Harvest on the High Seas

Sailors Lived by the Harvest, Even If They Didn’t Work the Fields

Before refrigeration and global shipping, most food aboard ships came directly from harvest cycles on land.

That means autumn — harvest season — determined:

• what food was available,

• what preservation methods were used,

• how long it would last at sea, and

• whether crews would have enough provisions for winter crossings.

Pirates and sailors stocked up on:

🥔 Root vegetables (onions, potatoes, turnips)
🍏 Apples and citrus (for both nutrition and scurvy prevention)
🐄 Salted beef and pork from freshly butchered animals
🌾 Dried peas, beans, wheat, and hardtack biscuits
🐟 Salted or dried fish

Ships provisioning in early fall often received the freshest supplies, just processed from harvests. Many sailors looked forward to autumn port calls — the only time of year they’d get relatively fresh food before the long winter months.

For pirates who supplied themselves by plundering merchant ships, fall meant cargo holds full of newly harvested goods, especially:

• molasses

• tobacco

• rum

• flour

• salted meats

• citrus

• sugar

• dried fruits

• Caribbean staples like cassava and plantains

In this way, the fall harvest absolutely shaped pirate diets, indirectly linking them to agricultural cycles they never saw firsthand.

Autumn Was Prime Sailing Season — And a Time of Relief

After the destructive hurricanes of late summer and early fall, the Caribbean and Atlantic seas entered a calmer, cooler period.

For sailors, this was a natural season of gratitude:

• safer travel

• more predictable winds

• fewer violent storms

• better visibility

• cooler nights (especially welcomed in the tropics)

While they didn’t celebrate “Thanksgiving,” many logbooks include remarks such as:

• “Grateful for a fair wind and mild season.”

• “Thanks given for safe passage beyond the storm months.”

Nautical gratitude was very real — not a holiday, but a mindset.

Did Pirates Celebrate Thanksgiving? Not Quite — But They Had “Thanks-Giving” Moments

Thanksgiving as we know it today (a U.S. national holiday with turkey, cranberries, and family gatherings) did not exist in the 1600s–1700s in a form sailors would have recognized.

However, seafarers — including pirates — did practice informal customs of giving thanks, usually tied to:

• surviving a storm

• making landfall after a long voyage

• capturing a valuable prize

• recovering from illness

• the birth of a child back home

• holidays from their home countries

These often took the form of communal meals or shared rum.

Communal Feasts at Sea

If a ship had access to special foods — fresh fish, captured livestock, stolen wine, or a barrel of fruit — the crew might hold an improvised feast, sometimes described as:

• “a jollification,”

• “making merry,”

• or simply “taking our fill.”

Pirates were particularly known for turning windfalls of food into celebrations. A plundered merchant ship carrying fresh meat or fruit became a reason to share a rare, abundant meal.

This wasn’t Thanksgiving — but it carried its spirit.