The Pirate Eyepatch: The Great Lie Part 1

Ever since I was a boy Piracy and Pirates had a special place in my heart. From Movies, history, clothing, fiction, and music. As a lad I pretended to be a Pirate when I played, every tree was the mast of a Pirate ship and a snapped off branch was a cutlass or musket. I remember reading books about Long John Silver, Black Beard, the Fisherman Pirate Calico Jack, and Hornigold (spit) borrowed from the library which we would visit once a month. I remember watching the old black and white Buccaneer movies with my grandfather late on Saturday nights. It was not until years later that I found out the truth, I was a Pirate. Even if in spirit only, for I have no ship to sail, my love for Pirates and the stories of their deeds both good and bad created what I am today. There is another truth though that I must bring up and which I knew from early on. What we see in the movies and what we believe to be true about Pirates is not exactly true. Ships do not blow up when a cannonball hits it, swinging from a mast is more likely to get you killed than offer a good escape, and drinking gobs of rum makes you drunk and not more of a Pirate (but still I drink rum). I think that most of us, Pirate or not, know these things are untrue deep in our hearts as we age and become wiser. Still our hearts hold them also as magic and legend of the great and mighty Pirates of the past. Movies and literature are meant to entertain our senses so a bit of poetic license on the adventures of Pirates is OK. There is no problem with this because Pirates did actually swing from rigging, drink rum, and although they were not cannonballs, used grenades to cause explosions on ships. So there is a bit of truth to them even though it is very little. But there is one lie that I constantly fight. Whether it comes from a child’s mouth, and adult, the news, or the latest Pirate themed TIL on forums and aggregators. Listen carefully to what I am going to say and understand that it is just not me saying this for I am only echoing human history: THERE IS NO HISTORICAL EVIDENCE EVER, IN THE WORLD, THAT PIRATES WORE EYE PATCHES SO THEY COULD SEE BETTER BELOW DECK.

I suppose that last statement was a little harsh, all caps and such. But I wanted to get the point across because my colleagues and I have been battling this lie for quite some time. I personally get a bit disgusted with this lie being perpetrated over and over again in modern media. When I took over /t/Pirates on Snapzu I knew I would eventual see this Pirate eye patch lie pop up. It was as inevitable as the setting or the rising of the sun. So I would like to put it to rest so that other greater myths (not lies) and legends that actual have some basis in truth can blossom in the hearts of the young and old alike. So let us first look at the lie for those of you who may have never heard of it. “So it is said that Pirates would wear an eye patch over one eye so that it would protected from the light of day while on deck. When the Pirates went below deck to root out any enemies on a ship the captured they would remove the eye patch so their eyesight would adjust quicker to the darkness giving them the advantage of being able to see in low light”. Sounds pretty smart right? Although they would have to fight with only one eye reducing their peripheral vision on a deck full of swinging swords and gun smoke. I suppose they could get by with fighting with one eye and losing their depth perception on a rolling ship. I mean it could happen right? Putting yourself at an advantage fighting below deck by hindering your fight above deck seems to make sense. NO, no it doesn’t. I know some of you are going to say “I have or know someone who has one eye and they do fine!” and that is true. I can even say that there were Pirates who lost their sight in one eye and did fine fighting both on top and below the deck of a ship. What I am getting at is that it does not make tactical sense to disable yourself in the heat of the battle on deck so you could gain an advantage below deck. Plus, by Naval and Pirate standards if you were part of the crew you were REQUIRED to be on deck in battle! If you were not on deck fighting you were branded a coward and you could lose your life because of it. You are to fight on deck with your brethren or die like a dog if you don’t. We know this because we do have Pirate articles that explain what happens to a man who hides from a fight below deck and there are also Navy regulations that describe what will happen to you if you hide bellow deck. We have it in writing. But still this doesn’t prove that Pirates could have worn eye patches for a tactical advantage. So you could come back at me to say “Well even with what you pointed out there is still a strong possibility that Pirates wore eye patches for a tactical advantage below deck!”, “Because there is a probability that the eye patch tactic would work.”, or “Pirates could have done this, you don’t know!” You could do that but then I would have to screw with you a little.

