Thread by @WhoresofYore

Word of the Day: “Matelotage”

Need to Know More? Here’s a Thread! 🏴‍☠️

Matelotage was a same-sex civil union amongst pirates (also amongst sailors) whereby two men would form an economic partnership, share income & inherit each other’s property in the event of their death. They also pledged to fight alongside each other & to look out for one another

In his 1832 novel, Le Négrier, Édouard Corbière defines matelotage as, “this amatelotage of sailors among themselves, this hammock camaraderie, establishes a type of solidarity and commonality of interests and of goods between each man and his matelot.”

Those entering into a matelotage were known as “matelots". It has been suggested this is where the nautical term “matey” came from.
There is a lot of debate about whether or not matelotage was a sexual union.

One the one hand, forming a partnership with a platonic pal at sea does make sense. It’s an insurance policy and gives you some much needed protection in a very dangerous & volatile world where it really was survival of the fittest.

On the other hand, this is basically a marriage & there is some evidence to suggest it was not all that unusual for matelots to be lovers. Not only were (obviously) some pirates gay, but it’s no secret that homosexual relationships did occur from time to time in an all male crew

This is certainly the argument Professor Barry Richard Burg makes in “Sodomy and the Pirate Tradition: English Sea Rovers in the Seventeenth Century Caribbean.”

Burg argues that young matelots would sell sexual favours to older pirates on the ship to earn protection & promotion - as well as cash. But as most pirates didn’t write & sodomy was punishable by death - there are few historical records to really prove this.

But, one such case (and certainly the most well known) cases of a matelotage that was (possibly) sexual was that of John Swann and Captain Robert Culliford, who were pirates in the Indian Ocean during the late 17th century.

Culliford was famous for his scraps with Captain Kidd (pictured). In June 1699 Culliford was living on Ile Ste. Marie near Madagascar John Swann, who is recorded as being “great consort of [Captain] Culliford’s, who lives with him.”

We have no way of knowing of widespread the practice of matelotage, or indeed same sex relationships, were in the pirate world. But it seems it wasn’t exactly a secret on land either

In 1645, Governor Le Vasseur wrote from Tortuga to his superiors in France requesting that the government send 2,000 sex workers to the colony specifically to stop the practice of matelotage.

The plan didn’t work though because the men not only married they women they sent, but they shared them with the matelot.

Ultimately, we just don’t have the records to say definitively just what was going on here. For my money, I think there were most certainly same sex lovers who entered into a matelotage, but that there were also many who just wanted some kind of financial protection while at sea.

Both these these things are true at the same time. If you would like to read more about the practice of matelotage & the various arguments for and against, this is a wonderful article that covers the surviving evidence. digitalcommons.lmu.edu/cgi/viewconten…