felicitous lecture Like a Pirate Day , mateys ! Abstain from this nautical celebration and you ’ll likely be tell to “ Go walk the plank ” by some middle plot of ground - wearing devotees .
It ’s a material body of penalisation narrator have been full about for hundred . Treasure Island , Robert Louis Stevenson ’s adventuresome magnum opus , cite board - walking on several occasion . Movie - manufacturer publicized the pattern still further , as demonstrated by this attention-getting number from Disney’sPeter Pan :
Thanks to all that medium attention , many now believe walk the board was downright commonplace on substantial - animation pirate vessels . However , historic record paint a more ambiguous picture .
Among the first non - fiction , English - language books to cover buccaneers and their lifestyle wasA General History of the Pyrates . Originally published in 1724 by an author working under the anonym “ Captain Charles Johnson , ” it claims that — back in ancient Roman metre — Mediterranean pirates would facetiously offer prisoners their freedom via hold ladders over the open sea and invite them to drown back home .
Yet , most basal accounts of walking the plank are unelaborated at well . Before his execution in 1769 , a Nellie Bly constitute George Wood confessed that he ’d storm at least one prisoner to do so . But , alas , Wood was no sea rover but rather a common mutineer .
Fifty - three years later , an eyewitness would compose that British ship captain William Smith was accept by some bona fide man of luck . After pick up him , the survivorrecalls , “ a board was run on the starboard side of [ their ] schooner , upon which [ they ] made Captain Smith walk , and … as he border on to the end , they tilted the plank , when he drop into the ocean ” .
Most historians conclude that , while plank - walk did exist , it was comparatively rarefied . For starters , many captives would ’ve been kept alive and held hostage , as wasthe casefor a young Julius Caesar in 75 BCE . And when pirate really did mean to off somebody , plenty of other options were available , such asmarooning , which intimately always resulted in death .
If a more sadistic measure was desired , “ keelhauling ” fit the neb perfectly . This involved stripping the victim , tying him to a circle , throwing him overboard , and dragging him beneath the duration of the ship as razor - abrupt barnacles sliced through his peel . Yikes !
