The pool came before the remainder
Exquemelin’s 1684 English text places several expenses and promises ahead of the final division of an expedition’s returns. The carpenter, surgeon and provisions appear in that account, followed by injury compensation and the distribution of what remained. A stated share was therefore not necessarily a fraction of everything seized before costs. [1]
This order matters when reading an attractive-looking payment. An entitlement, the fund from which it would be paid and the amount actually available are separate questions. A promise on paper does not establish a surviving receipt.
A schedule with unequal values
The text assigns different amounts to different losses. Its examples include a larger amount for the right arm than the left, and different amounts for the two legs. Those distinctions belong to the source’s valuation of injury and expected work. They are not a modern medical or ethical assessment. [1]
| Reported loss | Money amount stated |
|---|---|
| Right arm | 600 pieces of eight |
| Left arm | 500 pieces of eight |
| Right leg | 500 pieces of eight |
| Left leg | 400 pieces of eight |
| Eye or finger | 100 pieces of eight |
The table cannot be detached from slavery
The same passage gives alternatives in enslaved people: six for the right arm, five for the left and corresponding amounts elsewhere. Removing that feature while celebrating the schedule would distort the evidence. The arrangement treated human beings outside the compensated group as transferable property. [1]
A company could make provision for its own members while participating in severe coercion against others. Internal solidarity and external violence are not mutually exclusive explanations. Both are visible in the document.
Roberts’s articles are another arrangement
The General History attributes a different injury provision to Roberts’s company, including a stated payment from public stock for the loss of a limb. It also says the signed articles had been discarded. The printed version remains an attributed account, not the original agreement recovered for inspection. [2]
Comparing these sources is more informative than combining their most appealing clauses into one invented constitution. Date, company, transmission and the available stock all belong beside the number.
Do not turn a promise into a modern institution
Terms such as insurance or workers’ compensation can help a modern reader recognize a question about shared risk. They can also hide major differences in funding, enforcement, membership and rights. The source describes arrangements inside predatory enterprises, not a complete modern protection system.
Continue with the division of plunder, the agreements and their transmission and the people excluded from the benefits.
Questions, answered.
Was there one standard payment for losing an arm?
No. Different accounts and companies describe different arrangements. The table here is explicitly tied to the 1684 English Exquemelin text.
Does the schedule prove payments were always made?
No. A reported entitlement is not evidence of every payment, and the available common stock mattered.
Sources & reading notes
Source checks distinguish an artifact, a reported account and a modern interpretation. They do not constitute independent historian review.
- Bucaniers of America (1684 English edition)Open the keyboarded source transcriptionAlexandre Olivier Exquemelin; printed for William Crooke; EEBO/TCP transcription · Early English translation through a Spanish version; TCP transcription released under CC0
Part I, Chapter VII, the account of articles, compensation and division of the common stock. Preserve the source’s treatment of enslaved people as property as evidence of its violence, not an endorsed equivalence. This 1684 English edition is not the 1678 Dutch original. Translation, selection, authorial position and transcription gaps remain part of the evidence. Attribution to a participant does not make every anecdote independently verified.
- A General History of the Pyrates (1724)Published under the name Captain Charles Johnson · Early printed account; public-domain text
Chapter IX, Roberts’s articles on injury and common stock; Chapter XII for comparison with Lowther’s reported agreement. Authorship is disputed. A near-contemporary compilation, not a surviving signed pirate code or a neutral transcript. Cite its claims as reported claims.
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