Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920 by Margaret Creighton
From the voyage of the Argonauts to the Tailhook scandal, seafaring has long been one of the most glaringly male-dominated occupations. In this groundbreaking interdisciplinary study, Margaret Creighton, Lisa Norling, and their co-authors explore the relationship of gender and seafaring in the Anglo-American age of sail. Drawing on a wide range of American and British sources-from diaries, logbooks, and account ledgers to songs, poetry, fiction, and a range of public sources-the authors show how popular fascination with seafaring and the sailors’ rigorous, male-only life led to models of gender behavior based on “iron men” aboard ship and “stoic women” ashore. Yet Iron Men, Wooden Women also offers new material that defies conventional views. The authors investigate such topics as women in the American whaling industry and the role of the captain’s wife aboard ship. They explore the careers of the female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read, as well as those of other women-“transvestite heroines”-who dressed as men to serve on the crews of sailing ships.…
Upon every ocean and sea, pirates have been ready to plunder, to rob and to murder for profit. England has always been a nation of mariners, and the West Country has for centuries been one of the busiest parts of maritime England. It is natural, therefore, that a great many of the pirates of history have been English, and that a good proportion of those have been men of the West. Discover the handful of true West Country pirates of the past and also those that voyaged from the West to the Caribbean and Indian Ocean in this compelling history. Herein lies a true account of piracy, often called the ‘oldest trade afloat’.
A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson was published in 1724. As the primary source of biographies of some of the most notorious pirates it influenced popular conceptions of the lifestyles. Missing legs or eyes, burying treasure and the name of the pirates flag the Jolly Roger was introduced in this touchstone of pirate lore as it has been incorporated into popular culture. A General History of the Pyrates has influencing literature and movies to this day.
The West Indies in the late 17th Century was home to a group of sea raiders that were not yet pirates, and not quite privateers. The Buccaneers. The Brethren of the Coast, as they called themselves, lived dissolute lives of violence, debauchery, thievery, & murder.
Over the last couple of decades, an ideological battle has raged over the political legacy and cultural symbolism of the “golden age” pirates who roamed the seas between the Caribbean Islands and the Indian Ocean from roughly 1690 to 1725. They are depicted as romanticized villains on the one hand and as genuine social rebels on the other.