Weaponry
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| Most people today think of a
pirate as a man in big floppy boots, a belt with a huge buckle, a long
sword, and a big pistol. This is a picture conditioned by the movies.
Real pirates were quite different. Captains might carry long straight
swords at times. Some even carried Scottish basket-hilted broadswords.
For the real fighting captain and the average seaman, however, those
would have been a nuisance. They wanted mobility to climb aboard
another ship, and they wanted to be able to shoot often. This meant
they carried specialized weapons. |
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| Most pirates chose short cutlass-type
swords with a curved blade and a clam shell style guard.
Such a sword would not get tangled in the ropes or interfere with
climbing. They could draw it quickly and wield it in a confined space. |
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| Since they would not have time to
stop and reload a pistol in the middle of hand-to-hand combat on a
heaving deck, they usually carried several pistols. To reduce weight
they chose smaller pistols for the most part and hung them from loops
on their belt or fro straps running over their shoulders. In fact,
pirates were among the first people who fought on foot to us holsters
for their pistols, though sometimes they used pistols equipped with
belt hooks. A well-armed pirate might have anywhere from two to eight
pistols. With all these pistols plus his cutlass and possibly a dagger,
he was a walking arsenal. He had to be for almost all his fights were
close combats. He either overpowered his victims quickly or he was
beaten. |
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| There was some long range fighting
too. As the pirate ship closed with his victim, he opened fire with
cannon. Sometimes he used simple round balls, but often he used cross
bar shot (two balls or half balls connected by an iron bar) or he might
use chain shot which was like the cross bar shot except it used a chain
instead of a solid bar. The advantage of these special shot was that
they spread out and spun through the air when they were fired. A
swinging chain shot or cross bar shot was much more effective for
cutting rigging and knocking down masts than a simple ball. If a pirate
could dismast his quarry or destroy its rigging, he could catch up to
it and maneuver around it as it lay dead in the water. As they drew
near the pirates might use muskets, too, but these were laid aside when
it came time to board the merchant ship and start the hand to hand
melee. |
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| There were a few other weapons,
too. Occasionally pirates used six foot spears called boarding pikes,
and there were some boarding axes that they used to cut through the
nettings that were sometimes hauled up on ships to prevent boarding or
to break down doors once they were aboard. And they could be used for
fighting too. |
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| But these were the rareties. The
usual pirate chose the cutlass and several small pistols- and that
included some of the most famous leaders too. Such men as Edward Teach
(Blackbeard), Rock Brasiliano and even such women pirates as Anne Bonny
and Mary Read. After all, piracy was a specialized occupation and
required specialized weapons. |
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