[Vision2020] Yo Ho Ho! It'll Be On The Test

[Tom Hansen]

>From today's (December 21, 2007) Spokesman Review -

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Yo ho ho! It'll be on the test 
UI prof will teach a class on history of piracy

Shawn Vestal 
Staff writer
December 21, 2007

http://tinyurl.com/2375by
Ian Chambers, a history professor at the University of Idaho, holds some of
his resource material in his office Monday. He will teach a one-semester
class about pirates starting in January. His expertise is in colonial
America. The Spokesman-Review (Photo Courtesy: Jesse Tinsley of the
Spokesman-Review)

There weren't a lot of Johnny Depps sailing around on real pirate ships.

But the actor's popularity in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies may help
a University of Idaho professor sneak a little history into his students'
holds. Starting in January, Ian Chambers is teaching a course he devised on
the real history of piracy - one that includes as much brutish reality as it
does swashbuckling adventure.

"The pirate we have in our eyes is a cross between Long John Silver, Captain
Hook and Johnny Depp in 'Pirates of the Caribbean,' " Chambers said in a
recent interview. "They were never as clean or as beautiful or attractive
(as that). They were dirty, smelly, grubby men, most often."

There's an awful lot of interest in those grubby men. Chambers, who proposed
the course in his first year at the UI, found himself flooded with students
when registration for the course was opened. He increased the size of the
class from 60 to 80 students, and still there's a waiting list.

Chambers said it only makes sense to teach a subject that has a "high degree
of history coinciding with a high degree of interest." Studying piracy -
focusing on the "golden age" of piracy from the mid-1600s to early 1700s -
brings together a lot of different chapters of history that are often taught
separately, Chambers said.

"It shrinks the distance between Europe, Africa and America during that
time," he said.

Pirates are generally defined as "mobile thieves on the high seas . who flew
under no nation's flag," Chambers said. They've been around dating back to
the Greeks and Romans, but they flourished along with the colonial ambitions
and maritime wars among European countries in the 1600s. As commerce and
warfare opened up, so did opportunistic piracy. In addition to that, though,
was the growth of privateers - ships hired by nations that operated on a
freelance basis, under pirate-like rules.

When European nations signed a peace treaty in 1713, there was another boom
in piracy, as navy men and privateers looked to stay at sea. Meanwhile,
exploration in the Americas was creating new lanes of commerce in the
Atlantic, and piracy was also thriving in the Indian Ocean and the
Caribbean.

"There's just a huge amount of money traveling across the ocean," Chambers
said.

Early American history was entangled with piracy, as well. Pirates were hung
in Boston and elsewhere in New England, and the famous fire-and-brimstone
preacher Cotton Mather once gave a sermon titled "Useful Remarks: An essay
upon remarkables in the way of wicked men: A sermon on the tragical end,
unto which the way of 26 pirates brought them; at Newport, on Rhode Island,
July 19th, 1723."

Pirates have often been considered less wicked than romantic. In the golden
age, pirates were typically poor, marginalized people - including African
sailors and some women - fighting against the established order.

"These pirates were the poor attacking the rich," Chambers said. "They were
Robin Hood-type figures. . That's something that's always very romantic."

The story of Blackbeard, among the best-known of pirates, is a good example
of the way history and mythology combined. At his peak, Blackbeard ran a
kind of piracy corporation - with four ships and 400 men. He once blockaded
the port of Charleston, S.C., and he is said to have "married" 14 women.

His image often preceded him, even during his own time. He grew a long black
beard and during battle he was known to tie in little streamers of hemp and
set them on fire. The resulting smoke enveloping his head contributed to a
devilish appearance. Eventually, Blackbeard captured ships simply by
promising the men aboard that he'd let them live if they surrendered - his
fearsome image was often enough to secure victory.

It's not as though piracy has vanished today, though images like
Blackbeard's have. Especially in the waters off Indonesia, Nigeria and
Somalia, attacks on merchant and pleasure boats increased in the past year,
Chambers said.

"It's still going on," he said.

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Romance and reality
 
Just how accurate is the common image of a pirate?

> Not very, says Ian Chambers, an assistant history professor at the
University of Idaho.

> The peg leg? Chambers said it's likely that pirates lost limbs and
fashioned crude prosthetics, but it's unlikely that those with makeshift
legs would be leading the fight.

> The eye patch? It's possible that one reason for the eye patch, apart from
covering a missing eye, would be to aid sailors as they moved quickly from
the sunny top deck to the darkness of the lower parts of the ship. A pirate
could simply switch eyes when he moved back and forth, preventing longer
times waiting for his eyesight to adjust. At least that's the theory.

> Buried treasure? Most pirates - who lived short lives, often ending in
battle or at the end of a noose - probably weren't compiling a retirement
account. "It is very rare - very, very rare - that pirates bury treasure,"
Chambers said.

> The whole ruthless barbarian thing? Well, yes and no. There was plenty of
violence associated with piracy, of course. But many pirate ships operated
like mini-democracies, including codes of conduct that provided an extra
share of the booty to those who lost limbs in battle. "They had a social
security blanket they agreed on," Chambers said.

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Seeya round town, Moscow.

Tom Hansen
Moscow, Idaho