Vulgar History - Author Interview： Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos (The Pirate's Wife： The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd)

00:00:00.000 Hello, welcome to Vulgar History, a feminist women's history comedy podcast. My name is 0.97

00:00:16.600 Anne Foster and today we have a very special guest who is Daphne Palmer Janikopoulos, author

00:00:22.820 of a book that just came out called The Pirate's Wife, The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd.

00:00:27.920 And so she is going to join me to help share the story of Sarah Kidd, who is married to the famous pirate Captain Kidd, who you might have heard about.

00:00:36.800 It's a really interesting story. And I hope you enjoy this talk with Daphne Palmer Janikopoulos.

00:00:43.140 OK, so I'm joined today by Daphne Palmer Janikopoulos, author of The Pirate's Wife, The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd.

00:00:51.340 Welcome, Daphne.

00:00:52.940 Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here.

00:00:55.720 Yeah, I think I'm really excited to get to learn more about your book and also about Sarah Kidd.

00:01:02.260 But my first question is how like this is a whole book just about Sarah Kidd, who is the wife of Captain Kidd.

00:01:10.040 We're going to talk about that. How did you come across enough information to write a whole book about her?

00:01:15.040 Well, I first got interested in pirates when I wrote a freelance piece for the New York Times Museum special section about the Witta Pirate Museum in Provincetown.

00:01:29.040 And when I saw the artifacts of the pirates, I realized that they had lives and connections on land.

00:01:36.620 And the legend of the captain of the Witta pirate ship, Sam Bellamy, had a love interest, Maria Hallett.

00:01:45.040 And that told me that pirates might have families and communities.

00:01:48.900 And I hadn't thought about that before.

00:01:51.260 So in the course of writing my first book, The Pirate Next Door,

00:01:55.420 the untold story of 18th century pirates' wives, families, and communities,

00:02:01.940 I learned about Sarah Kidd, and I knew that she would be worth a deeper look.

00:02:08.040 And so what sorts of resources did you have to learn about her? 0.97

00:02:12.280 I used a variety of sources because women left little record of their affairs. 0.93

00:02:18.500 Most women, including Sarah, were illiterate because men owned all the property and exercised most of the legal rights at the time. 0.98

00:02:28.620 And history was written by men for men.

00:02:31.220 In order to explore Sarah's life, I read a lot of contextual history of pirates and of the time period, which gave me the broad scope of the economic, political and social conditions under which she lived in.

00:02:48.400 And I was able to find some important primary sources of Sarah's that she left.

00:02:54.080 And, for example, her petition to the governor of Massachusetts, Lord Belmont, and asking him to give her back her seized property.

00:03:08.080 And she left a will and a number of other things.

00:03:11.400 There was a lot of land transactions and genealogical information.

00:03:17.240 Many of the ancient sources that I relied on were handwritten, and I transcribed them to make them easier to work with.

00:03:24.540 I also visited the archives in the places where Sarah and Captain Kidd had lived.

00:03:29.920 Those were in New York and Boston and Rhode Island.

00:03:33.600 And I walked the surroundings where she had been to get a greater sense of her world at the time.

00:03:40.700 I also found some really great resources at the National Archives in London, among the

00:03:46.640 Admiralty Papers, and at the Library of Congress in Washington.

00:03:51.580 And Captain Kidd also left statements, recorded statements, that gave evidence of their relationship.

00:03:59.740 So can you contextualize, if we're just kind of starting at the very beginning of the story,

00:04:06.140 So Sarah, it starts with she's a young teenager and she immigrates over.

00:04:10.980 So what was the what was the reason her family came over to the United States?

00:04:15.480 She was 14 years old when she came from England to New York with her father and two brothers.

00:04:24.000 The reason they came was to get a fresh start, to get a fresh start in the new world and opportunities.

00:04:30.960 Her father was a mariner and he owned it, owned transatlantic vessels.

00:04:36.140 So trade was booming in Manhattan, and he came for those economic advantages.

00:04:45.160 Sorry, and can you just contextualize for the listeners, what year is this?

00:04:49.540 What era are we looking at?

00:04:51.440 So she arrived in 1684 at the age of 14.

00:04:56.740 And then pretty quickly she was married, which was unusual for someone that young, right?

00:05:03.300 Right.

00:05:03.700 within the year, at the age of 15, she was married to one of the wealthiest merchants

00:05:09.040 in the colony, William Cox. And even for that time, 15 years old to be married was very,

00:05:18.940 very unusual because most women in the colonial period married at about the age of 21 to 23.

00:05:27.420 And why do you think she was married off so young just for the partnership? Like her father just

00:05:32.320 wanted to set up this alliance with the man she married? Well, I think the man that she married

00:05:37.880 was very attracted to her. She was clearly very special. It's been recorded that she was described

00:05:47.580 as lovely and accomplished. She was unusual. She was very mature for her age. And to have a man

00:05:57.180 who is nearly 20 years older than her pick her among the other women in the colony. Her husband

00:06:04.180 that she married, William Cox, had been in Manhattan for eight years, and he was very

00:06:10.820 established. He was very wealthy. He was an elected official. He was a select man. He's

00:06:16.380 very connected and polite New York society, and he could have had anybody, but he picked Sarah.

00:06:22.340 But then that marriage was tragically short-lived. Can you talk about what happened to him?

00:06:29.580 Yes, it was tragically short-lived. They had been married four years, and William Cox had been sent

00:06:38.240 on a mission to New Jersey to tell the colonists that there was a new monarch. There were new

00:06:46.300 monarchs, William and Mary. And while he was on that mission, he drowned, stepping between

00:06:53.720 his canoe onto his ship, and he drowned, unfortunately.

00:07:02.600 Yeah, so you write, well, I mean, in detail about that. So that was recorded,

00:07:07.240 the events of his death, was that in the newspaper, or just people wrote letters,

00:07:11.180 people who witnessed it the witnesses recorded it and it's in the primary sources it was a very

00:07:19.420 big event because he was a very established member of society and for him to die in this way while he

00:07:27.900 was on a mission was was awful and there were people that saw the whole thing of him trying to

00:07:34.220 step from his canoe to a ship and then he lost his footing and he fell in the water and he was

00:07:42.160 wearing his finery, his brocade coat and his buckled shoes. And he sunk in the mud and it was

00:07:51.760 just tragic. It was awful. It's just such a strange fluke because he and everybody would do that a

00:07:58.580 hundred times stepping onto the boat. It's just, yeah. You're exactly right. He would have done it

00:08:06.120 a hundred times in his life. It was just a fluke. It was, it was unfortunate for sure.

00:08:13.260 And then it leaves Sarah a widow at, what is she, 19 years old?

00:08:17.680 That's right. She was widowed at 19 and her affairs were complicated because of the 0.96

00:08:26.560 caught up in bureaucracy. Her hands were tied on what she could do. And like any woman of that

00:08:37.240 time, in order to get standing and have legal rights, it was through her husband. So within a 0.94

00:08:44.540 year, she remarried another merchant and a mariner named John Ort. He was a Dutch merchant.

