frandroid

It's been a while since I've highlighted an episode from the Pirate History podcast, but here we go: Episode 269 - Scurvy Schoolmasters

Do you remember when I was posting about Pirate Utopias, and being rather upset that some of the core trade that the pirates at Salé engaged in was slave-trading and kidnapping? One of the early incarnations of Libertalia, another "Pirate Republic" in Mauritius, decided to ally itself with a local tribe, marry their women, and all benefited thanks to the trade that they were doing, mostly in cattle meat for other pirates to stock provisions. Eventually they started selling weapons to only that tribe, and the pirates and the tribe started raiding one of their rival tribes. First they were capturing cattle, but eventually they decided to capture their women, and enslaved them in a bordello for the use of the local pirates and other visiting pirates. So we're once again very far from progressive anarchist fantasies of piracy. The slaves eventually manage to make something good out of the situation but I won't spoil the episode further...

I was kind of tired when I was listening to the episode and can't recall why it's called that, sorry.