The Republic of Pirates
by Colin Woodard (2007)
The Golden Age of Piracy occurred in the early 1700s when shipping lanes in the Atlantic were riddled with thieves in whatever ships they had already captured. The maritime commerce between Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, and North and Central America was a hunting ground where only the largest ships, the Man of War, or other heavily armed ships, were safe from the pirates’ wrath. Something certainly needed to be done to stop their lawlessness.
Colin Woodard’s The Republic of Pirates takes the reader on the voyage along with the pirate crews. The author focuses his attention on the rise and ultimate demise of three ringleaders of pirates; Sam Bellamy, Edward Thatch, and Charles Vane. Other pirate captains play heavily into the plot, but the book stays with those three throughout. This is an exciting book, fast paced, full of action on the high seas.
The Bahamas became the home for most of the pirates on the run and serves as the setting for the majority of this book, but Virginia plays a prominent role in the legacy of the Golden Age of Piracy. A British colony at the time, Virginia’s merchants and farmers were among the many victims of piracy. Neighboring North Carolina and their corrupt colonial governor were in the pocket of some pirates. Virginia’s colonial Governor Alexander Spotswood, also corrupt, grew tired of losing ships to pirates. He had heard that Edward Thatch, by now in our story known exclusively as the notorious Blackbeard, was living in Bath, North Carolina, under the protection of the local authorities. This would not last long.
Without the proper legal backing, Spotswood put together a team to hunt and kill Blackbeard. The author writes, “Governor Spotswood planned his attack on Blackbeard under a cloak of secrecy. He informed neither Virginia’s governing council, nor its legislature, and he certainly had no intention of airing the matter with [North Carolina] Governor Eden. The pirates, he later explained, were simply too popular.” Ok, but the plan constituted evading another British colony to capture a man in good standing with that colony’s authorities. The mission was illegal.
But the corrupt officials of North Carolina had little to stand on and once the team assembled by Spotswood reached the islands of the Outer Banks there was no stopping them from pursuing their targets. In a scene that could’ve been stolen from Hollywood, Blackbeard fought the Virginians to the death. The author writes, “[two naval officers] presented Blackbeard’s head to Governor Spotswood, who had it suspended from a tall pole on the west side of Hampton River at a place now known as Blackbeard’s Point, as a ghoulish admonition to would-be pirates.” That’s a very definitive ending.
Another famous figure in Virginia history who plays, at least to this reviewer, a surprise role is Sir William Fairfax, who served as chief justice during the trial and execution of a number pirates in the Bahamas.
This book is exciting. Our only criticism is the author gave too much love and respect to the pirates. The differences between service on a ship of the British Navy and one ran by pirates had stark contrasts. The decisions made by pirates’ ships were voted on by the crew, making their ships more democratic while the official naval vessels were authoritarian. Also, a lot of the pirates began their buccaneering careers as privateers, with official authority to wreak havoc on the high seas, often against ships flying the colors of other nations. That’s fine, but those letters had expiration dates and starting out legal but knowingly ending up steep in illegal actions is hardly a defense. Those pirates were unquestionably thieves; that’s indisputable and the author makes that clear. But they were also murderers and rapists, which the author seems to gloss over. Take this as an example, at one point the author describes the pirates taking over a town in the Bahamas and among the list of crimes committed is “womanizing.” I’ve never seen womanizing as a euphuism for rape. Overall, the author is too lenient, too impressed with the wild and free life style of these criminals.
In the end, despite blanket pardons from the British King, nearly all the major pirates got what they deserved. Of the three major ones the book follows, again Blackbeard was decapitated, Sam Bellamy died in a shipwreck, and Charles Vane was hung. Their second in commands met similar fates. The lesson is easy to understand.