00:08:51.960 and so this marriage again not long lasting right and it and it wasn't terrific either

00:09:02.520 he couldn't he couldn't uh pay their bills he had difficulties as a merchant and he ran them

00:09:12.120 into debt. So Sarah went from being very wealthy to being very poor. So he died. We're not sure

00:09:23.400 how he died. There are no records of it. But we do know that while she was married to John Orch,

00:09:29.960 she met Captain Kidd at a chance encounter. Captain Kidd was purchasing a house from her brother,

00:09:39.040 Samuel Jr., who had inherited a house on Wall Street, which is the financial district of

00:09:46.860 Manhattan. And he had inherited that from Sarah's first husband, William Cox. So her brother,

00:09:54.220 her younger brother, is selling this house and Captain Kidd purchased it. So she met Captain

00:10:00.140 Kidd then. People like myself, so who I read the book, vaguely kind of Captain Kidd, oh,

00:10:07.180 he's a pirate. Can you just contextualize for people? At the time she met him, who was Captain

00:10:10.900 Kidd? What was he up to? He was a privateer. He was a stellar member of society. He owned a great

00:10:18.620 deal of property. He was a war hero because he had saved the colony from chaos that was going on

00:10:27.560 during Jacob Lester's takeover of the colony. And so he was a very esteemed member of society.

00:10:38.840 He was a very reputable privateer. He was very skilled as a mariner. And so when she met him,

00:10:46.020 he was just this great guy. And for the record, he did not come turn pirate until much, much later.

00:10:53.120 And when she married him two days after John Orr died, he was a privateer.

00:11:01.340 And the two of them were like a power couple.

00:11:05.160 Can you talk about what?

00:11:06.360 So I just think it's so fascinating that we'll talk about what happens to Captain Kidd, but he's remembered now as this pirate.

00:11:13.020 But at the time, a privateer was kind of the reverse reputation.

00:11:17.560 He was doing things that we think of as pirate things.

00:11:20.260 but when you're doing it for the government, then you're called a privateer. So can you just

00:11:25.780 talk about the difference? Like what was a privateer versus a pirate? That's a great

00:11:30.060 question. A privateer is in essence, a legal pirate. A privateer, Captain Kidd, was hired by

00:11:39.260 King William and the most important men in London, a number of lords, to go hunt enemy ships

00:11:49.940 And England was at war with France.

00:11:52.160 So Captain Kidd was to go capture French ships, capture the ship and the cargo and bring it back to London.

00:12:02.740 Privateers were auxiliaries to the British Navy because during wartime, there was a shortage of men and ships.

00:12:11.860 So they hired these men who own their own ships to go and help them fight the enemy.

00:12:22.080 So they issued a legal document called a letter of Mark that is a contract, and it's very specific on what the intention is.

00:12:32.980 Captain Kidd was issued two letters of Mark because he was so accomplished as a mariner.

00:12:39.900 He was to act as a privateer to capture French enemy ships.

00:12:44.600 And he was also to capture pirates and rid the seas of pirates that were disrupting international trade.

00:12:54.220 So he was a legitimate mariner.

00:12:59.840 Pirates are not legitimate mariners.

00:13:02.440 They're outlaws.

00:13:03.760 And they do not share.

00:13:05.380 They do not take the cargo back and give it to their investors.

00:13:09.120 There are no investors.

00:13:10.740 It's just an independent entity of the captain and his crew.

00:13:15.080 And when they capture a ship, they steal the cargo and they divide the goods among themselves.

00:13:22.900 So at the time she married Captain Kidd, so he was, I just think it's so fascinating,

00:13:28.260 because if we're just kind of looking at the story as it happens so she married him and like

00:13:32.560 you said they were this power couple he was a very well regarded very important member of society so

00:13:39.400 this she was in she's had these debts with her previous husband but now she's elevated but also

00:13:44.580 their relationship can you talk about this was a good relationship they really loved each other

00:13:50.440 Yes. And and Captain Kidd paid off her debts and he was able to untangle the bureaucracy with his lawyer.

00:14:02.480 He was able to untangle the bureaucracy that tied up Sarah's inheritance from her first husband, William Cox.

00:14:10.100 So, yes, it was a very strong relationship.

00:14:16.300 And he stayed around for five years working as a merchant sea captain to be near Sarah.

00:14:26.240 They had two daughters, a little girl named Elizabeth and young Sarah.

00:14:32.000 Elizabeth was born in 1692.

00:14:35.660 Sarah and Captain Kidd married in May of 1691.

00:14:40.100 She was 21 years old, and he was 37.

00:14:44.960 And in 1692, they had Elizabeth.

00:14:48.500 In 1694, they had little Sarah.

00:14:52.260 So for five years, he was home, except when he went on his trips to Antigua to deliver

00:15:02.420 goods for his merchant shipping business.

00:15:06.520 But then after five years, he really got the itch to have a dream job, and that is to get back into serious privateering, and he wanted to be sponsored by the monarch. That was his dream job.

00:15:23.140 And so what happens next? So he starts traveling more effectively, like he's away more often?

00:15:31.100 So he promises Sarah that he will he will be back very soon, but he wanted the opportunity to see if he could get this dream job with the King of England and investors.

00:15:47.120 So he he he tells Sarah, I'll be back by Christmas.

00:15:53.440 And he brings with him Sarah's younger brother, Samuel Jr., who.

00:16:01.100 Those two have a very special relationship.

00:16:03.800 Kidd is more like a big brother or an uncle to him.

00:16:07.980 He mentors him and teaches him the way of being a sailor.

00:16:13.260 And so he brings him with him, Samuel Jr., to London, where Captain Kidd tries and succeeds at getting this privateering job.

00:16:24.480 So he's gone for almost a year and he comes back and he tells Sarah that he's got this great opportunity and he promises her it's a one year gig.

00:16:39.680 It's a one year job. He'll be back. And this is this is an opportunity of a lifetime.

00:16:47.780 so he does go and she lets him go and uh they spend time together every minute before he leaves

00:16:56.380 and um he uh when he sets out on his voyage it's just supposed to be for one year that's what his

00:17:04.220 contract says but while he's at sea for a year he doesn't find any prizes to capture

00:17:11.480 so he stays an extra year and then he stays an extra year and it's three years now and his men

00:17:19.760 are are really unhappy because they have no money to pay to earn they they've earned no money and

00:17:28.420 they have no money to send back to their family so things are difficult after three years and

00:17:35.260 And the ship that he was given, a brand new ship called the Adventure Galley, is now leaking and in bad repair.

00:17:43.040 And the men are mutinous and the conditions on board are terrible.

00:17:46.620 So it's a very difficult time for Captain Kidd.

00:17:51.640 And his men insist that they just take any prize that they can because they are now desperate.

00:17:59.660 And that's where he breaks his contract and captures ships that are not just French ships.

00:18:07.180 He captures other ships, too.

00:18:10.120 And that's when he's considered that he turned pirate.

00:18:14.700 And so once he does that, what are the repercussions to the king who had given him this job?

00:18:22.600 Well, they keep it quiet.

00:18:24.320 They don't want anybody to know.

00:18:26.360 And they use Captain Kidd as a scapegoat.

