Page 22 - All About History - Issue 28-15

Outlaws

Day in the life

APIRATE

QUARTERMASTER

KEEPING ORDER IN A LAWLESS
WORLD, CARIBBEAN, 18TH CENTURY

Being a pirate in the 18th-century Golden Age of Piracy was not
a glamorous job. Those who chose this perilous path (and those
forced to against their will) risked life and limb. However, the
rewards if successful were greater than any sailor in the Royal
Navy could ever dream of. Although the ship’s captain was in
charge in battle, it was actually the quartermaster who held
the real control. This figure, elected by the crew, even
held command over the captain himself, and was
responsible for the considerably hefty job of
keeping the men and ship in order.
KEEP THE VESSEL SHIPSHAPE

Far from swashbuckling excitement, almost every
day was filled with boring, monotonous tasks
to maintain the ship. Pirates would fix the sails
with pickers, seam rubbers and needles, work on
repairing any holes in the ship by driving new
oakum into the seams, and work the pump for
hours. If the ship was in bad shape, they would find
somewhere they could careen it to scrape off the
barnacles and remove any worms in the hull.
FIND SOMETHING TO EAT

Food on board pirate ships was scarce, even for the
authority figures. Because water in barrels would
quickly go off, pirates would usually drink bumboo
– a mixture of rum, water, sugar and nutmeg. The
most common food was hardtack, which they ate
in the dark to avoid seeing the weevils crawling
over the biscuits, and some desperate crews even
resorted to eating rats or their own leather satchels.
PUNISH LAWBREAKERS

Considering they were outlaws themselves,
pirates had a surprisingly strict law code; the
quartermaster was responsible for ensuring
seamen stuck to it. It differed from ship to ship,
but common laws included bans on gambling,
rape and fighting. Punishments for rule breakers
were harsh, from whippings to being sentenced It was more likely for lawbreakers to be
to death. Walking the plank was actually very simply thrown overboard than endure the
psychological torture of walking the plank
rare. One particularly grisly punishment was to be
marooned with a gun loaded with a single shot.
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