Personal Narrative: The Spoils Of Piracy In America

There was a relaxing feeling coming from the room. The colors were pretty mellow such as the cream-colored walls. Although the room gave off this aura, there was a very elegant tea set in the middle of the room. The wall contained a fireplace while the corner of the room contained a combination of both a bookshelf and a desk. The desk had a pair of golden glasses that belonged to one of the men who lived in the home (I can’t recall exactly who they belonged to). Aside from these things, the room also contained what looked like a very comfortable couch. The guide stated that all of the pieces in the house aside from one fireplace and most of the replicated sales pieces in the General Store.

There is little record of Blackbeard before his life of piracy in the 18th Century, other than his actual name being Edward Thatch and that he might be from the English port of because his name appeared on a census roll. The first actual historical record of Blackbeard was back in December 1716 when he was Hornigold’s lieutenant, where he was in charge of his own eight-gun, ninety man pirate ship. Blackbeard became a captain in a rather unusual way. In August of 1717, an unfamiliar vessel came into Nassau Harbor. The captain and crew were covered in battle wounds from them engaging in a clash with a Spanish warship upon arriving. The captain, Stede Bonnet, had ran away from his old life to start a new life of piracy. Bonnet sought protection

“After the 1890 season, the Pittsburgh Alleghenys signed several players from rival American Association teams- including the Philadelphia Athletics star second baseman Lou Bierbauer. The Philadelphia team loudly protested the move, complaining to league officials that the Alleghenys’ actions were “piratical.” The Alleghenys made sport of being denounced for being “piratical” by renaming themselves the Pirates for the 1891 season.” Pirates have had a strong presence throughout the ages; their presence has often garnered acknowledgment from governments- both foreign and domestic. For the most part, pirates are more real than ninjas based upon their presence and the acknowledgment of their existence by governments throughout history.

Rhode island was involved in piracy and trading black slaves. They lived of of fishing, shipbuilding, and whaling. Whaling oil was reusable and was used in oil lamps. Farming was very difficult to grow things on. But corn, pumpkins, rey, squash, and beans we planted, because they were easier to grow.

Blackbeard was a brave and most outspoken sea rovers who operated during early 1700s in the coastal regions of the English Southern parts of the New world. His piracy activities, together with his co-pirates are key sectors in United States of America’s history. Happening in the time eminently known as the golden age of piracy, their brave advances in sea robbery facilitated the gradual demise of sea hijacking and theft on the deep seas.1

I’m doing my pirate project on Sir John Hawkins. Hawkins was born in Plymouth, England in 1532.When he was young he took a good amount of voyages to the canary islands where he learned the profits of selling African slaves in Spain's American colonies. He would make profit from slave trading because at the time the Spanish colonies had ready markets waiting for a good price on slaves. That is why slave trading was a popular job for pirates around that time.

The floors were swept. Curtains, a deep blue, hung straight and heavy over clean windows and the walls were neatly, uniformly painted with a warm brown. Cabinet doors were closed over their contents, the bed towards the back of the room was made, and the blanket pulled over the top was smooth and brightly colored, if a bit faded and worn. Even the herbs and candles scattered across the wooden table were done so in a systematic way, everything lining up according to some sort of order that wouldn’t be obvious to any outside observer.

While images of Port Royal and the Spanish Main fill most people’s imagination when they hear the word pirate, the truth is not all privateers were sailing around the Caribbean looking to capture gold bound for Cadiz. The British government imposed a huge tariff on goods coming in and out of the American Colonies that spurned a black market for cheaper goods that had been plundered from foreign vessels. At the time South Carolina was an impoverished colony that was only eager to trade with the pirates letting them move around town freely just as if they were in New Providence.

The room was spotless, the staff was friendly, and the complimentary breakfast in the morning was nothing short of spectacular. It was the perfect spot to rest up and plan our day of arborglyph treasure hunting.

This is Platt. I am a thirty-two year old male negro. I hail from Georgia. I am what you would call “Contraband”. I have been endlessly working on a plantation for my whole adult life until this year when I have escaped my master and gone up to the great country of Canada. Living on a plantation working in the blazing sun day in and day out has deeply affected me. According to Gordon, a slave whom I met from Mississippi, has showed me his many scars from whippings that he received from attempting to escape. They were even worse than mine. From this, I have concluded that I am lucky. Another fellow named Wilson Chinn told me that he was branded with spiked iron collars, heavy ankle and wrist chains, spiked paddles and leg stiffening brackets.

Looking around I was shocked: no animal heads on the wall or blood on the floor and there definitely wasn’t his arm in a glass case. In fact, it looked like any other home to me: a warm fireplace and pictures on the wall of friends, family . . . and medals? I was pulled out of my thoughts when a warm scent hit my nose. I looked over to see him holding a tray of cookies and warm cocoa. He offered me a seat and I eagerly asked about all the pictures and medals.

The Seafarer by Burton Raffel was written during the Anglo-Saxon period where the Anglo-Saxon warriors lived to defend their King, like in the story Sir Gawain and The Green Knight. One of the warriors speaks about his challenges and begins saying that his story is not at all joyful. It is a story full of pain and suffering. The story paints a picture of what it means to be “dislocated”, “set out”, all by oneself and how badly it feels. “My feet were cast in icy bands, bound with frost,with frozen chains, and hardship groaned around my heart. Hunger tore at my sea-weary soul. No man sheltered on the quiet fairness of earth can feel how wretched I was”.(Raffel 1) The powerful imagery in this stanza sets the tone that the narrator is trying to

Three years ago, I read an article online titled “The Loss of Pirates is the Real Reason for Global Warming,” which explained that the reduction of pirates is actually statistically correlated to the rise of global temperatures. At that time, I had just begun to study the basic principles of statistics and the methods used to analyze data in school. The relationship seemed ridiculous, but according to the regression line, it presented a reasonable conclusion that had me pondering.

Are you concerned about pirate attacks on your ocean voyages? Although it may only seem like a good movie plot, the threat of piracy still exists. Nowadays, pirate incidents are often not covered in mainstream media. One researcher commented on the topic, saying that piracy has “…been romanticized in such films as Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean” (Lunsford, “What Makes Piracy Work?”). Nevertheless, pirates have proved their aggressive behavior through history and their effects on society. Modern and past pirates share similarities and differences, and countries around the world are looking for ways to control the issue before it spreads.

In the poem, The Seafarer it expresses how people in our society today react upon actions without thinking. The Seafarer states that over 2,000 years ago in the Anglo-saxon society, only the weak remain. Protesters today are faced with the challenge of getting their opinions across. They have to resort to organizing large groups in order to rally for the people who are seen as the lower groups of society.