00:18:29.660 In the meantime, Captain Kidd comes back after three years to get Sarah.

00:18:37.360 He is now a wanted man, and he comes back to get Sarah so that together they can plot how he can try to get pardoned from Lord Belmont, who is the governor of New York and Massachusetts.

00:18:54.300 But Lord Belmont also is he wears two hats.

00:18:59.280 He's not only the governor appointed by the king, whose mission, by the way, is to stamp out piracy in the colonies, but he is also a private investor in Captain Kidd's privateering voyage.

00:19:13.220 And he has a lot to gain if Captain Kidd is successful in carrying out the mission of capturing French ships.

00:19:24.660 So they come back.

00:19:27.160 The king keeps it quiet and the investors keep it quiet.

00:19:30.640 And Captain Kidd is really left on his own to try to save his life.

00:19:36.660 So he comes back and he and Sarah reunite?

00:19:40.840 Yes, he comes back and he arranges a secret rendezvous with Sarah through his lawyer to

00:19:47.320 have her skirted away from Manhattan.

00:19:50.120 He doesn't go into Manhattan because he knows he'll be captured.

00:19:53.780 And he has her taken by ship with their children to Block Island, where he's arranged for her to stay safely with some friends of his until he can get to Block Island, which is a small island in Long Island Sound, where he will come and get her and they will be reunited after three years.

00:20:16.040 So this is where what I find really compelling, and I'm sure this is part of what led you to write the book, is the fact that, like you were saying, you know, pirates had people at home.

00:20:25.400 They had loved ones, they had families. But the fact that he and she, like that they're so drawn to each other, despite all of these circumstances, he's finding ways, even though it's complicated, to reunite with her because they were so in love.

00:20:40.560 I find that very moving.

00:20:41.620 yes he risked his life to come back for her he came all the way from the indian ocean

00:20:47.720 back to new york that's a long way and it was very risky but he um he he wanted to be with her

00:20:58.220 and um she could have known she she she would have known she would have known that he was

00:21:06.920 declared a pirate and it's a very scary time it would have been put her at risk but she didn't

00:21:14.220 hesitate when she learned that he was nearby and that he had made these arrangements for her to go

00:21:21.640 to Block Island she did not hesitate she packed up her worldly belongings her silver her money

00:21:28.780 packed up her children grabbed her took her maid with her to help her with the children

00:21:34.000 and did not hesitate.

00:21:37.720 And that's an amazing show of devotion

00:21:41.320 because it was enormously scary.

00:21:43.780 She knew what happens to pirates.

00:21:47.000 She put herself in harm's way because of her devotion.

00:21:51.180 She absolutely believed in him and he needed her too.

00:21:54.940 He absolutely relied on her skill as street savvy

00:22:00.900 and her support and her commitment to keeping their family together.

00:22:06.680 And that's just, when I think of pirates, I don't think of that side of things. I don't

00:22:11.280 think of them being a devoted, like you just said, devoted to the family, devoted to the wife. I

00:22:16.100 think that's such an interesting and unexpected thing for me to learn. So how did their reunion

00:22:22.820 go on Block Island? Well, it went very well. He came for her. Before she arrived there,

00:22:33.520 when she was in transit, Captain Kidd dropped off cannon and ammunition on the front lawn of

00:22:42.420 his friend's house and pointed the cannon towards the harbor, which was a signal to anyone,

00:22:50.120 any of the authorities, don't mess with my wife and family. So he made arrangements to protect her

00:22:58.340 and his daughters. And he did come for her. She rode on his pirate ship, she and their daughters

00:23:10.420 and their maid. And she invited her friends that she was staying with. They were all on the pirate

00:23:17.160 ship sailing around um long island sound for a couple of days not just having fun they although

00:23:26.580 when they reunited captain kid had made arrangements to have a feast of uh as a form of

00:23:33.560 reunion celebration of um sheep uh he had spices he had rum spices to cook the sheep and um so they

00:23:45.680 They had they had a festive reunion and then they got down to business on how how he was going to try to secure a pardon with the governor,

00:23:58.020 who is now has moved from Manhattan to Boston to check out things in that colony.

00:24:05.160 So I like thinking that they were reunited.

00:24:09.040 Obviously, they were very devoted to each other, very in love.

00:24:12.940 But also she was helping him strategize, presumably, to figure out based on what she knew from having been living there for so long.

00:24:21.060 Maybe she would know who her friends were, who she could maybe contact, who she could petition to maybe find support for him.

00:24:29.200 Do you think that was part of their strategy?

00:24:31.680 Yes. I think she applied her natural instincts of nurturing and protecting. And I think that was her strongest suit. While they were on his boat, which is called the St. Antonio, he received a letter via a messenger from the governor saying, if you are as innocent as you say, come to Boston and you will be pardoned.

00:25:00.580 Well, together they read that and it just didn't ring quite true that he wouldn't put in writing a more committed, a stronger commitment for Captain Kidd.

00:25:16.080 So I think what she contributed to him was her womanly instincts of, wait a minute, let's make sure that we're more secure, more safe.

00:25:28.420 let's write back and buy more time until we can get a clearer sense of really what's going on

00:25:37.180 with with things but he relied on her for that absolutely he did her and that's where

00:25:45.560 I think a lot of the the strength of your book as well is you found these primary sources and

00:25:51.020 you're looking at the events that happened and then kind of deducing what Sarah's role would

00:25:56.900 have been in these events given that we don't have her writings we don't have her diaries so

00:26:02.660 we know that she and he were on the ship together you just said they um you know they were suspicious

00:26:09.680 of this of this letter so then what happened next so they go to they sail they're very suspicious

00:26:18.840 And Captain Kidd has a ship full of treasure.

00:26:23.300 So he goes to Gardner's Island, which is in Long Island Sound.

00:26:28.720 So he is in Long Island Sound, picture this, at Block Island.

00:26:33.040 And he sails west.

00:26:35.700 It's just a few miles.

00:26:37.040 It's very close to another small island that has a reputation as being kind of a safe harbor for mariners.

00:26:50.060 And it's an island called Gardner's Island.

00:26:54.140 The lord of the manor there is named John Gardner.

00:26:57.620 And Captain Kidd asks him to keep some of his treasure for him.

00:27:04.560 and a few of his slaves. And also he wants to bury a trunk full of treasure on Gardner's Island.

00:27:14.760 All of this is in the primary sources because John Gardner gave depositions about this.

00:27:20.740 And he, John Gardner reported that Mrs. Kidd was on the ship. So we know she was there. We know

00:27:28.360 exactly where, where the, all of this transpired. We know the events, we know the, the, the goods

00:27:36.340 that were, that were buried on Gardner's Island. So he, Captain Kidd is, is making provisions

00:27:45.940 to provide for his safety by offloading his treasure because he thinks that it is a great

00:27:56.420 leverage with the governor to give him a pardon. And if the governor will give him a pardon,

00:28:04.800 he will tell him where all the treasure is. Well, and I think, I'm sure we'll get to this

00:28:09.880 towards the end of the story, but one of the things that Captain Kidd is known for is

00:28:13.400 having buried treasure. And where did he bury his treasure? So this is one example of him

00:28:18.520 doing that that we know about. Yes, we definitely know that he buried it on Gardner's Island.

