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Ok, so this isn’t your classic #BadHistoryGoesViral.
“Mate” is older; it’s from 14th century German for “someone you share food with”. So the matey thing isn’t true
Sure! Some pirates were possibly queer, in both homoerotic & homosexual sense, but we lack evidence
CONT 👇
“Mate” is older; it’s from 14th century German for “someone you share food with”. So the matey thing isn’t true
Sure! Some pirates were possibly queer, in both homoerotic & homosexual sense, but we lack evidence
CONT 👇
Matelotage sounds like a civil union between two men, hence the romantic appeal, but it was part of a wider culture of “Tontine” which was an insurance policy commonly operated in the 17-19th centuries for sailors in which two or more men agreed to divide the kitty all or nothing
Tontine was a bit like a sweepstake or lottery on board a vessel. Sailors could agree to contract their earnings into a shared pot with a designated “last man standing” rule for whoever was left at the end. So, it wasn’t so much an intimate partnership as a pragmatic deal
