Pirate Captain Costume

How about a pirate wench costume for the pirate captain‘s partner? Pirates are people who attack and rob ships, whether centuries ago or in the present day. Such raiders have also been called buccaneers or freebooters or sea rovers. Pirates do differ from the sea raiders known as privateers.

Pirates were basically outlaws and not licensed by any nation to fight on its behalf.  Privateers, on the other hand, were licensed by a nation to attack enemy ships during wartime.

Pirates have raided ships and coastal towns for centuries. The greatest era of attacks by pirates  occurred from 1500’s to 1700’s on the Caribbean and Mediterranean seas. The most infamous pirates of this era were Henry Morgan, William Kidd and Blackbeard. The majority of pirates were male but a few were women.

Widespread piracy in the present day no longer exists. But attacks do occur in some areas. In the 1980’s, for example, pirates carried out a number of attacks against Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees in the Gulf of Thailand.

How pirates lived. Men became pirates for a number of reasons. Sometimes, the hard life at sea led good seamen to mutiny or desert their ships. These men often had to turn to piracy in order to survive. Many privateers became pirates when their wars between countries ended.

Legend, myth, fiction, and movies have helped create a very exciting and romantic idea of pirates. A typical male pirate is shown as a fierce man sporting a beard. He is occasionally handsomely dressed.

In reality, most pirates led miserable lives. They were often quarrelsome and drunk and of course, many pirates died from wounds and diseases. Some pirates were shot or abandoned by their own pirate crews or captured and sentenced to die by national authorities.

In spite of, or perhaps because of their unlawful ways of life, most crews of pirate crew initiated rules to govern their ships. Crew members would elect a captain and other naval officers and had a number of punishments for breaking the rules. They developed pay scales as well to determine every pirate’s  share of the stolen goods.

Until around 1700, pirate ships flew a red flag called the Bloody Flag. They then started to use flags that had skeletons, skulls and flaming swords on. The most popular of the new pirate flags was known as the Jolly Roger and showed white skull and crossbones on its black background.

Ships plying the trade route carried weapons in case they were attacked. But a pirate crew would usually outnumber the other crew and could usually overcome it in hand-to-hand fighting after boarding. Pirates could seize trading vessels by first coming alongside the vessel. They then boarded by using ropes and hooks to keep the ships close together.

Pirates would also attack towns as well as ships. In the towns, they would kill innocent people and take prisoners. The pirates held some prisoners for ransom and made slaves of others. They sometimes reputedly tortured prisoners to gain information about valuable cargoes. There is little evidence, however, that they made their prisoners “walk the plank.”