Pirate Booty

First thing first. Searching for images of Pirate Booty may not turn up what you think it should. This one works, however. The term booty, meaning illicit goods, steams from Norse byti which means “spoils of war”. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Naval tradition until the 19th century held that when the enlisted men of one ship boarded and captured another, they were entitled to anything that was on the main deck or above that they could carry with one hand. This was their reward for a job well done and it had the added benefit of keeping the men busy in the aftermath of the battle. Officers, of course, would be given shares of what was found below decks where all the good stuff was.