# Did pirates make captured sailors walk the plank?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pirates-make-captured-sailors-walk-the-plank/275452>\
**Category:** Factual Questions\
**Created:** [November 18, 2004, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pirates-make-captured-sailors-walk-the-plank/275452 "2004-11-18T13:29:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![According\_to\_Pliny](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@According\_to\_Pliny](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/According_to_Pliny)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2004, 1:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pirates-make-captured-sailors-walk-the-plank/275452/1 "2004-11-18T13:29:13Z")

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[walk the plank](http://picayune.uclick.com/comics/crrub/2004/crrub041118.gif)  
Or is that an early urban legend?

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**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\
**Post date:** [November 18, 2004, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-pirates-make-captured-sailors-walk-the-plank/275452/2 "2004-11-18T13:58:08Z")

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Well, if anybody knows anything about it, it would be the guys at [www.pirateinfo.com](http://www.piratesinfo.com/mysql/phorum/read.php?f=5&i=3910&t=3620#reply_3910). The concensus there is that it was exceedingly rare, though there is one recorded instance that may be the genesis of the myth, documented in author David Cordingly’s _Under the Black Flag: Life Among the Pirates_:

> [@](#):
>
> “Yes indeed there is at least one documented case of it happening. It was reported in the Times of July 23, 1829 (so well after the end of the Golden Age) when the crew of the Dutch brig Vhan Fredericka were attacked in the Leeward passage by 30 pirates. The pirates began to loot the ship and when the crew protested they “were laughed at by the ruffians, who proceeded deliberately to compel the wretched men to what it termed ‘walk the plank’” The men were bound and had shot tied to their feet. One man survived by revealing the whereabouts of some gold the brig was carrying.”