You see “probably” and “possibly” and “could have” are fine in fiction. It allows ships to blow up from being hit by a cannon ball, it allows the dashing buccaneer to slide down the sail to save the lovely lass, it allows fiction to be fiction and entertainment to entertain us. But “probably”, “possibly”, and “could have” also allows us to create sillier things. So the eye patch could have/ possibly/ probably be used as a tactical advantage by Pirates. You know what else could have been advantageous to Pirates? This is on the realm of possibility, and could even be probable, and Pirates could have actually done this. Listen carefully: PIRATES WOULD CUT OFF THEIR LEGS AND REPLACED THEM WITH WOOD SO THAT THEY WOULD HAVE SOMETHING BUOYANT TO FLOAT ON IF THE SHIP WOULD SINK! We can even test this. We can take a freshly severed human leg and test its buoyancy in water and then test various woods to see if there is a type that is even more buoyant than a human leg. We will find a wood that is more buoyant thus we can say that Pirates could have done this, it is possible, and we can even say there is a probability that this whole scenario would work! But we would still be wrong! Why because it is just silly isn’t it? To think someone would injure themselves for life just so they would not drown. It could be true, there is a possibility it is true, there is even a small probability that someone may have cut off their leg and replaced it with wood so they had something to float on if they were ever lost at sea. But it is just silly and it is not true. Just because it is now in print and on the internet, thanks to yours truly, does not make it true. It does make it silly though. The Pirate eye patch tactic lie is just as silly. But still I have not provided any proof that the old eye patch lie is actually a lie. I better get on that before this gets too long.

So how do we know that the old Pirate eye patch tactic is a lie? Well we know it is a lie because there has never been, since the beginning of time, any document, log, or manual, where it has been written down that anyone, Pirate or Navy man, has used the Pirate eye patch tactic in battle. Even the earliest societies have logged their battle tactics so that they may be studied by the next generation. We still do log and study battle tactics from recent wars. I think people forget that we do have books and writings from the beginning of civilization and there are people who study them. There are Naval scholars who study nothing but Naval tactics. There are historians who study Piracy and naval battles. You know what they didn’t find after studying all those books from bygone centuries? They did not find any reference to wearing an eye patch to give yourself a tactical advantage while fighting below deck on a ship. None. Never. Nope. The lack of evidence, in a Naval Tactics and general libraries regarding history, makes the old eye patch tactic a lie. Not a myth or a legend because myth and legend do have some (though it can be very little) truth to them. Now historian did find out why some Pirates wore an eye patch. That answer is in the realm of Medical History throughout the ages. Pirates wore eye patches for the same reason a Navy man, a soldier, a farmer, a banker, or even a historian would wear an eye patch. Because they injured or lost their eye. It was quite common for a person who injured or lost and eye to wear an eye patch or bandage to cover the eye socket to allow healing and to prevent dirt and dust getting into the eye or eye socket. That is why some Pirates and many other people wore or wear an eye patch. Heck I can go into a drug store and still buy one off the shelf if I hurt my eye. But before I do that I would see a doctor. The truth is that history shows that this is the number one reason Pirates wore eye patches. The Pirate eye patch tactical advantage does not even make the list because there has never been a tactical advantage.

I am sorry, you now know one less thing about Pirates. TYL (Today You Learned): The Pirate eye patch tactic never existed. Now if you do want to do some research yourself and prove me, the historians, and history itself wrong I say go for it. But until history itself is proven wrong the truth is Pirates did not wear eye patches to gain a tactical advantage fighting below deck. There it is plain and simple. There is no could have, possibly, or probably because there is no evidence to support such a tactic was ever used by Pirates. Don’t be mad though I do have a present for you. An actual Pirate myth and legend based on FACT that you can tell your friends, family, and strangers on the street! All you have to do is wait for part two! The suspense is killing me already!