Private Proprietary Pirates - Early Capitalism in America, 1700

A letter from Edward Randolph depicts the arrogance of aristocratic oligarchs known as the Lords Proprietors in England and the negligence they placed upon their private possessions in the American colonies, particularly Carolina, the Bahamas, and New Jersey. This was a prime example of the dangers of private control in the matters of government. Privatization at this level facilitated piracy in the Bahamas as well as multiple abuses across America. Indeed, it began the development of America by the Stuarts of England as a criminal domain, given as gifts to these aristocrats who were charged with the theft of all the possessions of Spain "beyond the lines of amity" or friendship! This attitude remained in America through the reign of the Stuart Dynasty - nearly the entire 17th century - until the ascendancy of the Whigs, or more liberal administrators of England took control after the "Glorious Revolution of 1688." Still, the damage was already done.

These pervasive criminal tendencies involved theft, slavery, murder, extortion, bribery, rampant smuggling so far from authorities, 3,000 miles away in England. It probably infested the nascent United States with the same ubiquitous criminal element and led to the Confederate States of America attempting to maintain this criminal West-Indian society, slavery, and all the abuses that accrued hereto during the Civil War (1861-1865). And, it likely led to many abuses we find in government today under the outlaw Trump Administration. We are indeed, as "Capt. Charles Johnson," the author of A General History of the Pyrates, called us in 1724, a "Commonwealth of Pyrates!"

This is just a small window into the behavior of the men that came to rape Spain's colonial lands - before the development of the "Flying Gang" of Benjamin Hornigold in the Bahamas almost two decades later. Edward Randolph tried to warn the Board of Trade of the dangers still infesting these waters because of these criminal creoles. Many of today's Americans are their descendants.

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March 25, 1700  New Providence [separated for readability]

Edward Randolph to the Council of Trade and Plantations. Begins as March 11.

I am, I thank God, in health but not recovered of the lameness I got in gaol at Bermuda. I landed [at New Providence] the 10th inst.[March 1700] and finding Mr. Read Elding (tho'illegally, yet) actually in the possession of the Government,

... the next day, after some debate [I] had with him [Elding], I administered to him the oath, though several objections were at that time made to the contrary, viz. that he assumed the Government by virtue of an illegal commission clandestinely obtained from [Nicholas] Webb, being also contrary to the Lords Proprietors' instructions which direct the method of appointing another Governor, in case of the death or departure of the present.

Besides, Webb went away on a suddaine to Philadelphia, not having first advised with the Council nor had the consent of any one of them about his appointing Elding his Deputy, which was not known to any of them till Webb was under sail, so that the Government is of right invested in Mr. Richard Peterson, a Lords' Deputy and the first in Council.

But they, finding the inhabitants divided and ready to cast off all Government, chose rather to sit still than hazard the peace of the country, and expect the Lords Proprietors' directions in that matter.

But the chief thing before I gave the oath that I scrupled at [had a problem with] was, that Elding, under pretence of a commission to him from Webb to apprehend pirates, etc., piratically seized a briganteen of Boston, John Edwards, Master.

Webb, Elding, and the others to whom he had given the like commissions, shared the money they found aboard.

Elding does not only brave it out [take advantage of?] upon the Commission Webb gave him to be Lieutenant Governor, but supports himself in the lawfulness of the other commission to take pirates, but sets a very high value upon his services by the accidental seizing Hind the pirate and afterwards executing six of his accomplices.

Hind and four of his men were surprised upon an island 10 or 12 leagues from hence by a Bermuda man [Bermuda vessel]: the three others were taken by chance and executed also, but one of the four, having nothing proved against him, [though he] was discharged and sent by Elding to cut logwood at Campeach, run away, and [Elding] believes his good services against Hind, etc., will expiate for his own piracy upon Edwards.

[Elding] a day or two ago caned Mr. Gower, a Lords' Deputy, most severely, and keeps him in prison, for questioning his power to appoint a Judge to try the pirates, a thing questioned by all the Lords' Deputys.

Their Lordships [Lords Proprietors] at home are very careless and ignorant of their own interest and of the good of the inhabitants. Though many complaints upon just grounds are made to them, praying for relief, yet they take no notice of it, nor of the most arbitrary government of Trott and Webb; neither of the late action done by Elding against Edwards, which they had notice of, but discourse him very indifferently upon that matter.

