INJURY COMPENSATION FOR PIRATES
THE LONGEST LIST OF THE LONGEST STUFF AT THE LONGEST DOMAIN NAME AT LONG LAST

How were pirates compensated for injuries?

The life of a pirate was one that involved much bloodshed, both their enemies and their own. Sometimes pirates were injured in battle and would lose a limb or would become badly cut. If a cut became infected, this quickly became a very dangerous situation as there were no modern medicines or medical equipment onboard. For this reason, amputation was usually the only answer to saving the pirate’s life and sometimes, the pirate would not even survive that. If a battle-inflicted injury didn’t take one of their limbs, it was likely that a disease would. Scurvy was rampant on pirate ships due to the lack of fresh food and often this would take a pirate’s leg as well.

There’s no doubt that pirate crews were required to work very hard and that they were asked to place themselves in very dangerous situations. Captains realized this and so, the pirates were compensated quite nicely for any loss of limb that they may suffer while working as part of the crew. Not only were they given money for their losses but because their capacity for work would be diminished, they would then be assigned to the less physical areas of work such as prepping food in the kitchen and operating the cannons. Here is what they would be paid as compensation for the loss of any of these limbs. They would be paid pieces-of-eight, which equals just less than one American dollar today.

• Loss of an Eye – 100 pieces-of-eight
• Loss of Right Arm – 600 pieces-of-eight
• Loss of Left Arm – 500 pieces-of-eight
• Loss of a Finger – 100 pieces-of-eight
• Loss of Right Leg – 500 pieces-of-eight
• Loss of Left Leg – 400 pieces-of-eight
  
  

 

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