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25 July 2024
While NMHS Senior Staff Writer Shelley Reid is away for a few weeks this summer, we’re sharing encore installments of Sea History Today. This week, we hope you enjoy this installment from 23 September 2021.
Parrots and Seafarers—Faithful Companion or Maritime Myth?
September 19 was International Talk Like a Pirate Day, and it set me to wondering: Why is it that our popular image of a pirate has a parrot on its shoulder? Wouldn’t it be at least a little bit awkward, terrorizing the high seas and liberating merchant ships of their cargoes with an adorable feathered friend clutching your jacket, barking out colorful commentary?
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Jim, Long John Silver and his Parrot by N. C. Wyeth, from the 1911 edition of Robert Louis Stephenson’s Treasure Island. Image: Public Domain | Before the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise gave us Captain Jack Sparrow as the pirate of our national imagination, Robert Louis Stephenson’s Treasure Island, published in book form in 1883 and re-told in film, television, stage productions, radio plays, comic books and video games, established Long John Silver as the image of a pirate, and “[his] parrot sat, preening her plumage, on Long John’s shoulder.” The bird, fond of calling out “pieces of eight,” contributes to the pirate’s exotic nature in the story. Native to warmer climes, she was a reminder that they were far from the protagonist’s English home; she was alleged to be “maybe, two hundred years old” (artistic license perhaps, but indeed some parrots can live longer than 50 years), having witnessed generations of pirate action. And what could be more mysterious than a bird that talks, but only in cryptic phrases? The artful storytelling device became an integral part of the image of a pirate in our culture. | |
Still from the American silent film Treasure Island (1920). Image: Paramount-Artcraft Pictures, Public Domain | But in reality, too, seafarers of the Age of Sail often did have more than a passing acquaintance with parrots. (Regular Sea History contributor Richard King reminds us in his Animals in Sea History installment about parrots that “As a popular name, especially in sailors’ accounts, ‘parrots’ can include macaws, cockatoos, parakeets, lovebirds, and a variety of other large, strong-beaked birds.”). In early exploration, colorful birds were brought back as specimens of scientific interest and souvenirs from adventuring. They then became highly popular as pets in North America and Europe, making them a profitable cargo—and individual seamen often captured or traded for the birds, with an eye towards selling them elsewhere for a tidy sum, feeding them small scraps from their rations. Naturally, the birds were a welcome diversion at sea, and it was not uncommon for them to be kept as pets, at least underway. Sailors would sometimes teach them phrases to increase their market value. | |
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Parrots’ imitative skills weren’t always beneficial, however. One story in particular stands out, from Thomas Cochrane’s Autobiography of a Seaman:
On board most ships there is a pet animal of some kind. Ours was a parrot, which was [Lieutenant] Jack Larmour’s aversion, from the exactness with which the bird had learned to imitate the calls of the boatswain's whistle. Sometimes the parrot would pipe an order so correctly as to throw the ship into momentary confusion, and the first lieutenant into a volley of imprecations, consigning Poll to a warmer latitude than his native tropical forests. Indeed, it was only by my uncle's countenance that the bird was tolerated.
One day a party of ladies paid us a visit aboard, and several had been hoisted on deck by the usual means of a “whip” on the mainyard. The chair had descended for another “whip,” but scarcely had its fair freight been lifted out of the boat alongside, than the unlucky parrot piped “Let go!” The order being instantly obeyed, the unfortunate lady, instead of being comfortably seated on deck, as had been those who preceded her, was soused overhead in the sea ! Luckily for Poll, Jack Larmour was on shore at the time, or this unseasonable assumption of the boatswain’s functions might have ended tragically.
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USS Mount Vernon (AP-22) underway. Photo: National Archives | |
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Although parrots could be found aboard merchant ships, the accounts don’t seem to point to an abundance of the birds accompanying pirates on their journeys, much less sounding the alert when enemies were near, as Long John Silver’s feathered companion did. But thanks to Treasure Island, our popular culture is rich with images of pirates with colorful birds close at hand, ready to squawk “Pieces of eight!”
Extra Credit
For further reading, I highly recommend the entertaining and informative article by Megan C. Hagseth, “Seadogs and Their Parrots: The reality of ‘Pretty Polly,’” in the Mariner’s Mirror.
Sea History Today is written by Shelley Reid, NMHS senior staff writer. Past issues can be read online by clicking here.
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