These inhabitants are daily more unsettled, and will give little credit to what their Lordships [Proprietors] say or promise them they will do for their encouragement, when at the same time they sell and dispose of their privileges for very inconsiderable sums, as Hog Island, lying to the north of Providence, which makes the harbour, 'tis, after several grants and confirmations thereof to the inhabitants, sold to [ex-Gov] Mr. Trott for 50l., to the utter ruin to the inhabitants of this town.

Hog Island in the Bahamas - just across Nassau Town Harbor from Nassau, New Providence Island

Their Lordships [Proprietors] have likewise granted away the royalty of the whale fishing and a great part of the Island of Abbico to one Dudgeon, late Secretary and Marshall of Bermuda a sort of stock jobber, for 30 years, as appears upon record here;

... neither do they regard into whose hands the Government of these Islands comes [lawlessness].

I am well informed that for more than seven years past seldom less than four known pirates have been [on] the Council.

I brought Commissions to persons upon the place to be Officers in the Court of Admiralty, but all of them, except Ellis Lightwood, the intended Judge, are either dead or removed.

I find him [Lightwood] an ill man, and was a busy promoter of oppression in Trott's and Webb's time, as appears by the records of the Courts in which he was Judge. Besides, he is the only security for Bridgeman [Henry Bridgham], alias Every's appearing here when demanded, in one bond of 1,000l., and also for 10 or 12 of his company in a like bond of 1,000l. for each of their appearance.

I have suspended the delivery of the Commission to him for that reason. 'Tis expected that orders will be directed to some persons here to put those bonds in suit, ('twill deter others); the securities have got a great deal of money.

I know no man so fit for that service as Mr. Thomas Walker;

... as to Mr. Warren, the Attorney General, he is security also for some of Every's men.

Packer, one of that gang [Henry Avery/Bridgham's], is married to Elding's sister now in town. His Majesty will have little justice done him by Elding and others of his party, who bear all the sway here.

Webb was directed and proved an apt scholar under Trott's discipline and advice: Elding writes after his [Webb's] copy and expects to be made the Governor, by which appears the deplorable and miserable conditions the poor inflicted inhabitants have lived in from the time of their resettlement, after they were drove off and destroyed in 1680 by the Spaniards, who watch an opportunity to do the like again.

The Lords Proprietors laid out money and sent over a few arms with some ammunition to the value of 3,600l. [it actually came to just over 800l., which was the presumed profit of the Bahamas] sterling towards the defence of the country. After all their charge their fort is not serviceable. Certainly the inhabitants will either desert the place or submit to any foreign Power that will protect them.

The interests and the affairs here between the Lords and the inhabitants are so different and distracted that it will require a long time to bring them to a right understanding. From the consideration whereof I humbly propose that His Majesty will please to require Read Elding to answer in England for his piracy against Edwards, and, further, that in the meantime till there be a complete settlement in this and all other the Proprieties, that His Majesty be pleased to direct his Commission to Thomas Walker, Esq., an ingenuous man, one of the Lords' Deputies, to be the President, and to Richard Peterson [father-in-law of Adm. Judge Edmond Porter of North Carolina], a Deputy, Isaac Rush, Richard Tollefero, Thomas Williams, Martin Cook, Samuel Frith, Perient Trott, Jeremiah Wells, and John Bethel, to be the Council and to take upon them the administration of the Government of these Islands, (being all of them settled inhabitants,) during His Majesty's pleasure.

Probably the Draft Commissioned below... in the Library of Congress maps

I have the promise of an exact draft of these Islands and of the fort and harbour of of this town, but being presently bound to Carolina in my return to Bermuda, I have recommended the care thereof to Mr. Walker, who will make it his business to see them exactly drawn and transmit them with a complete narrative thereof to your Lordships. Signed, Ed. Randolph, S.G. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, Read July 25, 1700. Holograph. 2½ pp. Enclosed,

