All my writing is musing and open discussion as I learn and navigate my experience, and is not making any normative claims - see my approach to writing for more on how I intend to share!

Pirates: Lessons in Violence and Legacy

I recently played the video game Uncharted 4. The plot was built around the idea of lost pirate treasure (avoiding any detailed spoilers in case you want to play), and was a fictional story based on the activities of very real pirates from history. Whilst playing the game, it dawned on me that I had no actual understanding of real world pirates - beyond Pirates of the Caribbean movies and the vague idea of someone called Blackbeard, the only thing I could tell you about pirates was that they said things like ‘argh’ and ‘matey’ a lot, and had parrots on their shoulders - which I immediately suspected were probably not that true.

A short exploration of Wikipedia led me to excitedly purchase and read Colin Woodard’s The Republic of Pirates, an extremely accessible history book on the Golden Age of Piracy, in and around the Caribbean at the turn of the 18th century. It really captured my imagination and got me thinking about lessons and themes from piracy we can learn from and apply today.

It’s worth saying that everything here is based solely on the book and a few articles so needs to be taken with a pinch of salt - I haven’t done any rigorous research, rather read things and followed the train of thought. This is also based purely on the Caribbean pirates, primarily of European heritage, and doesn’t explore pirates from the Middle East, Eastern Asia or elsewhere - please point me to any good resources you have on these if you have any!

There are gentle spoilers for the book below - fair warning.

And a slight side-note - I loved reading this historical-non-fiction-written-like-a-novel book. Any similarly styled recommendations are very welcome!

Some surprising lessons

The first thing that drew me towards learning more about pirates came through Wikipedia, and was covered in the book in more detail. Far from being completely chaotic, aimless outlaws, pirates often had strong political reasons for turning to piracy, and had well established structures in place within their crews. 

Pirate context

Around the beginning of the 18th Century, there was a high demand in Europe for sailors to join their respective national navies, in large part due to the various wars they were all fighting against each other. There was also a large supply of possible sailors - especially in the UK, with many poorer people trying to escape oppression under feudalism and desperately seeking work. 

This set the scene for horrible and exploitative conditions for sailors. In the British Navy, daily life for sailors would include regular beatings and eating rotten foods. It was common practice for sailors to go unpaid, promised payment on return to shore, and before they could claim payment being whisked onto another ship (sometimes immediately upon disembarking) and put to work again - effectively a form of slavery.

Pirate practices

The life of a pirate was very different. Inspired by the Robin Hood figure Henry Avery, many pirate ships’ practices were progressive even by today’s standards. 

This included a pretty much even share of plunder between captain and crewmates (compared to a 14-to-one captain-to-crewmate share on merchant vessels). On one ship it was common practice to leave any plunder open and unguarded, with crewmates checking with the Quartermaster (in charge of ship logistics) before taking any - a system run completely on mutual trust. Across ships disability benefits were available for crew members, compensating them for injury, and sometimes their family for death.

Many pirate ships also practised direct democracy - meaning everyone, including the captain, had one vote, and majority won for decisions. This was paired with curtailing the captain’s authority - in most cases the captain would only have absolute authority in times of emergency and battle. Otherwise, everything was decided by direct democracy - including who should be captain. One famous captain was even voted out and marooned by his crew when he made a decision they didn’t like!

These practices came from political motivations to be free from states and organisations that exploited people, built wealth off their labour and sent them to war on their behalf. It was a collective pirate dream to set up a pirate republic, a self-sufficient land free from state authority where people could live as they pleased. They could fund this republic through capturing and plundering vessels from the states they sought to leave behind. These motivations can be summed up by the supposed quote from famous pirate Sam Bellamy, as covered by Colin:

…they [the establishment] rob the poor under the cover of law…and we plunder the rich under the cover of our own courage.

No wonder then that many pirate crews were made up of disenfranchised sailors looking for an alternative way of life - and additionally no wonder that at the time, pirates had folk hero status, considered people who stood up for the poor against the ruling authorities.

Pirate behaviour

Pirates were also often a lot less violent than they are remembered. For instance, it shocked me to learn that there are no records of Blackbeard ever killing anyone. In fact, Blackbeard and other pirate crews were often recorded as treating crews of ships they were plundering without violence, and regularly returning cargoes and ships not serving their purposes, allowing merchants to continue their journeys unharmed.