00:28:26.420 And we also know that the governor found out about it, and eventually it had to be returned.

00:28:36.920 So here's the story.

00:28:39.860 So Captain Kidd buries it on Gardner's Island.

00:28:45.060 They offload all the treasure on there.

00:28:48.000 And then they return to Boston, and the ship is now empty of any treasure.

00:28:53.820 So Captain Kidd arrives and after a couple of days trying to get a meeting with the governor, he is finally granted a meeting and he is asking for a pardon.

00:29:06.780 And the governor doesn't trust him and arrests him and puts him in prison there in Boston.

00:29:14.320 and he's chained with 16 pound weights

00:29:18.700 around his ankle and his wrists

00:29:21.580 and he's in solitary confinement

00:29:24.480 and Captain Kidd is forced to tell him

00:29:30.280 about the buried treasure on Gardner's Island

00:29:32.880 of which he does

00:29:34.040 and Lord Belmont sends men to Gardner's Island

00:29:40.160 and has it dug up.

00:29:42.720 John Gardner, the lord of the manor, is not in any position to mess around with the governor's men

00:29:50.000 and tells him where it is buried on his property.

00:29:55.040 And the governor's men dig up the trunk full of treasure and bring it back to Boston.

00:30:01.280 And the other bits of treasure that were offloaded were dispersed in various ways,

00:30:08.620 in various places, of which we don't really know. But the only person who would have known

00:30:15.800 is Sarah. Yeah, I just want to mention too, for people who are going to read the book,

00:30:22.000 the very opening of the book, you kind of hint towards she is the only one who knows where

00:30:28.920 potentially more treasure is buried. That's correct. That's correct. There are no primary

00:30:34.920 sources that say where the rest of the treasure is. There are primary sources that say it was

00:30:43.300 buried on Gardner's Island. There are no primary sources that say where else it was buried,

00:30:49.080 but Sarah would have known where it was all dispersed.

00:30:54.320 So where was she? What was happening to her while he was imprisoned in chains at this point?

00:30:59.500 was she also arrested or yes she was she was arrested as an accomplice to him and she was

00:31:08.280 put in prison too and she was there for a period of time uh we're not sure how long but it was long

00:31:16.200 enough so that she was desperate for money because in those days they didn't give them anything more

00:31:24.380 than bread and water. And they had to pay for their own food. But Sarah had no money because

00:31:31.460 her belongings had been seized when Captain Kidd was arrested. The governor's henchmen came into

00:31:39.880 her lodgings and stole all her personal belongings. They took her trunk of silver and her money and

00:31:47.320 all her valuables. So she had nothing. And then she was in prison with nothing. Her children are

00:31:56.140 back at her lodgings, which are some friends' houses, a friend's house. And she is there all

00:32:03.540 alone with no food in a prison. And her husband's somewhere in the prison, a few cells away, but

00:32:09.560 he doesn't know she's there and she can't get word to him. But Captain Kidd and his

00:32:17.480 protective way of providing for Sarah had, before he met up with her in Block Island,

00:32:26.640 made a backup plan with yet another one of his friends and hid gold with him. His name was

00:32:33.620 Captain Thomas Payne, who lived outside of Newport, Rhode Island. So Captain Payne is holding

00:32:41.240 backup reserves for Sarah, should she ever need them. So Captain Kidd was making all these

00:32:49.060 provisions for Sarah for her safety in the event things went bad. And thank goodness he did,

00:32:55.840 because things went very bad.

00:32:58.960 Yeah.

00:32:59.320 So she had to get these backup resources 0.95

00:33:02.340 in order to have food in prison.

00:33:06.340 Eventually she was released from prison 0.83

00:33:07.980 because the governor had no reason to keep her.

00:33:12.340 And so she was released

00:33:13.960 and then she was just waiting months and months

00:33:16.820 and months and months for Captain Kidd's

00:33:19.500 hoping, hopefully, hoping for his release.

00:33:24.060 I'm just thinking of...

00:33:25.840 Where where they started in their relationship as the power couple, he was this very admired member of society.

00:33:32.400 And now he's in prison.

00:33:35.260 They're separated.

00:33:36.640 But the commitment like they're still like she's this is her husband and she's just desperate to be reunited with him, I would imagine.

00:33:46.120 And desperate for him to be freed.

00:33:47.660 Yeah.

00:33:48.800 And now we're just going to take a break for a word from our sponsors.

00:33:51.860 the war is over and both sides lost kingdoms were reduced to cinders and armies scattered

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00:34:50.900 Welcome to the Realms of Peril and Glory.

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00:35:27.120 Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement and modern leadership.

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00:36:27.200 Let's get started.

00:36:36.580 The world of Sonic the Hedgehog has been thrust into a not-so-dark, not-so-stormy, hard-boiled detective story

00:36:45.000 that probably nobody saw coming.

00:36:48.840 Follow Sonic and the intrepid Chaotic's detective agency

00:36:52.360 as they take on their biggest case yet.

00:36:55.660 This high-flying, action-packed adventure

00:36:57.960 will take them across the world,

00:37:00.620 fighting for every quill they can fight.

00:37:03.240 It's one heck of a tale,

00:37:05.860 which is good,

00:37:06.800 because this story might be the only thing

00:37:10.080 that can save their lives.

00:37:12.620 Well, if that's all, I can just dispose of you.

00:37:16.500 Wait, what?

00:37:19.600 All will be revealed in Sonic the Hedgehog presents The Chaotix Case Files.

00:37:27.560 Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts.

00:37:30.580 The Chaotix are on the case.

00:37:36.860 And we're back.

00:37:38.960 Absolutely.

00:37:39.480 And she sends two petitions to the governor.

00:37:45.640 One of them is politely demanding that the governor return her personal belongings that

00:37:51.860 were seized because it's all she has to live on.

00:37:56.940 And they were returned to her, which is really interesting.

00:38:01.960 So she did get her silver back and her money back.

00:38:07.940 The second petition she sent, she sent three petitions while kid was in prison. First one was give me my stuff back, which they did. The second one was, let me go visit my husband. He's in need of his wife's affection. And the governor did not grant that.

00:38:28.260 And then the third one was, we're now into the dead of winter in Boston.

00:38:34.920 And of course, there's no heat in this.

00:38:37.740 This is 1699.

00:38:40.200 Boston's prison is just a hellhole.

00:38:44.920 And he has only the clothes that he had when he was chained and imprisoned months ago.

00:38:52.260 We're going on eight or nine months now.

00:38:55.000 And he's freezing.

00:38:56.780 He's absolutely freezing. And so she petitions the governor to let her bring him blankets

00:39:03.400 and warm clothes. And he doesn't let her do that. But the authorities in London are worried that

00:39:11.580 Captain Kidd is going to die in prison because of the conditions. So they make allowances for him

00:39:19.160 to be given blankets so that he will stay alive.

00:39:25.060 So what is the intent?

00:39:27.500 Why do they want him to stay alive?

