Pirates of the Caribbean
This site is dedicated to the Golden Age of Piracy, particularly in the Caribbean. Its main reason for existence is personal in nature. Believe it or not, this page was probably the first page on piracy to exist on the WWW. From the beginning, this page was never intended to be "fancy".
The intent of the page is to educate and to give the emerging scholars of piracy a place to start (and perhaps finish) their research on a most fascinating and colorful subject.
When this site was started out there were no other pages on piracy. Today you'll find hundreds, if not thousands of them. Many of them are flashier than this one and some actually have information you won't find here. Surprisingly, though, a number of them have pirated biographies and other information straight from this site. We take this as high praise.
Best articles about pirates of the Caribbean
Pirate crew
Find out a list of main positions in a crew on a pirate ship. Do you know who steers a pirate ship?
Man O' War ship
The Man O' War is a naval ship that was designed for combat and not for merchant service.
Myths and monsters
Pirate fiction probably could not exist without the myths, monsters and other imagined mayhem.
Pirate money
Spain minted next coins in the 18th century: the silver coins were known as Reales; the gold — as Escudos.
Blunderbuss
The name blunderbuss is probably derived from the German donnerbusche which means thunder gun.
Pirate punishments
How pirates were punished and how pirates punished others during the Golden Age of Piracy.
From the author
This page is not sponsored by Disney, and thankfully the good folks at Disney have never asked me to change the name. For that I thank them.
The Disney ride came first back in the mid 1960s. Then in 1994 I decided to make a web page devoted to Piracy in the Caribbean. Right after I launched the page, a friend commented, you do know Disney has a ride called "Pirates of the Caribbean?" I said "Oh and added the subtitle, "in fact and fiction. Disney, has never approached me and told me to change the name. For that I'm thankful. Later the POTC movies came around and thanks to Johnny Depp, Jack Sparrow, probably became the best known fictional pirate known today. The movie frnachise has doen more to spur interest in piracy than anything I can imagine. After the first movie was a big hit, people from the Disney franchise did contact me. However they didn't contact me to tell me to change the name or be sued. They called me and asked for information on very aspects of piracy, nuatical myths, and the like. I was honored to share what information I could. The information was used manily for some of their online games and for background information for the movies.
I have left the dancing pirates and other fluff to page developers more interested in presentation than content. I have tried to make the site aesthetically pleasing with original artwork as well as public domain images but the central focus is and will remain written information on piracy drawn from a variety of sources. I have listed the sources used to create this site at (Bibliography of Piracy) but I have decided not to go through the site and foot note where each tidbit of information comes from. This is not a term paper and therefore I didn't have to. Furthermore, much of the information is found in dozens of sources. And finally if I foot noted the whole site, the page would become unsightly and even more difficult to keep up. Most web sites do not even include a bibliography but I have done so for three reason. First, so you can know where I got my information and second, so you can go to those same sources and find out even more about piracy. My final reason for the bibliography is to encourage people to read the books! This is where you will find the most information. Despite all the information you will find here and other online sights, the true treasure trove of information is found in the printed books.
I dedicated this site to my family and friends who have encouraged me to keep this page going over the many years of its existence.