Talk:William Dampier

Somerset Low‑importance

	Somerset portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Somerset, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Somerset on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.SomersetWikipedia:WikiProject SomersetTemplate:WikiProject SomersetSomerset articles
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Biography

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles

Military history: Biography / Maritime / British / European / Early Modern

This article is within the scope of the Military history WikiProject. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the project and see a list of open tasks. To use this banner, please see the full instructions.Military historyWikipedia:WikiProject Military historyTemplate:WikiProject Military historymilitary history articles

This article has been checked against the following criteria for B-class status:
Referencing and citation: criterion not met Coverage and accuracy: criterion met Structure: criterion met Grammar and style: criterion met Supporting materials: criterion met

Associated task forces:
/
	Military biography task force
	Maritime warfare task force
	British military history task force
	European military history task force
	Early Modern warfare task force (c. 1500 – c. 1800)

Australia: Western Australia / Maritime / Exploration Mid‑importance

	Australia portal William Dampier is within the scope of WikiProject Australia, which aims to improve Wikipedia's coverage of Australia and Australia-related topics. If you would like to participate, visit the project page.AustraliaWikipedia:WikiProject AustraliaTemplate:WikiProject AustraliaAustralia articles
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.
	This article is supported by WikiProject Western Australia (assessed as Mid-importance).
	This article is supported by WikiProject Australian maritime history (assessed as Mid-importance).
	This article is supported by the History of exploration task force (assessed as Low-importance).
	Need help improving this article? Ask a Librarian^{What's this?} at the National Library of Australia, or the State Library of Western Australia.
	The Wikimedia Australia chapter can be contacted via email to helpwikimedia.org.au for non-editorial assistance.

Piracy

This article lies in the latitude of WikiProject Piracy, a crew of scurvy editors bound to sharpen up all Wikipedia's piracy-related articles. If you want to ship with us and help improve this and other Piracy-related articles, lay aboard the project page and sign on for a berth.PiracyWikipedia:WikiProject PiracyTemplate:WikiProject PiracyPiracy articles

???

This article has not yet received a rating on the project's importance scale.

WikiProject Piracy To-do:

Here are some tasks you can do to help with WikiProject Piracy:

Requests: John Lopez (pirate), Lords of the Spanish Main, Benjamin Bennett (governor) (see What links here), Thomas Walker (pirate), Richard Bishop (pirate)
Expand: Charles Vane, Edward England, Emanuel Wynn, George Lowther, Pierre Le Grand, Roche Braziliano, Thomas Cocklyn, Woodes Rogers, Piracy in the Indian Ocean
Verify: Daniel Johnson (pirate), Henry Jennings, François l'Olonnais, Olivier Levasseur, Edward Davis (buccaneer)
Copyedit: Golden Age of Piracy
Images: MV Delight, MV Powerful,

Unsigned earlier messages

Dampier’s birthday is not known but would have been shortly before his christening in St. Michael’s Church, East Coker, recorded on 5 September 1651. More biographical details at http://www.apirateofexquisitemind.com/

This should be noted in the article. Spevw 22:12, 20 October 2007 (UTC)[reply]

False

Here is an excerpt from a site: "Pirate William Dampier is also said to have excavated several caves in the sandstone in 1822 and hidden treasure valued at over 60 million." Well, if that is true why did he die BEFORE 1822? That site must be lying. Had I not checked Wikipedia I might never have noticed. My thanks goes out to whoever posted the true information.

I would like to see a section on the early life of dampier added to the page. there is a bit to fill in between being a plantation worker and becoming a pirate, eg logcutting exploring.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.131.40.169 (talk) 08:11, 14 October 2005‎ in dead — Preceding unsigned comment added by 203.122.239.205 (talk) 23:43, 30 October 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Relatively unknown in Australia?

Dampier was one of the explorers taught when I was in primary school in Australia in the '80s. I realise I'm one in 21 million, but it was part of the syllabus, so I would assume that others were taught the same thing. It really should be removed or cited properly.Twinstar (talk) 08:28, 1 February 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Date of birth discrepancy

The lede says August 1651, but the infobox says 5 September 1651. Is there a cite for the latter date? -- JackofOz (talk) 02:34, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I see from the ADB source that he was baptised on 5 September, so I've changed the infobox. -- JackofOz (talk) 02:37, 6 June 2009 (UTC)[reply]

2nd Circumnavigation

Not clear where the ships were heading, and what was their mission.

'En-route they unsuccessfully engaged a French ship...' En-route to where? Only a disembodied mention of 'the Pacific coast of the Americas'. 109.154.14.8 (talk) 12:13, 8 April 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have expanded the section to try and address these issues. — Dr.Gulliver (talk) 07:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Date of death is not known

Ever since this edit on 7 February 2012, we've been showing Dampier's death date as 8 March 1715. It's sourced to this West Australian newspaper article from 1935. Nowhere else that I've ever seen is the date specified so exactly. I very strongly doubt that it has any historical authority, because later and more reliable sources certainly do not venture to be so precise. I would discount it as journalistic licence.

