Piracy was widespread in the Atlantic World during the period commonly known as the Golden Age of Piracy (c. 1650–1730). This period featured some of the most prominent pirates, including Henry Morgan, Blackbeard, and Bartholomew Roberts.
The Golden Age of Piracy was marked by the European colonization of the Americas and the rise of transatlantic trade and migration. For the first time, large numbers of people and goods crossed the Atlantic Ocean, alongside the circulation of ideas, reshaping existing political and economic patterns and allowing the emergence of an integrated system that linked Europe, West Africa, and the Americas through commerce, slavery, religion, and cultural exchange.
European powers such as Spain, Portugal and Britain attained economic dominance largely as a consequence of their control over Atlantic trade routes. Due to intense competition between these powers, piracy, privateering, and buccaneering became commonplace, and ultimately proved difficult to regulate through legal means.
These pirates operated in the waters of the Caribbean, West Africa, and North America, thus disrupting colonial trade networks and becoming enduring figures in contemporary accounts and modern popular culture.
Background
Piracy targeting trade routes of European colonial powers was a highly profitable venture. Pirates would attack and capture merchant vessels from any nation, disrupting their trade routes and forcing merchants and shipowners to take extra measures to safeguard their cargo.Marcus Rediker, Villains of all nations: Atlantic pirates in the golden age (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004).
Pirates also disrupted the Middle Passage trade routes, considered crucial to the development of modern capitalism. Pirates had a strong influence across many communities, due to their criminal activities leading to the circulation of people, ideas, and commodities.J.H. Elliot, "Atlantic History: A Circumnavigation," in The British Atlantic World, 1500–1800, eds. Armitage, David and Michael J. Braddick (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
Pirates, Buccaneers, & Privateers
Modern cultural understanding tends to conflate pirates, privateers, and buccaneers, but they are in fact three distinct categories, often distinguished in legal and historical scholarship. Although all three terms include looting and private naval military operations, the actions of privateers and buccaneers were not usually considered illegal.
Privateers were licensed by governments through "Letters of Marque" to raid enemy vessels. They were required to declare any 'prizes' before an Admiralty Prize Court, which enforced import taxes and an ad valorem tax based on the assessed value of any seized goods. This court could order privateers to pay compensation for any goods taken outside of the remit of their license.
Pirates, by contrast, were independent of any official political sanction. In the eyes of their victims, piracy was considered "massively" criminal.Rediker, Marcus. "Under the Banner of King Death": The Social World of Anglo-American Pirates, 1716 to 1726, The William and Mary Quarterly, Third Series, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Apr., 1981). Anti-piracy laws were routinely very strict and carried severe punishment.Hughson, S. C. The Death-Struggles of Colonial Piracy. The Sewanee Review, Vol. 1, No. 2 (Feb., 1893).
Buccaneers were in the middle, sometimes acting as legitimate agents of the state and sometimes as outright pirates. They avoided censure by choosing targets that were considered enemies by their home countries.
Originally of French origin, buccaneers were known for targeting the Caribbean islands, Central America, Venezuela, and Colombia from the 1630s to the 1690s. Writer and documentarian Alexander Exquemelin wrote about the raids after enlisting as a buccaneer, publishing a book that is considered a first-hand account of the experience.
There were many buccaneers, but the well-known Henry Morgan was responsible for raiding Cuba, Panama, and Venezuela in 1670. Morgan led what is considered the largest fleet of pirates or privateers ever assembled in the Caribbean, consisting of thirty-six ships and 1,846 crew members.Hanselmann, Frederick H, Tomas Mendizabal, and Juan G Martin "Plundering the Spanish Main: Henry Morgan's Raid on Panama". In Pieces of Eight: More Archaeology of Piracy, edited by Charles R. Ewen and Russell K. Skowronek. Gainesville, Florida: University Press of Florida, 2016.
The Golden Age of Piracy
This period saw the rise and fall of many pirates who are remembered in popular culture today, including Blackbeard, Samuel Bellamy, and Bartholomew Roberts.
Although scholars agree on a boom in raiding and pillaging in the early eighteenth century, there is disagreement on how long it lasted. Some scholars suggest it started as early as 1650, but most agree it ended by 1726.
Historians typically recognize three sub-periods of the Golden Age of Piracy: the 'Buccaneering Period' from 1650–1680, the 'Pirate Round Period' from approximately 1690–1700, and the 'Period after the War of the Spanish Succession' from 1715–1726.
The signing of the Treaty of Utrecht ended the War of Spanish Succession and also ended authorized privateering. With many former privateers now unemployed and well-equipped for maritime combat, piracy became an appealing choice.
