Pirates and Privateers
The History of Maritime Piracy

Cindy Vallar, Editor & Reviewer
P. O. Box 425, Keller, TX  76244-0425

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In the preface of The Devil’s Cloth is a brief introduction to clothes of the Middle Ages.

…everything means something: the fabrics…the pieces and forms, the colors…the work of cutting and assembling, the dimensions, the accessories, and, of course, how the clothes are worn. It is a matter of using conventional and always carefully coded signs to express a certain number of values and to ensure the corresponding verification of them. Everyone must wear the clothes of his state and rank. To dress more lavishly or more shabbily than is customary for the class or the circle to which one belongs is a sin of pride or a mark of debasement. Moreover, it is a transgression against the social order and thus a cause for scandal… (Pastoureau, xi)

This was no less true in other historical time periods, and it was true of pirates, who refused to live under the confining rules and regulations of society and government. They often wore the traditional garb of sailors, but acquired articles of clothing outside their station from captured cargo and innocent prisoners. To them the Sumptuary Laws¹, first passed in the 1300s in England and France, were meant to be broken.

Dress of French nobles vs. a jusge, townsman, and peasant during the 15th century.

It is perhaps fitting to begin by citing this particular tome, for it concerns itself with the history of stripes, and stripes have long been associated with mariners. When this association began is a mystery yet to be unraveled, but by the middle of the 1600s, sailors appearing in English and Dutch paintings, wear red and white, or blue and white, horizontally striped shirts. And most were accomplished sewers – a skill learned from mending sails. In December 1708, Bartholomew Roberts set six men to adapting blankets and canvas into clothing suitable for colder climates. Mariners with a particular talent for sewing sometimes decorated their shirts with embroidery.

Sailors, the most numerous aboard the ship, were members of the lowest level in the hierarchy of their wooden world. They heeded the orders, never gave them and rarely defied them, similar to peasants and the gentry above them on land. Clothing was a visual way of distinguishing a person’s station. Barber surgeons, for example, wore coifs of silk that set them apart from others. Wide breeches open at the knee and stripes eventually distinguished mariners from other members of the working class.

Dress of a pirate captain vs. that of one of the crew

Chaucer provided one of the earliest descriptions of the seafaring outfit when he described the mariner in The Canterbury Tales as being “all in a gowne of falding to the knee.” Some fifteenth-century sources depict sailors clad in hooded gowns with wide sleeves that reached to their elbows. The slitted hems made it easier to work aloft. In 1529 Christophe Weiditz traveled to Spain as a passenger, but he donned the garments of a sailor for the journey. Rather than slops (see note 10), he wore striped trousers and a tunic.

The English warship Mary Rose sank in the summer of 1545. Marine archaeologists have sifted through the wreckage and found more than 655 artifacts that once belonged to the sailors, officers, and passengers at the time. These provide a glimpse of what Tudor men, mariners in particular, wore. The typical male dress of this period comprised a hat, linen shirt, jerkin², breeches³, hose, and shoes. All of these have been recovered. The most prevalent foot coverings were either slip-on shoes or ankle boots. Some jerkins had buttons for closures; others had holes for lacing, although the laces didn’t survive. Two types of headgear dominate the finds: bonnets, sometimes of silk and velvet or other fine fabric, and woolen caps. The woolen caps⁴ were round with a flat double brim. They were either coarsely knitted or felted and blocked, and they were fairly waterproof.

Two other mariners of the Tudor period, who were also pirates, were the English Sir Richard Hawkins and the Irish Dubh dara⁵ O’Malley. The former, one of Queen Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs⁶, supplied “rugge⁷ gowns for my people….” (Agnes, Shirts, 36). The latter, father of the legendary Granuail (Grace) O’Malley, wore tight, worsted trews, a saffron shirt with wide sleeves, and a studded jack of tanned leather under a large woolen cloak fringed at the neck and fastened with a gold pin. His feet were clad in square-toed brogues.

