Pirate Expert Reviews Famous Pirates in Hollywood Movies

foreign so here we have Johnny Depp returning with magic potions because nothing kills Pirates like magic potions he destroyed cities he was a bad man if you're Spanish if you're British however he's very useful hello I'm Izzy Lawrence I'm a historical children's author I wrote this book Blackbeard's treasure and I'm here to tell you about whether I think that these films about Pirates are accurate or not [Music] thank you and already we have a problem because that is not an accurate British news that is an American noose with the coils going up British ropes had an eyelet at the end so you just thread it through just once and that would uh that would do a state of emergency is declared for these territories okay so let's start off Pirates were not hung in the Caribbean until later into the 18th century they would be taken back to whopping where they'd be executed there so they'd be tried somewhere like Port Royal and then they'd have been taken back to London to serve as a warning to other Pirates uh the trapdoor this was standard drop short drop would be under this this is a standard drop of four to six feet later on obviously replaced by the long drop which is much more effective way of hanging so basically if you're being hanged like this what you want is to be as fat as possible and as heavy as possible they're going to show a kid in a minute I think oh but the kids is uh file he in a standard thing I don't know if this drop will be enough to kill him so he'd probably be there with a slightly fractured vertebrae dangling for ages I mean the phrase pull my leg is actually because of hanging so you want your friend to come along and just pull on your leg to break your neck so you're not left there struggling and gasping and being slowly choked [Music] rebound [Music] now this song entirely fictional the colors refers to a flag usually it's the king's colors meaning you know what we would call the Union Jack um but uh the colors would be the Black Flag that you fly to scare people obviously you fly a red flag that means you're going to kill everyone on board now saving someone's obviously very important because you want to have everybody in time when you're doing things like hoisting rigging foreign [Music] I think actually the way that that ropes to the side of his neck is accurate that's where it would have been put the eyelet would have been just under the jaw as well if he was actually you know being hanged in the British fashion that's definitely an American noose which I do not approve of because this is pre-america come on [Music] and they weren't also hanged in mass as far as I know like this they would have been regular hangings or whopping famously Charles Vane was a really brutal pirate saw Captain Kidd being executed because he was local to whopping so uh that's in London and hangings were an event people used to go to them you used to be able to watch it the whole idea was it would put you off being naughty but actually it was just entertainment for people I mean people genuinely enjoyed it there's it's something so strange to us now we think we'd probably want to vomit or something but you know people be there watching it you know finding it great fun I call it on Captain Teague Keeper of the cold see somebody proclaimed this all to be fully um so you did have pirate councils this happened pirate captors had to make agreements find out what each other were doing make sure they weren't annoying each other too much make sure they didn't attack each other so you have people like uh Jennings and horny gold having massive arguments and NASA trying to establish who was the most dominant who should we follow I think Blackbeard and Charles Vane there's a bit of rough and tumble about who's going to take the king's pardon who wasn't so these meetings did happen I mean Pirates did meet also they wanted to swap crew members and everything else follow me thank you and yeah the pirate code being represented as a sort of Bible is completely stupid um I'm sorry filmmakers it makes a great story the idea that they all recognize this mystical book but that isn't um that isn't what the pirate code was it was a simple agreement that you made boarding a ship agreed to be a pirate you might swear to honor the code that you've all mutually agreed things like if you get injured we'll call a doctor everybody has a vote that's equal we all have to be in agreement once the votes cast we're doing what we all say we're not going to Mutiny that sort of thing you each get this sort of ration captain gets this much the crew gets this much usually not as disparaging or disparate as the difference between the Navy what the Navy captain gets compared to what the crew member gets there um but all of this sort of written code nonsense yes it would have been written again there were written codes but they were like a page not a book I call for a vote but the idea actually of having a vote that is very practical they were very Democratic more democratic than we were today a ship's boy was allowed to vote a black person was allowed to vote a woman was allowed to vote if they were a member of the crew you had a vote and that vote was equal to the captain very often um and that's how you didn't get mutinies because you didn't need a mutiny you just needed a vote and they did have welfare as well you'd have a system of welfare so that you know everybody got a pension if that was the case that you could afford it if there was Treasure it was shared and it was far more um egalitarian that anything of the time or even anything that came years decades later in the American Revolution or the French Revolution this was they were so ahead of their time women Pirates were definitely real they weren't very common now a lot of women Pirates like Mary Reed would dress up as men and you wouldn't know they were within Pirates unless they told you or they came out later on so we don't know exactly how many women Pirates there were probably more than you would imagine um but obviously and Bonnie famous female pirates in the Caribbean in the early 18th century she captained the