Pirate swords and weapons

[Jim McDougall]

Recently the discovery of Captain Kidd's ship, the "Quedah Merchant" near what is now the Dominican Republic, has revisited my interest in the weapons used by 'pirates'. Naturally, all the standard cliche' images come to mind, from "Treasure Island "to the "Pirates of the Caribbean" immersed pop culture.
Trying to research the weapons actually used by varied groups that fall into this genre over different time periods, and quite literally over the 'seven Seas', reveals pathetic amatuer treatises on the weapons used, especially the swords.

I think the diffusion of various forms of ethnographic weapons was in many cases greatly enhanced by not only trade routes, but by these maritime franchises of either criminals or often 'licensed predators' carrying letters of marque, constantly moving between continents and oceans.

I began the thread on early makers marks in hopes of investigating, discussing and comprehensively grouping these inscriptions, stamps and marks that typically occur on European blades and those intended for trade. This of course addresses diffusion of weapons via commercial means into ethnographic regions, however the admittedly more restricted scope of such movement via this interesting maritime phenomenon may produce some colorful and fascinating results.

For example, pirates were of course not just the now cliche' Treasure Island characters of the American east coast and the Caribbean, and plundering the merchant ships of India, France, Spain and other powers...but the corsairs of the Meditteranean, Barbary Pirates, the pirates of the South China Sea, those of the Philippine and Indonesian archipelagos.
Even India had thier own nautical renegades, such as those from the west coast in the Maratha pirates, who preyed on East India Company ships among others.

With this geographic and cultural diversity, I am hoping that all members of the forum, in all factions of interest, might find interest in this topic, as weapons from all these cultures are in fact the true weapons used on so called 'pirate' vessels.

It would not be surprising to find that among the composite armories on these ships, would be the acquired weapons from the prey they had taken. In the Indian Ocean, naturally along with the English hangers (not necessarily 'cutlasses') that were on the English/American pirate ships, could also have included tulwars, firangi, shamshirs (the literary 'scimitar' which is a writers term not an actual weapon) and others.

I would like to discuss not only the more commonly associated cutlasses, hangers, rapiers, broadswords etc. but perhaps discover references seen in narratives of Philippines, China, India, Madagascar, Africa and others of piracy and perhaps references to the weapons.

I think one of most comprehensive and accurate studies on the truly wide range of piracy and the weapons used was in a brilliant exhibition that was in Haifa, and the catalog produced was magnificent. I hope Oriental Arms might read this and help me recall the title and year as it is not at hand at this time.

Best regards,
Jim

[katana]

Hi Jim,
what an excellent idea, I'll try and do some 'digging' (NO treasure map) and see what I can find. I do know that it was common to shorten the blades of captured swords to improve their 'functionality' on board ship.

Kind Regards David

[spiral]

Fascinating Subject Jim! I to presume they would use any captured piece that took thier fancy or was fittest for the job.

The exhibition was called ... " Pirates - The Skull and Crossbones."

The published works of the exhibition at The National Maritime museum, Haifa, Israel, were published in 2002.

But sadley I havent any seen of the catalouges.

Spiral

[RhysMichael]

Jim
A while back I told you about a sword at a resturant in Charleston called "Queen Anne's Revenge" (for obvious reasons). As I am sure you know Charleston's pirate history is extensive. The owner there has been collecting pirate artifacts for a good while (I am told decades) and has many of them on display in the resturant. The one I wrote of on here had a Nimcha ( Saif ) hilt and a blade from what looked to be a takouba. There are more than a dozen other swords on display there some are indeed hangers. I do not have photos from there but there are video tours from a news clip on the resturant here under the tours section that give a brief view of some of them.

http://www.qarevenge.com/

The priates soul museum in key west may be a good contact as well. They have a large collection but not many online photos of it
http://www.piratesoul.com/contact.aspx

While not all pirate the National Maritime Museum online collection is here and contains over 300 edged weapons, thats 300 online I think and more than 600 in its total collection (BTW they have a link on their page to this site )
http://www.nmm.ac.uk/collections/exp...tegory/weapons

[Jim McDougall]

Thank you so much for the great responses guys!!! I really do think we can have some fun and exciting adventure with this topic!
You're right David, they did shorten down the blades on a lot of these weapons...wasn't a lot of room to wave around a three or four foot sword on those tiny decks!
Spiral, thanks for the name of that exhibition. I wish I had the copy of the catalog handy right now....it was an incredible reference, and most impressive accuracy. Maybe Artzi will read this and might have suggestions about copies.