Early in the next century, Sir Francis Verney⁸, a graduate of Oxford, converted to Islam in 1608 and became a renegado⁹. He wore a richly embroidered purple hat and plush coat, possibly brocade, trimmed in fur. He also wore soft slippers.
 

Sir Francis Verney

Verney's hat & slipper

Verney's coat

In 1623 the English Royal Navy began stocking a “slop chest” aboard its vessels. Merchants also adopted this procedure, which allowed them to supply “necessaries [garments] for the clothing of [sailors]”. Pirates, however, acquired new outfits and finery from their victims. After sea rogues captured Captain Samuel Cary’s ship, the Samuel, on 13 July 1720, the Boston Newsletter reported that “[t]he first thing the pirates did was to strip both passengers and seamen of all their money and clothes…with a loaded pistol to every one’s breast ready to shoot him down who did not immediately give an account of both, and resign them up.” (Sanders, 113) The following year, a pirate appropriated all the clothes of John Wingfield, the Royal African Company factor aboard the Hannibal, and for a week paraded in front of the factor in all his purloined finery.

Adam Baldridge, a pirate turned merchant who sold wares to the pirates at Madagascar, received a shipment of clothes on 7 August 1693. The consignment included “44 paire of shoes and pump, six Dozen of worsted and threed stockens, three dozen of speckled shirts and Breaches, twelve hatts…” (Antony, 69)

Although much of the clothing described in this article befit English mariners, the garments Western European sailors wore were basically the same with minor variations. An engraving of a Dutch sailor in 1694 shows him clad in petticoat trousers, a “short jacket with flaring skirts,” and a fur cap. The latter two items were particular to mariners of the Netherlands. Colonial and European seafarers generally wore wide, knee-length trousers¹⁰, jacket¹¹ and waistcoat, shirt, kerchief, hat, work gloves, and shoes with buckles. Canvas¹² or linen was the preferred fabric for the slops (trousers – see note 10), but sometimes the material was checked or striped. They protected the wearers’ undergarments from the tar and paint sailors came in contact with daily while tending to their work. The collarless jacket was usually single-breasted, blue or gray, and had horn, leather, or metal buttons, but some accounts mentioned buttons of hardened cheese or “ye Joints of ye Back-Bone” of a shark. Waistcoats had no linings and were usually striped. Some buttoned down the front, while others were tied with laces. His kerchief might be black, colored, checked, or spotted. Laced shoes were rare among sailors, and in warmer climates, pirates and merchant seamen often went barefoot while at sea.

Pirate wearing typical seafaring outfit

Hats came in a variety of styles and fabrics. Seafarers since the 1570s favored the Monmouth cap¹³, which was knitted from brown wool. Sir Francis Drake  carried over four hundred of these when he set sail for the West Indies in 1596. Knitted caps were less likely to be blown off by the wind than a cocked hat, which was more likely to be worn ashore. Seventeenth-century sailors also wore bonnets. Another type of hat made of felt or tarred canvas was small, round, and black, and, when cocked, gave the sailor the appearance of wearing “a triangular apple pastry” atop his head. (Copeland, 9) Those who opted not to cock their hats sometimes adorned them with ribbon. Leather, fur, and fur-trimmed cloth caps were also worn, as were thrums . Pirates who preyed in Caribbean waters sometimes wore scarves or turbans, straw hats, or ones with wide, floppy brims. Some decorated their hats with plumes or jewels.

The work clothes pirates wore wear durable and practical. Not only did seafarers wear their garments while going about their tasks, they also slept in them. Edward Barlow, a mariner of the 1600s, wrote, “…half awake and half asleep, with one shoe on and the other off, not having time to put it on: always sleeping in our clothes for readiness.” (Sanders, 20)

Oftentimes pirates owned a single outfit that they wore until the tattered garments could no longer be repaired. When new recruits went on the account – either willingly or forced – they continued to wear the clothes on their back at the time of their capture, so the crew’s wardrobe might be a mixture of merchant and naval outfits, depending on the type of ship they abandoned. John Eshwell, a carpenter who joined Bartholomew Roberts’ crew, donned his best suit and placed ribbons on his hat before joining the pirates. When sea rogues deigned to wash their clothes, they did so in seawater – fresh water was scarce – and only when warm weather would allow them to dry.