ship she also went out with Calico Jack and basically called him a dog when he refused to fight because he was too cowardly famously but it was rarer for women to be Pirates similarly it's rarer for women to do anything other than basically stay home and you know give birth and work as servants it wasn't much fun of course man votes for systembaji mistress Chang Ed Elizabeth Swann Barbosa Villanueva so you had Pirates um like I think it's called La Booth who it literally means the Buzzard and he was a famous French pirate he had Dutch Pirates you had Spanish Pirates you had English Pirates you had Maroons who were like people like Black Caesar we don't know their nationality maybe they were African Merchants more likely Black Caesar was a maroon slave he could have been from absolutely yeah he could be Nigeria from Mali from Central America Africa he could have yeah we don't know where he came from he could have been a slave in you know North Carolina he could have been a slave in Hispaniola you know he could have been anywhere so um we don't know so many different nationalities were going on at the time and also remember like all of the African people they were all speaking their own languages which are very different you know so they couldn't communicate easy they weren't one homogenous group of sort of black people they had their own National identities and they knew you know they the people who speak she would have been different to the people who spoke Europa and this is where you get these exciting languages like Patois coming starting to be born in places like Jamaica is because you have this mix of languages and people communicating in a way that everybody can understand even if they don't have English as their main language the ship is ours okay so this is Blackbeard's introduction scene so I presume we're on the Queen Anne's Revenge which was definitely it's an ex-slave ship called La Concord wood and it was not covered in skulls and here we have uh Blackbeard coming out of his cabin now I portrayed Blackbeard as in his cabin and lock zuzil however Blackbeard was 38 when he died and life has not been kind to Ian McShane here he is far far too old but anyway it is it is fantasy magical pirate stuff he has wonderfully got his hair in braid so that is accurate he's all wearing black which also is accurate that's how I portray him in Blackbeard's treasure he has not got the brace of pistols on uh which is you know fair enough but uh he would have had a brace with four loaded pistols on him to be as scary as possible also he had red ribbons in his beard as well to be ultra scary foreign ERS abandoned their posts without orders without leave men before the mass and yeah he wasn't able funny enough to command the rigging uh just by use of his eyes apparently and twirling of his uh his sword there but the Queen's hands Revenge was a real ship and Blackbeard managed to get it simply because when he found LA Concord it was adrift pretty much because the crew was sick it was a slave ship most of the slaves were sick and he offered them a chance to um godness what a silly sword that is I don't think that's a realistic sword it's just very an open flame again the worst thing the most scary thing on a pirate trip if you were being attacked by another ship and you had an open fire on board you'd be more scared of the open fire on board than you would be of the enemy ship because um yeah that can really really spread and if you're on a wooden vessel in the ocean you don't want it funnily enough it's not historically accurate that we're rigging with Karma live and suspend um as pirates like it likes like flies in a spider's web that is not accurate also the um Queen Anne's Revenge I don't think it had the double balcony point that way but you know in terms of size of ship roughly right it how it was a big it was a big tall ship um Queen's hands Revenge but that is not the best depiction of Blackbeard I have ever seen Blackbeard why would you attack your own crew um if they wanted to meet a need they could just vote you out the reason Blackbeard was successful was he was incredibly good at commanding his men he had a respect of his men so much so that they literally died for him also I want to note that you know the last years of Blackbeard's life um 60 of his crew were freed maroon slaves which he got off that boat which is La Concorde or later re-christened Queen Anne's Revenge because he had Jacobite tendencies so here we have Johnny Depp returning with magic potions because nothing kills Pirates like magic potions can't teach she's dying you must save your daughter this one takes life this one has the tear and gives like an everlasting life not accurate I mean things like that are things that Spanish people used to tell each other about you know same things like El Dorado I suppose this was a all of the myths surrounding um Pirates and magical places in the Americas were done by a lot of conquistadors making themselves sound very exciting and you know Noble okay for yourself so we don't know if Blackbeard had a daughter there's a few there's references the fact that he did he certainly have more than one wife because he'd have a wife in each Port so the likelihood is he had kids whether he acknowledged them or not is another matter um but I don't think uh this is quite the right age range because he would have been about 38 when he died and um I don't think he was having kids when he was 10 years old I mean it was very useful to have wives in every port and not just for like romantic reasons but really you needed character Witnesses so if you were arrested you needed somebody to be there at your trial who'd say oh he's lovely he's always good he comes home that's what you need and in order that you might actually Escape The Gallows so that is why it was very fortuitous to have you know families in every town if you can afford them and Blackbeard could certainly afford them foreign [Music] and then you've got this wonderful scene where once again Blackbeard is seen as being treacherous and that's what kills him so he deserves it really when actually Blackbeard nearly destroys the man who came to kill