Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you missed in History Class from how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 1: I'm their Dowdy and I'm to blay a truck reporting.
Speaker 1: And you know, when you think about historical pirates, you
Speaker 1: usually picture the Pirates of the Caribbean Johnny Depp variety scoundrels,
Speaker 1: social deviants, basically working by themselves and every ship for
Speaker 1: itself type capacity, trying to add to or protect their
Speaker 1: store of bounty. Usually in my imagination at least, that's
Speaker 1: some big treasure chest Spanish galleon. Yeah, anything like that,
Speaker 1: overflowing with gold. And the pirates of the past that
Speaker 1: we hear about, they're also most often from the West,
Speaker 1: and they're usually men. Yeah, I guess unless Karen Nightly
Speaker 1: turns pirates than like the second or third movie, that's true,
Speaker 1: there's always sequels to help out. But piracy also flourished
Speaker 1: for a while on the other side of the world
Speaker 1: in the South China Sea. It was kind of during
Speaker 1: the end of the eighteenth century the beginning of the
Speaker 1: nineteenth around seventeen eighteen ten there in that range, and
Speaker 1: it grew at that time to become this great menace
Speaker 1: in that area. Transformed from being just a few small
Speaker 1: scale Chinese pirates who were working on their own to
Speaker 1: a huge pirate confederation that was actually a big lucrative business.
Speaker 1: And dion H Murray, who was the author of a
Speaker 1: book called Pirates of the South China Coast, he gives
Speaker 1: us a few reasons for why that happened. Why did
Speaker 1: this really take off at this time? The first reason
Speaker 1: is that there were some particular ecological conditions that contributed
Speaker 1: to it. Um the ecological conditions they allowed petty piracy,
Speaker 1: the piracy that existed before it really blew up to
Speaker 1: kind of flourish small scale pirates, small scale exactly. Also,
Speaker 1: pirate participation in a Vietnamese rebellion around seventeen eighty six
Speaker 1: helped the situation as well, because Chinese pie rates they
Speaker 1: learned to work together. They got together to help the
Speaker 1: Vietnamese rebels and saw that cooperation between them was finally possible.
Speaker 1: But perhaps most importantly, there were several far sighted leaders
Speaker 1: that emerged around this time who were able to kind
Speaker 1: of bring all these pirate gangs, so to speak, together,
Speaker 1: And the most notable and influential among these was probably
Speaker 1: Chung Sau, who, as a woman was definitely not your
Speaker 1: typical pirate leader. Yeah. And if you've listened to Molly
Speaker 1: and Kristen's recent episode on female pirates for stuff Mom
Speaker 1: never told you, you know that she's not the only
Speaker 1: female pirate in history. There's a Bonnie Mary Read. You know,
Speaker 1: they're probably the more famous names. In fact, we got
Speaker 1: a lot of suggestions for those two as well, um
Speaker 1: Rachel Wall who worked off the coast of Maine. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're definitely definitely a few other famous female pirates. But
Speaker 1: chung Esau, who was also known as Madam Chong and
Speaker 1: sometimes all the Dragon Lady thus the title, was definitely
Speaker 1: one of the most successful of these female pirates, and
Speaker 1: that was partly because she had some really really good
Speaker 1: business sense, and she was brutal about it, but she
Speaker 1: she knew what she was doing, and she knew how
Speaker 1: to get a team of pirates to work together, and
Speaker 1: that ultimately, that good business sense ultimately helped her run
Speaker 1: this entire pirate confederation and eventually come out of it
Speaker 1: a lot better than not just most women pirates, but
Speaker 1: most pirates in general. Definitely, that said, though she did
Speaker 1: appear to have some humble beginnings. Although we were not
Speaker 1: really sure about them. We don't really know much about
Speaker 1: her early life. She was born in seventeen seventy five,
Speaker 1: but she enters the pirate world by becoming the wife
Speaker 1: of pirate leader Chung E. Now Changese family had been
Speaker 1: involved in piracy since the seventeenth century. He himself, according
Speaker 1: to some, was the son of a peasant hunchback who
Speaker 1: was turned out and forced to turn pirate because his
Speaker 1: father basically couldn't feed him could pay to support him anymore.
