, it gains this powerful veneer
of legitimacy. Later, writers looked at Goss's
encyclopedia, assumed he did the archival research,
and cited him. A historical game of telephone?
Exactly. The myths just kept replicating. Why
did this specific story catch on so hard in the
1920s, though? Were people just particularly
billable to pirate myths back then? The cultural
context of the 1920s is the smoking gun here.
Both of those books hit the shelves just a year
or two after a massive pop culture phenomenon.
Raphael Sabatini's wildly popular 1922 novel
Captain Blood. Oh, the fictional pirate who is
actually a wrongly accused gentleman. who has
a strict moral code, and treats his enemies humanely.
Precisely. The plot of Captain Blood parallels
the description of Redlegs. Greaves almost beat
for beat. The reading public in the 1920s was
incredibly hungry for tales of noble pirates.
Because of Sabatini's novel. Right. Verrill and
Goss basically provided a real -life historical
equivalent to satisfy that massive market demand.
And Greaves isn't alone. Really? There's a whole
list of likely fictional pirates names like William
Lewis, John Cornelius, who suddenly pop up in
these 1920s texts with absolutely no prior historical
footprint. It is wild to think about a pop culture
trend literally rewriting reference books. But
our source material points out this isn't just
an old 1920s problem. This fiction has actually
bled into modern writing and political discussions,
too. It absolutely has. The sources give a modern
example, a book by Sean O 'Callaghan called.
To Hell or Barbados. Okay. O 'Callaghan includes
the accounts of Greaves, presenting him as a
factual part of the history of Scottish and Irish
prisoners exiled to the Caribbean. And to be
clear for you listening, our sources explicitly
note that O 'Callaghan's book has been heavily
criticized by historians and outlets like New
York Times. Yes. The critiques argue the book
is historically inaccurate and perpetuates what
historians called the Irish slave myth. Now,
we aren't taking a side on that political debate
today. No, not at all. We're simply bringing
it up as an incredibly fascinating case study.
It shows exactly how a character invented to
sell 1920s adventure books can accidentally get
woven into modern historical and political texts
almost a century later. It perfectly illustrates
how easily fiction camouflages itself as fact,
especially when it fits the narrative a later
writer is building. If we connect this to the
bigger picture, it explains why the trope of
the noble pirate is so enduring. Why we're so
eager to believe these myths. Exactly. People
in the 1920s, modern authors, and even us today,
we are fundamentally drawn to this specific idea.
We want to believe that even in the darkest,
most lawless environments imaginable, a person
can still choose to be good. The ocean during
the golden age of piracy represents ultimate
chaos and corruption. If a man like Greaves can
exist there, a man who refuses to torture, spares
the innocent, literally rewrites the rules of
engagement. It gives us hope about human nature.
It really does. We want the myth to be real because
it validates our own belief in morality. Let's
recap this incredible journey for you really
quick. We started by tracing the tragic tale
of an abused colonial servant who swims for his
life, only to accidentally stow away on a ruthless
pirate ship. Out of the frying pan. Right into
the fire. We watched him rise up. kill his cruel
captain in a duel, and become the honorable leader
of a crew that captures Spanish fleets without
shedding innocent blood. A true gentleman of
fortune. We saw him betrayed, sentenced to hang,
saved by a literal earthquake, and finally redeemed
as a pirate hunter and a wealthy philanthropist.
And then, the ultimate twist. He is a phantom.
A literary invention. Inspired by 1920s pop culture,
laundering itself through encyclopedias and past
office history. So what does this all mean? It
means the truth of a story isn't always found
in its historical accuracy. Redlegs Greaves might
be a complete myth constructed by a sensationalist
writer. But the endurance of his story over the
last century proves something very real about
all of us. It proves how deeply we value maintaining
a strong moral compass. The idea that you can
be surrounded by overwhelming corruption and
still choose to rewrite the rules to protect
the vulnerable. that is a deeply human aspiration.
It's the ultimate underdog story, not just of
a person trying to survive, but of ethics trying
to survive in a hostile world. This raises an
important question. It really does. And we want
to leave you with a final thought to ponder as
you go about your day. Think about your own life,
your career, the environments you navigate. Your
own code. Exactly. If you were forced to write
your own personal ship's articles today, a strict
code of ethics to navigate a cutthroat industry
or a really challenging environment, what would
be the one rule you would absolutely never compromise
on? A fantastic question to take away. Thank
you all so much for joining us on this deep dive.
Keep questioning the legends you encounter. Keep
exploring the history behind the history. And
we will catch you next time. Take care, everyone.