00:39:29.680 Are they they're waiting for him to have a trial or why?

00:39:33.220 What is the end goal for them?

00:39:35.680 They do want to have a trial.

00:39:37.620 Lord Belmont wants him to be tried for piracy in Massachusetts.

00:39:43.140 but the laws of Massachusetts at the time

00:39:47.060 didn't allow pirates to be tried

00:39:49.660 they had to be sent to London to be tried there

00:39:54.240 so they are trying to keep him alive

00:39:57.700 so that he can be tried for his crimes

00:40:02.380 he is eventually put on a ship

00:40:06.800 his treasure is put on a ship

00:40:09.440 the treasure that was dug up from Gardner's Island

00:40:12.440 is put on a ship. His ship, the San Antonio, is taken also. And these all go back, go across the

00:40:24.120 Atlantic to London. In addition, Kidd's men, who were his crew, are arrested and taken with him

00:40:33.040 to London. So he is there imprisoned again in solitary confinement for over a year awaiting

00:40:42.700 trial. And that goes, I think, somewhat famously very badly for him. It does. And at this point,

00:40:51.340 he is starting to go mad because he is physically so worn down and so emotionally worn down from

00:41:01.640 being in solitary confinement in chains in Boston for almost a year, and then in London

00:41:10.100 in the same conditions for another year. So the man's spirit is just depleted. He does manage to

00:41:21.820 write some amazing letters defending himself but you also see from his handwriting and from what

00:41:32.880 he writes that he is now a desperate desperate man pleading for his life and by the way his

00:41:41.580 his one his evidence is gone missing conveniently so there it's very difficult for him to defend

00:41:51.500 himself. He also was given lawyers, but not enough legal representation. So it was really unfair

00:42:00.340 the conditions under which he was tried. He really had no chance. The ending was

00:42:08.360 predetermined. This was a trial that the people, his enemies, wanted him to be found guilty.

00:42:15.300 Yes. Yes. The trial documents are very, very interesting, but they're also, I found them hard to read. Hard to read meaning it was just so sad to hear it all going on. But that's because I really thought Captain Kidd was a decent man. I didn't think he was, how they made him out to be is like this monster. I didn't see him that way.

00:42:43.360 he was um he was tried not only for piracy he was tried for murder too and what happened there was

00:42:51.940 that on the third year when the men were in desperate desperate situations and they were

00:43:01.100 very very mutinous and one of his crew members who is the gunner meaning he ran the the cannon

00:43:09.640 mouthed off to Captain Kidd. And a captain of a ship just cannot have disrespect and insolence

00:43:19.140 among his crew members. And in the 17th century, what captains did to their crews on a good day

00:43:28.520 may not have been the best of things. Some of the punishment was very harsh.

00:43:35.280 Anyway, so this gunner mouths off to Captain Kidd and Captain Kidd gets angry because,

00:43:42.060 of course, he's in straits also desperate to try to save his ship that's leaking and

00:43:49.540 to capture prizes, to appease his men and his investors and the king in England.

00:43:57.020 And so the gunner who mouths off, Captain Kidd hits him with a wooden bucket on the head and the guy dies the next day.

00:44:06.480 So that then he's accused of being a murderer, but it wasn't premeditated.

00:44:11.700 It was an act of of anger and disciplining the insolent crew member.

00:44:20.460 So Captain Kidd is now tried for murder and piracy, and he was found guilty of murder.

00:44:27.940 And so then his fate was sealed then.

00:44:32.240 Once you have one conviction, there's no way you're going to get out of that one.

00:44:37.280 So he was tried for murder, and then he was found guilty of piracy also.

00:44:44.420 And where was Sarah while all this trial was happening in England?

00:44:49.900 She had left Boston when he was put on a ship to go to London,

00:44:55.120 And she returned home to New York, to her home.

00:44:59.480 She lived on the corner of Pearl Street and Hanover Street in the Hanover Square area of Manhattan, which is now the financial district of Manhattan.

00:45:13.440 So she returned to her home there waiting, thinking that he would be found not guilty.

00:45:20.700 and at the same time hoping that he would be pardoned because the king issued a proclamation

00:45:28.280 pardoning pirates. He was trying to rid the seas of pirates and this happened a couple of times

00:45:36.160 that the king issued pardons and this pardon Sarah was really hopeful would apply to Captain

00:45:44.920 kid but the king specifically named the captain kid would not be in the broad pardon of pirates

00:45:54.140 and so he was found guilty and was put to death right yes he was hanged on the river thames

00:46:04.180 and his body was left in chains for years as a as a reminder to anyone who would think of turning

00:46:13.800 pirate to let them know it was a terrible idea. And so this, where does this leave Sarah other

00:46:21.800 than devastated? Um, but she's again, widowed, still quite young. What does, what does she do?

00:46:31.500 Well, she waits. It takes several weeks for her to learn that Captain Kidd's

00:46:36.200 been found guilty and that he's been executed. And when she gets the news,

00:46:44.360 the authorities in New York come and confiscate everything from her. So she loses her home,

00:46:51.580 her properties, and all her personal belongings. And she's destitute and she's a social outcast.

00:47:00.160 With, I mean, this is part of what I find so compelling about your book and just this story

00:47:05.720 is the the way her fortunes just like things are good and then they're terrible and then they're

00:47:10.940 good again like just the swings that she is dealing with so she's again destitute but she

00:47:17.560 she's a resilient person certainly and so how what does she do so she mourns captain kid for

00:47:25.720 two years and she has got to figure out what to do and she does what she needs to do 0.95

00:47:33.820 And she remarries. And with the help of her father, she remarries an East Jersey merchant named Christopher Rouspe.

00:47:45.080 And with the help of her father, she's able to offer a dowry, which is some property that she had.

00:47:54.740 What was in Captain Kidd's name, as all property was, it was in the man's name.

00:47:59.920 And she has her father take the property and give it to Christopher Rouspe.

00:48:10.300 So it's a nice arrangement.

00:48:13.060 She and Christopher Rouspe get married.

00:48:16.460 And in order to be made whole again, to regain all her properties that she lost as a pirate's wife,

00:48:27.040 She is restored by Queen Anne, who is now the new monarch after King William fell off a horse.

00:48:36.100 And so she is restored.

00:48:39.060 She is saved by a woman.

00:48:41.220 Queen Anne saved her.

00:48:43.780 And Queen Anne must have had enormous empathy for her because at the time that Sarah sent a petition to the queen

00:48:53.640 asking for the queen to restore her. It took six, eight weeks for a letter to cross the Atlantic

00:49:02.280 in a ship, if it got there at all. And the queen, within two or three months, restored her,

00:49:10.440 made it legal again for her to have all her properties. So Sarah, again, has reinvented

00:49:17.460 herself. She's made whole again. She has a new name. She's now Sarah Rouspe. She's not Sarah

00:49:24.200 Kidd. Her two daughters take on Rouspe's name. And she has a long and successful marriage with

00:49:32.780 Christopher Rouspe. They were married 25 years. And she has three sons with him. And one of them

00:49:39.600 she names William which could be in memory of Captain Kidd and she lives to for that era

00:49:48.000 quite a long life to 74 is it yes which is a very very long life it's a good long life now

00:49:59.220 yeah I mean just considering everything it's it's such a fascinating story I see why

00:50:09.500 when you first encountered her you thought oh this is this needs to be its own book this can't

00:50:13.520 just be a chapter in another book yes because we all think of of the story of Captain Kidd

00:50:22.920 But no one knows that behind Captain Kidd was this very strong woman.

