Remember: rapine first, then murder.

[melannen]

A poll, on something I have been curious about for years, but particularly relating to the current discussions about race in the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

Poll Disclaimer: OMG, not enough poll options! As a liberally-educated white chick, I feel the need to add: These are categories that I felt might be relevant to Captain Sparrow, not

Comments

[melannen]

Nononono! See, I'm trying to *resist* what happened after I saw the first pirate movie and went off to read every single pirate book I could get my hands on!

I haven't read any of those books (yet), but from my vague memories of the *last* time I went through this (Curse you, Jack Sparrow!) I would say that while the racial diversity and egalitarianism was there (and to some lesser extent also seems to have existed among the common seamen on British Navy ships) it was probably a *lot* more tense than the happy Disnified version on the Black Pearl, and was probably constantly being negotiated as crews and ships changed. And when I tried, I couldn't actually think of a famous nonwhite pirate captain in the Atlantic or Caribbean. I would love it if I was wrong, though.

(And of course that only applies to piracy in the late 17th and early 18th century in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific. The East Indies and the Mediterranean are a whole *other* story, with traditions of ethnic piracy going back millennia and conflicting with the European newcomers ...)