The ArchivesThemesMarooning
Marooning
The pirate penalty of putting a condemned or deposed man ashore on a barren island, key or sandbar. The company rather than the captain passed the sentence, and at least two surviving sets of articles prescribe it.
Also writtenMarooned; Setting ashore; Made governor of an island; Judicial abandonment
Marooning was the deliberate abandonment of a man on an uninhabited island, key or sandbar. He was rowed ashore, left a little water and a loaded firearm, and the ship sailed on. In a pirate company it was a sentence, and the allowance gives it its character: the form of a chance, with death close to certain.
What the sentence was
The sentence belonged to the company, in keeping with the order described under crew voting and councils. The crew condemned the man; he was set down on an island or sandbank chosen for its barrenness, often one with little or no fresh water. Marooning stood beside death among the gravest penalties in the scale set out under pirate justice and discipline, and it was written into at least two surviving sets of articles. The offences it answered run consistently across those codes: running away, keeping a secret from the company, stealing from shipmates, all betrayals of the shared enterprise rather than crimes against outsiders. Against a deposed leader it enacted removal from command, which is where it touches captain election and removal.1
Putting unwanted people ashore was older than the pirates. The setting ashore of Juan de Cartagena during Magellan's expedition in 1520 is one of several such abandonments reported from the early modern maritime world, thinly enough that they are possible instances rather than firm precedents. What the golden-age companies added was formality.
The kit, and how much of it is documented
The most precise specification to survive is usually said to belong to the 1724 articles of Captain John Phillips of the Revenge. The second reads: "If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any Secret from the Company, he shall be marooned with one Bottle of Powder, one Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot." The third does not repeat that allowance; it prescribes that a man who steals from the company, or games to the value of a piece of eight, shall be marooned or shot. This is the origin of the familiar kit, and it survives because one small crew wrote its rules down.2
The cases
The clearest golden-age instance of the sentence against a deposed leader is Edward England. His crew, judging him too lenient towards prisoners after the taking of the Cassandra and the treatment of Captain James Macrae, voted him out of the command and set him ashore on Mauritius in 1720; he is said to have found provisions, got hold of a small boat and made his way to Madagascar. The account rests substantially on the General History of the Pyrates, which mixes documentary material with invention, and its particulars are probable at best.3
The practice outlived the pirates. In December 1807 a Royal Navy captain, Warwick Lake, put the seaman Robert Jeffery ashore on the barren island of Sombrero; Jeffery was picked up by an American vessel, and Lake was court-martialled and dismissed the service for it.
What is not known
What these sources cannot give is how often marooning actually happened. Nothing in the surviving papers shows whether it was common or rare beside flogging and execution, and only a count across the trial records would settle it. The universal contents of the kit are equally beyond reach, Phillips's articles being one crew's rule and the only exact list we have. England's marooning would need colonial or East India Company papers from Mauritius or Madagascar to rise above probable.
What the evidence does not settle
Marooning kit contents
- The marooning kit's contents are known only from Phillips's 1724 articles
Cimarron etymology
- The maroon word's cimarron origin is received, not proven
The black spot legend
- The black spot is Stevenson's invention, not a golden age practice
Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.
Sources for this record
Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.
- Marooning was a judicial abandonment passed by the company rather than by the captain alone, the condemned man being set down on an island, coast or sandbank chosen for its barrenness, and it was written into at least two surviving sets of pirate articles as the penalty for offences against the company such as running away, keeping a secret from the company and stealing from shipmates. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Pirate articles as printed, with secondary reference: Articles of Captain John Phillips of the Revenge, 1724; Golden Age of Piracy, Pirates Culture: Marooning
- The document's third article does not repeat the second article's allowance of one bottle of powder, one bottle of water and one small arm and shot; it prescribes that a man who steals from the company, or games for stakes up to the value of a piece of eight, shall be marooned or shot. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Pirate articles as printed: Articles of Captain John Phillips of the Revenge, 1724, Articles II and III
- Edward England was voted out of his command by his own crew, who judged him too lenient towards prisoners after the taking of the Cassandra and the treatment of Captain James Macrae, and was marooned on Mauritius in 1720, afterwards making his way to Madagascar; the account rests substantially on the 1724 General History of the Pyrates and its particulars cannot be carried above probable. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Period narrative with embellishment: A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, attributed to Captain Charles Johnson, 1724