The History of the Real Pirates of the Caribbean

When we think of pirates, we often picture those who were active in the Caribbean during the late 17th and early 18th centuries. Flamboyantly dressed, armed with cutlasses and pistols, readily seeking out new treasures from aboard their sailing ships, with the Jolly Roger flying from the top mast. Modern media depictions have certainly reinforced this stereotype, but as we shall explore in this video, the historical truth is somewhat obscured by myth and fantasy. This is the history of the real pirates of the Caribbean. The discovery of the Americas by Europeans in the late 15th century paved the way for the exploration and eventual settlement of the continent in the following decades, principally by the Spanish. The founding of these new colonies led to the establishment of trade and commerce between the old world and the new, with people and manufactured goods leaving for the Americas and viable raw materials such as tobacco, sugar, gold and silver making the return journey to Europe. By the mid-16th century, the political situation in Europe was fractious to say the least. The main superpower at the time was Spain, with her ever-expanding overseas empire and increasing material wealth only sparing jealousy and animosity amongst her European rivals, particularly from France. The emergence of the Protestant Reformation had also split Europe on religious and sectarian lines, with some nations such as the Netherlands and England choosing to break away from the Catholic faith and oppose the influence of the Pope and ultimately Spain, who were his military enforcers. The French, English and Dutch, all being seafaring nations, similarly wanted empires and riches of their own, but these ambitions would inevitably draw them into conflict with Spain. However, rather than continue with the costly and destructive wars in Europe, they spotted the opportunity to attack the more vulnerable Spanish possessions in the New World, notably by robbing their richly laden treasure ships of gold and silver, as well as sacking their strategically important settlements on what became known as the Spanish Main, such as Cartagena, Portobello and Panama City, as well as the Caribbean settlements of Havana and Santo Domingo. All of these factors led to the birth of piracy in the Caribbean. Initially, such activities were mostly dominated by French privateers. The distinction between this and illegal piracy being that privateers were sanctioned by the state with a letter of mark, effectively giving them permission to rob and plunder their Spanish targets. In return, they were to provide a percentage of the spoils to the issuer, in this case the French crown. Privateers such as Jean Fleury, Francois Leclerc and Jacques Dessaurs wrought havoc on Spanish settlements and shipping, carrying off a great deal of treasure in the process. Later in the 16th century, war broke out between England and Spain, thus leading to the emergence of English privateers in the Caribbean, such as Sir Francis Drake, Sir Richard Hawkins and Sir Walter Raleigh. They too shared in the success of their French counterparts, however with neither nation having a permanent base in the Caribbean at the time, their raids only had a limited impact upon the Spanish as the privateers eventually had to return to Europe. The Spanish also responded to this new threat by inserting heavily armed escort vessels into their treasure fleets in an By the early 17th century, Spain still held most of the land in the Caribbean, however French, English and Dutch colonisers had begun to settle on other islands and began encroaching on the less frequented parts of Spanish territory. Around 1625, a small number of mostly French settlers had begun eking out an existence on the northwestern shores of Hispaniola. In order to sustain themselves, they hunted the local wild animals and smoked their meat over wooden frames in a process known as bouquets. This would later give rise to the name bouqueteers, literally meaning the ones who smoke meat. This eventually became anglicised to bouqueteers, but at this point they were only really hunters, as opposed to outright pirates. In response, the governors of the Spanish dominions ordered raids and attacks on these fledgling settlements to drive off any potential competition and secure the interests of their own settlements from other European powers. As a result, the bouqueteers fled from Hispaniola and relocated to the nearby island of Tortuga instead. Shortly afterwards, in 1629, the islands of Saint Kitts and Nevis, which were jointly settled by English and French, came under attack from the Spanish. On this occasion, most of the English settlers simply returned to the island once the Spanish had departed, as did some of the French. However, most of the French settlers decided to start over again and join their compatriots, the bouqueteers, on the island of Tortuga. It was here, on Tortuga, by around 1630, that the bouqueteers turned to piracy en masse, owing to a lack of natural resources to sustain themselves and the opportunity to seek revenge on the now hated Spanish. They started to attack their treasure ships, making the return journey to Europe and took the spoils for