elanya

So, what I actually managed yesterday was to Buy All the Things, including a proof copy of my dis in colour, paying for my storage unit, and buying yarn to knit a sweater as a knit-along with longpig. I also bought needles to knit said sweater with (I have 6s in the set I got for Christmas :)

And then I watched Black Sails with earis. This was episode two. The show continues to be a confusing mix of good and terrible historical details. There was a lot of Drama this episode, including surrounding one of the more compelling original characters, a mixed-race whore named Max.

...I'm not going to give spoilers about the show here (but I make no promises about the comments). But I am not going to spoiler censor for actual history, because this shit happened 300 years ago, and also who knows how things will unfold on the show. I kind of want to write something more explicitly meta about this, but I'm not sure if anyone would care? I could write about the setting, things they get right, things that are wrong, snippets about what is know about various historical figures and how they are being portrayed in the show, etc. Anyone anyone?

How about this - I'll start with a list of characters who are very based on historical people, of characters who are taken from other media, and of characters whose existence has some basis in historical fact:

Real Peeps:
Charles Vane - And yes, he was a bit of a violent psycho. Don't know if he looked as good in leather pants with his hair half pulled back...
"Calico" Jack Rackham. Who really did serve under Vane. Spoiler alert: Johnny Depp's character is probably named after him. You know - Captain Jack >.>
Anne Bonny - Although technically she doesn't come onto the scene for another few years. She starts on Rackham's crew, as I recall.

Fictional Peeps (we're all at least passingly familiar with Treasure Island, right?):
Captain Flint - Treasure Island
John Silver - Treasure Island
Billy Bones - Treasure Island

Historical Basis:
Richard Guthrie. This is the most surprising, I'm sure. There *was* a merchant, Richard Thompson) who lived at Harbour Island who was rumoured to be colluding with the local pirates (especially those operating out of HI rather than Nassau proper. His house would not have been anything like the one shown on the show. HI was even more of a backwater than Nassau, though it did have close ties with the Carolinas. That and the mention of him successfully bribing the Lords Proprietors were some of the biggest "lol-no" moments of the show for me. Also the sugar planter from the Carolinas....

Thompson was very locally prominent, and served as a Deputy Governor under Woodes Rogers. His daughter (name unknown) also married a pirate, Thomas Cockram:

And, now I'me upon ye head of the Bahamas, I think it my duty to acquaint your Ldships., of the present condition of those Islands. There are about 200 familys scatter'd up and down amongst them; but their principal residence is at Providence, Harbour Island, and Ilathera: who live without any face or form of Governmt. every man doing onely what's right in his own eyes. They have serv'd, of late, as a retreat for three setts of pyrates, who committed their depredations in open boats, with about five and twenty men in a boat. They have taken from the Spaniards within these eight months, at least, to the value of three score thousand pounds: And hearing that ye Spaniards at ye Havana were makeing preparations, to attack both them, and the receivers, they shar'd their booty, and dispers'd. The names of two of their Captains were Cockram, and Hornygood, both of which, at present, are refug'd amongst those people. Cockram has marry'd ye daughter of one Thomson, one of the richest inhabitants of Harbour Island, and sails in a sloop of his, between those Islands and Curaçao, loaden with brasiletto; which is doing a prejudice still to ye Crown, in defrauding ye Queen of her dutys, and is the spoiling of that trade, by letting ye Dutch into it.

- Lt. Governor Pulleine [of Bermuda] to the Council of Trade and Plantations. April 22, 1714. From the Calendar of State Papers Colonial, America and West Indies, Volume 27: 1712-1714, #651.