JUnit 4 Expected Exception type

You could either use expected in @Test annotation or provide an explicit catch block and issue a fail if the program flow is not as expected.

@Test(expected=Exception.class) // java.lang.Exception
public static void exceptionTest() throws Exception {
    rodgers = new Pirate("Dread Pirate Rodgers" , -100);
}

@Test
public static void exceptionTest() throws Exception {
    try {
        rodgers = new Pirate("Dread Pirate Rodgers" , -100);
        fail("should not reach this");
    } catch(Exception e) {
        // ok
    }
}

My personal preference is the first solution.

You can use JUnit 'expected' to test exceptions:

@Test(expected = ExceptionYouWishToTestFor.class)  
public void divisionWithException() {  
    // Test Code
}

After that it's up to you to throw that particular exception in your code.

There's actually an alternative to the @Test(expected=Xyz.class) in JUnit 4.7 using Rule and ExpectedException

In your test case you declare an ExpectedException annotated with @Rule, and assign it a default value of ExpectedException.none(). Then in your test that expects an exception you replace the value with the actual expected value. The advantage of this is that without using the ugly try/catch method, you can further specify what the message within the exception was

@Rule public ExpectedException thrown= ExpectedException.none();

@Test
public void myTest() {
    thrown.expect( Exception.class );
    thrown.expectMessage("Init Gold must be >= 0");

    rodgers = new Pirate("Dread Pirate Rodgers" , -100);
}

Using this method, you might be able to test for the message in the generic exception to be something specific.

ADDITION Another advantage of using ExpectedException is that you can more precisely scope the exception within the context of the test case. If you are only using @Test(expected=Xyz.class) annotation on the test, then the Xyz exception can be thrown anywhere in the test code -- including any test setup or pre-asserts within the test method. This can lead to a false positive.

Using ExpectedException, you can defer specifying the thrown.expect(Xyz.class) until after any setup and pre-asserts, just prior to actually invoking the method under test. Thus, you more accurately scope the exception to be thrown by the actual method invocation rather than any of the test fixture itself.

JUnit 5 NOTE:

JUnit 5 JUnit Jupiter has removed @Test(expected=...), @Rule and ExpectedException altogether. They are replaced with the new assertThrows(), which requires the use of Java 8 and lambda syntax. ExpectedException is still available for use in JUnit 5 through JUnit Vintage. Also JUnit Jupiter will also continue to support JUnit 4 ExpectedException through use of the junit-jupiter-migrationsupport module, but only if you add an additional class-level annotation of @EnableRuleMigrationSupport.

I wouldn't throw an Exception if the gold isn't greater than or equal to zero. I would throw an IllegalArgumentException. It certainly sounds like it's illegal your Pirate to have a negative amount of gold.

public Pirate(String name, int initialGold) {
    if(initialGold < 0)
        throw new IllegalArgumentException("Init Gold must be >= 0");

Then in your JUnit test case, expect the IllegalArgumentException.

@Test(expected=IllegalArgumentException.class)
public static void exceptionTest() {