Origin of the word idiom ‘son of a gun’

I love the origin of words, they help me learn new words in a foreign language by adding richness to the word I am trying to learn.  Here is an English word origin that is interesting.   In English we say ‘son of a gun’.  The origin of this word I herd goes back to the ‘age of sail’ when ships carrying molasses, rum and unfortuantly slaves. Often the sailors carried native women, between the cannons or guns and, did ‘you know what’.   The boys born to these women were called ‘sons of between the guns’.

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