Speaker 1: So he became one of the principal founders of this
Speaker 1: pirate confederation and eventually emerged as its leader. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: accounts vary here, but most of them say that Chungy's
Speaker 1: bride was a prostitute named either She Young or Si
Speaker 1: Kai Um, depending on which account you're looking at Um,
Speaker 1: And supposedly she worked on one of the flower boats
Speaker 1: which were floating brothels in the harbor and came into
Speaker 1: contact with this pirate leader that way. Um. Author Myra
Speaker 1: Weatherly wrote in Women Pirates, Eight Stories of Adventure that
Speaker 1: she had another sort of background, maybe something a little
Speaker 1: more interesting than just a random lady off of one
Speaker 1: of these flower boats. Right, here's another story about how
Speaker 1: chuny and chungy Saal could have gotten together. When Chung
Speaker 1: E was ready to take a wife, twenty bound and
Speaker 1: captured females were brought to him. One was a peasant
Speaker 1: girl named Chi Kai, who had the skin the tint
Speaker 1: of rich cream, but at the cheek was deep rose.
Speaker 1: This is how she was described, and was said that
Speaker 1: before the beauty of her face, the eyes of men
Speaker 1: grew confused. So quite the knockout. Smitten with her, Chung
Speaker 1: has her untied. But what he doesn't realize is that
Speaker 1: her feet aren't deformed by binding like some Chinese women
Speaker 1: at the time's feet were, so once she was free,
Speaker 1: she lunged and attacked him and had to be pulled
Speaker 1: away by other people. Future pirate indeed right, So somehow
Speaker 1: this doesn't deter her suitor at all. He offers her
Speaker 1: everything that you would think a girl at that time
Speaker 1: would want, jewelry, cosmetics, brightly colored silks, and slaves of
Speaker 1: her home, if only she will promise to marry him.
Speaker 1: But she holds out, doesn't she she does, she wants more.
Speaker 1: She only agrees to marry him if he'll give her
Speaker 1: half of his wealth and joint command of his entire
Speaker 1: pirate fleet. So it makes a good story, and we
Speaker 1: don't know for sure whether it's all true or not.
Speaker 1: But what we do know is that Chunghy's wife, who
Speaker 1: became known as chungy Thou, which literally means the wife
Speaker 1: of Long. Pretty straightforward there. Um, she did come to
Speaker 1: help him run the Pirate Confederation, whether or not she
Speaker 1: owns half of it officially. And the Pirate Confederation is
Speaker 1: really quite impressive. It's composed of six principal fleets, red, yellow, blue, green, black,
Speaker 1: and white. They have sort of a Captain Planet kind
Speaker 1: of vibe, I guess. And um, she's not just a
Speaker 1: silent partner in this this confederation either. She really plays
Speaker 1: an active role. Yeah, she actually ran one of the fleets,
Speaker 1: I think one of the bigger ones, and she was
Speaker 1: really good at it too. By most accounts. Her signature
Speaker 1: strategy was to take the enemy by surprise and then
Speaker 1: overpower them with hand to hand combat. So here's kind
Speaker 1: of what she did. Basically, the vessels that they used
Speaker 1: were called junks. They were these flat bottomed boats that
Speaker 1: had sales and you'll hear us refer to them like
Speaker 1: that throughout the podcast. And these were really great for
Speaker 1: speed and navigation and shallow waters. Pirates, by the way,
Speaker 1: often preferred the shallow water because it was less treacherous
Speaker 1: than being out at sea and also something that doesn't
Speaker 1: really jive with how we normally think of pirates sailing
Speaker 1: across the ocean, right we imagine these big battles that
Speaker 1: happened in the middle of the ocean, But no, actually
Speaker 1: they stick stuck a lot closer to the coast because
Speaker 1: that was actually part of their business too. They would
Speaker 1: have team up with bandits and have raids on land
Speaker 1: as well. So Madam Chung would conceal most of her
Speaker 1: junks behind a long strip of land jutting out into
Speaker 1: the sea and send a couple out as decoys. Then
Speaker 1: after making initial contact with whatever both they're about to attack,
Speaker 1: she would send out the remaining ships to attack. So
Speaker 1: a big surprise attack all of a sudden with all
Speaker 1: of these junks coming out. And another thing that not
Speaker 1: just she did, but other Chinese pirates of the time,
Speaker 1: they'd use these bamboo pikes with faber like blades, so
Speaker 1: that would be pretty scary if you suddenly had a
Speaker 1: bunch of junks surprisingly coming out of nowhere with these
Speaker 1: spike blades, and then they'd also fill large boats with
Speaker 1: straw and set them on fire and just sort of
Speaker 1: push them out into the middle of combat, so their um,
Speaker 1: their enemies would be frightened by boats the flame. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that also sounds pretty intimidating. They would also hurl firebrands
Speaker 1: at enemy sales, so not something that you would want
Speaker 1: to see coming your way if you're on the water.
