Myths & Legends of our New Possessions & Protectorate

by Charles M. Skinner

Two rovers are credited with beating the governor of Jamaica at another game, after they had lost to him a matter of ten thousand crowns,—the earnings of several weeks faithfully devoted to privateering. In order to continue the game (to their complete beggary), the fellows had borrowed from acquaintances in Kingston, who, seeing no way to get their money back, decided to have them imprisoned for debt. Hearing of this plan, the elder of the precious pair reported to the governor that he had a negro whom he would like to sell, cheap, in order to pay his debts and start in a mechanic trade, such as he had followed in years gone by. The governor bade him have the fellow brought in, and finding him to be a sturdy, intelligent man, with a skin as black as the ten of clubs, he bought him and set him at work. Next day the negro had disappeared. Notice and offers of reward were sent to all parts of the island, but nothing came of it. The two ex-pirates followed a peaceful and thriving trade of making keys, possibly for burglars, and in a few years had saved enough to enable them to return to England. Before sailing they called on the ex governor, who had drank and gambled himself into poverty, and emptied a fistful of gold before him.

“That’s for the nigger, with interest,” said one.

“The nigger? What, the one that ran away?” asked the governor.

“Oh, he didn’t run far. Here he is.” And the speaker clapped his companion on the shoulder. “He had only to curl his hair with a hot iron and rub charcoal on his chops to deceive a governor.”

The tickled old fellow drank their health and wished them a safe journey, out of Jamaica.

While luck seemed to bide with the rovers, it was not always smooth sailing on the Spanish seas. Now and then the buccaneers attacked an innocent looking ship that waited until they had come within musket-reach, when it ran up the Spanish standard, opened a dozen ports, and let fly at them with hot-shot and a hail of bullets. Now and again a mutiny would occur, and the victorious either forced the defeated to walk the plank or marooned them on some desolate sand key to perish of thirst and sunstroke.

Blackbeard’s men once found a fishing-vessel drifting off the Burmudas and eagerly boarded her to look for treasure. In a minute they tumbled out of the cabin and scrambled into the sea like the swine possessed of devils. The vessel had but one living man on board, and he had not many hours of life before him, while corpses strewn about the floor were spotted with small-pox. Half of the pirate crew were slain by the pestilence.

When Roberts was cruising off Surinam a supposed war-ship bore down on him in a fog. He pelted her with all his guns, but she kept her way unheeding. The fog then breaking showed that it was not a frigate, but a sloop, which had been magnified by the mist, and he quickly grappled her and sent his men to see what manner of ship she was. Ten or twelve Spaniards lying about the deck with their throats cut proved that some other buccaneer had been before him. As the men were about to leave their floating charnel-house to hold her way whither the gales might send her, a furious swearing in Spanish caused them to shiver and look back. Were the dead speaking? Had some crazed sailor escaped, and was he gibbering from the roundtop? No: it was a parrot in the rigging, and he was saying all he knew.

Montbar, having discovered a company of Spanish on one of the Windward Islands, went ashore with guns, knives, and axes, and destroyed them all, except one. This man told how he and his fellows had been put ashore. They were the crew of a slaver, and were on their way from Africa to Cuba with a cargo of slaves, when the ship began to leak badly. The carpenter, accompanied by several of the more intelligent of the blacks, made a careful inspection of the hold, yet could find no leak; so the constant inflow, that kept all hands at the pumps, was at length declared to be the devil’s work. The slaves wailed and wrung their hands, the captain swore and prayed, the crew toiled to exhaustion. When it seemed as if the ship could not float for another day the island appeared ahead, and quickly loading arms, provisions, and water into the boats, the Spaniards abandoned ship and left the negroes to their fate. Great was their surprise and dismay when the slaves ran, cheering, over the deck, hoisted all sail, and squared away for the eastward, the vessel rising higher in the water as her former crew sat watching her. These blacks, who were confined in the hold, had got possession of knives with which they cut through the outer planking, causing the ship to leak alarmingly. They had also fitted plugs to these leaks, and packed them with oakum, so that when the carpenter made his rounds no water came in. As soon as he returned to the deck the holes were opened again, for it was known that the Antilles were near, and the scheme to frighten their captors to land was successful. These facts the crew learned from the negro cook, who had accompanied them to shore.

The devil, who was supposed in this case to have been the enemy instead of the ally of the slavers, often mixed in the affairs of a class that must have filled him with admiration. Some of the pirates are reported to have placed themselves entirely in the hands of the foe of the human race, swearing on strange objects to give their souls to him, and formally burying a Bible on shore as a token that they were through forever with religion and mercy. Yet they were a superstitious lot, fearful of signs and portents, and do not, therefore, appear to have been trusting subjects of His Satanic Majesty. They always had an ear and a coin for a fortune-teller, and early in the eighteenth century there were negroes and Indians in the West Indies and the tropic Americas who openly practised that trade and art of witchcraft for which their white brethren in Salem had been hanged. Their principal customers were pirates and buccaneers, who went to them for a forecast of fortune, and also bought charms that would create fair winds for themselves and typhoons for their enemies. These witches kept open ears in their heads, and information carelessly dropped by the outlaws they sold for an aftermath of gain to the Spaniards, who found truth in so many of the prophesies that they respected the soothsayers and fully believed that the English were the chosen of the fiend.