This article was originally published on July 22, 2022.
Pirates in our favorite books and films are often portrayed in the same character type and style. Captain Hook from Peter Pan, Jack Sparrow from The Pirates of the Caribbean and Long John Silver from Treasure Island — to name a few — wore long-sleeved, puffy white shirts topped with a jacket. They sported tricorn hats, gold earrings and wore daggers at their hips. One of the characters was usually missing an appendage such as a hand, a leg or an eye. And a parrot is usually involved somewhere in the story.
Literary scholars have long criticized “pirate chic” for making these bandits seem like a European phenomenon. Pirates were a global problem, and they terrorized waterways from the Caribbean to China. The aesthetic also ignored another key detail. Pirating wasn’t just for men. For centuries, female pirates also commanded ships or served on the crew.
