If bracnoid has inspired you to add some more high-point words to your Scrabble list, try the other words used in the final round: periagua, a canoe; variedly; sundri, a tree; and gynaecia, a flower.
|
|
His other high-scoring words were periagua (an American Indian canoe made from a hollowed tree trunk; 76 points), sundri (an east Indian tree; 28 points), and gynaecia (the plural of gynoecium, the female part of a flower; 95 points).
|
|
Later in the 18th century periagua became the name for a specific type of sailing rig, with gaff rigged sails on two masts that could be easily struck, commonly with the foremast raked forward and the main mast raked back. The "periagua rig" was used on U. S. Navy gunboats on Chesapeake Bay in the early 19th century. The term periagua was also applied to rowing scows similar to a john boat.Oxford English Dictionary#Compact editions: piragua Century Dictionary: periagua Chapelle 19-20, 32-3 Woodard 54, 89 Montfort, Kent.
|
|
Periagua (from Spanish piragua, in turn derived from the Carib language word for dugout) is the term formerly used in the Caribbean and the eastern seaboard of North America for a range of small craft including canoes and small sailing vessels. The term periagua overlaps, but is not synonymous with, pirogue, derived through the French language from piragua. The original periaguas or piraguas were the dugout canoes encountered by the Spanish in the Caribbean. Small craft of greater capacity were created by splitting a dugout and inserting a plank bottom, while the freeboard was increased for sea voyages by adding planks on the sides. By the 18th century the term periagua was being applied to flat-bottomed boats, which could be 30 feet (10 m) or more long and carry up to 30 men, with one or two masts, which could also be rowed.
|
|
Fairfax (at the forefront), with Elizabeth astern of her, and Assurance or 'Tiger' to their left, a painting attributed to Isaac Sailmaker. A ship is missing as part of the picture has been lost. Preparations were made to leave Garden Key. The salvaged sloop was repaired, and one periagua was lengthened and rigged as a schooner.
|
|
While he waited off the Virginia capes for slave ships inbound from Guinea, he sent his periagua to capture more English sloops in the area, brazenly looting their targets in sight of a local guard ship. The man-of-war attacked impotently, firing its guns “to no purpose; they could not come up with him.” Later in July the same man-of-war caught Crapo and attacked again, this time forcing Crapo to abandon his ship and attempt to flee in the periagua. When the wind died the man-of- war was becalmed; Crapo’s ship was equipped with oars and was again able to escape. The immobile man-of-war send a pinnace to Crapo’s ship but - despite not being fired on by Crapo's ship - “they durst not venture to board her” and so returned empty-handed.
|
|
38-39 On 7 March the Spanish sloop returned to the island. Although the sloop was well-armed and manned, Captain Herbert resolved to try to capture it. A total of 96 men boarded the captain's barge, the yawl, a periagua (three periaguas had been captured near Cuba and carried on the Tyger) and a canoe and attacked the sloop. Although the boarding parties reached the deck of the sloop, the Spanish were able to force them back and sail away.
|
|
Escaping with a few others in a canoe, the multi-lingual Lewis took over a small periagua, then captured a sloop, pressing some captured crew into service as pirates and releasing others. He continued capturing small vessels, looting them and taking some crew. With 40 men he took a larger pink, using it to take several other ships near Campeche. He then looted several sloops, beating the captain of sloop who surrendered too easily, and kept the largest 12-gun sloop for his own.
|
|
In December 1741 Tyger was assigned to blockade duty off the western tip of Cuba, under the command of Captain Edward Herbert. He had learned from the captured crew of a small Cuban sailing vessel (a periagua) that Spanish ships were preparing to sail in both directions between Havana, Cuba and Vera Cruz, Mexico. Early in 1742, anxious to capture a valuable prize, Captain Herbert left his assigned station to move closer to the expected path of the shipping between Havana and Vera Cruz.Viele, pp. 31-32 On 11 January, the Tyger approached low-lying islands.
|
|
On 19 March the crew of the Tyger boarded the sloop, the schooner rigged periagua, the yawl, the two other periaguas and the canoe, and set sail for Port Royal. The canoe capsized and sank after only two days, but its crew were rescued by one of the other boats. The little fleet rounded the western end of Cuba and reached the Cayman Islands in two weeks, but was then becalmed for three weeks. Captain Herbert then sent the schooner, which was a slow sailer, along the southern coast of Cuba, while the sloop towed the rest of the boats directly to Jamaica.
|
|
In March 1725 Blanco attacked the Jamaica-bound sloop Snapper by rowing alongside in an open periagua. Blanco threatened to attack New Providence and “give no quarter,” and also claimed the Spanish Governor had forced him to attack the English and take prisoners who would be used as laborers by the Spanish. He landed on Eleuthera where some of the sloop’s crew escaped, but where Blanco looted an English settlement and took several prisoners. Bahamas Governor George Phenney armed two sloops with troops from his garrison and sent them after Blanco, but their search proved futile.
|
|
Cockram was among a group of pirates active in the Bahamas including Benjamin Hornigold, John West, and Daniel Stillwell who attacked Spanish ships and others from small open boats such as the periagua. On his 1713 cruise he and his small crew “brought back Asian silks, copper, rum, sugar, and silver coins stolen from Spanish vessels off Florida and elsewhere” worth over £2,000. Fed up with Cockram and the other pirates disrupting island trade, Deputy Governor Thomas Walker of the Bahamas tried to put a stop to the piracies, arresting Daniel Stillwell; Hornigold freed him and threatened Walker not to intervene. After his stint of piracy at sea Cockram became a trader, bringing in goods from Charles Town and other settlements to trade with the pirates in and around New Providence.
|
|
He passed the time raiding ashore from small boats, in one 1715 incident stealing slaves from a local settlement. Later he would be described as “formerly a noted Buccaneer, and while he followed the Calling, robb'd and plundered many a Man.” He gained his “Old Cracker” nickname after he moved to Whiteman's Bay, just down the river from Bunce Island. He kept his vessels – several small boats and a periagua - as well as native slaves and servants, and welcomed pirates who came to trade. Captain Charles Johnson wrote that Leadstone “keeps the best House in the Place, has two or three Guns before his Door, with which he Salutes his Friends, (the Pyrates, when they put in) and lives a jovial Life with them, all the while they are there.” Another writer described him in glowing terms: “He was the soul of hospitality and good fellowship, and kept open-house for all pirates, buccaneers, and privateersmen.” Leadstone was among at least 30 former pirates who traded goods to passing ships in need of resupply. They also supplied slaves and ivory to merchants who avoided the Royal African Company's trading monopoly.
|
|