Hello, Kids and all Readers,
You may be wondering why I’m writing about pirates. Perhaps you’re asking, “Who cares if pirates of yore could read and write?”
I do! And I hope you will, too. Here’s why:
As I write Book 7, Macadamia Street: Hidden Skeleton, in my Botanic Hill Detectives Mysteries series, I find that pirates are running rampant across its pages!
My new mystery with a twist of pirate history is set in Penzance, Cornwall. Many of my paternal ancestors were Cornish. I’ve traveled there only once–but not to Penzance. As a result, I’ve had to do extensive research to make my story authentic, interesting, and factual. The English town has a searing, centuries-old history of Barbary pirate raids, plundering, and kidnappings of men, women, and children to support the White slave trade in northern Africa.
My Macadamia Street mystery is centered on a present-day grisly, pirate-related discovery in a country manor house called Crow’s Nest Grange. Beginning in 1723, it became home to the earls of Stowesbury. Now that the tenth and last earl has died without an heir, the Stowesbury line is extinct. The earl has left the estate to his solicitors, Mr. and Mrs. Lamb. While beginning some restorations on their new, extensive property, the Lambs find what could be evidence of a pirate captain’s ship’s log from the early 1700s! That fictional pirate captain was One-Eyed Jack.
Enter the Botanic Hill detectives. They notice the writing on the two tiny paper scraps, possibly from Jack’s ship’s log, shows mostly illustrations but few words. Does that mean Captain One-Eyed Jack couldn’t read or write? The answer is important as it could help unravel more discoveries, questions, intrigue, and mysteries that crop up as the sleuths’ investigation progresses.
And that’s how I became interested in pirates’ literacy!
As you might suspect, some pirates of yore could read while others could not. According to author Rebecca Simon, “literacy rose during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in England and the North American colonies . . . thanks to the rapid expansion of print on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Since many pirates at that time started their dubious careers as educated, experienced sailors, then privateers–commissioned as legal agents of the British crown to plunder ships at sea–there is reason to believe many pirates were literate. Knowing how to read and write were essential skills onboard ship to keep careful records of weather conditions, navigation, crew members, treasure inventories, supplies, voyages, etc.
In addition, reading and writing were seen as major forms of entertainment then (and, hopefully, still are). Pirates frequented taverns and coffeehouses filled with printed matter to read for fun and enlightenment. And pirates surely liked entertainment!
But missing are nearly all pirate captains’ ships’ logs! Why? The captains themselves may have destroyed them to hide their crimes. Or those who captured and hanged pirates may have wanted to blot out the heinous deeds of the outlaws of the high seas. Sadly, there exists little proof of how literate pirates of yore were.
So, get a clue, readers. I hope you will devise interesting questions that require research. Unexpected mysteries and answers may bubble to the surface. Aargh!
(Photo Credits, left to right: Anthony, Pixabay, Cameron Rainey, and Zeyneb Allshova on pexels.com)