PIRATICAL PUNISHMENTS
As far as we know, no pirate ever forced anyone to walk the plank into the ocean, except in swashbuckling books and movies. At least there is no record of real pirates employing a plank to dispatch their captives. Barbados pirate Major Stede Bonnet is said to have started the cruel method of killing, but there is no proof of this. Although there may have been an unrecorded, instance or two of a blindfolded prisoner walking the plank into a shark-infested sea, this was not a common punishment, and it most likely started in the yam of an old salt. From ancient times, pirates fed captives to the fish or told them they were free to "walk home" while far out at sea, but no planks were used. A much more common practice was to maroon prisoners and pirate offenders on a desert island. The offenders were often put ashore naked, without any provisions. Pirates were capable of great cruelties, as were many navy sea captains at the time. Rape of female captives was common. Male prisoners were forced to commit sodomy. Aboard one pirate ship, a captain was lashed to the mizzen-mast and pelted with broken bottles; another prisoner was lashed to death with cat-o '-ninetails: another was forced to swallow a quart of rum without stopping. Henry Morgan forced nuns to put his ladder against the walls when he attacked Porto Bello in Panama. The pirate L'Olonnois cut out a prisoner's heart and took a bite from it in order to frighten other captives into telling where they had hidden their valuables. English pirate Catain Jack Cobbham wrapped up the entire crew in the mainsail of their vessel, tied it securely, and heaved it into the ocean. Mutilations of a nose, an ear, or an eye were common, and prisoners were made to run the gauntlet, or tossed into the sea with a rope around the waist for a dunking The list of piratical barbarisms is endless, but almost certainly some imaginative author, not a pirate, thought up "walking the plank."