Speaker 1: And the pirates would also get themselves hyped up for
Speaker 1: these events. They would drink a mixture of wine and
Speaker 1: gunpowder when going into battle, and apparently they would just
Speaker 1: look crazy coming at you. Whether maybe it's just the line,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Maybe it was just the gunpowder would
Speaker 1: have what positive book backed gunpowder would have. You seem
Speaker 1: to have some special knowledge of this, Perhaps they're thankfully not.
Speaker 1: Another thing I fortunately don't have any special knowledge of
Speaker 1: is eating the hearts of vanquished foes, which is that
Speaker 1: are really unfortunate that you don't have any knowledge. I
Speaker 1: think I'd be in a lot of trouble if I
Speaker 1: had knowledge about that. Um. But yeah, they would do
Speaker 1: the to work up their courage, you know, So have
Speaker 1: some hearts, have some wine and gunpowder and then go
Speaker 1: out there with your bamboo pikes. Yeah, and you wouldn't
Speaker 1: be going out there without any sort of luck on
Speaker 1: your side either, because the pirates actually sprinkled themselves with
Speaker 1: garlic water as a charm to ward off bullets. So
Speaker 1: they are pretty well covered. They're not taking any chances now,
Speaker 1: and and clearly they're successful with all of these strategies
Speaker 1: because by eighteen o four, the Chung's Pirate Confederation included
Speaker 1: about four hundred junks and seventy thousand men, so that
Speaker 1: is quite a fleet of pirates to man. And they
Speaker 1: even draw up a constitution in eighteen o five, because
Speaker 1: if you have all of these different pirates, you know
Speaker 1: it's a good idea to have some sort of document
Speaker 1: that governs them. All of the different pirate leaders signed
Speaker 1: the constitution and it makes Chung E the chief admiral. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so we can see them getting more and more organized
Speaker 1: as they go along. And that was just a few
Speaker 1: year is into it. By seven though, Chungy dies and
Speaker 1: it's likely that he was blown overboard in a gale
Speaker 1: and drowned. That's the story that you see around protect again, No,
Speaker 1: it doesn't protect against the gals. Apparently so the Chinese
Speaker 1: pirates they met to elect a new leader. And again
Speaker 1: this is kind of legend. We're not exactly sure how
Speaker 1: accurate this is, but it said that Madam Chung showed
Speaker 1: up at this meeting dressed in a chief's uniform, in
Speaker 1: the chief's uniform, that is, her husband's former uniform, which
Speaker 1: was a robe of purple, blue, red, and gold, and
Speaker 1: it was embroidered all over with dragons, which suits her
Speaker 1: nickname right. And she wore some of her dead husband's
Speaker 1: swords along with us and his war helmet. And when
Speaker 1: she appeared before the men, she told them, quote, look
Speaker 1: at me, Captain's, your departed chief sat in council with me.
Speaker 1: Your most powerful fleet, the White under my command took
Speaker 1: more prizes than any others did. Do you think I
Speaker 1: will bow to any other chief? Okay? And they did not.
Speaker 1: She took command virtually uncontested. But to secure her position,
Speaker 1: she knew that she needed to get someone to assist
Speaker 1: her in managing the daily operations of the Red Fleet. Specifically,
Speaker 1: it was especially large head anywhere from twenty thousand to
Speaker 1: forty thousand men, and she needed this to be someone
Speaker 1: who could win over the rank and file pirates and
Speaker 1: who would remain absolutely loyal to her. So these two
Speaker 1: things were essential. So for this role, she picked Chung Pao,
Speaker 1: her adopted son. Chung Pau was a fisherman's son who
Speaker 1: had joined the pirates at fifteen after having been captured
Speaker 1: by Chungy, and Chungy really took a liking to Chong Pao.
