What sort of person makes a captain?
DISCLAIMER: I am not a professional or historian of any sort, I’m just someone with an interest. My commentary comes from my own learnings throughout the past couple years of reading about the Age of Sail. If you feel I am incorrect about something, you can message me privately and I may be willing to discuss it, then possibly edit my post.
It is perhaps completely inarguable that with a ship comes a captain, and the question of what sort of character becomes unavoidable when writing within an age of sail setting. What makes a good captain? What makes them good at their jobs? What allowed them to get where they are in the first place? Questions pile up and, if it isn’t already evident, your captain simply can’t be any old deckhand or ABS (able-bodied seaman).
The title captain, from their first introduction, lets those listening or reading know that this an authority figure—the proud, accomplished captain of a ship and crew, in charge of many, many responsibilities—reckless sailors and pirates in need of instruction, navigation of the often uncontrollable seas and winds, and so on. This is someone who commands respect—ideally, at least.
In this post I hope to outline what, precisely, allows a captain to command respect? How do they come to their stations and, further, how they keep it?
Let me also add a disclaimer that there is nothing wrong with having a semi-incompetent captain—conflict makes for good stories, after all—but your incompetent captain should be intentionally written as incompetent. Know the rules before you break them, and all that.
So without further ado, let’s begin!
Let’s start simple. Though your captain may not be an ordinary sailor, that doesn’t mean they can’t or shouldn’t be a sailor nonetheless. They must be able to stand on deck and direct their crew so as to keep the ship functioning and moving. Things begin to change when we note the differences between a pirate ship, and a navy or merchant ship—while a captain of either must be able to quickly make decisions with regards to battle tactics and sailing (especially in the case of pursuing or being pursued), a pirate captain may not always make their decisions alone (this can apply to navy captains too, though in a somewhat different way).
I. Every man shall have an equal vote in affairs of moment. He shall have an equal title to the fresh provisions or strong liquors at any time seized, and shall use them at pleasure unless a scarcity may make it necessary for the common good that a retrenchment may be voted.
- Captain Bartholomew Roberts’ articles
In other words, each member of the crew (men, in this case, though that may not be for you—you are writing fiction, after all) has the ability to vote on the ‘affairs of moment’—perhaps where they next plan to make port, where to next sail, what provisions to take on, whatever else may be relevant at the time. This is not something that ever would’ve taken place on a navy vessel—no ABS upon a ship of His/Her Majesty’s Navy would ever dream of being given the chance to contribute to the immediate future of their crew and ship. Of course, if the individual navy captain decides they wish to take the advice of their crew, that is their decision—and it’s quite likely to be a good one too, especially when it comes to a captain who may not be an expert within a certain area—but it is not a given.
My point is—not every captain needs to be an absolute, constant expert on everything regarding the ship and sailing, though they should still know more than the average Joe. But they do need to be able to make quick decisions, and take on the advice of others.
It would seem almost contradictory that an authority figure should welcome the advice of those below them, but in another sense it may also be obvious that it’s a requirement of the position. Not everyone, even the best of the best, can or will be good at everything. A captain who fails to listen to the advice of those with more expertise within a certain area is doomed to failure—whether through their crew losing faith in them and voting them out or staging a mutiny, the wrong decision being made in a storm or during battle and resulting in the loss of the ship and crew, or other disastrous situations.
Of course when dealing with any large amount of people, one can’t expect them to always, without question, follow the rules. Even less so when talking about a crew of sailors. Any good captain, through one way or another, has a way of keeping discipline upon their ship.
Most navy captains, when asked how they do so, are likely to answer with something involving the cat (cat’o’nine tails—a nine-tailed whip used for flogging). Not all of them, granted—there are certainly other captains who refrained from flogging or similar tactics. Additionally, any navy captain had to be careful how much physical abuse they inflicted upon their crew—were they to, upon the regular, beat their crew without explanation or reason, at some point the crew will simply not take anymore, and at that point it’s entirely possible for a mutiny to take place.
There were, of course, ways, for a navy captain to avoid such a thing while simultaneously continuing the abuse—if, for example, they are able to rationalize it to the crew that it is necessary for the functioning of the ship, or to simply keep them from considering mutiny via sniffing out any who try to incite it and then potentially executing the accused, it decreases the likelihood of a mutiny actually taking place. The environment upon such a ship would not be a pleasant one, and many might argue that floggings only decrease the efficiency of functioning, but that’s not what we’re talking about here.