    250. i. Abstract of above. 1¼ pp.
    250. ii. Copy of Read Elding's Commission from Gov. Webb to be Deputy Governor of New Providence, etc. April 13, 1699. Endorsed., Recd. July 20, 1700. 1 p.
    250. iii. Copy of a clause in the Lords Proprietors' Commission to their Governor about appointing Deputy Governors, Jan. 12, 1692. ½ p. Same endorsement.
    250. iv. Copy of Gov. Webb's Commission to Read Elding to take pirates, July 13, 1698. 1 p. Same endorsement.
    250. v. Copies of depositions by John Edwards, Master; Ebenezer Dennesse, Mate; and John Stiles, Boatswain; William Gray and John Ashcroft, Mariners, of the Bohemia Merchant, which was chased and piratically seized by Read Elding off Cape Florida, August 2, 1698; and of Daniel Kenney, of the Sweepstakes. 3 pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vi. Copy of letter from Lords Proprietors of the Bahama Islands to Gov. Webb and Council, May 27, 1699. 1¾ pp. Same endorsement.
    250. vii. Copy of an Order of the Grand Council, Nassau, July 8, 1690, making Hogg Island a free Common. On back, Copy of disallowance of the same by the Lords Proprietors. Sept. 21, 1699. Same endorsement. [Board of Trade. Proprieties, 5. Nos. 31, 31.i.–vii.; and (without enclosures), 26. pp. 248–256.]

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Just published 2nd Electronic Edition of Quest for Blackbeard!

Some of the poorer sort went aboard pirate ships and sloops as crew, certainly, but they usually were not as well educated as those who navigated them. The tale of these early pirate leaders’ gentlemanly demeanor, formerly wealthy privateers, has been confined, narrowed, and almost eradicated by literary rhetoric. Worse still, modern historians attempt to explain them all as an early form of democratic society, confusing some of these gentlemen with the common people and further skewing their reality. The people we call “pirates” today most resemble those found in the Bahamas after 1715, driven out by 1718, scattered refugees of a barren island and rude maritime subsistence, but the real pirate leaders of the Golden Age were wealthy – the 97% were blamed for the crimes of the 3%! This injustice is where we must begin the true Quest for Blackbeard!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/baylus-c-brooks/quest-for-blackbeard-the-true-story-of-edward-thache-and-his-world/ebook/product-24414312.html
 

Author website:
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Capture of Le Victorieux or Victory by pirate Jeremiah Cocklyn!

From the French deposition of the captain of the ship that was chased, captured, and taken by pirates Jeremiah Cocklyn, Olivier LeVassuer, and Richard Taylor off the west coast of Africa before they rounded the Cape of Good Hope for Madagascar!

ACCIM f°169-177(f° 169) Juillet 1720, Prise et abandonnement du vaisseau le Victorieux, capitaine Hais de Nantes. N°22

This is the first half of a long and detailed deposition given by the captain of Le Victorieux, or Victory, used by pirates to take the East Indian Merchant vessel Cassandra just north of Madagascar in 1720. This unfortunate ship was earlier confused by Nathaniel Mist, writing as "Capt. Charles Johnson," with the Petersborough of Bristol. This record has been edited by the author for readability.

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Of the fifth of July, seven thousand and twenty (5/7/1720), the Sir Interested on the body, faction, armament and victualling of the vessel Le Victorieux commanded by the Captain Guillaume Hais of Nantes, who declared that the said ship would have left the the bottom of the river of the said city [Nantes] on 30 December one thousand seven hundred eighteen (30/12/1718) for the coast of Guinea to make the trade of the blacks [slaves], that two days after said departure, he suffered an impetuous and contrary wind to his navigation, which demasted his little mast and his parrot, and after repairs, he made his way and sailed until the twenty-fourth of February, seventeen hundred and nineteen (24/2/1719) that they moored at Mesura [Cape Mesurade], on the Coste de Guinea to make wood and water and rice which they thought they needed. They stayed six days without finding in this place the rice and the water which they needed, from whence they traveled to Jonck to find rice there - they found none; And thence made their way for the same needs to Petit Sestre (Little Seashore), where they anchored and sent their canoe ashore to make proposals for the ordinary trade with the King.

That the negroes of this place came aboard the boat to get what they wanted, that the officer who was on board the boat told [to them] that they came there to trade for rice, that on this answer the said negroes asked a crewman to go with them to make the request to the King, and as is the custom, the officer gave them a man named Pierre Meunier of La Rochelle, but hardly was this sailor ashore, the negro seized him and fired the weapons with which they were armed at the boat and wounded in the thigh a sailor named Jean Moisson de Quiberon, forcing the officer of the said boat to return to the ship to advise his captain, who in the plan of re-acquainting his sailor, took the party of to conceal the insult [to save face?], and sent his canoe and his armed boat, to shoot [at] the negroes. He commanded the crew to keep safe, and fire only for the purpose to impose respect, but the negroes fired on the boat, and as soon as the crew saw them within range of their arms, the crew of the said boats and canoes retired on board, because their number was too few to make shore, the negroes being too numerous, and the landing too difficult because of the "big land."