00:50:29.560 And it makes him a three-dimensional figure.

00:50:35.600 We often think of pirates as just these one-dimensional sea rogues who are cutthroats in steel.

00:50:44.280 But we see him now in a new light.

00:50:46.460 And I really wanted to set history straight to bring her into the light, to give her credit where credit was due.

00:50:57.260 And I think details like you mentioned on this podcast, but also in the book, like the fact that they were friends, like they knew each other, they became quite good friends before they even got married, like while she was still married to her second husband.

00:51:09.420 The fact that got married, what was it, two days after that husband passed away, like it speaks to, I think often when I think of people in this era, you think about arranged marriages or you think about people who maybe are forced into it or something.

00:51:23.720 But these were two people who really liked each other, got married and just had this really strong partnership.

00:51:29.900 And I think that's also that's also worth bringing to the forefront.

00:51:34.400 Yes, it was.

00:51:35.540 It's it's it's a compelling tale.

00:51:37.760 It's about love and marriage, motherhood and survival.

00:51:42.420 She was a tremendously resilient woman who could overcome adversities.

00:51:50.760 And the part that I found really interesting was that she arrived in New York only with her father and two brothers.

00:52:01.420 She didn't have her mother.

00:52:03.000 Her mother, we don't know when her mother passed away.

00:52:07.760 there's no primary sources to inform when Sarah lost her. But Sarah went through all of these

00:52:17.880 tragedies alone, and she just had to keep figuring it out. And I think her ability to recover from

00:52:26.620 tragedies and to reinvent herself and to keep figuring it out, but she also did it within the

00:52:34.100 strictures of 17th and 18th century society, which were very limited on women. They had no 0.85

00:52:41.540 legal identity. They were all based, their whole being was based on a man, through a man. 0.98

00:52:48.680 But Sarah was able to navigate herself through the limitations to create a life for herself,

00:52:58.260 which in the end was very successful. And she restored herself. She died. Her will shows that

00:53:06.360 she had all her properties. She had five children that survived to adulthood. And that in itself

00:53:13.980 is amazing because so many women died in childbirth. So Sarah not only was physically 0.92

00:53:20.740 strong living to the age of 74, she was physically strong surviving childbirth and surviving

00:53:27.880 five pregnancies and her children lived to adulthood. I mean, she's an amazing woman

00:53:35.860 with a character that is really worth bringing to the forefront of empowering women who have

00:53:46.620 tragedies, but you can pick yourself up and keep going, which is what Sarah Kidd did.

00:53:54.420 And I think just the fact that her character comes through so strongly, despite not having her diaries, despite not like just the evidence that you were able to find, it really, it's enough to put together.

00:54:10.600 We can see what kind of a person she was just based on the evidence that was left behind.

00:54:14.240 Like that was how strong her character was, that it's that it comes through just from.

00:54:20.760 Yeah, that's right.

00:54:22.480 And there are no, we don't know what she looked like.

00:54:26.060 There are no portraits of her.

00:54:28.060 There's a portrait of Captain Kidd, but there's no portrait of Sarah Kidd.

00:54:32.200 But we know she was married four times, so she was very attractive.

00:54:37.860 We know that she was described as lovely and accomplished.

00:54:43.000 And we know so much about her by the events that happened,

00:54:49.720 which there's a real track record of where she was, what she did, who she was with, people who

00:54:55.860 saw her. I first met Sarah Kidd and learned who she was through two colonial governors who were

00:55:07.600 referring to Captain Kidd and referred to her, not by name, but by saying, one of them said,

00:55:14.800 captain kid will be going on a privateering voyage if his wife will let him

00:55:23.600 and i thought who is she yeah i want to know who she is and then lord belmont when they were in

00:55:35.920 Boston and Captain Kidd was in prison, Lord Belmont says, well, the authorities in London

00:55:46.040 say, why did you take so long to arrest Captain Kidd? Because he was at large for six days

00:55:53.200 in Boston before he was arrested. And the authorities in London said, why did you take

00:55:57.300 so long? And he said, because he brought his wife and children with him. And I knew he would not

00:56:04.800 forsake them. So those details are stunning because they really say so much about her and

00:56:14.940 about the relationship. And it's just not things you think about when you think of Captain Kidd,

00:56:20.040 the famous pirate, like you were saying, it could really make them a three-dimensional person.

00:56:25.000 Right. Right. And the thing that is really interesting is that the people around him

00:56:32.140 and the people around her all recognized this very special relationship that they had.

00:56:38.920 It was evident.

00:56:39.880 They must have stood close to each other or showed some sort of affection

00:56:45.280 because it was very evident enough that it was mentioned by two colonial governors.

00:56:53.580 And it was written in primary sources.

00:56:57.820 so the last part of this podcast is just a a thing i do at the end of all the episodes just to

00:57:07.080 we score the different women we talk about on this podcast in different categories just to

00:57:12.140 kind of see not to compare them against each other but just how people fall in different 0.96

00:57:16.020 categories and i have some ideas about where sarah's gonna fall the first category is what 0.99

00:57:21.920 we call, um, scandalousness. So how to the people of her time, if you're thinking on a scale of zero

00:57:29.140 to 10, how, and this is hard because there was periods of her time where people, where she was

00:57:34.220 shunned, where she was the pirate's wife, but then she dusted herself off and became, um, a respected

00:57:40.980 member of society again. So on a scale of zero to 10, how scandalous do you think she was? 0.66

00:57:47.000 well you're you're quite right that the the different stages in her life um at some point 0.97

00:57:56.780 in her life she would have been considered scandalous when she lost everything uh and her

00:58:03.540 husband was a convicted pirate that would have been scandalous so i would have given her a 10

00:58:10.680 for that as far as being scandalous. She, at the time she was the only woman in Manhattan

00:58:18.480 that was the wife of a convicted pirate. And she was the only woman who had lost everything she

00:58:25.980 owned because of her association with him. So I would say that's a 10, but I would think on the

00:58:32.320 other times of the other three marriages I would say that I would say she was a 10 with Captain

00:58:40.460 Kidd on the last part of their marriage the first five years they were right yeah he was not

00:58:46.500 um and then for her first for her other three marriages I would say that she was a zero yeah

00:58:55.760 and I mean for the last 25 years of her life she's very respected so if we I'll average that out to

00:59:02.040 five, maybe. Which is funny. I don't think I've ever had someone on the show who like

00:59:08.300 veered so extremely, but she did. Right, right.

00:59:14.840 The next category is we call it scheminess, which really just means like, and I think you're talking

00:59:20.220 a lot about this, the resourcefulness, like when they're backed up in a corner, how clever are they?