Speaker 1: He liked him so much. In fact, this was a quote,
Speaker 1: he liked him so much that he could not depart
Speaker 1: from him. So it seems like there's a little bit
Speaker 1: of emotional tie there, to say the least. And he
Speaker 1: becomes this protege, so there's maybe a dual relationship going on. Yeah,
Speaker 1: he becomes his protege. And it's also said that they
Speaker 1: might have had some sort of homosexual liaison or relationship.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how extensive it was, if it was
Speaker 1: just something to kind of draw Chunk Pou into the yeah,
Speaker 1: into the pirate fold, or or if it was an
Speaker 1: actual relationship, but there was that there. Yeah, and Madam
Speaker 1: Chung also takes a liking to this young man and
Speaker 1: selects him. She thinks he will be boyle and to
Speaker 1: seal the deal, she also has sex with him and
Speaker 1: they become lovers and later even husband and wife. So
Speaker 1: it's another pirate partnership again. Yeah, and just a strange
Speaker 1: twist since he goes from being her adopted son. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I know, it's kind of a little uncomfortable. I don't
Speaker 1: want to think about that one too much. But such
Speaker 1: as it was, Chung Poo actually proved to be a
Speaker 1: really business like and effective leader. It said that he
Speaker 1: was charismatic and he wore this flamboyant outfit. It was
Speaker 1: a purple silk robe along with a black turban. And
Speaker 1: he was also really superstitious. Like all pirates, he would
Speaker 1: pray before they out for any sort of attack or plundering,
Speaker 1: and if the omens were bad, they basically wouldn't go.
Speaker 1: That would be a sign that the mission was no.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's interesting. That's another thing you
Speaker 1: can think of pirates is just being kind of drunken
Speaker 1: in craze, but a lot of planning and superstition going
Speaker 1: into something and religion here too. I mean, they prayed diligently. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's kind of surprising to see. But once um
Speaker 1: Madam Chung's position was secure, you know, once she had
Speaker 1: this this number two, and the confederation was solid. She
Speaker 1: consolidated the confederation further by issuing a code of laws
Speaker 1: that regularized operations, just regularized operations regarding just about everything
Speaker 1: in pirate life, really keeping people in check. And the
Speaker 1: code was severe too, as you would expect a pirate
Speaker 1: code to be, a few examples from it. Anyone caught
Speaker 1: giving commands on his own or disobeying those of a
Speaker 1: superior was to be immediately decapitated, no flogging, no warning,
Speaker 1: or something immediately off with their heads. Yeah, and a
Speaker 1: pirate who went ashore without permission would have his ear
Speaker 1: slit doing it again meant certain death. And pilfering from
Speaker 1: the common treasury was also frowned upon, as was stealing
Speaker 1: from villagers who were on the pirates side, you know
Speaker 1: who who supplied them, uh, had worked out some sort
Speaker 1: of arrangement with the pirates. Those were capital offenses. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and interestingly, if a pirate raped a female captive, he
Speaker 1: was put to death. And you know this goes back
Speaker 1: to your saying you imagine pirates that they're just all
Speaker 1: really rough mannered and they you expect for things to
Speaker 1: go on like that, raping and so forth, But nope,
Speaker 1: that was not allowed. And even if they had sex
Speaker 1: by mutual consent, the man was beheaded and the woman
Speaker 1: was cast overboard with a weight attached to her legs.
Speaker 1: So low tolerance for any sort of funny business, definitely.
