Metaphors to Muse Upon: Pirates (Part 4 - The Pirate Code)

* The Pirate Code - If you happened to serve on a Spanish Galley or Dutch merchantmen, life was dangerous, difficult and, for the most part, unpleasant. Unless you were a ranking officer, you could expect to have no say in what happened on the ship, no call as to its mission or destination, no benefit reaped from jobs well-done, no part in any boon or blessing (those were reserved most often for the Captain and First Mate, and for the Company who financed them), and in return, you could be flogged, beaten or confined below deck for...well... anything, even just ranging from poorly swabbing a deck to just being at the psychotic whim of the Captain or Mate.

On a pirate vessel, however, none of the above applied. As a member of the crew, you immediately had a share in all decision-making. You helped to pick the mission, the objectives and points of plunder. You also reaped an equal share of the reward with all others, and only the Captain received a double-share. By comparison, virtually all pirate charters were egalitarian, democratic, and attempted to treat crew-members as "owners" of a shared whole. Once decided, of course, the Captains assumed full responsibility for the accomplishment of the established objectives, and the crew snapped to unswervingly, becoming a single body bound by common mission and the promise of fortune.

I love the irony that the best chance at egalitarianism and democracy that you would find in the Golden Age of Piracy was on a pirate ship! Sometimes, it seems, that beauty can be found in the oddest places! Sometimes i wonder what people 200 years will think when they look back at the "charters" that bound us together as people of faith.