You've already mentioned the lack of violence (except for that toward the end on Madagascar). The other thing that struck me as I read was the frequency of almost casual betrayals. Few people display either personal loyalty to their immediate leaders or a sense of obedience to the law or morality. I'm sure I will miss a few examples, but I'll sketch out a list:
1. On being assigned to his ship as first mate, Avery immediately begins to scheme to take over. He has no trouble finding several crew members willing to join his conspiracy.
2. When the conspirators execute their plan, the captain's only concern appears to be for his own personal safety, not to any higher duty.
3. It is not clear to me from the text why the Dutch captain Mynheer doesn't care to pursue them. So this may or may not belong on the list.
4. Only a handful of the crew decline the invitation to join the pirate band and get put ashore with the captain.
5. Avery tricks the crews of the two sloops out of their share of the Mughal treasure.
6. When the crew of Avery's final ship disperse in America, Avery conceals from them the bulk of the remaining treasure. (But in doing this he outwits himself, because he is left with jewels he can't easily convert to cash.)
7. Avery is cheated by the merchants who agree to fence his jewels.
8. Captain Tew appears to drift from privateer to outright pirate in a single paragraph.
9. Then we get into the remaining crew setting themselves up as petty kings in Madagascar (with emphasis on the "petty" part).
Except for the incident where the captain and loyal crew members are sent off in a boat (rather than killed), ever character seems completely amoral, looking only after his own immediate advantage. I get the impression that even the parties who were cheated would have done the same in reverse if they had had the cleverness or opportunity to do so.
I wish I had a sense of whether this was normal, normal for these subgroups, or what. A lot of my intuitions about high trust and low trust societies kind of got blown here now that you point ot out. I wonder if this was a transitional period where it was easy for untrustworthy people to take advantage of others because they expected people to be trustworthy? Or if something else is going on here.
It may just be the author's style, and we may get more sense of that as we read more chapters. Other books I've read about being a sea captain put much more emphasis on the burden of command, on the captain's absolute authority on board, but also his duty to his nation or to the owners. (In modern times there would also be a sense of responsibility to the safety of the crew, but I think that at the time of this story the crew were seen as more expendable.) There was none of that here. It's not just Avery, the other captains we see don't seem much better.
I was struck over and over again how it seemed that betraying your fellows was to be met with … meh. Even in the end Avery mostly just sends nasty letters to those who’ve swindled him. Granted he was older at that point and out of his element on land, but more force feels like it would have helped.
Even the pirates who form the Kingdoms are fickle mates first turning on each other and then banding back together.
It feels like the prerequisite to pirate hood is a love or tolerance for toxic relationships.
One thing I didn't expect was how unreliable a narrator Captain Charles Johnson appears to be.
Most accounts before this book appear to have Henry Every ending up as The Pirate King of Madagascar and Johnson takes the story the other way and leaves him destitute. Matt from the Pirate History Podcast said, "Most of that story was confusing and mashing up the stories of Adam Baldridge and his fort at St. Mary's, of Thomas Tew and his son with the Queen of the Malagasy, of the very real rape of so many Mughal women on board the Ganj-i-Sawai, and more than anything, the stories of Abraham Samuel, A man who actually did set himself up as a kind of a king. But it was Henry Every that served as kind of an amalgamation of all those stories. A figurehead and a marketable commodity to sell newspapers and cheap trashy books." [1]
It seems like Every did pull of a crazy act of piracy and everybody knew about it. Who doesn't love a good $100 million heist story? It was the kind of thing that almost ruined trading relations between England and India. It was in the public consciousness, and so people started to write about it and embellish here and there. There was even a play about Every [2] written by Charles Johnson, but apparently not Captain Charles Johnson, a different one. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He became an archetype that inspired other pirates years later. But we really have no idea what happened to him after he disappeared. And the Wikipedia page repeatedly refers to General History and other books about him as fiction.
Three cheers for Matt from the Pirate History Podcast! Thanks for sharing this context. It's definitely tricky to figure out what "really" happened at various points in history...
On that note, I'm also reading Empress of the East by Leslie Pierce right now, and it's really stark how little we know about various major historical figures. Of course, having lots of data doesn't help much either -- just look at how hard it is to figure out what "really" happened in various celebrity breakups or family dramas, even now with the cameras rolling 24/7 and stuff like FOIA requests for government records.
Wait! Is this book just a 1720s clickbait article? "18 Pirates with the Biggest Booty! You won't believe what happened to #4!"
We like things delivered to us in tidy narratives. And we especially go for the compelling ones. But nothing is really that tidy.
