After having the privilege to showcase our third year students’ creative assessment last week, this week we have looked to one of our doctoral researchers, Christos, to find the truth in the representations of pirates in the first film in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (including the most famous and memorable lines of the flm):

Captain Jack Sparrow arrives in Port Royal

This infamous scene introduces us to Captain Jack Sparrow, showing us the fortunes that may or may not come along with pirating…

When Jack sets foot on the pier, he’s immediately met by an official who documents the ships arriving at the harbour. Although a nice concept, especially when Jack tricks the man out of his coin purse, I do not think that this was the way new vessels where greeted in Jamaica!

Captain Jack Sparrow caught by redcoats

Jack gets caught! And not only that; he’s being apprehended by the Governor, the Commodore and a platoon of redcoats all at once! As indicative of the British military presence in the West Indies as this is, it’s highly unlikely that it would have ocurred. The Governor was the ultimate civil and military authority in the colony, but he could not impose any sentence, let alone the death penalty, without a fair trial. Even a pirate had the right to Habeas Corpus, and (in theory at least) was protected from arbitrary execution. Moreover, a Royal Navy officer, did not have the auhority to arrest anyone on land, as, in Jamaica’s case at least, it was the duty of the vestrymen and the local militia. Only in times of martial law, was any branch of the armed forces permitted to conduct arrests on land.

Captain Jack Sparrow and Will Turner commandeer the Interceptor

Jack and Will decide to “commandeer” a RN vessel and sail to Tortuga to hire a crew. This scene is impressive in two principal ways. First, the sheer ingenuity they show in tricking an entire RN crew (accompanied by marines, no less) to completely abandon their vessel to chase them! Secondly, the fact that two people, one of them being an extremely inexperienced mariner, can safely and effectively pilot a ship from Jamaica all the way to Tortuga! That speaks volumes of Jack’s maritime abilities (or does it?)!

Christos Giannatos is a PhD History Student at the University of Reading, specialising in specialising in Imperial Control and Colonial Government in the British and French Atlantic.

All comments and opinions presented in this article are that of the author.

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