I did not consider studying a relevant part of the school experience in high school and those early community college semesters. Better stated, I chose to wait until those last few hours before a test to look at the material.
Waiting until the last minute to cram for a test or write a paper produced armpit-dripping, sweaty-palm anxiety for me. Thankfully, I am a reformed procrastinator. Through trial and error, I discovered that procrastination creates pressure, and I do not do well under some kinds of pressure. Historically, there have been moments when I have demonstrated some level of grace under pressure and some success. Still, there have been far more personal implosions that I conveniently fail to talk about.
Lack of interest did little to help the situation, and it was only when I went back to school in my late 20s that I started to care. The difference was that I wanted to attend classes. I wanted to learn. What it took a shockingly long time to figure out was the level of comfort afforded by even a modicum of preparation.
Astonishingly enough, when I began to read and study as the work was assigned, my grades improved. As it turns out, tests are easier when you are familiar with the material. Also, when you put the time in to learn and understand the material, writing about it becomes fun.
I’ve been writing about the Florida Keys for more than two decades and talking about the history of the island chain for more than a decade. One of the most surprising things I’ve learned from studying the history of the Keys is that talking about history, whether it is to tens or hundreds of people, is actually a really good time.
As I’ll be flying out to Idaho in a couple of weeks to talk about pirates and piracy in the Keys, I have been working out how to break the news that Key West and the Florida Keys were not home to swashbuckling buccaneers. Locals will tell you they were. In fact, on any given day in Key West, you can see someone dressed up like a pirate. However, the lack of documentation of their presence on the island chain tells a different story.
Pirates and piracy were real threats to any boat sailing in the waters of the West Indies. Otherwise, Commodore David Porter’s anti-piracy squadron would never have set up shop at what is now Mallory Square in Key West. One of the last little pieces of the Florida Territory, the island’s location and deep natural harbor proved invaluable to Porter’s work. While Porter and his men were stationed at Key West to quell piracy’s threat, only a handful of documented accounts of piratical activity can be attributed to the Keys and the waters surrounding them.
A great example of this idea is a chart titled Map of the West Indies and History of Piracies Committed on American Seamen and Commerce (1818-1825). In addition to the colorful map outlining the West Indies, 89 accounts of piracy against American interests are listed. Some of those accounts reveal the violence enacted by pirates. For instance, an event dated March 1, 1823, stated: “The brig Bellisarius, Perkins, at Kennebunk, was boarded in the bay of Campeachy, and robbed of everything. They stabbed the captain in several places, cut off his arms, and one of his thighs – then put oakum dipped in oil in his mouth and under him, and set the whole on fire, which soon put an end to his sufferings.”
The document’s lone mention of the Keys occurred in 1819: “Schooner Adeline, Ellis was boarded off the Florida Keys by a piratical boat, which robbed her of everything, and left her.”
According to the 89 events documented on the map, three West Indian piratical hotspots were identified: the Yucatan Peninsula, Cuba and Puerto Rico. Other newspaper accounts, letters, and reports tell similar stories. However, from his stronghold in Key West, Porter was well situated to address those threats and, by 1825, had largely eliminated the threat of pirates in the area. However, like cockroaches showing up on kitchen counters in the middle of the night, the threat of piracy was never totally eliminated.
Because I will be addressing a Hemingway crowd when I fly out to Ketchum to give the closing talk at the community library’s 16th annual Ernest Hemingway Seminar, I thought it might be fun to break the ice with the picture of a small band of pirates frolicking in the garden of Ernest Hemingway.
These fearless buccaneers are Jean Kirke and two of Hemingway’s sons – Patrick, his first son with Pauline, and John “Bumby,” his only child with his first wife, Elizabeth Hadley Richardson. The picture serves as a great introduction to pirates and piracy in the Florida Keys. While pirate lore is passed from barstool to barstool like gospel up and down the island chain, an old picture of some kids playing pirates in a Key West garden is as close an image of actual pirate activity on the island chain as anything else that I could share.