I don't know where Captain Charles Johnson was coming from and we don't even know who he was, it's a pseudonym. But you can spin almost anything almost any way you want. I think that was part of the discussion last week, that Drake was a hero to the English and a villain to the Spanish. It just depends on who you ask.
Every wasn't a great guy and committed a bunch of atrocities. But from what I understand his mutiny and initial turn to piracy started because his men were stuck on a ship not getting paid because of red tape. They were basically prisoners and they couldn't send money back home to their families they were trying to support. From that point of view the mutiny makes a little more sense.
One of the fun things about reading old stuff like this is the very strong sense that history may not repeat but it definitely rhymes. It's not just a great clickbait article, but it's also apparently the first of its kind in terms of talking about "the bad guys" as protagonists. But it's definitely in line with the trend to push boundaries. It's a very long-running trend!
And I honestly was shocked at how fundamentally sane the mutiny itself was. Obviously it wasn't something society could allow to become normal on ships -- discipline above all makes sense in that context, for the same reason that most militaries take a very dim view of desertion even if desertion is the obvious choice! -- but it wasn't sadism or runaway greed that led Avery and his fellows to take the ship.
This is not a very academic perspective but my first impression upon reaching the end of Avery's life was just "aww." For being our grand introduction to the swashbuckling world of pirates, he was basically just a guy who took one ship, screwed himself over with his insistence on keeping the diamonds, made a bad call, and then died. It was almost quaint how he put all his faith in the money lenders only to realize that he too can be cheated. He spent all this time jealously hoarding his money from fellow pirates only to fall for the classic blunder of thinking someone was telling the truth when they weren't. So, I appreciated him as a semi-tragic character with a pithy life lesson, but all in all yes, not actually interesting in any real way.
The warring pirate kings of Madagascar, on the other hand--very interesting. On the one hand they're just a bunch of ragtag sailors jealously guarding their shit from each other; on the other hand, with their petty tyrannies and feuds and many descendants, they must've had a pretty substantial long term impact on the entire culture of that area, and I'm curious to know more about what that was
Heh, half the reason I'm hosting this summer seminar for the social aspect of a read-along instead of taking a "real" college class or whatever is because I'm tired of having to fake caring about "the academic perspective." I had almost exactly the same reaction as you, which feels a lot more authentic.
You've already mentioned the lack of violence (except for that toward the end on Madagascar). The other thing that struck me as I read was the frequency of almost casual betrayals. Few people display either personal loyalty to their immediate leaders or a sense of obedience to the law or morality. I'm sure I will miss a few examples, but I'll sketch out a list:
1. On being assigned to his ship as first mate, Avery immediately begins to scheme to take over. He has no trouble finding several crew members willing to join his conspiracy.
2. When the conspirators execute their plan, the captain's only concern appears to be for his own personal safety, not to any higher duty.
3. It is not clear to me from the text why the Dutch captain Mynheer doesn't care to pursue them. So this may or may not belong on the list.
4. Only a handful of the crew decline the invitation to join the pirate band and get put ashore with the captain.
5. Avery tricks the crews of the two sloops out of their share of the Mughal treasure.
6. When the crew of Avery's final ship disperse in America, Avery conceals from them the bulk of the remaining treasure. (But in doing this he outwits himself, because he is left with jewels he can't easily convert to cash.)
7. Avery is cheated by the merchants who agree to fence his jewels.
8. Captain Tew appears to drift from privateer to outright pirate in a single paragraph.
9. Then we get into the remaining crew setting themselves up as petty kings in Madagascar (with emphasis on the "petty" part).
Except for the incident where the captain and loyal crew members are sent off in a boat (rather than killed), ever character seems completely amoral, looking only after his own immediate advantage. I get the impression that even the parties who were cheated would have done the same in reverse if they had had the cleverness or opportunity to do so.
I wish I had a sense of whether this was normal, normal for these subgroups, or what. A lot of my intuitions about high trust and low trust societies kind of got blown here now that you point ot out. I wonder if this was a transitional period where it was easy for untrustworthy people to take advantage of others because they expected people to be trustworthy? Or if something else is going on here.
It may just be the author's style, and we may get more sense of that as we read more chapters. Other books I've read about being a sea captain put much more emphasis on the burden of command, on the captain's absolute authority on board, but also his duty to his nation or to the owners. (In modern times there would also be a sense of responsibility to the safety of the crew, but I think that at the time of this story the crew were seen as more expendable.) There was none of that here. It's not just Avery, the other captains we see don't seem much better.
Definitely something to keep an eye out for!
I was struck over and over again how it seemed that betraying your fellows was to be met with … meh. Even in the end Avery mostly just sends nasty letters to those who’ve swindled him. Granted he was older at that point and out of his element on land, but more force feels like it would have helped.
