Chronicles

in the early morning on Wednesday, the 11th of June 2003 by Chad

Pirate Exhibit Tells Truths and Fictions

SEARSPORT Pirates have been the stuff of legend, lies and popular cinema for generations now.
Artist Nancy Breed touches up the beach on the south-seas island mural that will form the backdrop for part of the pirate exhibit.
A model of the 17th Century ship Sovereign of the Seas floats in a sea of bubble wrap.
Evolving from the evocative tales of Robert Louis Stevenson to mascots for a variety of sports teams, pirates have come to occupy a unique position in American culture somewhere between a mugger and a mustachioed, eye-patched rogue on a rum bottle.
This summer, the myth and reality of this popular icon will be explored in a new exhibit at the Penobscot Marine Museum in Searsport.

Well worth the trip if you can make it. The article covers a few good tidbits of pirate history, things such as:

Cherry noted that often slaves were freed by pirates and captured captains were punished according to how they had treated their own crews.
That’s the redeeming social factor that separates them from other thieves, Fuller said.

Nice to see us getting some good coverage from the liberal media! Pirates were the original meritocracy.