X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy

Russell K. Skowronek and Charles R. Ewen (editors). 2006. X Marks the Spot: The Archaeology of Piracy. University Press of Florida, Gainesville. ISBN 0-8130-2875-2.

The archaeology of piracy—the peg-legged, exotically-clothed, fancy-hat-with-a-feather, black-eye-patched sort of piracy—is the subject of the new book from the University Press of Florida called X Marks the Spot, edited by Russell K. Skowronek and Charles R. Ewen. Skowronek (Chapter 14) believes that the public image of pirates is so heavily loaded into our collective fantasies that it poses an obstacle to understanding the reality of the golden age of piracy (1690-1730). Originally an outgrowth of European expansionism, the pirate’s life on the high seas is seen by the public as a romantic ideal of freedom from legal and social obligations, as exemplified in books, plays and movies from Peter Pan to Treasure Island, from the Black Swan to Pirates of the Caribbean. I’m not sure I’d agree with Skowronek as he blames Mark Twain for codifying the idea of the swashbuckling pirate but that’s a minor point for English majors to debate.

X Marks the Spot is a collection of 14 academic articles including an introduction, four reports on pirate lairs, seven on pirate ships, and two on pirates in culture, present-day and past. They weave historical documentation such as probate records, travel accounts and old maps together with archaeological evidence on land and under water. The pirate settlement city of Port Royal, the most notoriously evil city in the late 17th century New World (Donny Hamilton), and Jean Lafitte’s Grand Terre near the mouth of the Mississippi River in what is now Louisiana (Joan Exnicios), are both covered. Two articles are on Henry Morgan’s roost in Honduras, at the settlement of Roatan (J. Daniel McBride), and the role of the logwood industry in the interior valleys (Daniel Finamore).

Part 2 includes the pirate John Bowen’s ship the Speaker, wrecked off Mauritius in 1702 (Patrick Lizé). John de Bry discovers that the wreck believed to be William Kidd’s Adventure Galley is instead Christopher Condents’ Fiery Dragon, scuttled off Madagascar in 1721. Christopher Hamilton describes the Whydah, wrecked off Cape Cod in 1717. Artifacts recovered from the wreck are from Bolivia, Scotland and Benin; surely an indication of a most successful pirate.

A pair of articles describes the wreck thought to be the Queen Anne’s Revenge, the flagship of Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard, sunk off the coast of North Carolina in 1718. Mark U. Wilde-Ramsing argues that the identification is correct; co-director Wayne Lusardi examines the artifacts and concludes differently. The pirates of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers of the internal United States are discussed in a chapter called “Going to See the Varmint” by Mark J. Wagner and Mary J. McCorvie. Finally, editors Skowronek and Ewen discuss how one might—or might not be able to—identify the wrecks of pirate’s victims in the Spanish Caribbean.

Part three of this intriguing book includes two essays on the image of the pirate in the popular press and in reality. Lawrence E. Babits, Joshua B. Howard and Matthew Brenckle address the popular image of the appearance of a pirate, and what the material culture of archaeology has told us about that image. And in the final chapter of the book, editor Skowronek discusses the results of an anthropological survey on beliefs and recollections about pirates among 302 adults of different ages in the Philippines and United States.

Together, the articles in X Marks the Spot cover a wide range of pirate wrecks and legacies from the Golden Age of Piracy, and give the reader a glimpse into what might be the reality of pirate life and death. A large bibliographic reference and index has been generated for this book, and there are numerous black and white photos and drawings within its pages.