Even the pirates who form the Kingdoms are fickle mates first turning on each other and then banding back together.
It feels like the prerequisite to pirate hood is a love or tolerance for toxic relationships.
One thing I didn't expect was how unreliable a narrator Captain Charles Johnson appears to be.
Most accounts before this book appear to have Henry Every ending up as The Pirate King of Madagascar and Johnson takes the story the other way and leaves him destitute. Matt from the Pirate History Podcast said, "Most of that story was confusing and mashing up the stories of Adam Baldridge and his fort at St. Mary's, of Thomas Tew and his son with the Queen of the Malagasy, of the very real rape of so many Mughal women on board the Ganj-i-Sawai, and more than anything, the stories of Abraham Samuel, A man who actually did set himself up as a kind of a king. But it was Henry Every that served as kind of an amalgamation of all those stories. A figurehead and a marketable commodity to sell newspapers and cheap trashy books." [1]
It seems like Every did pull of a crazy act of piracy and everybody knew about it. Who doesn't love a good $100 million heist story? It was the kind of thing that almost ruined trading relations between England and India. It was in the public consciousness, and so people started to write about it and embellish here and there. There was even a play about Every [2] written by Charles Johnson, but apparently not Captain Charles Johnson, a different one. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
He became an archetype that inspired other pirates years later. But we really have no idea what happened to him after he disappeared. And the Wikipedia page repeatedly refers to General History and other books about him as fiction.
[1] https://share.snipd.com/snip/4aeb26d0-55d8-4d4d-8f97-a567edc23a29
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Successful_Pyrate
Three cheers for Matt from the Pirate History Podcast! Thanks for sharing this context. It's definitely tricky to figure out what "really" happened at various points in history...
On that note, I'm also reading Empress of the East by Leslie Pierce right now, and it's really stark how little we know about various major historical figures. Of course, having lots of data doesn't help much either -- just look at how hard it is to figure out what "really" happened in various celebrity breakups or family dramas, even now with the cameras rolling 24/7 and stuff like FOIA requests for government records.
Wait! Is this book just a 1720s clickbait article? "18 Pirates with the Biggest Booty! You won't believe what happened to #4!"
We like things delivered to us in tidy narratives. And we especially go for the compelling ones. But nothing is really that tidy.
I don't know where Captain Charles Johnson was coming from and we don't even know who he was, it's a pseudonym. But you can spin almost anything almost any way you want. I think that was part of the discussion last week, that Drake was a hero to the English and a villain to the Spanish. It just depends on who you ask.
Every wasn't a great guy and committed a bunch of atrocities. But from what I understand his mutiny and initial turn to piracy started because his men were stuck on a ship not getting paid because of red tape. They were basically prisoners and they couldn't send money back home to their families they were trying to support. From that point of view the mutiny makes a little more sense.
One of the fun things about reading old stuff like this is the very strong sense that history may not repeat but it definitely rhymes. It's not just a great clickbait article, but it's also apparently the first of its kind in terms of talking about "the bad guys" as protagonists. But it's definitely in line with the trend to push boundaries. It's a very long-running trend!
And I honestly was shocked at how fundamentally sane the mutiny itself was. Obviously it wasn't something society could allow to become normal on ships -- discipline above all makes sense in that context, for the same reason that most militaries take a very dim view of desertion even if desertion is the obvious choice! -- but it wasn't sadism or runaway greed that led Avery and his fellows to take the ship.
This is not a very academic perspective but my first impression upon reaching the end of Avery's life was just "aww." For being our grand introduction to the swashbuckling world of pirates, he was basically just a guy who took one ship, screwed himself over with his insistence on keeping the diamonds, made a bad call, and then died. It was almost quaint how he put all his faith in the money lenders only to realize that he too can be cheated. He spent all this time jealously hoarding his money from fellow pirates only to fall for the classic blunder of thinking someone was telling the truth when they weren't. So, I appreciated him as a semi-tragic character with a pithy life lesson, but all in all yes, not actually interesting in any real way.
The warring pirate kings of Madagascar, on the other hand--very interesting. On the one hand they're just a bunch of ragtag sailors jealously guarding their shit from each other; on the other hand, with their petty tyrannies and feuds and many descendants, they must've had a pretty substantial long term impact on the entire culture of that area, and I'm curious to know more about what that was
Heh, half the reason I'm hosting this summer seminar for the social aspect of a read-along instead of taking a "real" college class or whatever is because I'm tired of having to fake caring about "the academic perspective." I had almost exactly the same reaction as you, which feels a lot more authentic.