Rhys Michael, I am determined to get to Charleston one of these days and think that will be on the GPS soon. Excellent links BTW ! Thank you! During the earlier dives on the "Queen Annes Revenge" I had a number of great conversations with Wayne Lusardi and we often joked about the finds because I always grumbled about the cannons...where are the swords I said!! Dont think they ever found any. There were some distinct finds on the "Henrietta Marie" I believe with a shellguard English hanger, and on the "Whydah" I think there were some.
The book "Swords for Sea Service" (2 vol) by May & Annis has great illustrations of many of these swords from the National Maritime Museum.

Its been a while since that saif with the takouba blade! but what a great example of the great diversity of weapons used in the mkany forms of piracy.

One book that comes to mind here that has great references on this topic is "Boarders Away" by Gilkerson.

One weapon that seems to come up in illustrations of pirate weapons, but is seldom focused on, is the Scottish basket hilt. It has been established that Blackbeard was actually dispatched by a blow by one of these, but it seems that a Highlander who had joined with British expedition chasing him was simply aboard at the time, not necessarily regularly at sea. Any thoughts on whether the basket hilt was actually employed at sea?


One thing that has really inspired me to address this subject on pirate swords is these pirate websites that inevitably show the brass basketguard 'cutlass' which is actually a M1860 U.S. naval cutlass of Civil War period. I think Wyeth perpetrated this is some of his otherwise magnificent illustrations.

While obviously European and British hangers of the mid 17th century prevail as those used on pirate vessels, thier adventures into the waters of the Arabian Sea and Indian Ocean surely provided them with many forms of exotic weapons. Elgood shows karabela hilt nimcha with widened blade tip that may well have been used at sea by pirates from Muscat and others.

So many possibilities!!

All very best regards,
Jim

[Gavin Nugent]

Great thread Jim, I love them there pirates....hence my handle, Freebooter.

As with the trademark thread, just not a lot of time this time of year but I will leave you all with these images of an Executioners axe from the Danish West indies.

I bid with fury on this many years ago but just didn't have the coin to win at the time.

The images of the gallows and the wheel on this axe are very sinister, the gallows I am sure we all know about, but for those who have not seen the spoked wheel before, don't confuse it with a makers mark.

This wheel was a horrible things. For further reading follow this link
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breaking_wheel

This particular group of images is what pirates were on the receiving end of if they were ever caught.

[KuKulzA28]

I light of recent talk in the Hu-die-dao thread, I'd like to revive this.

Here is the link to a preview of Pirates of the South China Coast, 1790-1810 by Dian H. Murray.

I've decided to highlight a few things to make it easier (since there's a lot of readable text there).




Does anyone have pictures or examples of any of these weapons?
They are definitely a bit different than your classic Chinese weapons...
Yao-tao? Curved billhook-like blade? Now thats quite different than your normal Chinese weaponry, in fact that reminds me of Taiwanese machetes (開山刀) more than anything else...

[Gavin Nugent]

Something in the news recently;

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...ar?CMP=soc_567

And other perspectives too

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...sco-madagascar

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...sco-madagascar

Gavin

[Rick]

Oh, I have to laugh !!
When Barry was here diving on Whydah Galley we all drank in the same Orleans 'watering hole' ; he was a fixture in town, had the most beautiful local girl on his arm .
Friends and acquaintances dove for him on that wreck .
His vessel Vast Explorer was still moored in Provincetown last time I was up there on business .

I'll tell you one thing; that silver/lead 'pig' was not ballast .

Brings back some great memories .
Wild days and nights .

You guys have no idea ........

There's a book about Whydah and Barry written by one of the divers .
Walking The Plank; good read .

[spiral]

Originally Posted by Rick

You guys have no idea ........

.

Sounds good!

memories to remember...

[Rick]

Very good Spiral .
We used to surf right over where Whydah lies; she lies about 250 yards straight offshore of Marconi's wireless site on the bluffs in Wellfleet .
http://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/med...ni-station.jpg