themselves. Over the following years, the Spanish attempted to remove the bouqueteers from Tortuga. Although they had some initial success, they ultimately failed in the long term as the bouqueteers returned each time and in greater numbers, with more and more French, English and Dutch settlers turning to piracy against the common enemy, the Spanish. In 1640, the French engineer Jean Le Vasseur arrived on Tortuga and set about constructing a fort overlooking the harbour to protect it from future attack. Fort de Rocheux, as it became known, had a battery of cannon and allowed safe harbour for pirates of all nationalities in return for a small cut of their captured loot. Tortuga then became the first pirate port in the Caribbean. By this time, the bouqueteers had begun to call themselves the Brethren of the Coast and had organised themselves into a loosely formed coalition against the Spanish. Before each raid, they would elect a captain to lead the expedition and then draw up codes of conduct known as By the standards of their day, these were fairly democratic and egalitarian in nature as they allowed for the removal of the captain if he was deemed to be unfit or unpopular. They also laid out how the treasure and plunder was to be distributed, with each pirate receiving a share according to their rank and profession. The captain would receive the largest share, then followed by the important positions such as the surgeon and the carpenter, then lastly the remainder of the crew would receive their shares. The codes of conduct even set out how the men were to be punished for acts of insubordination. These ranged from having pay withdrawn to being whipped, depending on the severity of the case. In the most serious instances, for desertion or betrayal, the guilty party would be sentenced to execution or marooned on a desert island with a few basic provisions and left to their fate. The bouqueteers were now becoming too great a threat for the Spanish, so in 1654 they invaded the island and after a nine-day siege of the falls, the bouqueteers surrendered and were forced to depart from Tortuga. After a brief period of occupation by a Spanish garrison, the fortifications were then pulled down to ensure that if the pirates returned, they could not use it as a base again in the future. The pirates did eventually return to Tortuga, however by 1660 they were mostly made up of Frenchmen and so decided to take control of the island in the name of France. After appointing a new governor, they then decided to construct another fort called Fort Blondel, close to the ruins of the previous Fort de Rocher. This change in demographics on the island was accelerated by the English capturing Jamaica in 1655 and the gradual preference of English pirates to use Port Royal instead of Tortuga. It should be noted though that the pirates did still mix with one another and use both ports irrespective of nationality. Letters of marque were issued against Spanish targets by both the English and French governors of Jamaica and Tortuga respectively. As Port Royal grew in importance, so did the need to defend it. Fortifications were constructed in 1655 but the governor at the time also extended an invitation to the brethren of the coast to come and use the port as a base for their attacks on the Spanish. Initially, Port Royal's activity was mostly dominated by privateers issued with letters of marque. One such privateer was Christopher Mings whose career is noted for numerous attacks on the settlements of the Spanish main. However, the pinnacle of his achievements would come in 1663 when he would command the largest buccaneer fleet ever yet assembled and lead a raid on San Francisco in Campeche. Also part of this raid was one of the most famous buccaneers of them all, Henry Morgan. His early career was noted for his successful plundering of Spanish shipping and returning with the spoils to Port Royal. This earned him a good reputation and in 1667 he was issued with another letter of marque to attack more Spanish ships. However, under this agreement he was not permitted to attack Spanish settlements. Being well aware of the immense wealth these Spanish settlements possessed, he decided to ignore the details in his letter of marque and instead led a raid on Port Abello in 1668, followed by more attacks on Maracaibo and Gibraltar later in the year and into 1669. Then, in 1671, he conducted the largest raid of his career by attacking Panama, earning him a vast fortune in the process and later a knighthood from King Charles II of England. Other famous pirates of the buccaneering age were John Coxon, Bartholomew Sharp and John Hawkins who, in 1680, launched what would become one of the greatest pirate raids of all time, known as the Pacific Adventure. First, they sailed to the Gulf of Darien, then marched across the Darien Gap and allied themselves with the local Indian tribes to attack a nearby Spanish fort. They then sailed across to Panama, attacking a Spanish fleet at anchor in the harbour and capturing a number of the vessels before ransoming the city. Finally, they then sailed all the way back to the Caribbean via Cape Horn. As a result of these raids, Port Royal became one of the most prosperous settlements in the