They set sail and anchored at Grand Sestre seven leagues away where they spent three days making water and rice. The negroes of this place told them that what they had experienced happened because the fact that the English went there every day under the French flag, to make incursions on their coast and take them off under the pretext of trade. Capt. Hais assured them that they would not be harmed by his sailor [Pierre Meunier], that they would withdraw him from their neighbors [at Petit Sestre] to return him to the first French ship [which should arrive], for which the said captain offered them at present some goods in the hope of having his sailor back. But having no appearance of having it, he left only a note for the King of the said Sestre, begging all the French ships to withdraw the said sailor with a promise to repay what had been paid for him. From there [Hais] traveled [sailed] to Judah, the place of their destination, where they arrived on the twenty-second of March following (22/3/1719).

That on the twenty-third of the said month, the said captain went ashore to establish his trade in the ordinary, which they were tranquil in the said ship until the twenty-second of June (22/6/1719), at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, when three rogue ships [LeVasseur in Duke of Ormond and Cocklyn in Speedwell/Windham/Bird (former vessel of William Snelgrave) and Richard Taylor in Comrade] entered the said port under the English flag, and distinguished themselves only when they were near the said vessel Le Victorieux, where the Sieur Edouard Hais [first mate] commanded on board, having recognized them, their being seen firing cannons and flying the black flag, cut two cables on the bitts and set sail, that [First mate Hais] had barely thirty men on board, of which half were sick, and that while fleeing he saw five ships, three of which were Portuguese, one English [Heroine, former master Richard Blincko] and one French from La Rochelle, and that he had only been followed for half an hour by two of the said pirates, and having borne his planks far off, he stood far off and anchored the fifth day after his escape.

[First mate Edourd Hais] had gone twenty-eight leagues west of Judah, whence he wrote to his brother captain [Guillaume Hais] of the said ship, who had been left in Judah [Whydah], to inform him where he was; and that he received a reply from the captain on the tenth of July (10/7/1719) ordering him to return to Judah [since the pirates had moved off], where he went to anchor on the eleventh of that month. For thirty days they could not make shore, the bar being impassable, which caused them considerable trouble and caused sickness to the people who had remained ashore. Of the boat [of Le Victorieux?] which the rogues seized upon, the boat wherein seventy iron bars were and several casks full of water, which said boat was delivered by a sailor named Jacques Carré [James Cary] Irishman who took sides with the said pirates; and that the said pirates were forty, thirty-two, and eight cannon.

And that on the twenty-eighth of the month of July there appeared two ships [LeVasseur in Duke of Ormond and Cocklyn in Speedwell/Windham/Bird], which were still believed to be pirates, information they had learned from the crews that had been ransomed by the above-mentioned pirates, that [the two pirates] went to fetch the said ship Le Victorieux, and when they did not find her, they came back to take [Le Victorieux] in the harbor, which obliged [Capt. Guillaume Hais] to cut a third new cable, and to sail. He fought the sea for five days, at the end of which he returned with the said ship, after having learned by a Portuguese boat that there was nothing to fear for him to enter. [But, the captain lamented] the pitiful condition of his ship and crew, which was fatigued by work, of the little food and heavy weather which they had suffered, and which he believed not that he was in a position to maneuver the said vessel, his people are wracked by fever and scurvy. That on the frequent notices and representations of all the officers, majors, and marines, the said captain determined in concert with the said officers to pass to the island of Sao Tomé, with the captives of two Portuguese ships taken by the pirates and return on the coast of this Harbor of Judah, more in relation to the absolute need of the crew of the two Portuguese ships than of the cargo of their slaves, and also by the hope that the sailors of his boat, which he had long time on land and those of his tent and his store, all of whom were sick, would recover by the air of the sea, and that the others who were on board, attacked by fever and scurvy, could be restored to the place of Saint Thomé by the refreshments that the captains of the said Portuguese were obliged to provide them on land and on board in the hopes the said crews would be restored, to follow the course of their journey, and that they left Judah 15 Sep one thousand seven hundred and nineteen (15/9/1719) with three hundred and sixty negroes, having lost ninety of the number of four hundred and fifty that said Captain Hays had treated before the arrival and departure of the pirates, they did their best to reach Saint Thomé, but the winds having always been contrary, as well as the tides, they were obliged to anchor at Prince's [Isle de Principe] Island.