Sailors tarred their outer clothing to protect themselves from the wet weather. They began to do this at least as early as 1631. Artisans, such as carpenters and joiners, also wore leather, canvas, or linen aprons to protect their clothes. Officers, of course, wore finer clothes than what their men wore. This was especially true prior to the eighteenth century, when pirate captains – like Sirs Francis Drake and Henry Morgan – were gentlemen. The men of Drake’s time period wore stiff ruffs, instead of collars, that were usually made of lace. They favored beards¹⁶ and mustaches.

Francis Drake, sea captain, vs. Sir Francis Drake

The portrait of Morgan in one edition of Alexandre Exquemelin’s The Buccaneers of America show him wearing a slashed doublet and embroidered baldrick. Although he favored a short, pointed beard similar to Drake’s, he also tied a scarlet kerchief around his forehead. When he accepted the surrender of a Spanish nobleman, though, he sometimes donned a wig. If working, Morgan often wore a cotton shirt, breeches, and leather boots. Even when he dressed in the clothes of his trade, he understood the importance of garments to mariners and pirates because they were a scarce commidity. After his flagship Oxford blew up, killing quite a few pirates, he sent boats to collect the bodies, “not out of any design of affording them Christian burial, but only to obtain the spoil of their clothes and other attire.” (Talty, 146) The “other attire” consisted of their gold rings and other valuable jewelry.

L’Olonnais, another and more infamous pirate, wore a short doublet trimmed with squares around his waist. These two buccaneers (Morgan and L’Olonnais) provided quite a contrast from the clothes worn by the original boucaniers: long, rough linen shirts; hide breeches; and round leather caps without brims – all of which were coated with the blood and grease of butchered animals. Some tied their hair in queues, while others wore it loose. Their belts were usually made of cowhide or alligator skin.

L'Olonnais, the buccaneer, vs. an original boucanier

In February 1719, Calico Jack Rackham acquired a cargo containing silk stockings and laced hats. He appropriated some of this finery for himself. He earned his nickname because he liked to wear garments of calico, which became popular in the late 1600s and came from India. The female members of his crew, Mary Read and Anne Bonny, donned seafaring garments when they attacked a hapless vessel. Dorothy Thomas, who testified against the women at their trial, said they “wore Mens Jackets, and long Trouzers, and Handkerchiefs tied about their Heads; and that each of them had a Machet and Pistol in their Hands.” (British, vol. 3, 27) Two Frenchmen testified that “when they saw any Vessel, gave Chase or Attacked, [Bonny and Read] wore Men’s Cloaths; and, at other Times, they wore Women’s Cloaths….” (British, vol. 3, 28)

Early pictures portray the two female pirates wearing outfits similar to the one shown above. Sashes of various colors or patterns were popular among pirates. They particularly favored red ones, since the dye used to create this color was expensive, which meant only wealthy men owned such luxuries. Sometimes these were worn under a leather belt, other times as belts themselves.
 

To be continued...