00:59:25.280 How are they able to, to figure out how smart was she basically? And I think this would be a high

00:59:31.460 score oh definitely when she when she was um and we see that in this in the the the period when she

00:59:39.860 is in boston she's a 10 she should be a 25 but yeah she's she is showing her deep depth of

00:59:52.560 love commitment resourcefulness to protect her husband and her family

01:00:00.220 the fact that i've had other women i've talked about on the show who fell into poverty or

01:00:08.420 unfortunate circumstances and they were never able to get out of it but the fact that she did

01:00:13.460 at least twice really speaks to how how just kind of indomitable she was how smart she was

01:00:21.920 how clever she was yeah i love that you use the word indomitable indomitable that's the word that 1.00

01:00:30.000 i think of too she had skills she knew how to persuade she knew how to hustle she knew how to

01:00:36.300 survive her greatest strengths were her courage her commitment and her love but she to get back

01:00:44.840 to scheminess um i think she i think she was schemey in in um in ways that were um appropriate

01:00:56.440 for the time. I mean, it's not like she went and hurt anybody. She worked within the confines of

01:01:04.560 what she had, but she was trying to figure out, she even tried to figure out how to get Captain

01:01:10.120 Kidd out of prison and how to be sweet to the guard. And I don't mean sweet meaning in a sexual

01:01:17.540 way. She was, she was charming. She was without a doubt, very charming and very persuasive. So

01:01:23.840 scheminess, she knew how to use her skills. Yeah. And again, I think it's so stunning that 1.00

01:01:30.280 that comes across, even with so little primary source information about her, like it was so

01:01:37.920 strong, her scheminess that it, that it's evident even through just a few documents.

01:01:44.880 Right. Well, those are the, yes, but there are a lot of documents about her time in Boston that

01:01:51.320 her left. So I knew the details of her time in Boston, not only from the petitions that she sent,

01:01:59.860 but from the court documents and the council member documents. There's a lot of information

01:02:08.220 that surround her that show her character. Well, and I guess that's the other thing too.

01:02:17.640 It's I've, I've been saying there's so little evidence, but you're right.

01:02:21.760 There is, there were many things you're able to look at, but I think compared to other

01:02:25.960 women of that era, there's so much more, like there's so many other wives of merchants we

01:02:31.180 don't know about. 0.77

01:02:32.180 So the fact that she did make herself, it just shows the effect she had on everyone 0.99

01:02:36.980 around her.

01:02:37.660 The fact that she, that we know as much as we do.

01:02:40.820 That's right.

01:02:41.620 That's exactly right.

01:02:43.260 Which leads me to the next category, which is significance.

01:02:46.700 so this is within um what she did how much of an effect did she leave behind on people who knew her

01:02:56.540 or on uh the events that were happening around her what's her significance to to history do you

01:03:04.380 think i think her significant well because no one knew anything about her um no one knew of

01:03:11.460 no one knew she was in history

01:03:14.080 I think

01:03:15.460 in her period, in her time

01:03:17.660 the significance was to her family

01:03:19.920 and that would be a 10

01:03:21.720 because she was

01:03:24.140 so devoted

01:03:25.400 and so protective

01:03:27.960 of them and provided for them

01:03:30.160 that the

01:03:31.940 significance is on

01:03:34.100 her immediate family

01:03:36.060 her five children, her

01:03:37.880 grandchildren that she provided for

01:03:41.460 And for the future generations, her church was Trinity Church on Wall Street in Manhattan.

01:03:52.200 And Captain Kidd helped build the church and they had a pew there.

01:03:57.380 And the records show that she continued to use the pew and worship there many years after he died.

01:04:05.380 And she is buried there, I believe.

01:04:07.980 And her son and grandson are buried there.

01:04:11.460 And her offspring and the future generations continued to use Trinity Church until the 1800s.

01:04:24.100 So her significance, I would say, is on her family, and she passed on her sense of values, family values.

01:04:34.620 She was very religious, very, very religious attending this Anglican church, Trinity Church.

01:04:42.140 So the significance, I would give her a 10 for her immediate family.

01:04:47.580 And now that this book has brought her into the light, I think it's a book of empowerment for men and women that they can see how relationships can work together.

01:05:01.200 and um so i think that she is a 10 um in history and then the final category is i describe it as

01:05:11.760 the sexism bonus it's kind of for women who could have done more if not for the state of women in

01:05:18.660 the world to give them some more points if they need them i think certainly like the fact that 1.00

01:05:23.900 she couldn't own her own property you know she couldn't have her own money would have gotten in 1.00

01:05:29.140 her way. But I would argue that she did very well for herself considering how few rights women had. 1.00

01:05:36.560 She found ways around that, like by finding a new husband, by finding ways to leverage her power. 0.96

01:05:43.240 So I'm not sure how much more she could have done. I don't know. It's a complicated thing

01:05:48.900 to think of with her because she was successful, like you were saying, within her own life,

01:05:54.440 within her family, within that world. I'm not sure what more she could have done if she had

01:06:00.080 been able to own her own property, things like that. That's right. I agree with you. I think 0.97

01:06:05.780 that's, that's very clear understanding of the situation. If it was sexism, it was just that she 1.00

01:06:13.020 had the limitations. It was called femme covert. It was that she married women, couldn't own 0.99

01:06:20.600 property and their standing was through their husband and they had no legal rights so the 1.00

01:06:26.260 sexism was that men controlled women she was the property of her husband so that sexism part would 1.00

01:06:34.060 have been a 10 but but you're absolutely right she she she managed to work around around it and 0.55

01:06:43.460 was very successful so she didn't really let the sexism bother her too much she worked with it 0.98

01:06:50.600 Yeah, she found ways around it. You know, it would have been like if after her second husband died, if she was destitute and was never able to pull herself out of it, then that would have been like, oh, because of women's place in the world. But she found ways to continuously do that. So I think I would give her a low score for that just because that didn't get in her way. I'll give her, I don't know, a two, maybe. 1.00

01:07:13.600 I agree with you. I think that's a, I think two is perfect.

01:07:17.040 Yeah. So that gives her a total of 27, which I'm going to say is on the scale of people who are on this podcast, it's a lot of people fall in that range because that's why I have the four categories. Some people score high in some and lower in some. It's rare for somebody to score high in everything. But I love that you've brought her to the forefront. I love that you wrote this biography of her.

01:07:42.360 So The Pirate's Wife, the remarkable true story of Sarah Kidd.

01:07:47.140 Is there anything else?

01:07:47.900 I think you've talked so beautifully about the importance of her story and about the

01:07:51.400 book.

01:07:51.740 Is there any final thoughts you want to share with the listeners about her importance, about

01:07:57.020 why you feel this book is important?

01:08:01.140 I think it's important because it reveals that Sarah was easily as interesting and remarkable

01:08:08.640 as her famous husband.

01:08:10.040 and I think I think she's a woman that we can appreciate why Captain Kidd loved her

01:08:18.300 and why four men married her and I think it's just at the end of the story I was so sad when

01:08:29.200 she died because I wanted to know what she would do next because I was so taken by her strength

01:08:36.040 and her courage, her commitment, and her fierce devotion.

01:08:42.780 Well, thank you so much.