him in his boat and jumps aboard thinking that here's the crew that he's just broadsided a dead but actually they're hiding so it's actually Maynard who was the treacherous one in the capture of Blackbeard and he fought nobly to the death and then had his head cut off Blackbeard certainly encouraged myths about himself so I don't think he encouraged to miss it he could like strangle people with his own rigging but he certainly didn't want people to think that he was a pushover the last thing he wanted was a merchant vessel to see his flag and his Fleet bearing down on them and think I'll be all right I'll outrun him because he wanted them to fear him once they feared him then he could easily take all the stuff and they wouldn't put up a fight so fear was used and that is why he dressed so elaborately in all black with like brace of pistols and he set far to his beard and that sort of thing and it also I think encouraged this sort of idea that he was Matt he could have also be mad because of the syphilis but it might also have been like oh he's crazy what's he gonna do next he's unpredictable he's Manic and that is um certainly something he encouraged in order that Merchant vessels feared him oh [Music] the government House Port Royal Jamaica very well tended very nice that Carriage looks a bit modern I'd say because that Carriage looks like you know 18th century at the earliest and here we are in the 17th century but the costumes are pretty good and not sweaty enough for the boys [Music] whom do you wish to see but he looks excellent if you look at old portraits of Henry Morgan he is seen as quite chunky he was meant to be quite formidable and fit when he was younger but now we've got a slightly chunkier man who's incredibly successful Admiral at this point he is an admiral and he's just taking over to be the governor of Jamaica I can appreciate your discomfort Malone it's not pleasant having a man who tried to hang return is your Superior we both save I am willing to forget your distaste of me ceremony inmates tomorrow I shall perform more duties required of me as an officer of the crown but my personal life is my answer and it is true that other people when he became Governor were very dismissive of him because he did act like a you know a pirate lord in many senses being Governor is going to require some restraint there's always Maracaibo plenty of quarters of Blockheads both of you what quarter how do I know so Henry Morgan it's debatable whether you count him as a pirate or as a privateer um he certainly did have a letter of Mark to do all of his attacking but he did attack a lot of towns which wasn't really covered by the letter of Mark and when I say attack a lot of towns he got the name of Drake in reference to Sir Francis Drake um by the Spanish he was really not liked by them he destroyed cities he was a bad man uh if you're Spanish uh if you're British however he's very useful [Music] now this is interesting so we have here a representation of a black person on the island who's obviously a slave another famously um you know before Jamaica fell to the British it was Spanish and on Jamaica you have a lot of Spanish maroon slaves who can continually fight the British raiding the plantations when they're on there this guy is obviously he's he's also speaking um very much like an American uh representation of slavery rather than a Caribbean one what are you doing here oh nothing sir just go in going fast stealing hey so I was just looking for Locker to belong to miss Margaret but yes so he hasn't got any of the early Patois that's starting to come in maybe he hasn't got any African accents he has certainly not been there long enough to have been born on that island he's probably from Africa so the fact that he's got a sort of you know American accent's a bit weird I mean Henry Morgan was certainly very brutal when it came to attacking Spanish people he was very he would slaughter people and he'd Walk Through the Jungle with his men slaughtering people he was incredibly um an incredibly good Commander he could command I think some attacks he did in Panama he had over 2 000 men under his control and he was incredibly good and people would follow him and the stories about him made him in you know not only formidable to hear about you wanted to surrender but also you'd want to follow him and people you know would make a fortune um just from the share of the spoils because but he was a privateer not a pirate so he was doing this with permission of the governor of Jamaica um and so he he was allowed to and then obviously he became governor of Jamaica himself [Applause] Majesty oh look at the 1930s ladies how beautiful they are and how beautiful that man is I mean sorry but he he really is he's a very elegant anyway at this time Britain and Spain not really getting along not really getting along at all mainly because Britain was an upstart nation and Spanish people didn't recognize the queen and thought that you know you know taking over Britain getting rid of them would really please the pope so and also stopped their vessels being attacked by British Pirates like Sir Francis Drake so that is what was happening I have a more serious charge preferred against you his Excellence had done over as ambassador to this quote states that you did attack plunder and sink the Gallia Center hulalia I wish he was a passenger under the flag and protection of his Sovereign King Philip of spade is this judge true part of it your grace uh quite a large part of it part of it so there's a sort of real sort of like um rivalry even though you know Britain at this time is this tiny little island and Spain dominates the globe they're getting all the gold from the Americas they're owning like huge amounts of Empire so at this time it's a very the British are the underdogs in this situation and and the Spanish really are the sort of the conquerors of the world well what's the rest we also set freed many Englishmen imprisoned as Galley slaves on his excency's ship your grace these men referred to by Captain Thorpe were Julie tried and sentenced to the galley by a qualified Court I submit your grace that the court of the