Buccaneer of Botany
Avast, ye lily-livered landlubbers! There be nuthin’ like the sight of the Jolly Roger and the imminent threat of invasion by salty buccaneers to strike fear into the heart of any Christian sailor. The pirates of the 1600s were bloodthirsty criminals with insatiable lusts for treasure, rum and wenches, but it may surprise you to know that at least one pirate spent his time sailing the seven seas pillaging . . . plants.
William Dampier was a runaway orphan with a love for the sea and adventure. After a failed career managing a plantation in Jamaica and working as a logger in Mexico, Dampier took up with a band of buccaneers. The income was considerably better as a pirate, though the health and dental plans were lacking. While capturing ships and raiding coastal towns, Dampier maintained a secret hobby; he kept meticulous notes and made sketches of the plants and animals he encountered on his adventures. This was most likely a difficult hobby to maintain at sea surrounded by cut-throats.
Example -
Pirate: “What you writing in that there book, mate?”
Dampier: “Oh . . . er . . . ya know. Just planning all the ways I’m going to loot and murder and defiantly not describing a small flowering shrub . . . Arrrrrrrgh!”
Pirate: “Aaaaaaargh!”
Dampier was the first English explorer to describe the plants and animals of the Galapagos Islands and made detailed notes on the native people, plants and creatures of Australia. Often, he described things with utilitarian pirate sensibility, explaining which plants were useful for making fires or how tasty the local wildlife could be (sorry tortoises). He was keen to point out the nourishing properties of the coconut and breadfruit.
Over the span of his life, he circumnavigated the globe three times, becoming the first person to do so. He experienced shipwreck, was marooned, took on rescue missions and engaged in both successful and failed attacks on Spanish ships. He became the first European to use the words “avocado,” “barbecue” and chopsticks, and is also credited as the first European to record the recipe for guacamole and mango chutney.
Pirate: “What ya cookin’ over there, mate?”
Dampier: “I’m preparing some lovely mang . . . I mean . . . fish heads and grog. Aaaargh!”
After writing about his adventures, Dampier became a bit of a celebrity in England. His work inspired other seafarers like James Cook and Horatio Nelson, naturalists Alexander von Humboldt and Charles Darwin and authors Daniel Defoe (Robinson Crusoe), Jonathan Swift (Gulliver’s Travels) and Samuel Tylor Coleridge (The Rime of the Ancient Mariner).
So if you thought piracy was all about violent theft on the high seas . . . you’re mostly correct. Making detailed scientific drawings and pressing flowers are hardly the pastimes of a sea scallywag, except in one instance. Raise the mizzenmast and make a kind exception for William Dampier, the buccaneer of botany!
Brian Rutter, PhD, is the cofounder of Thing in a Pot Productions and a postdoctoral researcher in plant biology at Indiana University. Subscribe to our newsletter to receive our “Things About Things – Odd Facts About Plants” and video production tips in your inbox every month!
Works Cited:
Hasty, William. "Piracy and the production of knowledge in the travels of William Dampier, c. 1679–1688." Journal of Historical Geography 37.1 (2011): 40-54.
Robson, Diana. “William Dampier: Pirate Botanist.” manitobamuseum.ca, 30 September 2014, https://manitobamuseum.ca/william-dampier-pirate-botanist/.
Smithsonian Ocean Team. “William Dampier - The Pirate Who Collected Plants.” ocean.si.edu, December 2017, https://ocean.si.edu/human-connections/exploration/william-dampier-pirate-who-collected-plants.