you wouldn’t want to be a pirate’s prisoner!s... · piracy in the caribbean (or the spanish...

Teachers’ Information Sheet by Nicky Milsted

The book follows the captain of a Spanish treasure galleon on hisattempted voyage in 1716 from the Spanish Main back home toSpain. The Spanish Main is the name given to the parts of theCaribbean that make up Spain’s New World Empire. It includespresent-day Florida, Texas and Mexico; Central America; the northcoast of South America; and islands in the Caribbean Sea includingCuba and Jamaica.

The ship is packed with riches, including emeralds, pearls, timber,porcelain, silk, spices and gold. It is sailing in a convoy, known as a fleet, with six other ships to try and stay safe – there’s safety innumbers. However, given its precious cargo, it is very definitely a target for pirates!

Pirates are common in the Spanish Main – many used to be privateers (the name given to sailorsfrom England, France and Holland, who had permission from their governments to attack Spanishships and steal the precious cargo for their nations’ benefit). Privateering has stopped, but manyof the old privateers are now pirates – keeping their stolen loot for themselves!

The galleon falls behind the rest of the fleet, and is captured by pirates. The captain is takenprisoner. He is tortured by the pirate crew, who are trying to discover the whereabouts andintended route of the other treasure ships. The captain is determined not to give the pirates theinformation they are after. He is thrown into the hold of the pirates’ ship, and then shackled to thedeck. He is flogged and keelhauled (dragged underneath the ship attached to a rope), thrownoverboard and used as target practice. He is tortured with fire, and when he finally breaks downand tells the pirate captain where the fleet of treasure ships is heading, he is marooned on adeserted island. It is very clear indeed that You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Pirate’s Prisoner!

About pirates and privateering

Piracy is the name given to robberies undertaken at sea. Acts of piracy are usually violent innature. The people who commit acts of piracy are called pirates. Privateering is very similar topiracy – certainly if you were on the receiving end of it! However, pirates act for themselves,whereas privateers were endorsed or backed by their governments, and their acts of robbery wereseen as part of a legitimate war between countries. Many privateers went on to become pirateswhen their government backing was withdrawn and their actions were no longer acts of war butfor personal gain.

Ships trading between different lands have been targeted by pirates for thousands of years. In factit is probably the case that ever since people have been taking vessels to sea there have beenpirates attacking them. There are even reports of pirate raids occurring in ancient Egypt nearly

You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Pirate’s Prisoner!

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4,000 years ago! Pirates have originated from all countries and peoples – ancient Greek and Roman pirates attacked ships and seized people as slaves. Vikings in particularare famous for their piratical looting across northern Europe and beyond. In some parts of

the world in the 21st century pirates are still amongst the biggest threats to ocean-going vessels.International waters off of the coast of Somalia in Africa and parts of the Indian Ocean areparticularly dangerous.

Piracy in the Caribbean (or the Spanish Main), which is the subject of You Wouldn’t Want to Be aPirate’s Prisoner!, was at its height from around 1650 to the 1720s. The rise of piracy in this partof the world coincided with the expansion and development of the Empires of several Europeanpowers – those belonging to the Dutch, French, English and Spanish. Many European ships weresailing from the Caribbean back to Europe laden with goods and valuables from their Caribbeancolonies. Cargoes included gold, timber (from the rainforests of South America), silk and calicofabrics, spices, precious stones such as emeralds, and much more.

After 1720, piracy in the Caribbean and across the Atlantic Ocean became much less frequent dueto the British Royal Navy actively hunting down and capturing pirate vessels. Pirates who werecaptured were often hanged for their crimes, and more notorious pirates – such as William“Captain” Kidd and “Calico” Jack Rackham – had their bodies left hanging in speciallyconstructed metal cages (called gibbets) until all that was left of them was their bones!

Activity 1: Become a pirate

Encourage your pupils to create themselves a pirate character for their adventures in the world of piracy. They will need to come up with a good pirate name – they could be inspired by realpirates, like Blackbeard, the Barbarossa Brothers or Captain Kidd; or they could opt to make up a name that they think would scare their prisoners and crew such as John “Shark of the Seas”Gunn, Stella “Flaming hair” Fitten, or Jack “Scoundrel” Dundas. If your pupils need inspirationto help them to create their pirate names, you can use the pirate name generator.