01:08:44.060 Thank you so much for sharing this story.

01:08:47.440 I could not recommend your book more.

01:08:49.540 I think it's such an important book,

01:08:51.600 but I also think it's a very, it's a narrative nonfiction.

01:08:55.200 Like it reads, it reads almost like a novel at times.

01:08:57.960 So it's very much, I would imagine your intent was for

01:09:02.140 people with no knowledge of this story can just pick it up

01:09:05.580 and learn the story without having to be know about the history of piracy. I'm assuming that's

01:09:12.220 that's the readership you're thinking of. Yeah. Yes. Yes. I wanted to write it for

01:09:17.520 a general audience of men and women of all ages. And I wrote it intentionally to be easily read,

01:09:28.920 not as an academic piece, not as an intense maritime history piece, but as the love story

01:09:36.940 that it is. Well, thank you so much for joining me today, Daphne.

01:09:40.960 Thank you. I appreciate it. I really enjoyed our conversation.

01:09:44.720 So I didn't mention in the episode, but you can keep up with Daphne and what she's up to at her

01:09:48.960 website, which is DaphnePalmergenicopolis.com. I'll put a link to that in the show notes. And

01:09:54.100 I really recommend reading this book. It's such an interesting story and it's really

01:09:58.520 as she explained on this episode, you know, trying to bring forward this woman whose life

01:10:03.920 story was so interesting and so fascinating, but also to add a bit more three-dimensionality to

01:10:09.940 this, to the figures of Captain Kidd and other pirates who are often just seen kind of one

01:10:15.480 dimensionally. I want to also say, so Sarah Kidd's final score was a 27, which is like,

01:10:21.340 we've got a real, that's a popular score on this podcast. Some other notable people who have

01:10:27.440 a 27. I just wanted to include, so Saeed Al Hora, who is the first pirate-related person we talked

01:10:33.840 about on this podcast, also has a 27. As do, let's see, so Jean de Lamont from The Affair of the

01:10:41.320 Necklace has a 27. Ana de Mendoza with the eyepatch. She was not a pirate, but, you know,

01:10:45.580 it's a pirate-adjacent thing. So that's a, she's in good company with a 27 on this scale. And I

01:10:51.100 realized after I posted the episode a couple weeks ago about Lola Montez that I forgot to record

01:10:56.600 saying what her total was. So Lola Montez, the Irish grifter, her total score was 23,

01:11:04.260 which is in a, in very good company of other people who Alison Epstein has also joined me

01:11:09.520 in episodes to talk about. Catalina de Arraso has a 23.5. Christopher Marlowe has a 22.5. 0.61

01:11:16.540 So that's, that's where Lola fell on this scale. And you can, although, I don't know,

01:11:23.560 I've got like a silly different thing to say to you as we wrap up this episode. So first of all,

01:11:28.340 as per ever, if you want to give me some feedback or some notes or suggest somebody for a future

01:11:32.840 episode, there's a link where you can do that at vulgarhistory.com. I also want to let you know

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01:11:50.300 And if you want to, as a gift, give somebody an audio recording of me saying, I don't know,

01:11:56.360 happy Hanukkah to your friend or whatever. I'm totally open to do that. I did that for somebody.

01:12:00.500 And then I was like, oh, I could, I could do this for other people. If you want to do that as a

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01:12:10.380 not a video. And it's just, you can ask me about that through my website. If you want to do that.

01:12:13.900 also please note in terms of gift giving or just like self gift giving there's all new

01:12:20.240 merch available on the merch store so this is we've just passed the three-year anniversary of

01:12:26.560 vulgar history and which is really exciting and i'm could never have imagined that the show would

01:12:32.640 reach as many people as it has in so many countries as it has and so to celebrate this landmark

01:12:38.120 I got an artist who's Debra Wong, who actually created the image that you see of me in the

01:12:45.200 podcast, the like me, my face on Queen Elizabeth. She did that beautiful Photoshop job. She created

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01:13:02.740 de Arauso and there's one for Hortense Mancini and each of them it's a it's a beautiful drawing

01:13:09.040 that she's done which is sort of inspired by what the person's story was like kind of what the

01:13:13.540 discussion about them was like in vulgar history so for instance on the Catalina de Arauso it's

01:13:17.460 her famous face with her Lord Farquaad haircut um but she's sitting on it's like she's riding a

01:13:24.280 llama but the image looks like a playing card which is what playing cards look like when Catalina

01:13:29.040 was running around, grifting people at card games and stabbing them. And then Hortense Mancini's, 0.91

01:13:34.820 she's, it's her famous portrait. It's based on the famous portrait of her, famous to us,

01:13:39.020 with her sailor moon buns and the flowers, but she's all surrounded by flowers. And that kind

01:13:42.640 of shows how she, through the face of great challenges, so many adversities she faced in

01:13:48.820 life, but she kept beautifully blooming and through it like a beautiful flower.

01:13:53.380 The Empress Cece one, it's partially the famous portrait of Cece with the stars in her hair,

01:13:58.640 but it's like, that's half of it. And the other half is a horse just kind of like running wild

01:14:03.100 with the mane of hair just to show like Cece is seen so much as this beautiful person who,

01:14:09.280 you know, famously wearing the really tight corset and stuff, but really on the inside and who she

01:14:13.360 wanted to be and who she really was in her soul was this horse girl who loved growing up just

01:14:18.380 free in the woods. And then the final portrait is of course, Frances Howard, who is one of the

01:14:24.940 uses for why I ended up doing this podcast in the first place. So it's a beautiful drawing of her

01:14:29.660 and her famous tits out portrait. And underneath it says tits out, but in like oldie time English 0.99

01:14:35.180 script using the language. And I did consult with people who know about this stuff, um, how you

01:14:40.060 would have said and written tits out in the 17th century when she lived. So it says like titties 0.99

01:14:44.840 outies. Anyways, that's all available at vulgarhistory.store. If you're going to be shopping 0.97

01:14:50.280 there. Remember, you can use code titsout for free US shipping or titsout10 for 10% off.

01:14:54.960 You can also follow me on social media. I'm on Instagram at vulgarhistorypod. Also,

01:15:02.140 I've started doing TikTok. So on TikTok at vulgarhistory. As I record this, Twitter is

01:15:08.720 slowly imploding as a thing. So by the time this is released, like God knows what's going on there.

01:15:12.920 But anyway, Twitter at vulgarhistory. And if you want to support the podcast as well, you can

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01:15:24.200 get early ad free access to all the episodes and then if you pledge at least five dollars a month

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01:15:52.360 you're there as well, sometimes there's polls you can help me choose what to talk about.

01:15:56.220 Anyway, that's my long rambling end of things. But basically, The Pirate's Wife,

01:16:03.220 The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd, great book, super recommend. And until next time,

01:16:09.220 keep your pants on and your tits out. 1.00

01:16:11.020 Vulgar History is hosted, written, and researched by Anne Foster 1.00

01:16:15.640 and edited by Christina Lumagi

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Vulgar History - November 16, 2022

Author Interview： Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos (The Pirate's Wife： The Remarkable True Story of Sarah Kidd)

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