The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #163587   Message #3904651
Posted By: Steve Gardham
09-Feb-18 - 02:32 PM
Thread Name: What sea shanties did Blackbeard know?
Subject: RE: What sea shanties did Blackbeard know?
There are no known chanteys prior to 1800 in English of any description. The 'Maid of Amsterdam' misinformation comes from misreading of historical notes. The sequence of courtship items that occur in some versions of A-roving are commonplaces that occur in a number of shore songs, which do go back to the 1600's.

That doesn't mean that short chants of some kind weren't used such as 'heave-ho' or '1, 2, 3 pull' but songs with lyrics in 1718 highly unlikely. However, pirate crews were very mixed race during all periods and it may well be that some form of 'sing out' from another culture (African say) would not have been used.