View source for Walking the plank

{{short description|Form of execution for pirates at sea}}
{{Redirect|Walk the plank|other uses|Walk the Plank (disambiguation)}}
[[File:Pyle pirate plank edited.jpg|thumb|Artist's conception of walking the plank (illustration by [[Howard Pyle]] for ''Harper's Magazine'', 1887)]]
'''Walking the plank''' was a method of execution practised on special occasion by [[Pirate|pirates]], [[mutineers]], and other rogue [[seafarers]]. For the amusement of the perpetrators and the [[psychological torture]] of the victims, captives were bound so they could not swim or tread water and forced to walk off a [[plank (wood)|wooden plank]] or beam extended over the side of a ship. 

Although forcing captives to walk the plank has been a motif of [[pirates in popular culture]] since the 19th century, few instances are documented, all of which took place well after the classical "[[Golden Age of Piracy]]" which ended by 1730.

==Earliest documented records of the phrase==

The act is described in a 1763 article about pirates from ''The Public Advertiser'':

<blockquote>Philadelphia, May{{nbsp}}12.{{nbsp}}... And it is also said, that four other small Vessels were cruizing about the [[Grenadines|Grenades]] and [[Guadeloupe|Guadaloupe]], in the same Manner, manned by Spaniards and Caribbee Indians, who had taken several Vessels; among them one belonging to the Grenades, whose Crew they obliged to walk into the Sea, on a Plank fixed for that Purpose, but that one of them got ashore by good Swimming.<ref name="TPA">{{cite news |title=The Public Advertiser |url=https://www.gale.com/c/seventeenth-and-eighteenth-century-burney-newspapers-collection |access-date=17 April 2025 |date=14 July 1763}}</ref></blockquote>

The phrase appeared in a 1788 book on the slave trade, which recorded a 1779 incident in which slave-ship captains declared that if they ran out of water and food, they would save themselves by making their slaves jump overboard:

<blockquote>He then asked them what they had intended to have done with their slaves{{nbsp}}... They replied, "to make them walk the plank," (i.{{nbsp}}e.) to jump overboard.<ref name="Clarkson1789">{{cite book |last1=Clarkson |first1=Thomas |title=The Substance of the Evidence of Sundry Persons on the Slave-trade: Collected in the Course of a Tour Made in the Autumn of the Year 1788 |date=1789 |publisher=James Phillips |location=London |page=14 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U1lCZYT2TWEC&pg=PA14 |access-date=17 April 2025 |language=en}}</ref></blockquote>

The phrase is also recorded in the second edition of English lexicographer [[Francis Grose]]'s ''Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue'', which was published in 1788.<ref name="Grose2" /> Grose wrote:

<blockquote>Walking the plank. A mode of destroying devoted persons or officers in a mutiny on ship-board, by blind-folding them, and obliging them to walk on a plank laid over the ship's side; by this means, as the mutineers suppose, avoiding the penalty of murder.<ref name=Grose2/></blockquote>

==Historical instances of plank walking==
Pirate [[John Derdrake]], active in the Baltic in the late 1700s, was said to have drowned all his victims by forcing them to walk the plank, but Derdrake may have been a fictional character.<ref name="Gosse - Who’s Who">{{cite book|last1=Gosse|first1=Philip|title=The Pirates' Who's Who by Philip Gosse|date=1924|publisher=Burt Franklin|location=New York|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/19564/19564-h/19564-h.htm|access-date=23 June 2017}}</ref>

In 1769, a [[mutiny|mutineer]], George Wood, confessed to his chaplain at London's [[Newgate Prison]] that he and his fellow mutineers had sent their officers to walk the plank.<ref name=Botting/> Author Douglas Botting, in describing the account, characterized it as an "alleged confession" and an "obscure account [...] which may or may not be true, and in any case had nothing to do with pirates".<ref name=BottingByMartin/>

A Mr. Claxton, surgeons-mate aboard the ''Garland'' in 1788, testified to a committee at the House of Commons about the use of the plank by [[Slave ship|slavers]]:<ref name=Minutes/>