Once your pupils have chosen their pirate name, ask them to describe and draw themselves as apirate using the activity sheet.

Why not try… pirate speed-dating? In pairs, ask your pupils to interview each other as pirates.

Activity 2: Joining the pirate crew

There are lots of different roles aboard a pirate ship. The captain is the head of the ship. Thecaptain is a ruthless and frightening man (or woman!) with a knack for getting exactly what he orshe wants. The quartermaster is the ship’s second in command and is often responsible fortorturing prisoners. The ship’s surgeon is responsible for looking after the crew – he uses a saw(and no anaesthetic!) to amputate wounded limbs. The carpenter maintains and mends the ship’stimbers; he’s good with a saw, so can do surgeons’ work as well! The sailmaker looks after theship’s sails and other items made from canvas. The navigator is responsible for ensuring the ship

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sails a safe course and for helping to track down treasure ships to attack. Coopers make and repair the barrels which store the ship’s food and drink. And ordinary seamen do all the other essential tasks aboard the ship: cleaning the decks, manning pumps, hauling the

sails up and down, and much more.

Challenge your pupils to write a job advert for one of the roles in the pirate crew, or to produce aposter to encourage people to join the crew.

Extension activity: There have been too many applications to join the pirate crew. Appoint a panelof pupils as members of the crew, including the pirate captain, and ask them to conduct jobinterviews of the potential crew members. You could ask the candidates to prepare a CV orcomplete a job application form; the panel should decide on the questions to ask the candidates.What characteristics are they looking for in their pirate crew?

Activity 3: Treasure cargoes

Treasure cargoes from the 17th and 18th centuries included exotic goods and foods that would nothave been available in Europe. Prized materials included gold, emeralds and pearls, porcelain,silk and spices. Your pupils can use the activity sheet to explain which items they would chooseto include in their treasure cargoes.

Imagined monetary values and weights have been given to a range of different objects (usingmodern-day currency and measures) on the activity sheets. There are some maths questions usingthese figures that challenge your pupils to work out the total value and weight of differentcargoes. For example, if a chest of pearls weighs 5kg and is worth £500, and a chest of goldweighs 10kg and is worth £1500, what would the value and weight be of three chests of pearlsand two chests of gold? (Answer: 35kg and £4500)

Extension activity: using the treasure cargo facts, can your pupils come up with some mathschallenges of their own to try out on their classmates?

Activity 4: A song for the pirates

Pirates spent a long time on board their ships looking for treasure-carrying galleons to attack.What better way to pass the time than a bit of a pirate sing-song to keep the pirate crewentertained and ready for the fight of boarding and capturing a galleon? Challenge your pupils tocome up with some words (and a tune) for a pirate song.

Why not try… creating a large pirate ship out of cardboard that can be used as scenery, andperforming some of your pirate songs in a school assembly?

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Activity 5: Torture, pirate style!

The piratical methods of torture described in You Wouldn’t Want to Be a Pirate’s Prisoner! are barbaric. They included:

● Being thrown in the hold; the hold is the inside of the ship, where cargo is stored.The hold was dark, stale, smelly, wet and full of rats. A prisoner in the hold wouldlose all sense of time and be hungry and tired. It was a form of mental torture.

● Being shackled to the deck; clamped to the deck in heavy leg irons called bilboes,a prisoner shackled to the deck would be exposed to the wind, rain, freezing cold ofnight time and blistering sunshine. Again there would be no food or fresh water todrink. This was a mental form of torture.

● Flogging with a cat-o’-nine-tails; a prisoner would be tied with legs and arms spreadupright on the deck and then hit repeatedly with a lash made up of nine strands ofrope, each with knots at the end. Some cat-o’-nine-tails had small metal musket ballsor fish hooks tied to the ends of the rope to make them cut even more deeply. And inmany cases, the prisoner’s raw wounds were rubbed with salt and vinegar whichwould have stung horrifically. This was a physical torture.