Speaker 1: And we should mention the concubines and the wives and
Speaker 1: and the women they captured a little more too, especially
Speaker 1: because we are talking about a woman pirate. But usually
Speaker 1: pirates would take the most beautiful captives as their concubines
Speaker 1: or wives, and the less pretty ones would be returned
Speaker 1: to the shore, and others might be ransomed if they
Speaker 1: had some kind of good family connections. And if a
Speaker 1: pirate chose a wife from one of the captives, he
Speaker 1: was supposed to be loyal to her. And I mean
Speaker 1: that's another surprise. These pirates are just like loaded with surprises,
Speaker 1: like these boats coming out of nowhere. Um, it's interesting
Speaker 1: that promiscuity was not encouraged, it was not even allowed. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it makes me wonder. And I wasn't able to find
Speaker 1: too much on this, but whether Madam Chung herself was
Speaker 1: holding fidelity in such high esteem or if it was
Speaker 1: just a pirate rule that was more ubiquitous, Yeah, that
Speaker 1: would be interesting to find out in this situation. Male captives,
Speaker 1: on the other hand, were kept as manpower. They weren't
Speaker 1: really released besides the Westerners who are being held for ransom,
Speaker 1: so they kind of became part of the pirate fold too,
Speaker 1: although it doesn't seem like they had many rights. The
Speaker 1: other major thing that Madam Chung did as leader was
Speaker 1: really make piracy function as a business. So we want
Speaker 1: to get into that a little bit, just a little
Speaker 1: background on how the pirates need their profits in the
Speaker 1: first place. They did so through as you would imagine,
Speaker 1: outright piracy plundering ships for example, which Chang referred to
Speaker 1: as the trans shipping of goods, which sounds like some
Speaker 1: term you'd learned in the business class. It sounds like
Speaker 1: it's supposed to be a real term, but um it
Speaker 1: was one that she coined, I think. And she also
Speaker 1: ransom prisoners, so that's how they made a little bit
Speaker 1: of money. They would capture westerners off of the East
Speaker 1: India Company ships, for example. An officer on such a ship,
Speaker 1: Richard Glasspool, was one of them, and it's through his
Speaker 1: diary and through the diaries of other people like him,
Speaker 1: that we actually have records of how these Chinese pirates lived.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's the outright piracy side of the business.
Speaker 1: But there was also some other other deals going on, um,
Speaker 1: other hustles. Madam Chung had a massive protection racket where
Speaker 1: she sold quote safe passage protection on land and by sea.
Speaker 1: So basically, we the pirates won't mass with you if
Speaker 1: you if you pay us a certain amount of money.
Speaker 1: And Glasspool recounts being on one of these fee collecting
Speaker 1: missions in eighteen o nine when the pirates took in
Speaker 1: five hundred junks and sailed up the Pearl River anchored
Speaker 1: by a village and basically threatened to burn down the
Speaker 1: town and murder all of its inhabitants unless they agreed
Speaker 1: to pay a fee. And this is a little funny,
Speaker 1: a fee of six thousand dollars. Yeah, we're not really
Speaker 1: sure what currency he's referring to at the time eighteen
Speaker 1: o nine. Um, and he was a captive at this time,
Speaker 1: so I'm not really sure how he got the exact
Speaker 1: figures of the agreement. You know that he was forced
Speaker 1: to participate in this, but um, he that's the figure
Speaker 1: he threw out there. Um, But I mean it gives
Speaker 1: us an idea at least of of these rackets that
Speaker 1: they would pull, not actually doing the burning and pillaging,
Speaker 1: but threatening to do so. Yeah, that's some protection, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: thank you for not burning it down or else. So,
Speaker 1: because the pirates operated on such a large scale, Madam
Speaker 1: Chung required written records of everything. All of their loot
Speaker 1: that they got was entered into a warehouse register by
Speaker 1: the pirates purser. So here were some rules. No pirate
Speaker 1: could retain anything without submitting it for inspection. So you
Speaker 1: couldn't just go plunder some ship and then shove stuff
Speaker 1: in your poet in your own chest, right, you had
Speaker 1: to submit it and have it reviewed, declare it essentially,
Speaker 1: and then about of that went to the original captor
Speaker 1: and the rest was put into a public fund. After that,
Speaker 1: any pirate who wanted to withdraw from the common fund
Speaker 1: made a written application to the secretary of the storehouse,
Speaker 1: who was known as the ink and writing Master. So
Speaker 1: it was very business like. Yeah, and you can imagine
Speaker 1: that would be for boat repairs or maybe if you
Speaker 1: hadn't brought in any loot for a while and you
Speaker 1: still needed to keep basic operations going. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: what the public fund was used for. I think everything
Speaker 1: that didn't go to the captors. It was sort of
Speaker 1: spread out among the people who maybe hadn't plundered a
Speaker 1: ship recently. I mean, I think that's really interesting. And
Speaker 1: again it doesn't quite fit with how we think of pirates,
Speaker 1: but it all seems very civilized, and I guess that's
Speaker 1: why it doesn't. It doesn't add up exactly in our
Speaker 1: in our own viewing the pirates. But I don't think
Speaker 1: it's too businesslike either. There's still plenty that's that's bloody.