From the eleventh of September (11/9/1719) they stayed there until the fourth of October. And that during their stay at Isle de Principe, two of these sailors, who had needed to see the [fresh water] ponds to resupply the ship, and who had come down to work in the road [prob. stream], were suddenly smothered by the steam of the waters which were infected. The one named Charles Mandier, and the other Roger, and that six of their comrades remained unconscious and without knowledge, and would have perished if they had not been rescued in the moment, which the said captain and all his officers and the pitiful state where they were, the sick captain, the great number of the dead crew, almost the whole scorbutic or attacked with fevers, and convinced of the sad experience they had just made, that the plague was in their brink; being without cables and anchors, only one left to them. Finally, seeing themselves out of state, they could not continue their voyage without food which the Portuguese masters of the place offered to give them, provided that the said captain would sell them his ship with his captives [slaves] to carry to Brazil, offering in this case to provide him with a crew to make up for the weakness of his own who were not in a state to sail his ship. [Hais] was obliged to accept in the opinion of all his officers majors and mariners because he had to pay in Brazil fifty pounds of gold for the value of the ship, and one hundred and fifty pounds of gold for the value of the slaves. Said Captain Hais running the risks of the ship and the Portuguese of the mortality of the blacks until they made the locality of Brazil, all was contracted in the presence of said officers majors and mariners who signed them. And left this place of the Isle de Principe last October 4 (4/10/1719).

That the ninth of that month [October], thirty leagues windward of said Isle de Principe in the company of a Portuguese ship which had followed them from Judah, They were chased by a pirate ship [Cocklyn in Speedwell/Windham/Bird/Defiance? These pirates seemed to change names often, though Defiance may have been a newer ship], but the night came and they lost sight of it as well as the said Portuguese [consort] vessel, and continued their journey till the following day, four o'clock in the afternoon, that the look-out warned that another ship was taking the opposite course. They thought at first that it was the Portuguese, but seeing him back in their waters they feared he was a pirate. And indeed, at seven o'clock in the evening he approached them, fired a cannon and hoisted the black flag on the mainmast, with command to hove to. they recognized that he was a pirate of thirty-four guns, with two hundred men Captain Carrot [Cocklyn], not being able to resist and fearing the misfortunes that follow a useless resistance with the pirates, Capt. Hais hove to and the pirates seized this ship Le Victorieux, and having sent their boat, twenty five armed men, came on board, together. Said Captain Hais and the first mate his brother [Edourd], were detained on board with five others of their crew, and that two days later the barbarians made them understand that they were leading them to Anabon to give the ship Le Victorieux to another pirate named Labuse [LeVasseur].

On the way to the said Anabon they met an English ship [Petersborough, Capt. William Owen?] from Bristol loaded with two hundred blacks, which to the said pirates they surrendered. And they [carried aboard the Bristol ship] all the Portuguese who were in Le Victorieux, and all the English crew in number of sixteen. [Leaving with] the said pirates, two of the sailors of the said ship Le Victorieux named Jean Detern and (?), and Etienne Bond with a servant named Provost.

[The pirates] having missed Anabon, they made the road to Angola, or in the hunt they gave to English ships, their bowsprit broke, which made them look for a convenient port for the purpose of replacing their bowsprit with that of Le Victorieux [this did not happen]. They could only make Cape Lopez, where the same pirate Labuze was found, who was there to change his ship with the Indian Queen of London, Captain [Thomas] Hill, whom they had taken on the coast of Angola, on which place the said pirates had several disputes, some to give Captain Hais one of their ships in exchange for the ship Le Victorieux, the others to degrade said Hais and his crew. At this place the strongest voice prevailed, which was to give a ship to Captain Hais. During the debates they sent ashore four to five hundred Negroes, those whom they had taken on the said vessels, which were at once picked up and removed by the negroes of the country, and gave to Captain Hill one hundred and forty, a cargo of negroes, negresses, and negroes, with the captain's [Hill's] ship [Indian Queen] which Labuze had exchanged for his own, and to give to Capt. Hais the pirate ship Heroine [taken from Capt. Richard Blinko 22 June 1719 ay Whydah], because all the masts were worth nothing. After beating all the guns and stripping it of all that is useful for navigation, with ninety blacks who were still aboard Le Victorieux from his trade.

That during the overthrow of the buccaneers from one ship to another, Joseph Pascal, sailor of Le Victorieux, voluntarily partook with the said pirates.