● Keelhauling; a rope was passed underneath the ship from starboard to port (right toleft on board a boat) and the prisoner was tied to it. The rope was then hauledunderneath the ship – the prisoner may well have drowned during this form of torture,or been very close to drowning. The prisoner would also have suffered cuts andbruising to the back from being dragged across the keel of the ship. This was both aphysical and mental torture.

● Ducking and towing; being suspended from the ship and repeatedly ducked into theocean whilst the ship was sailing or being towed behind the ship in the ocean whilsttied to a rope.

● Being used for target practice; being thrown overboard and then shot at by the pirates.

● Torture with fire; this included being placed in a barrel full of gunpowder andthreatened with having the fuse leading to the barrel set alight, having burning piecesof rope placed between fingers and toes – or even stuffed into the mouth, or being tiedto a spit and roasted over the ship’s cooking fire.

● Marooning; being abandoned on an uninhabited island without food or water.

Introduce the different methods of torture that feature in the book using the information above,and then challenge your pupils to pick which form of torture they think is the worst. Can theydescribe the torture method, and then explain why they think it is the most barbaric, using theactivity sheet? ©

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Talking point: can your pupils identify any differences between physical and mental methods of torture. Do they have any thoughts about whether physical or mental torture would be harder to endure?

Activity 6: Marooned!

Ask your pupils to imagine that they have been marooned on a deserted island. Challenge them toundertake one or more of the following activity ideas:

a) Write a diary extract of their first day on the islandb) Draw a map of the imagined island – what resources does the island have?c) Design a shelter using only resources available on the island

Extension activity: explain to your pupils that the pirate captain who abandoned them on thedeserted island was kinder than most. He has allowed them to take five personal belongings withthem. What would they choose, and why? (Remember that it is 1716!) Ask your pupils to writeabout their choices on the activity sheet.

Talking point: what five personal belongings from the 21st century would your pupils choose tobe marooned with today?

Activity 7: Rescued!

Your pupils are in luck! They – like the Spanish captain in the book – have been rescued from thedeserted island. Challenge your pupils to produce a piece of creative writing that describes therescue. They could chose to produce a poem, play script or short story.

Activity 8: Arty challenges

Make a cat-o’-nine-tails! A simple small-scale cat-o’-nine-tails could be made by cutting ninelengths of string, and tying three knots in the end of each piece. You could choose to tie smallwooden beads onto the pieces of string to mimic musket balls if you want to. Tape the ninelengths of string together at the opposite end to the knots. Next, stick the taped end of the stringssecurely to the bottom right-hand corner of a piece of portrait-orientated A4 cardboard, about 3cmin from the edge. Make sure that the loose ends of the strings are hanging to the right of the pieceof cardboard. Roll the cardboard up from the bottom edge into a tight tube so that the tapedstrings are inside the middle of the tube, and the lengths with the knots are hanging down. Paintthe ‘handle’ of the cat-o’-nine-tails. Obviously pupils should not use their cat-o’-nine-tails!

Design a new pirate flag! Pirate ships flew the skull and crossbones – or Jolly Roger – to identifytheir vessel as a pirate ship. Challenge your pupils to design a new pirate flag that would strikefear into the crew members of any ships that they approached.

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Pupils’ pack contents

● Pirate name generator● ‘Me ... As a pirate’ activity sheet● Pirate crew job application form● ‘Treasure cargoes’ activity sheet● ‘Treasure cargo maths’ activity sheets (3)● ‘Torture, pirate style!’ activity sheet● ‘Marooned: diary extract’ activity sheet● ‘Marooned: what would you take?’ activity sheet● Design your own pirate flag● Blank sheet with the border top and bottom for your pupils’ own artwork and writing

Answers: Treasure cargo maths (1)

1) a) 30kg b) 35kg c) 40kg d) 130kg e) 5kg

2) a) £1000 b) £1500 c) £1600


1) a) 25kg b) 100kg c) 28.5kg

2) a) £1000 b) £3200

3) Red = £150 Green = £50 Blue = £100 Yellow = £200


1) There are lots of different answers to this question

2) 12 (11 lengths would only give you 275m so an additional piece would be needed)

3) Both cargoes weigh 90kg!

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you wouldn’t want to be a pirate’s prisoner!s... · piracy in the caribbean (or the spanish...

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