Endnotes
1. The French commoner was forbidden to wear silk, velvet, brocade, taffeta, damask, lace, any fabric containing gold or silver thread, mink, sable, and fox. The colors of gold, silver, scarlet, and purple were also banned, as were pearls and other gemstones. Nor were they permitted to wear imported wool. Henry VIII of England forbade anyone below the rank of knight from wearing various garments of velvet or embroidered with silk. He even went so far as to forbid the second sons of knights from wearing certain fabrics or clothes. Penalties for violating these laws included the loss of one’s title or property, or if one of the lower class, one’s life.
2. A jerkin was made of cloth or leather, usually had short sleeves and a close fit. They varied in styles, but often had a long skirt that covered a man’s hips and thighs. The jerkin was worn over the shirt.
3. Breeches sometimes had a codpiece and were tied with laces.
4. Some of the threads that have survived retain the original colors of the dyes used – woad (blue), weld (yellow), and madder (red).
5. The name means “Black Oak” in Gaelic. His anglicized name was Owen.
6. Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs were both pirate and privateer, but since the word “privateer” didn’t come into use until the eighteenth century, they were called pirates.
7. Rugge was a coarse cloth made from wool.
8. After his father died, Verney lost his inheritance through his stepmother’s trickery, forsook England, and eventually landed in Algiers and, as a Barbary corsair, took English prizes. Once captured by a Sicilian ship, he spent two years as a galley slave before a Jesuit priest ransomed him around 1611. Impoverished, Verney died in Messina, Italy at the age of thirty-one.
9. A Christian who converted to Islam, either to plunder Mediterranean ships or to gain his freedom from slavery.
10. These trousers had a variety of names, including slivers, slops, and petticoat trousers. Slops came into use by the 1580s and remained popular into the 1800s.
11. Fearnought jackets, made from wool, came into use during Captain Cook’s voyages between 1772 and 1784, so they would not have been worn by earlier pirates.
12. Canvas clothes were made from old sails and were usually greased and tarred prior to wearing them to make them waterproof.
13. Monmouth caps were so named because they originated in Monmouth, England.
14. During the reign of Elizabeth I, she instituted a rule that made it mandatory that those of the middle class who were older than seven years must wear hats on special and holy days. Those below the rank of knight were prohibited from wearing ones made of velvet.
15. Thrums were made from the discarded ends of the weaver’s warp. The fabric was good for wearing in wet conditions.
16. Beards remained the fashion for men until 1628. That year, Louis XIII of France shaved all his courtiers.

Some of the pictures used in this article come from the DK.com CD that accompanies the 2007 edition of Richard Platt’s Pirate. Others come from Pirates and Braun & Schneider’s Historic Costume, Dover Electronic Clip Art publications.
 

For more information on clothing and dress, I recommend these resources:

Agnes the Red. “How to Cover Yer Shanks,” No Quarter Given 2:6 (November 1995), 16.
Agnes the Red. “Pirate Treasure to Wear or Buy,” No Quarter Given 1:5 (September 1994),
     16.
Agnes the Red. “Shirts to Cover that Treasure Chest,” The Pyrate Primer (September 1997),
     36. Also found in No Quarter Given 2:3 (May 1995), 16.
Agnes the Red. “The Look of a Rogue,” The Pyrate Primer (September 1997), 39. Also found
     in No Quarter Given 1:3 (May 1994), 12.
Agnes the Red. “Topping Off Your Pirate Look,” The Pyrate Primer (September 1997), 34.
Agnes the Red. “What the Common Sailor Wore,” The Pyrate Primer (September 1997), 30.
     Also found in No Quarter Given 1:1 (January 1994), 12 and 2:1 (March 1994), 12.
Antony, Robert. Pirates in the Age of Sail. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.
Bandits at Sea edited by C. R. Pennell. New York: New York University, 2001.
Baumgarten, Linda. “Colonial Dress Codes,” Colonial Williamsburg Journal (Winter
     2003-2004).
Beal, Clifford. Quelch’s Gold: Piracy, Greed and Betrayal in Colonial New England.
     Westport, CT: Praeger, 2007.
Before the Mast: Life and Death Aboard the Mary Rose edited by Julie Gardiner (vol. 4 of
     The Archaeology of the Mary Rose series). Portsmouth, England: The Mary Rose Trust,
     2005.
Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages edited by Jo Stanley. London:
     HarperCollins, 1995.
“Brass Buttons and Trousers,” Beyond the Map.
British Piracy in the Golden Age edited by Joel H. Baer. London: Pickering & Chatto, 2007.
Burl, Aubrey. Black Barty: The Real Pirate of the Caribbean. Phoenix Mill, UK: Sutton,
     2006.
Cargill-Kipar, Nicole. Late 17th-Century Clothing History.
Chambers, Anne. Granuaile: Ireland’s Pirate Queen c. 1530-1603. Dublin: Wolfhound
     Press, 2003.
Clifford, Barry, and Kenneth J. Kinkor. Real Pirates: The Untold Story of the Whydah
     from Slave Ship to Pirate Ship. Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2007.
“Clothing during the Golden Age of Piracy,” Gentlemen of Fortune.
Copeland, Peter F. Working Dress in Colonial and Revolutionary America. Westport,
     CT: Greenwood Press, 1977.
de Marly, Diana. Working Dress: A History of Occupational Clothing. New York: Holmes
     & Meier, 1986.
Defoe, Daniel. A General History of the Pyrates edited by Manuel Schonhorn. Mineola, NY:
     Dover, 1999.
Dotson, Leslie. “Treasure of Many Colors: The Calico Trade in the 1700’s,” Pirates
     Magazine (Spring 2007), 29-33.
Foxe, Ed. “Pirate Clothing,” Pirate Mythtory.
“Getting Started with a Basic Kit,” Gentlemen of Fortune.
Hutchings, Mark. “Acting Pirates: Converting a Christian Turned Turk” in Pirates? The
     Politics of Plunder, 1550-1650 edited by Claire Jowitt. New York: Palgrave Macmillan,
     2007, 90-155 and 218-219.
Juneaux, Duchess of Netherwaullop. “Breeches for the Seaworthy,” Renaissance Magazine
     43, 32-35.
Karg, Barb, and Arjean Spaite. The Everything Pirates Book. Avon, MA: Adams Media, 2007.
Lehman, Keith. “Time Capsule: Golden Age of Piracy,” Lighthouse Patriot Journal (29
     September 2007).
Little, Benerson. The Buccaneer’s Realm. Washington, DC: Potomac Books, 2007.
McClellan, Elisabeth. Historic Dress in America 1607-1870. New York: Arno Press, 1977.
McGann, Kass. “Thoughts over the Weekend,” Reconstructing History (30 July 2007). Pastoureau, Michel. The Devil’s Cloth: A History of Stripes translated by Jody Gladding.
     New York: Washington Square Press, 2001.
Payne, Blanche. History of Costume: From the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century.
     New York: Harper & Row, 1965.
Pirates: Terror on the High Seas from the Caribbean to the South China Sea. Atlanta:
     Turner Publishing, 1996.
Platt, Richard. Pirate. New York: DK Publishing, 2007.
Redicker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates,
     and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750. New York: Cambridge, 1999.
Rogozinski, Jan. Pirates! Brigands, Buccaneers, and Privateers in Fact, Fiction, and
     Legend. New York: Facts on File, 1995.
Rutherford-Moore, Richard. “Pirate Costume: A Short Introduction & Reference,” Sea
     Thieves.
Sackrison, Michael “The Tailor.” “So You Want to Be Authentic: Observations from Forty
     Years of Tailoring Authentic Items,” No Quarter Given VIII:4 (July 2001), 14-16.
Sanders, Richard. If a Pirate I Must Be…: The True Story of “Black Bart,” King of the
     Caribbean Pirates. New York: Skyhorse, 2007.
Selinger, Gail. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Pirates. New York: Alpha, 2006.
Stines, Peter. “The Sharply Dressed Pirate,” The Laffite Society Chronicles XIII:2 (October
     2007), 7-9
Talty, Stephan. Empire of Blue Water. New York: Crown, 2007.
Telfer, Geordie. Real Canadian Pirates. Folklore Publishing, 2007.
Tortora, Phyllis G., and Keith Eubank. Survey of Historic Costume: A History of Western
     Dress (2nd edition). New York: Fairchild Publications, 1995.
Turnball, Stephen. Pirate of the Far East 811-1639. New York: Osprey, 2007.
Wentworth, Ross. “Seadog Costumes,” Ye Olde Book o’ Seadogs.
Wilcox, R. Turner. Five Centuries of American Costume. New York: Charles Scribner’s
     Sons, 1963.
William, Captain. “Pirates Clothes,” The Pirate’s Life.
Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates. New York: Harcourt, 2007.
X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy edited by Russell K. Skowronek and Charles
     R. Ewen. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2006.
 

Copyright © 2008 Cindy Vallar

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