In an intresting manner, I looked up how actual pirates behaived and what they did. It turns out that real piracey wasn't about drinking rum and sailing across the gloab looking for treasure, it was really a matter of survival. In 1680-1720 pirates roamed the Caribbean area hijacking and attacking ships and rival traders. In Treasure Island, the pirate's purpose was mainly to find burried treasure, but real life pirates were sent out to sea mainly for weakining one country's trading rival, by attacking their ships, which caused the ships to not only be delayed, but possibly hijacked of all goods as well; an example of a country who really liked to use pirates would be France to stop England's exports. Eventually, the pirates did become very wealthy, and they soley did what they did for pure wealth, as the pirates in Treasure Island had done. Also, the real pirates didn't have birds on their shoulders, wooden legs or eyepaches; and although some pirates used cannons, they mainly foucused on the usage of guns.
If real pirates were so different from the ones from Treasure Island, then why do you think Stevenson described his pirates the way he did in Treasure Island?
Bibliography:Piracy in the Caribbean. 12 Apr. 2010. Web. 15 Apr. 2010. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caribbean_pirate.
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theres a lot of stereotypical views on pirates, and no one really knows what to believer. were used to the stories of pirates looking for buried treasure but as we got older, we heard about them being drunk all the time and stealing things and killing people. I think everyone has their own opinions on pirates.
ReplyDelete-chris
yes chris and andrew, this is good because i found this a stereotypical view too before you found this great amount of research.
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