Speaker 1: There's still plenty of carnage and glasspool. For instance, we
Speaker 1: just mentioned him. He recalls seeing entire villages destroyed and men,
Speaker 1: women and children mascred. Um. Madam Chung certainly didn't shy
Speaker 1: away from that kind of thing. No, she didn't at all.
Speaker 1: And fact it said that she paid her pirates cash
Speaker 1: for each head that they brought back from any of
Speaker 1: their assaults. So you could find these pirates fighting with
Speaker 1: as many as five or six bloody heads thrown over
Speaker 1: their shoulders, tied together by their hair. Yeah, that's that's
Speaker 1: an image kind of thinking of onions or something, but bloodier. Um.
Speaker 1: But I mean, she definitely had effective methods that that
Speaker 1: was an effective program for the pirates. Yeah, I would
Speaker 1: say so. At the height of her reign on the
Speaker 1: South China Sea in eighteen o nine, she controlled about
Speaker 1: two thousand ships and more than eighty thousand people. So
Speaker 1: this a lot of people say, this makes her perhaps
Speaker 1: the greatest pirate of all time by the numbers at least. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And that kind of greatness, of course, does attract the
Speaker 1: attention of the law, including the Chinese government, who wanted
Speaker 1: to hunt Chung down and and put a stop to
Speaker 1: her operation. And they try several times to stage carefully
Speaker 1: planned attacks, and they just couldn't make a dent on
Speaker 1: Chung's forces because there were so many of them, and
Speaker 1: they were well organized, and they were sneaky and hard
Speaker 1: to find. Yeah. So then the emperor, the Chinese emperor
Speaker 1: had to change his too, and it was basically a
Speaker 1: shift from we want to get you too, Okay, if
Speaker 1: we can't beat them, then you guys join us. So
Speaker 1: they started offering the pirates amnesty instead of trying to
Speaker 1: just get them out right. There are settlements that they
Speaker 1: offered included a pardon, cash, and land. So this started
Speaker 1: to custom dissension among the pirates. A lot of them
Speaker 1: wanted to take the offer and started surrendering. Even Chong
Speaker 1: Poo wanted to and eventually Chung Ethal comes around to
Speaker 1: the idea too. She saw the advantages of surrender and
Speaker 1: so finally she relented. On April eighteenth, eighteen ten, she
Speaker 1: went with a delegation, totally unarmed, delegation of seventeen women
Speaker 1: and children to see the Governor General of Canton and negotiate,
Speaker 1: and a few days later the surrender happened, and the
Speaker 1: term she got were extraordinary. You think, at best she'd
Speaker 1: be allowed to to live freely or something, or maybe
Speaker 1: get to keep a tiny little bit of her money,
Speaker 1: but she does quite well for herself. They get to
Speaker 1: keep several of their junks, and they got a large
Speaker 1: sum of money too. And now several pirates were actually
Speaker 1: made legitimate and allowed to join the army. But Chung
Speaker 1: Po was actually given the rank of lieutenant, and he
Speaker 1: ends up having this illustrious military career in China after that,
Speaker 1: rising to the post of colonel. He dies in eighteen
Speaker 1: twenty two at the age of thirty six, reportedly of
Speaker 1: natural causes, but this was really considered this great meteoric
Speaker 1: rise for someone who started out as a fisherman's son,
Speaker 1: and really twice because he rose up the ranks as
Speaker 1: a pirate and then he came out as a civilian
Speaker 1: and rose at the ranks as a military guy. Totally legit.
Speaker 1: And Madam Chung did pretty well for herself too. She
Speaker 1: spent the rest of her years in Canton, quote, leading
Speaker 1: a peaceful life so far as was consistent with the
Speaker 1: keeping of an infamous gambling house. So I mean, how
Speaker 1: appropriate is that. Yeah, she's still a bad girl. What
Speaker 1: are you gonna do if you are a retired pirate
Speaker 1: keep a house of ill repute? It makes sense. She
Speaker 1: died in eighteen forty four at the age of sixty nine,
Speaker 1: And um, yeah, I think that's a pretty amazing pirate story.