Caribbean, resulting in a population of around six and a half thousand by 1692. This not only attracted pirates and privateers, but also merchants and artisans, as well as an ever-growing number of prostitutes and tavern keepers keen to make the pirates part with their plentiful treasure. In fact, Port Royal became widely known for its debauchery. A contemporary of the time wrote that, All this was brought to an abrupt end on the 7th of June, 1692, when a devastating earthquake struck Port Royal and destroyed much of the northern half of the town, sinking it beneath the waves. Although efforts to rebuild were made, the town never fully recovered. Even before this, Port Royal had begun to transition away from its predominantly privateer-based economy to that of the slave trade and the plantation crops such as sugarcane. Anti-piracy laws were even introduced to turn the buccaneers away, so much so that Port Royal went from a pirate utopia to becoming the The decline of what was known as buccaneering towards the end of the 17th century had many reasons. Firstly, peace with Spain meant that fewer letters of marque were issued and subsequently, there were fewer legitimate targets to plunder. Secondly, frequent infighting and disagreements amongst the English, French and Dutch pirates eventually caused them to fragment into their respective nationalities. Thirdly, the erratic nature of piracy and the irregular financial rewards that it brought caused some to seek a more stable life. Some returned to Europe, whereas others turned to settling the land of the Caribbean and Central America as planters and loggers. Lastly, the European powers recruited many of these well-experienced seafarers into their respective navies to suppress piracy in the region and promote safe mercantile trade. Eventually, this left only a dwindling number of true out-and-out pirates operating in the The pirate round, as it became known, involved sailing around the Cape of Good Hope and targeting the trade ships of the East India Companies as well as the local Mughal and Arab merchants. Once they had captured their prize, the pirates would then make the return journey back to the ports of the Caribbean and North America to sell their captured treasure. Probably the most famous pirate who undertook this journey was Henry Every who, in 1696, sailed his ship into Nassau Harbour in the Bahamas to try and offload some of the treasure he had recently acquired. The Bahamas at the time were a severely underpopulated English colony and vulnerable to attack from the French and Spanish. In an effort to increase both the manpower and firepower in its defence, the governor at the time allowed Every and his crew to anchor in Nassau, hoping they would deter any passing attackers. In return for this, the governor received a large bribe from Every and would turn a blind eye to the ill-gotten gains, allowing safe harbour for the pirates. Although Every only stayed in Nassau for a short period of time, it did establish the port as a credible base for future pirate operations. The outbreak of the War of the Spanish Succession in 1701 resulted in many of Nassau's settlers fleeing due to the ever-increasing attacks by the French and Spanish. At the same time, however, more and more English privateers began to use Nassau as a base of operations and they soon outnumbered the mere 100 or so settlers that remained on the island. By 1714, the war had come to an end and so had the legitimate targeting of enemy shipping for the English privateers. Now, devoid of any possible income and lacking employment opportunities elsewhere, many stuck to what they already knew of seafaring and simply turned to piracy, continuing to use Nassau as their home port. They then established what would become known as the Pirate Republic, a loose confederation of pirate captains, crews and ships which were governed by codes of conduct not too dissimilar from those of their buccaneer predecessors some 60 years earlier. Pirates and other out-of-work privateers flocked to Nassau from across the Caribbean and American colonies and effectively took control of the island. Their numbers were also swelled by scores of demobilised sailors from European navies as well as merchant mariners looking to escape the terrible pay and brutal conditions onboard trading ships. Similarly, many escaped slaves and black sailors were also drawn to the freedom and egalitarian spirit that the Pirate Republic offered. So much so, that of the estimated 5,000 pirates active in the Caribbean between 1715 and 1725, it is said that almost one in three were of African heritage. The Pirate Republic, with its democratically elected leaders, equitably distributed plunder and lax societal rules, proved immensely attractive to many seafarers of the day who would otherwise have been paid very little for their hard and dangerous work. Perhaps this is best summed up by the words of Pirate Captain Bartholomew Roberts, In an honest service, there is thin commons, low wages and hard labour. In this, plenty and satiety, pleasure and ease, liberty and power. And who would not balance creditor on this side, when all the hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sour look or two at choking? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto. Within the Pirate Republic also emerged a nucleus of the most notorious and derring pirates, known as the Flying Gang. Initially headed by Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings, the gang grew to include other famous pirates of the age such as Charles Vane, Calico Jack, Stead Bonnet, Sam Bellamy, Mary Read, Anne Bonny and probably the most famous of them all, Blackbeard. Being of mostly English extraction, the pirates were at first prone to patriotic favour and remained loyal to their own cause by only targeting French and Spanish ships. However, the increasing amount of British-flagged merchant vessels traversing the shipping lanes of the Caribbean eventually proved too great a temptation for the pirates. Some crews even complained to their captains in frustration that they were passing up too many easy targets. Eventually, trading vessels of all nationalities were considered fair game and the pirates plundered with impunity. This increase in piracy did not go unnoticed amongst the colonial governors of the Caribbean, nor their representative governments back in Europe. The threat to merchant shipping, in particular that of the now lucrative slave trade, was too great to allow piracy to go unchecked. In 1717, King George I of Great Britain issued a proclamation granting clemency to pirates if they turned themselves in and swore never to take up arms again. The King's pardon, as it became known, had a low uptake at first, so the King had it reissued again in 1718 in the hopes of persuading more pirates to abandon their illegal practices. In addition to this, King George also appointed Woodes Rogers as the new Royal Governor of the Bahamas in order to subdue the pirates of Nassau and reinstate official British control over the Upon his arrival in Nassau Harbour in July 1718, Rogers managed to blockade the port, trapping the notorious pirate captain Charles Vane inside it. Unfortunately for Rogers, Vane managed to escape and threatened to return to the port alongside Blackbeard and retake the settlement in the name of the Pirate Republic. The remaining pirates in Nassau were granted the King's pardon by Rogers and he then set about rebuilding the island's fortifications to deter any future attacks not only from the pirates but also from the Spanish vessels whom Britain was now at war with. This proved more difficult than anticipated for Rogers as the local inhabitants of Nassau were so unaccustomed to any form of authority that they simply refused to work for him in the rebuilding of the fortifications. Being unable to deal with both the unruly locals and the threat of attack at the same time, Rogers delegated the responsibility of subduing the pirates by employing pirate hunters. Often these were ex-pirates who had taken the King's pardon and were keen to reap the handsome financial rewards of hunting down their old acquaintances. As was the case with Benjamin Hornigold, one of the original founders of the Pirate Republic, now on the payroll of the Governor. Hornigold attempted to bring in both Charles Vane and Blackbeard but they were able to evade his efforts with only a number of their associates being Gradually though, one by one, the pirates were hunted down, captured and executed. Stead Bonnet was captured and sentenced to hang in Charlestown, South Carolina in 1718. Many were hanged in the once famed pirate utopia of Port Boyle such as Calico Jack in 1720 and even Charles Vane whose luck ran out in 1721. After their execution, the bodies were then hung in chains and gibbeted on small islands as warnings for passing would-be pirates. Some, however, fought on to the bitter end rather than face the gallows like Blackbeard who was killed in combat by a pirate hunter in 1718. Between 1716 and 1726 approximately 500 pirates were executed. This was not the only deterrent to piracy as the same socio-economic factors that had driven so many down and out piracy in the first place conversely pulled others to seek steady pay and legal employment in the expanding Royal Navy. Sharing a similar fate to their Buccaneer forebears, the pirates of the early 18th century were deprived of a safe base of operations with the loss of Nassau and the growing pressure from naval forces significantly diminished their numbers. The lure of Spanish treasure had faded and the hunters gradually became the hunted. By the end of 1721, piracy in the Caribbean had been dramatically suppressed. The legacy of these pirates lives on in our modern day media depictions but this is often marred by our own misconceptions and stereotypes. For example, there is no historical evidence to support the idea that pirates talked in a particular way nor that they made anyone walk the plank. Although they were certainly ruthless and violent in their pursuit of Perhaps then we should best remember the pirates for their behaviour with one another enshrined in their codes of conduct. Being based on a fair and democratic system that allowed all to share in the rewards of plunder regardless of an individual social background. It is this egalitarian spirit which in many ways is not too dissimilar from our own modern day ideals of That should be the legacy of the real Pirates of the Caribbean.