<blockquote>The food, notwithstanding the mortality, was so little, that if ten more days at sea, they should, as the captain and others said, have made the slaves walk the plank, that is, throw themselves overboard, or have eaten those slaves that died.</blockquote>

In July 1822, William Smith, captain of the British [[sloop]] ''Blessing'', was forced to walk the plank by the Spanish pirate crew of the [[schooner]] ''Emanuel'' in the [[West Indies]].<ref name=Earle/>
 
''[[The Times]]'' of London reported on 14 February 1829 that the [[packet (sea transport)|packet]] ''Redpole'' (Bullock, master) was captured by the pirate [[schooner]] ''President'' and sunk. The commander was shot and the crew were made to walk the plank.<ref name=Times/>

In 1829, pirates intercepted the [[Netherlands|Dutch]] [[brig]] ''Vhan Fredericka'' in the [[Leeward Passage]] between the [[Virgin Islands]], and murdered most of the crew by making them walk the plank with cannonballs tied to their feet.<ref name=CarmarthenJournal/><ref name=Cordingly/>

==In literature==
Despite the likely rarity of the practice in actual history, walking the plank entered popular myth and folklore via depictions in popular literature. 

[[Captain Charles Johnson]], in his 1724 book ''[[A General History of the Pyrates]]'', described a similar practice (using a ladder rather than a plank) in the [[Mediterranean Sea|Mediterranean]] of [[classical antiquity]] – [[Ancient Rome|Roman]] captives were offered the ladder and given their freedom, provided they were willing to swim for it.<ref name=History/>

The title page of [[Charles Ellms]]'s sensationalist 1837 work ''The Pirates Own Book'', apparently drawing on Charles Johnson's description, contains an illustration titled "A Piratical Scene – 'Walking the Death Plank'".<ref name=History/><ref name=Gutenberg/>

In [[Charles Gayarré]]'s 1872 novel ''Fernando de Lemos: Truth and Fiction'', the pirate [[Dominique You]]x confessed to capturing the schooner ''Patriot'', killing its crew and making its passenger [[Theodosia Burr Alston]] (June 21, 1783 – approximately January 2 or 3, 1813) walk the plank. "She stepped on it and descended into the sea with graceful composure, as if she had been alighting from a carriage," Gayarré wrote in Youx's voice. "She sank, and rising again, she, with an indescribable smile of angelic sweetness, waved her hand to me as if she meant to say: 'Farewell, and thanks again'; and then sank forever." Because Gayarré mixed fact with fiction, it is unknown whether Youx's confession was real or not.<ref> Côté, Richard N. (2002). Theodosia Burr Alston: Portrait of a Prodigy. Corinthian Books. {{ASIN|B005E1JOFW}}. {{ISBN|9781929175444}}.</ref>

[[Robert Louis Stevenson]]'s 1884 classic ''[[Treasure Island]]'' contains at least three mentions of walking the plank, including at the beginning where [[Billy Bones]] tells bone-chilling stories of the practice to [[Jim Hawkins (character)|Jim Hawkins]]. (''Treasure Island'' also popularized other now-common pirate motifs such as parrots, peglegs, and buried treasure.)

The concept also appears in [[J. M. Barrie]]'s ''[[Peter and Wendy|Peter Pan]]'', where [[Captain Hook]]'s pirates helped define the archetype.<ref>{{cite web|last=Bonanos|first=Christopher|url=http://www.slate.com/id/2167567/?GT1=10135|title=Did pirates really say "arrrr"? – By Christopher Bonanos – Slate Magazine|date=5 June 2007|publisher=Slate.com|access-date=23 July 2017}}</ref>

==See also==
{{wiktionary|walk the plank}}
*[[Burial at sea]]
*[[Golden Age of Piracy]]
*[[Disposal_of_human_corpses#Illegal_disposal_of_bodies_in_water|Illegal disposal of bodies in the water]]
*[[Keelhauling]]
*[[Marooning]]
*[[Mutiny]]
*[[West Indies Squadron (United States)|West Indies Squadron]]