Pre-Golden Age of Piracy European-based piracy of the modern era began in the "Atlantic Triangle". This was a common area of oceangoing trade, between Seville and Cadiz, the Azores Islands, and the northwest coast of Africa (encompassing Madeira and the Canary Islands) and was haunted by both European and Berber Coast pirates throughout the sixteenth century. As consistent trade increased between Spain and Portugal, and the East and West Indies respectively, so did piracy. Activities regarded by Spain and Portugal as piracy were often tacitly sponsored, even if only marginally, by monarchs such as Queen Elizabeth I and King Edward VI. A well-known privateer in this era was Francis Drake. Drake raided Spanish settlements and shipping on the South Sea shores of present-day Peru, Chile, Brazil, and Venezuela and along the coasts of Central America. This era was notable for the beginning of regular long-term visits by pirates and privateers to the West Coast of the Americas and further to the East Indies, often after they would stop in West Africa to attack slave ships or towns.
During the Anglo-Spanish War (1585–1604), Elizabeth I promoted privateering voyages against the Spanish to weaken Spain and increase English wealth. After the war, many unemployed privateers turned to piracy, leading to a boom in piracy from 1604–1640.
Dutch merchants were active in the Caribbean, mining salt and dyewoods on the coast of Brazil. This activity led to dozens of raids along the West Coast of the Americas and to the formation of the Dutch West India Company, which had semi-legal standing as privateers. This large continuous harassment angered Spain and scared Spanish colonists. By the turn of the seventeenth century, the Dutch had formed colonies in the East Indies, and soon they were troubled with piracy; Buccaneers followed shortly after. These bandits mostly raided land settlements and were described as "embittered Dutch sailors," "abandoned French colonists," and "abused English, Scots, and Irish indentures."Kris Lane, Pillaging the Empire: Piracy in the Americas, 1500–1750, (Armonk: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 1998).
Geographic area During the “Golden Age of Piracy” of the late seventeenth century to early eighteenth century, pirates operated on a global scale.
Caribbean
North Atlantic Most of the pirates known during this period were from Europe. Much of the known pirate activity that took place in the Northern Atlantic was along the Eastern Seaboard of what would become Canada and the mainland U.S., from Newfoundland to the Florida Keys. Newfoundland fisheries were known as recruiting areas for pirates in the early eighteenth century. Bartholomew Roberts was involved in an encounter off the coast of Newfoundland as well. There, he captured Samuel Cary, who gave an in-depth account of the event to a Boston newspaper. New York was a popular place for pirates to unload their goods.Bradley Nutting, "The Madagascar Connection: Parliament and Piracy, 1690–1701". The American Journal of Legal History, Vol. 22, No. 3 (July 1978). During the first quarter of the 1700s, one of the best-known events is Blackbeard's blockade of Charleston's port often acknowledged as the pirate wars of South Carolina.
Africa Africa was intimately tied to the economy of the Caribbean through the Atlantic slave trade, which was frequently targeted by pirates. On numerous occasions, mutinous slave ship crews became pirates. In addition, Bartholomew Roberts wreaked havoc for traders of all goods on the west coast of Africa.
As capitalism developed as an economic system in early modern Europe, overseas colonies became increasingly important in the Atlantic "triangular trade" system.Joyce Appleby, The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism, (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010). Labor-intensive colonial plantations required a stable, long-term labor force. Indentured servants were not ideal as they had legal rights and could eventually become a competing force. Slave labor had many advantages over the labor of indentured servants, which led to the growth of the European slave trade.John Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400–1800, (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
Pirates were frequently a thorn in the side of European merchant companies in Africa, such as the Royal African Company (RAC). They disrupted the flow of labor and capital by attacking, capturing, and sometimes destroying slave ships. Pirate captains often absorbed captured slaves into their crews, and Black people, both African and African American, made up a substantial part of the pirate vanguard.Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Boston: Beacon Press, 2000). The pirate's disruption of the transatlantic slave trade declined after the end of the Golden Age of Piracy, which led to an increase in the trade by the mid-18th century.
The Atlantic slave trade/Middle Passage was just as much a part of life in the Atlantic as the trade of goods. Many European powers became involved in the transatlantic slave trade by at least the eighteenth century. Countries such as Portugal, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, and Britain had outposts on the African coast. European slave traders would conduct business with larger African tribes, selling them weapons. In turn, these tribes would use the arms to raid and capture members of smaller tribes, whom they would then sell to the European slave captains.Marcus Rediker, The Slave Ship: A Human History (New York: Penguin Group, 2007). Once in the hands of an enslaver, the slave represented a substantial investment, as suggested by the insurance of purchased slaves. Some European cities, such as Liverpool, would become prosperous through this trade and would drive the slave market to handle as much business as possible.Ian Baucom, Specters of the Atlantic (Duke University Press, 2005).
There existed what historian Marcus Rediker called "fort trade" and "ship trade." Slaves were kidnapped and brought to forts where they would be held by the local authorities until bought and shipped out. Ship trade refers to captains making stops along the African coast at points where there was not a European presence to gather up the slaves themselves. At these stops, they would also stock up on the necessary provisions for the Middle Passage.