What about pirate ships, then? In some ways it’s more similar than one might think at first, and in other ways it’s very different. Some captains resorted to physically abusive disciplinary methods, such as flogging, and others were able to keep their crew in check with other methods. It’s important to keep in mind that for many pirates, the attraction of piracy in the first place was the escape from the abuse often perpetuated upon navy vessels, and so a greater number of captains (who, on pirate ships, often began from the lower ranks as well and had experienced that abuse first-hand) were opposed to the use of flogging or abuse upon their own crew. While it was certainly not the only reason sailors turned to piracy, it was one of them.
For pirates, one could argue that violence against their own crew and violence against other crew have more of a connection than it might on navy ships. For sailors in the service, violence against the enemy was part of the job—whether the ships they attacked were from an enemy country or were pirates, there was always the underlying rationalization that ‘they are bad, and we are not’. When one is a criminal themselves, this mindset changes—you are not there for the people themselves, but rather for what they have. While there are most certainly pirates who killed, abused, and tortured without regard or care, it was not the case for all.
There is no record of Calico Jack using torture or murder, and he seems to have gone out of his way to treat his victims with restraint. When he had finished looting a Madeira ship, he returned the vessel to her master and arranged for Hosea Tildale, a Jamaican tavern keeper, to be given a passage home.
- David Cordingly, “Under the Black Flag: the Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates”
So there are pirates who were polite enough even while committing crimes, while there were others who most definitely were not. Certainly there are others in between.
The question is, what compelled ordinary sailors to be willing to both watch and even participate in extreme amounts of violence against their victims? Of course, there are people who simply have no qualms with such things, but that couldn’t be the case for everyone, can it?
The truth is, I'm not a particularly skilled captain. Navigation is foreign to me. I have no gift for politics. So what am I good at? This is going to sound absurd, but... I make the men feel better about themselves. See, every man here has served under a captain who uses violence to achieve an end... to terrorize, to advertise. When the men see that, they can spot the lie. They know that that captain is, in some part of his soul, sickened by his own actions. And the lie infects everyone who sees it. But with me, when the men see me slaughter the crew of the Good Fortune, when they see me cut out a man's tongue from his mouth for lying, when they see me burn a boy alive in front of his father's eyes, they know, they can see it in my eyes... there's no lie there. There's no secret remorse there. I simply don't have it in me.
- Ned Low, Black Sails (S2E1, “IX.”)
In summary, it is only when the crew can feel confident that none of the others around them are disgusted by it that they are willing to forget their misgivings, in the own private space of their minds, and participate in violence and abuse. But that’s only to do with how these pirates treat their victims—what about how they treat one another?
Well, again—the two issues are rather linked when it comes to pirates. A pirate who is willing to commit extreme levels of violence against a victim will be, with some convincing (perhaps from a rather charismatic and manipulative captain), willing to do the same to their own crew. Though, as stated earlier, many pirates were opposed to floggings and other punitive actions, were a captain perhaps capable of convincing their crew that the victim is deserving...
It goes largely without saying that a good leader of any sort must be a good speaker, and must be able to do so without much preparation. This, of course, applies to captains too. Whatever sort of confrontation the crew faces or goals the captain wishes to achieve, the captain must be capable of not only convincing them to do it, but also to convince them to put their heart into it. However, as always, that is not quite a requirement for captaincy.
But it's become clear to me that a crew requires two men to function. One to tell them what to do and another to tell them why they should want to do it.
- John Silver, Black Sails (S2E5, “XIII.”)
Though a captain could certainly fill both of those roles, a captain might also have someone else fill part of it for them.
Lastly, a solid background, to make your captain believable is important. For a naval captain, it is almost certain they will come from a noble background or have been related to someone noble—though it was, theoretically, still possible for someone from a lower class to become a captain, it was much less likely to happen. It’s also likely they’ve been a sailor from a young age.
Midshipmen were young boys in their teens, most often, who served as a sort of officer-in-training aboard ships. About 50% of midshipmen were sons of professional men or naval officers, and another 27% were members of peerage or landed gentry. The rest came from the working class, but they had less of a chance of being promoted to lieutenant thanks to the favoring of upper-class boys.
If your captain was not a midshipman at some point, then they were likely a master’s mate, at some point, who also had the capability to take the test of qualifying for lieutenant.
Your captain is probably not in their 20s, whether they are a naval or pirate or other captain.
What about pirates? Arguably simpler—so long as your character has (some of) the above traits, and experience, it’s likely they could become captain one way or another. Possibilities include being voted in, the previous captain dying and them being voted to take their place, or creating a crew from scratch.
Hopefully this guide will help you create more believable captains in your stories in roleplays. Write on!
Want a chance to put this knowledge to use? Consider joining our Age of Sail/Fantasy Discord Roleplay: Astrela. https://discord.gg/myFWYCm