This says he died "sometime before 23 March 1715". This says his will was proven on 23 March, but neither the date nor place nor circumstances of his death were recorded, and his resting place is unknown. That means that we don't even know his death occurred in March 1715, let alone on any particular date.

I would prefer that we say he died before 23 March 1715 and leave it at that, but with a footnote explaining why we can't be any more precise.

Also, we're showing 5 September 1651 as his date of birth, but all we know for sure is that he was baptised that day. I know it's tempting to plug gaps in our knowledge, but we can't just make stuff up and expect to be taken seriously as a reputable encyclopedia.

Any comments before I make these changes? -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 23:38, 26 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, I've made the changes. -- Jack of Oz ^[Talk] 20:51, 29 December 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Born 1678

dampier was born o the 5th of april 1678 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 60.230.214.91 (talk) 13:29, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Wikipedia cites evidence that Dampier was baptized in 1651. What is the source for your information that he wasn't born until 1678? Dolphin (t) 22:06, 7 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

An apologia

His ship was rotten and its carpenter apparently inept ... While anchored offshore the ship had started to take water, and though sent below to effect repair, the carpenter only made it worse.

This is hardly credible. Dampier lost every ship he ever commanded in the South Sea to ship worms. If a wooden vessel is not properly protected, there is little any carpenter can do because every exposed plank will eventually be compromised (much as termites do on land). The article should avoid making excuses for Dampier, as others do. — Dr.Gulliver (talk) 10:57, 25 September 2013 (UTC)[reply]

His occupation

Dampier was a sea captain and explorer, but was he also a pirate? He likely committed acts of piracy (though he himself denied it)—part of a proud English tradition that has included Francis Drake, George Shelvocke and others. But does this make him a pirate? Drake was knighted by the queen in consideration of his contributions to the treasury. And Shelvocke bought off enough witnesses that the case against him collapsed. Pirates were hung. Since Dampier was not hung, nor, indeed, even charged, we cannot definitively say he was a pirate by occupation—that would be libelous. — Dr.Gulliver (talk) 04:32, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

the term you looking for is privateer while there is very little distinction between the two and both are commonly interchanged without changing meaning the reason for no prosecution would be due his actions having some sanctioning from the Crown. Also I doubt there would be libelous issues here over the use of either term as would not cause Dampier any loss in trade or profession nor would it make people think any less of him if anything its had the opposite effect in promoting him as a historical figure where he would have otherwise been relatively forgotten. Gnan garra 05:29, 25 February 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:William Dampier/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

I believe that I may be related to this gentleman. One of my older brothers is doing a family history. He has reached back to almost the dates of William Dampier. It may be difficult to prove or disprove a relationship however. 220.236.173.48 07:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Last edited at 07:15, 9 September 2007 (UTC). Substituted at 10:37, 30 April 2016 (UTC)

External links modified

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 3 external links on William Dampier. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 22:13, 9 December 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified (January 2018)

Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on William Dampier. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:

Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20000306142148/http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/sunshine/235/dampier-ing.htm to http://greenfield.fortunecity.com/sunshine/235/dampier-ing.htm

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

This message was posted before February 2018. After February 2018, "External links modified" talk page sections are no longer generated or monitored by InternetArchiveBot. No special action is required regarding these talk page notices, other than regular verification using the archive tool instructions below. Editors have permission to delete these "External links modified" talk page sections if they want to de-clutter talk pages, but see the RfC before doing mass systematic removals. This message is updated dynamically through the template {{source check}} (last update: 5 June 2024).

If you have discovered URLs which were erroneously considered dead by the bot, you can report them with this tool.
If you found an error with any archives or the URLs themselves, you can fix them with this tool.

Cheers.—InternetArchiveBot (Report bug) 04:42, 22 January 2018 (UTC)[reply]

Slaver?

By virtue have owning (and later selling) one slave, he is labelled a slaver? By definition, a slaver is one who makes his living by engaging in the slave trade. Nowhere in this article does Dampier fit that definition. Call him a slave-owner perhaps, but there is no evidence given that he was a slaver. If the term "slaver" is to be validated, evidence needs to be produced that he engaged on expeditions that captured, transported and sold slaves, as a business. In terms of current thinking, there may be little moral difference, but that is no excuse for inaccurate terminology, which smacks of POV. Ptilinopus (talk) 22:14, 6 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Agree with your definition. I removed description in lead simply on basis that it was not supported by the cited reference. Glendoremus (talk) 01:05, 7 August 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It is clear that there are a lot of 'diversity editors' at work throughout Wiki, wanting to smear prominent individuals with irrelevant mentions of this kind. Valetude (talk) 15:06, 7 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Alexander Selkirk

It is written in the opening 2nd paragraph that Dampier rescued Selkirk. This is untrue. Selkirk was rescued by Woodes Rogers in 1709. Vajaina (talk) 13:19, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Please disregard. Rogers was accompanied by Dampier during the rescue. My apologies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vajaina (talk • contribs) 13:21, 23 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]