==References==
<references>
<ref name=Grose2>{{cite book|last=Grose|first=Francis|title=Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4HoSAAAAIAAJ&pg=PT258|access-date=March 20, 2017|year=1788|page=258|publisher=S. Hooper}}</ref>

<ref name=Botting>{{cite book|last=Botting|first=Douglas|title=The Pirates|url=https://archive.org/details/pirates00bott|url-access=registration|year=1978|publisher=Time–Life Books|isbn=978-0809426508|page=[https://archive.org/details/pirates00bott/page/58 58]}}</ref>

<ref name=BottingByMartin>{{cite book|last=Botting|first=Douglas|title=The Pirates|url=https://archive.org/details/pirates00bott|url-access=registration|year=1978|publisher=Time–Life Books|isbn=978-0809426508}} Cited at {{cite web|url=http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/walk-the-plank.html|title=Walk The Plank|author=Gary Martin|work=The Phrase Finder|access-date=March 20, 2017}}</ref>

<ref name=Minutes>{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/abridgementofmin34grea|title=Abridgement of the minutes of the evidence, taken before a Committee of the Whole House, to whom it was referred to consider of the slave-trade, [1789-1791]|year=1790|page=37 }}</ref>

<ref name=Earle>{{cite book|last=Earle|first=Peter|title=The Pirate Wars|year=2006|publisher=St. Martin's Griffin|isbn=978-0312335809|page=222}}</ref>

<ref name=Times>{{Cite newspaper The Times|title=[title unknown]|date=February 14, 1829|page=3}}</ref>

<ref name=CarmarthenJournal>{{cite news|author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.-->|title=Atrocious Piracy|url=http://newspapers.library.wales/view/3794833/3794837/22/piracy|work=Carmarthen Journal and South Wales Weekly Advertiser|location=Carmarthen, Wales|date=July 24, 1829|access-date=March 20, 2017}}</ref>

<ref name=Cordingly>{{cite book|last=Cordingly|first=David|title=Under the Black Flag: The Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates|year=1995|publisher=Random House|isbn=978-0316911481|pages=130–31}}</ref>

<!--unused<ref name=GroseByMartin>{{cite book|last=Grose|first=Francis|title=A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue|url=https://archive.org/details/aclassicaldicti00grosgoog|access-date=March 20, 2017|year=1788|publisher=S. Hooper}} {{page needed|date=March 2017}} Cited at {{cite web|url=http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/walk-the-plank.html|title=Walk The Plank|author=Gary Martin|work=The Phrase Finder|access-date=March 20, 2017}}</ref>-->

<ref name=History>{{cite web|url=http://www.history.com/news/ask-history/did-pirates-really-make-people-walk-the-plank|title=Did pirates really make people walk the plank?|author=Evan Andrews|date=October 2, 2013|work=History.com|access-date=March 20, 2017}}</ref>

<ref name=Gutenberg>Illustration: {{cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/files/12216/12216-h/12216-h.htm|title=The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pirates Own Book, by Charles Ellms|author=Charles Ellms|date=2004|publisher=Project Gutenberg|access-date=March 20, 2017}} Illustration title: {{cite web|url=http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/12216/pg12216.txt|title=The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Pirates Own Book, by Charles Ellms|author=Charles Ellms|date=April 29, 2004|publisher=Project Gutenberg|access-date=March 20, 2017}}</ref>
</references>

== Further reading ==
*[[Don Carlos Seitz]], ''Under The Black Flag'', Dail Press, 1925 (republished by [[Dover Publications]] in 2002, {{ISBN|0-486-42131-7}})
*Samuel Pyeatt Menefee, "Pirates: 2. Walking the Plank" [Answer], ''The Mariner's Mirror'', vol. 80 (May, 1994), p.&nbsp;204
{{Pirates}}

[[Category:Pirate customs and traditions]]
[[Category:Naval mutinies]]
[[Category:Criminal homicide]]
[[Category:Maritime folklore]]