Marooning
Pirates were known for their cruelty, even if it is not always proven that many of them actually carried it out. But one of the pirates' practices that was actually the marooning. In fact, this form of punishment was so common among the Brethren of the Coast that they themselves were often referred to as marooners since the early 18th century.
Marooned by Howard Pyle, 1909 (x)
The victim, often enough a backslider from among the pirates guilty of some repeat offense, was placed upon some deserted spit of sand or island where neighter food nor water was available. Sandbanks were more popular, however, because the victim could no longer get down there and his end was in sight more quickly than if he were stuck on an island. Traditionally left with a bottle of water, a biscuit, and a pistole carrying a single charge and one ball.
The Caribbean abounds with tales of discovery involving lonely cays and the remains of such unfortunates, one skeletal hand still clutching the pistol used to end the unbearable pain and blackness of despair.
But there were also some who survived, such as Alexander Selkirk (probably the model for Robinson Crusoe), who was abandoned in 1704. He was a member of Captain William Dampier's crew and when he fell out with him, he was transferred to one of the Cinque Port's belligerent ships. But here too he quarreled with his captain and even tried to start a mutiny, if you can call persuading the crew to stay on the island a mutiny. As punishment he was simply left behind. The island itself had enough resources for him to survive and he was rescued in 1709.
One case even describes that not only pirates made use of marooning. In 1725, Dutchman Leendert Hasenbosch was marooned on Ascension Island in the South Atlantic Ocean for sodomy by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) for whom he had worked on board a ship as a clerk. Only a year later, British sailors found his tent and a diary which he had kept. They did not find him, but suspected that he had died of thirst.
Sodomy punish'd" Being a true and exact relation of what happened to one Leondert Hussenlosch, a Dutch man, who by command of the Dutch fleet, was put on shore on the desolate island of Ascention, 1726 (x)
The diary was published under the title "Sodomy punish'd" Being a true and exact relation of what happened to one Leondert Hussenlosch, a Dutch man, who by command of the Dutch fleet, was put on shore on the desolate island of Ascention.
So as you can see, it's not a nice punishment and not one that can only be attributed to the pirates, even though they probably used it more than anyone else.