That the pirates having left for their voyage [to Madagascar], said Hais made his best with the little rope they had left him, he did spice (sic) [splice?] to firm the masts.

That they were on land making water and finding there some exhausted and moribund negroes, whom the negroes of the country had abandoned; remains of those whom the pirates had left ashore.




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Just published 2nd Electronic Edition of Quest for Blackbeard!

Some of the poorer sort went aboard pirate ships and sloops as crew, certainly, but they usually were not as well educated as those who navigated them. The tale of these early pirate leaders’ gentlemanly demeanor, formerly wealthy privateers, has been confined, narrowed, and almost eradicated by literary rhetoric. Worse still, modern historians attempt to explain them all as an early form of democratic society, confusing some of these gentlemen with the common people and further skewing their reality. The people we call “pirates” today most resemble those found in the Bahamas after 1715, driven out by 1718, scattered refugees of a barren island and rude maritime subsistence, but the real pirate leaders of the Golden Age were wealthy – the 97% were blamed for the crimes of the 3%! This injustice is where we must begin the true Quest for Blackbeard!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/baylus-c-brooks/quest-for-blackbeard-the-true-story-of-edward-thache-and-his-world/ebook/product-24414312.html
 

Author website:
baylusbrooks.com

Bonnet's Revenge.. Maybe?

From Naval Office Shipping Lists for Barbados, 1678-1819 pt1, CO 33-13--17 - Barbados, 1678-1733

This record for Godfrey Malbone in Revenge leaving Barbados "without clearing" has been used to explain Stede Bonnet's departure from Barbados as a pirate.. still, was William Barrow in the Defiance of Barbados (also appearing on the same page) also a pirate? 

Couldn't Bonnet have departed the island from a private dock and not even left a port record? Indeed, Bonnet's name never appeared in these records. At first, the vessel name Revenge leaving Barbados at this time also seemed like a good point to me.. before I took a closer look at the shipping records and doubts set in.

I should note here that context needs to be applied, for being listed as “Gone Without Clearing” was unusual, but by no means unknown. Several were listed the same way in a space of just two years.. Malbone's vessel was named "Revenge," which was also not unusual.

Edward Codington, master of Virgin’s Venture of Rhode Island also left Barbados in Oct 1716 without clearing. Note also that Codington was back in these records, trading at Barbados the next year.

Swift and Nightengale, both of Barbados, masters William Hamilton and George Pritchard, respectively, also left without clearing that same spring of 1717.

Thomas Stewart in Jonathan & Elizabeth left Barbados “without clearing” on 7 Jan 1717.

Little Mary of Barbados, master Pat Doogood, may also have “done badly” and left without clearing the following June.

It should be noted that Stede Bonnet himself does not appear in these records and presuming that he did not leave the island in his Revenge (previously assumed to have been built by Bonnet himself) from a private dock, his vessel should have been noted in CO 33-13—17.

Still, the timing of this Revenge’s illicit departure is good for the time Stede Bonnet would have left the island. Further still, Malbone and his sloop’s appearance in this record - relying simply upon the name Revenge – is by no means the strongest of evidence for Stede Bonnet’s sloop having absconded from Barbados in this fashion.

Still, this excerpt from the Boston News-Letter of 28 October 1717 makes it highly suspicious that this vessel Revenge, of Newport, Rhode Island had indeed been taken by Stede Bonnet:

 

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Just published 2nd Electronic Edition of Quest for Blackbeard!

Some of the poorer sort went aboard pirate ships and sloops as crew, certainly, but they usually were not as well educated as those who navigated them. The tale of these early pirate leaders’ gentlemanly demeanor, formerly wealthy privateers, has been confined, narrowed, and almost eradicated by literary rhetoric. Worse still, modern historians attempt to explain them all as an early form of democratic society, confusing some of these gentlemen with the common people and further skewing their reality. The people we call “pirates” today most resemble those found in the Bahamas after 1715, driven out by 1718, scattered refugees of a barren island and rude maritime subsistence, but the real pirate leaders of the Golden Age were wealthy – the 97% were blamed for the crimes of the 3%! This injustice is where we must begin the true Quest for Blackbeard!

http://www.lulu.com/shop/baylus-c-brooks/quest-for-blackbeard-the-true-story-of-edward-thache-and-his-world/ebook/product-24414312.html
 

Author website:
baylusbrooks.com