The Reality of “A Pirate’s Life”
(Follow the links to see each exhibit item.)

The very glamorously titled “Golden Age of Piracy” (mid-17th through early 18th century) saw a huge boom in robbery on the high seas. However, reality was not as glamorous as we might imagine. For starters, the beginnings of piracy in the Atlantic and neighboring seas wasn’t even criminal. In this age of exploration and colonization, many countries were jostling for power. They would do anything to claim and maintain control over land, resources, and trade routes. in that vein, the British, French, Spanish, and Dutch monarchies issued Letters of Marque to certain ships–essentially giving them free reign to attack, rob, and capture any enemy ships they liked. Ships with these Letters of Marque were known as “privateers”–and this is where piracy began. As time went on, some ships went outside the freedoms allowed a privateer, attacking their own country’s ships and taking the riches for themselves, and these became the real “pirates.” Because of the Letters of Marque, however, it was often difficult to tell which ships were criminals and which were government-sanctioned. The rampant violence at sea, therefore, only became so wide-spread because the countries in power allowed it.

This is only one of the harsh realities of piracy that most people don’t see today. The video here, Pirate Myths Debunked, details several more. The realities revealed by the video show that life on the high seas was not quite as exciting as we want it to be.

Or, if you want to test your ability to pick out myth from reality, check out our little game here: Fact or Fiction? While not all of them are complete fiction, it’s clear that real ‘pirate life’ was not particularly glamorous at all.