Speaker 1: They so often end in the gallows. It's it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see one that has kind of a happy ending
Speaker 1: for pirates. For all the decapitated people along the way, Yeah,
Speaker 1: except for them, we feel bad for them. But for her,
Speaker 1: she ended up in a lot a much better place
Speaker 1: I think than other female pirates did that. Molly and
Speaker 1: Kristen focused, like we said, on um An Bonnie and
Speaker 1: Mary Reid, and they ended up getting captured as many
Speaker 1: pirates tended to and ended up. You know, the law
Speaker 1: caught up and caught up with them in the end. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I guess Madam Chung she knew when to to
Speaker 1: get out of the pirrating business and to take the
Speaker 1: good offer and luck with on her side. And that
Speaker 1: brings us to a listener mail. We have a letter
Speaker 1: here from Samuel in Philadelphia, and he says, Hi, Sarah Bablina,
Speaker 1: I'm a big fan of your show and enjoy your podcasts.
Speaker 1: Usually I don't have much to say, but I want
Speaker 1: you to reconsider your admiration for the quote. Do you
Speaker 1: know who I am? When the Black Millionaires was stopped
Speaker 1: by a policeman? Would you have the same admiration for
Speaker 1: the quote if it were said by a white male millionaire.
Speaker 1: I think that kind of attitude is actually pretty remprehensible
Speaker 1: no matter who says it. Submitted for your reconsideration, best Sam. So, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we thought this was very interesting. I thought this was
Speaker 1: a really interesting letter, and it was one that I
Speaker 1: really thought about for a long time. And I think
Speaker 1: Sarah and I both went back to that quote and
Speaker 1: thought about, you know, the feelings that we expressed when
Speaker 1: we said it. And I guess I didn't really think
Speaker 1: of it as admiration for what she was saying. I
Speaker 1: think we were both just sort of marveling and impressed
Speaker 1: to find a quote, a direct quote from this woman
Speaker 1: who history seems to know so little about, so just
Speaker 1: to be able to hear something in her own voice.
Speaker 1: I think, Sarah, you put it well, and you said
Speaker 1: it's like almost like hearing Hollywood gossips in a way
Speaker 1: you can appealed to my my secret love for celebrity gossip.
Speaker 1: But I mean I like the word you chose marveling too.
Speaker 1: I mean I was kind of marveling at the situation
Speaker 1: because in a way it's so ironic. Of course, the
Speaker 1: policeman knows who she is. How many female black millionairess
Speaker 1: were They're driving around in silver plated cars at the time,
Speaker 1: you know, I think he knew who she was already
Speaker 1: without her having to even say anything. But just I
Speaker 1: think it's a fascinating situation that it could even develop,
Speaker 1: and that she'd be able to even say something like that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's a great way to play it. I think we
Speaker 1: were both rather than really admiring the words themselves, we
Speaker 1: were both fascinated to hear her say this in nine
Speaker 1: in the United States and a time when women like her,
Speaker 1: Black women didn't really have much of a voice, and
Speaker 1: she could say this, do you know who I am?
Speaker 1: And it really meant something. So that was more how
Speaker 1: we were coming at it, I think, and definitely not
Speaker 1: encouraging anyone to be a jerk and try to get
Speaker 1: out of their traffic ticket. It's funny too, because the
Speaker 1: day we received this email, I went home and I
Speaker 1: was watching, you know, just pudging out in front of
Speaker 1: an episode of Sex in the City or something, and
Speaker 1: one of the characters said that she said, do you
Speaker 1: know who I am? You know, fancy rich New York lady,
Speaker 1: And I thought, oh, well, I can totally see how
Speaker 1: that is just reprehensible. Yeah. Well, anyways, thank you for
Speaker 1: giving us something to mull over for a bit. It's
Speaker 1: always fun too to look back on an episode and
Speaker 1: and think about what you said a little more carefully,
Speaker 1: and and think about what the first black millionaires said too,
Speaker 1: because it is an interesting quote anyway you look at it. Definitely,
Speaker 1: thank you for the letter. If you want to send
Speaker 1: us more email, give us more stuff to think about,
Speaker 1: and send us your ideas maybe send us your favorite
Speaker 1: pirates story to go along with today's episode. Feel free
Speaker 1: to email us It's history podcast at how stuff works
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Speaker 1: you want to learn a little bit more about how
Speaker 1: pirates work, we have a story with that exact title
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Speaker 1: We're more on this and thousands of other topics. Visit
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