Why Pirate?
Monday, September 19, was International Talk Like a Pirate Day.
Mostly this is a casual holiday that’s cause for website easter eggs and zany translations and endless memes, none of which are below my appreciation.
This year, I wanted to take the occasion to share what I love about pirates—yes, I’m talking about Age of Sail sea raiders in the 16th-18th centuries—and why they inspire me to take on pirate as part of my public identity. I’m not raising the topgallants or swabbing the deck or drinking barrels of rum, but there are plenty of ways in which I try to operate like pirates did. I believe in shared work for shared reward, in taking risks for what’s right, in avoiding limiting beliefs, and in collective endeavors. If it works out to bring me some doubloons or pieces of eight? Well, that’d be nice too.
So here, with a little melodic help from Disney’s Peter Pan, is why I proudly embrace my pirate status.
Cue the song…
🎶Ooooooh, a pirate’s life was a transparent life…
Pirate crews each maintained a clear set of expectations set out for everyone on board. These were the pirate articles (which you may recognize from the eponymous section of my website), and they were in essence the “rules of the road” that governed the ship. In order to join a crew, each recruit had to agree to and sign the articles. If they couldn’t read, someone read the articles aloud. If they couldn’t write, they could sign with a mark of their choosing.
These articles explained simply and straightforwardly how much each person would get paid, what kind of work was expected of them, which behaviors were and were not acceptable on board, and other things that were useful to know and agree to before you joined up.
I talk about how important TRANSPARENCY is to me, and this spirit is a big part of why. If I’m working on something, I want my colleagues and collaborators to know what it is, how I’m doing it, and what I’m aiming for. I want to know the same from them. If a situation is hard, I want to be able to talk through how to move ahead and also why it’s important to do so. I don’t think teams work together well unless each team member understands what they’re working toward and how their role helps make that end goal happen.
My pirate articles are out there for the world to see, and I look forward to working with folks who are willing to go along with that code.
🎶And pirates looked out for ‘we’...
Fair wages, health insurance, clarity of responsibilities?
If you think these sound like some of the rights being bargained for at any one of the recent museum unionization negotiations, you’re not wrong. They’re also things that pirates took care of to form functioning crews.
Pirates elected their captains (mutiny could actually be a pretty democratic process), who were only in absolute command in the middle of battle. It was up to other crew members to take care of things like navigation (navigators and helmsmen), personnel management (quartermasters), and physical maintenance (bosuns and shipwrights).
They laid out what share of any loot each crew member was eligible to receive, and it was always equal, with only a few of the senior officers receiving a fraction more than the general crew. Imagine if museums (or insert other company here) operated this way, with the executive cabinet compensated in proportion to the general staff. Feels like a different world, doesn’t it?
And pirates clarified how much money would be paid out to anyone who was injured. Henry Morgan’s articles included payouts of 600 pieces of eight for the loss of a right arm, 500 for the loss of a left arm or a right leg, 400 for the loss of a left leg, 100 for a lost eye, etc. Apart from the anti-lefty bias here, that’s more than many folks can get in the USA in 2022.
Most of these crews comprised several hundred people. If you needed a big team to make your seafaring operation successful, then you could be a government’s navy and press-gang people without consent or promise of pay, a merchant marine outfit like the British East India Company who prioritized the value of the cargo over the value of crew members’ lives, or a pirate crew who offered financial security and individual autonomy.
I’ll take door number 3, please. I aim for work that offers fair compensation for my labor. To the best of my ability, I try to offer tiered or sliding scale pricing for my services, along with a transparent explanation of how I charge. I don’t want to repeat some of the harmful money-first capitalist structures that govern much of our lives, and at the same time, I do need some doubloons to get by.
🎶You could be Black or queer and be a buccaneer…
In the 16th and 17th centuries, when much of the Western world and its colonialist-monarchist-military power was rooted in the rule of white men, pirates weren’t having it. There were women pirates and Black pirates and LGBTQ+ pirates and disabled pirates (pirates who were injured and received those aforementioned payouts were often explicitly invited to stay on with the crew: “He that shall have the Misfortune to lose a Limb in time of Engagement, shall have the Sum of Six hundred pieces of Eight, and remain aboard as long as he shall think fit.” from Edward ‘Ned’ Low’s articles). Pirate crews were often racially integrated in a time when much of the rest of the world couldn’t say the same. Long before gay marriage or civil unions were legal possibilities, pirates had matelotage, where two same-sex pirates could officially link their lives and property so that one might inherit the other’s stuff after death.
Nota bene here: before you go thinking pirates were paragons of progressive values, they weren’t. They were creatures of their time, and that time also included slavery and violence and misogyny, which was plenty present in pirate society, too. Some sets of pirate articles allowed crew members to take their payments in enslaved humans instead of coin, and most disallowed women from coming aboard entirely.
I hope it goes without saying that these are ways I want to work, too. I learn best and grow most when I’m hearing perspectives that are different from mine, when my life experience intersects with others who’ve lived very differently. I want to be learning and growing, and I simply can’t do that by only ever consulting my upper middle class cis white lady point of view. Bring me a diverse pirate crew over a bunch of all-white dudes any day.
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🎶‘Cause pirates wanted to live free
This is perhaps my very favorite thing about pirates. They didn’t grudgingly accept when the world treated them unfairly with little alternative. They forged and followed their own paths when their social systems were broken. Many of the people who joined pirate crews were navy veterans and merchant marine sailors who’d had first hand experience of harsh—including capital—punishment, lack of pay, and forced conscription, among other inequitable realities.
When all the weight and oppression of colonial empires came to bear down on these folks, they opted out. They refused rules that made no sense and found another way. The dominant narrative said “Life must be like this”, and pirates said “Hell no!” and created lives that gave them the justice and liberty they wanted. They refused to live small and in fear, and instead made so much drama that we’re still talking about them hundreds of years later.
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So, of course, this is where my head and heart are at, especially in 2022. When the world seems so polarized and confused and always turning toward the worst. When systems of work and rest and health and politics are cracking everywhere we look, I’m steering into my belief that there are other ways to be in the world. That I can make ways for meaning and value and inspiration that don’t rely on the same faulty pillars that are crumbling all around us.
I’m choosing to live by the much-loved words of Captain Flint from Black Sails (really, you should all watch it):
“They paint the world full of shadows and then tell their children to stay close to the light. Their light. Their reasons, their judgments. Because in the darkness, there be dragons. But it isn't true. We can prove that it isn't true. In the dark, there is discovery, there is possibility, there is freedom.”
I’m choosing freedom.
I’m choosing to be a pirate.
Further Pirate Reading List:
Republic of Pirates, Colin Woodard
Under the Black Flag, David Cordingly
Outlaws of the Atlantic, Marcus Rediker
Be More Pirate, Sam Conniff
Note: This is part of a series of posts exploring the words I use to define my work: Educator. Adventurer. Facilitator. Experience Builder. Pirate.
Creative Prompt Coda: Examine your life for one self-imposed rule you follow without questioning. Question it. Do something differently today.
