Think about your stereotypical movie pirate, Black Beard, Captain Hook, etc. They’ve got the big Buccaneer hat that pirate captains wear, possibly an eye patch, hook for a hand, maybe a peg leg, and an exotic talking parrot on their shoulder. I’ve always assumed that the pirate on the shoulder was just because pirates would pop into Caribbean villages to trade between raiding ships and they’d take the parrots back as pets, but there’s a lot more to it than that.
Colin Woodard is the author of The Republic of Pirates ($7.16 paperback on Amazon) and here he explains the history behind why pirates in pop culture always have talking parrots on their shoulders. That pop culture image of pirates is based around a very specific group of *real pirates* who were active for 4-5 years at the beginning of the 18th century. Those pirates included Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, and others. And they’d actually take the pirates on board for entertainment and a way to pass the time during the off hours:
Imagine being a pirate or a sailor back then when there was nothing to keep you entertained on those ships. It’s almost inconceivable that you were able to read, so books weren’t an option. You just had to sit around and find ways to entertain yourself in the 6 weeks to 3 months it’d take ships to make the crossing back in the 18th century. The talking parrots were there to keep you entertained. Kind of like training a dog, but a really exotic dog that looks like it came from whatever the exact opposite of England is.
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