Wednesday research rabbit hole, and this one's a favorite.
Pirate crews in the 1725 Caribbean operated under written "ship's articles," actual contracts. Here's what was in them: loot division rules, elected captains who could be VOTED OUT, and injury compensation — lose a limb in a fight, get a payout, written into the agreement beforehand.
That is more codified labor protection than most legitimate workers had at the time. These were people the official system had failed, building their own system instead. Not lawlessness. An alternative structure with its own logic and its own accountability.
This is the world Branwyn St. Pierre commands in St. Pierre Legacy, and honestly, it recontextualizes her whole character for me. She's not winging it; she's running an operation with rules, and she enforces them.
History keeps handing me things I didn't know I needed for the books; this is one of my favorites.
