"Pirates Expelled,
Commerce Restored."
— Official Motto of the Bahamas
Commerce Restored."
— Official Motto of the Bahamas
Three notorious pirate captains operating out of the Caribbean in the early 1700s — Blackbeard, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and Charles Vane — rallied thousands of fellow pirates to establish a Pirate Republic: "a crude, distinctive, and all-too-brief democracy" in the Bahamas. This rogue, fluid nation was a sailing contradiction though, one in which ostracized Catholics, indentured servants, and even African slaves might achieve freedom beneath the skull and crossbones, but European merchant ships and entire colonies became the target of rapacious barbarism; women and children unspared.
In The Republic of Pirates, Colin Woodard recounts the fascinating and disturbing story of the Golden Age of Piracy (1715 - 1725), focusing on the black, white, and grey deeds of the English and Spanish navies, the Pirate Republic's founders and their exploits, and English Captain Woodes Rogers who destroyed it.
In The Republic of Pirates, Colin Woodard recounts the fascinating and disturbing story of the Golden Age of Piracy (1715 - 1725), focusing on the black, white, and grey deeds of the English and Spanish navies, the Pirate Republic's founders and their exploits, and English Captain Woodes Rogers who destroyed it.
WHY I LOVE IT
Pirates have always scared me. These guys were like the travelling mafia of the 17th and 18th centuries, boldly terrorizing coastal towns and New World-bound ships; armed with alcohol, weapons, and a defective moral compass. At least, that's what Hollywood and Halloween costumes had put in my mind. But in truth, piracy was much more of a mixed-bag.
To the imperialistic nation states of Europe who craved territorial expansion and economic power, pirates were a scourge — evil men to be shot on site or hanged if caught, bodies left to rot in cages as a warning. But to many people on both sides of the Atlantic, the pirate life was freedom: the ability to sail anywhere and make a fortune by ripping off governments or fleecing rich fat cats. To the American colonists, Blackbeard was widely considered a folk hero. The truth about the Golden Age of Piracy is somewhere in between.
Anti-authoritarian sentiments, democratically-elected captains and councils, a fair(er) pay and treatment than Europe's various navies, ethnic and religious tolerance amongst crews — all this was part and parcel of piracy as was alcoholism, blackmail, theft, torture, rape, and murder.
The Republic of Pirates was no utopia, but held glimpses of what political machinations could and would take hold in the Americas less than fifty years later. [JG]
To the imperialistic nation states of Europe who craved territorial expansion and economic power, pirates were a scourge — evil men to be shot on site or hanged if caught, bodies left to rot in cages as a warning. But to many people on both sides of the Atlantic, the pirate life was freedom: the ability to sail anywhere and make a fortune by ripping off governments or fleecing rich fat cats. To the American colonists, Blackbeard was widely considered a folk hero. The truth about the Golden Age of Piracy is somewhere in between.
Anti-authoritarian sentiments, democratically-elected captains and councils, a fair(er) pay and treatment than Europe's various navies, ethnic and religious tolerance amongst crews — all this was part and parcel of piracy as was alcoholism, blackmail, theft, torture, rape, and murder.
The Republic of Pirates was no utopia, but held glimpses of what political machinations could and would take hold in the Americas less than fifty years later. [JG]
FAVORITE QUOTES
9. "It was usual for 40% of [a] crew to perish during a single voyage, most from tropical disease against which they had no resistance. About half the sailors pressed into the [British] Royal Navy died at sea."
8. Keep the pay, keep the man. (The Royal Navy's unofficial motto: withhold pay through schemes)
7. "No wonder, then, that young sailors like Bellamy, Vane, and Thatch, regarded Henry Avery [a Navy man turned pirate] as a hero."
6. "'If you had fought like a man you wouldn't hang like a dog.'" — Bonny to Captain Charles Vane in prison
5. "In the early 1700s...Jamaica had already become more than just a society that allowed slavery, it was the slave society perfected. Every year, dozens of ships arrived from West Africa, disgorging thousands of them. Despite the fact that the African's mortality rate far exceeded their birth rate, the island's slave population had doubled since 1689, to 55,000, and by the early 1700s, it had exceeded the English population by a ratio of eight to one. Outside of Kingston and Port Royal, Jamaica was a land where a tiny cadre of white planters, supervisors, and servants lived in constant fear of an uprising by the sea of Africans manning their fields, pastures, and sugar works. To maintain order, the English passed draconian slave laws under which masters could discipline their black captives in pretty much any way they wished, through murdering one without cause carried a fine of 25 pounds. Slaves could be punished by castration, having their limbs cut off, or being burned alive, punishments that were meted out without a court trial."
4. "Even so, dozens of blacks did escape each year. They established rogue settlements in the mountains, where they grew crops, raised families, practiced their religions, and trained bands of swift and effective jungle warriors to raid the plantations, free slaves, and kill Englishmen. In their capital, Nanny Town, the runaway slaves were said to be led by an ancient and powerful witch, Granny Nanny, who protected her warriors with magical spells."
3. "His eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, [that he] made altogether such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from Hell to look more frightful." — Description of Blackbeard
2. "Pirates Expelled, Commerce Restored." — Official motto of the Bahamas
1. Dum spiro spero: "While I breathe I hope." — Woodes Rogers' motto
8. Keep the pay, keep the man. (The Royal Navy's unofficial motto: withhold pay through schemes)
7. "No wonder, then, that young sailors like Bellamy, Vane, and Thatch, regarded Henry Avery [a Navy man turned pirate] as a hero."
6. "'If you had fought like a man you wouldn't hang like a dog.'" — Bonny to Captain Charles Vane in prison
5. "In the early 1700s...Jamaica had already become more than just a society that allowed slavery, it was the slave society perfected. Every year, dozens of ships arrived from West Africa, disgorging thousands of them. Despite the fact that the African's mortality rate far exceeded their birth rate, the island's slave population had doubled since 1689, to 55,000, and by the early 1700s, it had exceeded the English population by a ratio of eight to one. Outside of Kingston and Port Royal, Jamaica was a land where a tiny cadre of white planters, supervisors, and servants lived in constant fear of an uprising by the sea of Africans manning their fields, pastures, and sugar works. To maintain order, the English passed draconian slave laws under which masters could discipline their black captives in pretty much any way they wished, through murdering one without cause carried a fine of 25 pounds. Slaves could be punished by castration, having their limbs cut off, or being burned alive, punishments that were meted out without a court trial."
4. "Even so, dozens of blacks did escape each year. They established rogue settlements in the mountains, where they grew crops, raised families, practiced their religions, and trained bands of swift and effective jungle warriors to raid the plantations, free slaves, and kill Englishmen. In their capital, Nanny Town, the runaway slaves were said to be led by an ancient and powerful witch, Granny Nanny, who protected her warriors with magical spells."
3. "His eyes naturally looking fierce and wild, [that he] made altogether such a figure that imagination cannot form an idea of a fury from Hell to look more frightful." — Description of Blackbeard
2. "Pirates Expelled, Commerce Restored." — Official motto of the Bahamas
1. Dum spiro spero: "While I breathe I hope." — Woodes Rogers' motto
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Colin Woodard is the author of three other historical books about North American regional cultures, the Lobster Coast, and endangered oceanways. He's the state and national affairs writer at the Portland Press Herald and lives in midcoast Maine.
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