You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

My name is Greg Jackson.

I'm a PhD holding historian, a professor and the creator of history that doesn't suck.

A podcast that makes legit seriously researched

American history come to life through entertaining stories. Join me for a

chronological telling of the United States story. From the revolution to

fractious civil war, tenacious inventors, brave reformers, and more.

With more than 100 episodes, you can already binge a listen to your way from 1776 to the early 20th century.

Listen to history that doesn't suck on Spotify. Today's show is also brought to you by our Patreon supporters, including our Commodore class.

That's Commodore's Kane, Kenway, Scurvy Pete, Hefei, Zumen, Black Tip, Matthew the Navigator,

Bull, Vertagon, Conifalende, rum gut, and bootstrap spayly. The Hello, welcome to the Pirate History Podcast. My name is Matt. Thank you for listening.

I try to think of a suitable mental exercise to really put myself in the mindset of the pirates that sailed during the

Golden Age of piracy, but I invariably come up short. It's because I think, well

it's because I'm an American and my mindset is very rooted in the American experience.

I could imagine relocating to another country, adopting their customs and language, and really loving the experience, but I would never stop being an American.

The pirates, though, lived in a very different world. They were absolutely children of their own nations, but they lived in a region that was, well it was a melting pot that didn't yet have an identity of its own. The West Indies, the Caribbean, had so many small colonies

of so many different nations, and they all existed so close to one another. In the span of

an afternoon, at most a week, they might hear people speak Spanish and English and French and Dutch and Danish and German and Tino dialects and half a dozen different African languages.

And then they would hear all of the hybrids that were busy being born out of that mesh of languages.

However, most people that were born into that environment were deeply

nationalistic. Whatever circumstance through with them, they were still English or Dutch

or French except for the pirates.

...