Inquisition is not qualified to pass Fair judgment on English semen nor to subject them to the cruelties of a Spanish Galley now Grace it appears the captain wishes to justify what in plain words is a desire for plunder with no respect for the interest of speed I also love the way that um you know he's sort of justifying himself all of this would have been unspoken particularly in front of the Spanish Ambassador I mean the whole point of this scene is obviously um to depict the British as very very reasonable and in control and to you know have the Spanish as I said they're at war with the world because this is during the second world war we're trying to convince the Americans to join Britain in the fight against the Germans who are at war with the world so you've got to read a lot of sort of propaganda into this it's certainly the case that Elizabeth when Drake came back from his circumnavigation of the world um he had attacked loads of spot you know Spanish vessels and at that time Britain had made a very sort of hasty piece with Spain and she sort of like took the treasure behind closed doors and said Well Done love but didn't really sort of celebrate him um and it wasn't until the Armada that he really sort of came in and was uh yeah he's really great attacking Spanish people so this sort of public display of you know here she is she's going to point her finger in a second will you wait Captain thump do you imagine that we are at war with Spain your grace Spain is at war with the world enough of this listen to me every one of you never again will you dare in my presence to condone your crimes under the mask of patriotism no more of such talk to you here and for the future let me warn you that any unwarranted attack upon the personal property of Spanish subjects would cost the guilty party his head his head is that clear that is all for the Ambassador because in you know behind the scenes she was taking all the treasure and enjoying it very muchly so Elizabeth you know she is allowing men like Sir Francis Drake to go out in her name um been given a letter of Mark which is basically like you know how James Bond has a license to kill a letter of Marcus you have a license to attack enemy ships uh so ship you know people were at war with like Spain like Portugal uh you're allowed to go and raid any Merchant vessel that you like you've got permission it's not piracy it is um patriotism and piracy you can keep the loots actually if it's Elizabeth first she wants a bit of it but backstage don't tell the Spanish it's fine what these ships aren't even close enough together yet they would have been bumping together the the actual gunnels would have been really far apart the sort of fences on either side of the deck would have been really far apart because ships sort of do this sort of shape and so you're not going to get close enough I mean the Spanish Armada they couldn't get close to the British ships because they would just broadside them you know they literally turned their guns and fire at them and it's very difficult to then sail a ship when your crew is covered in splinters uh below decks and dead so you know getting two ships to just line up is so much skill in the first place but it did happen historically it did happen and you would use grappling cuts and you'd pull the ships together but even you know the ships would have to be touching [Music] and what I love about this is you genuinely have loads of people on I mean these vessels would have had at least 300 men operating them so this is nice but again that's too far apart you wouldn't you'd be crushed before you hit the sea surely and it's ever so still it is so still but I love the hacking the hacking is great the pistols once again every single pistol seems to work which is but the hitting of the back of the rifle is great they have the galley um Osman below uh and he had this sort of Swing there were people who basically lived up in the rigging at this time so that's pretty good and I like the sort of cutlasses they've got here um the men are fighting with uh falling into the sea obviously I mean a bit slow a bit slow but you know considering that and this is the thing you don't want a long swords when you're fighting on a pirate ship because it's gonna get caught in the rigging it's going to court on other people there is no space ship sinking captain and we shall drown together and this sword is ridiculous this is a dueling Rapier you would I mean seriously one guy could just snap that it is not the sort of battle this is a sword that gentlemen Jewel with which is why the gentlemen are fighting each other like this like gentlemen on a boat it's ridiculous in a battle scene you want a much thicker um sword than that if you look at Drake's sword it was a Rapier but it was a thick one this sort of idea that Elizabeth the first this is Noble Peter we're just trying to defend ourselves and do what's right is not not what was happening Elizabeth was trying to you know basically play two sides the same chord she's trying to not be at war with Spain because she would lose but also get loads of Spanish gold on the sly by giving men like Sir Francis Drake letters of Mark to go and raid a few um Spanish vessels uh and uh that's what he did and it wasn't as Noble as it comes across in the film thank you for watching this video all about the history of pirates I've been Izzy Lawrence this has been history hit check out all the other videos that they're popping up all around me they are all excellent expand your mind learn about history it's fun [Music]

Channel: History Hit

Views: 786,308

Keywords: history hit, history hit youtube, pirate movie, how real is it, pirates of the caribbean, golden age of piracy, pirate expert, historian reacts, historian reacts to movie, historian reacts to films, historian reacts to history movies, historian reacts to pirate movies, iszi lawrence, history hit movie review, famous pirates, blackbeard, history of pirates, real pirates, real blackbeard, pirate code, real pirate code, queen annes revenge, blackbeard ship

Id: sQQc5a9dO8I

Length: 27min 2sec (1622 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 23 2023