This isn’t to say they were necessarily good. Pirates were capable of still being violent, and regularly took part in the slave trade (although notably some prioritised freeing slaves when they plundered slave ships). It was clear, however, that the reality of piracy was much more nuanced than the understanding I had inherited through superficial cultural exposure.

This nuance got me thinking about two main themes, and associated lessons, in relation to pirates. One being violence, and its politicisation. The other being legacy, and the importance of expression and sharing stories.

Violence

Violent stories

One thing I pretty much took for granted was pirates as relentlessly, mercilessly violent people. What I got from the book is a different picture - of pirates who could be violent, but often weren’t. Indeed it seems that Blackbeard and Bellamy relied on fear above direct violence in their work - if you could be scary enough to get people to surrender, there was no need for violence.

This was not true for all pirates. Charles Vane, for instance, was notably brutal, and his crew would display cruelty and aggression to people they came across almost indiscriminately, including murder and torture.

This was also not true for privateers. Privateers were state-sanctioned pirates. In times of war, the state (in the UK the Crown) would commission privateer ships to pillage and raid enemy ships and ports, and privateer captains included famous names like Francis Drake and Henry Morgan. Often privateers were significantly more violent than pirates, using the backing of the state to legitimise their actions. Henry Morgan in particular, was brutal, at one stage burning Panama City to the ground.

From here I find it easy to see where the hyper-violent image of pirates came from. The state, facing a collection of people who were actively subverting them, would be desperate to paint them in as bad a light as possible. This idea is discussed by Woodard:

The authorities made the pirates out to be cruel and dangerous monsters, rapists and murderers who killed men on a whim and tortured children for pleasure, and indeed some were. Many of these tales were intentionally exaggerated, however, to sway a sceptical public.

At the same time, they would have some available and believable stories of what atrocities could look like (through the actions of people they supported like Henry Morgan), and the ability to signal to examples of specifically violent pirates like Charles Vane. Put all this together and an essential image of a violent pirate is easy to concoct - even if its truth may lie more with privateers.

Violent hypocrisy

This discrepancy between privateers and pirates makes me think of how political violence is. In systems with winners and losers, oppressors and those oppressed, the image, justification and implications of violence can be spun in completely different ways. The same violence is both justifiable (in the case of privateers) and barbaric (in the case of pirates). The same violence is both glorified (in the case of privateers, many of whom were knighted including Francis Drake and Henry Morgan), and vilified as evil. The same violence is both wrought without repercussion by one group, and, when carried out by isolated pockets of a different, less powerful group, used both to essentialise the entire group and justify action against that group.

We can see similar situations playing out today in Palestine. Killing civilians is justified defence, and killing civilians is unjustified horror. The only difference is whether it is done with political authority.

This is not to say violence is never justified - violent resistance can be the only reasonable option available to a violently oppressed people, as is happening now in Palestine and has surfaced numerous times in history. Nor is it to equate the struggles and motivations of pirates (often European citizens) and those of colonised peoples, who have suffered at the hands of oppressors for centuries. It’s simply to call out the inherent injustice and hypocrisy of a position, seen often throughout history, that allows states to carry out the same actions it vilifies, purely under the justification that they help maintain the state.

This position only holds if there is some essence of statehood that allows it to sit morally above any other form of societal organisation. I am, it’s fair to say… unconvinced.

Statehood, like any other power structure and system we have, is a human invention. States aren’t inherently good, and groups that subvert them aren’t inherently bad. Both are still just groups of people, organised in a particular way. If a state’s actions feel justified, then similar actions by other groups are also justified. If, in fact, the actions of the other groups feel unjustified, then so too are the actions of the state. 

States don’t get free passes simply because they are states. State-sanctioned violence is not justified simply because it is state-sanctioned. Claiming that it is allows states to freely carry out horrendous atrocities in pursuit of their own goals.

Sam Bellamy puts it better than I can:

I am a free Prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field.

Legacy

This idea of violence, state-sanctioned or not, also brings up the wider question of legacy. The pirate legacy is one of unabated violence in the collective consciousness. Job done for the state. How did this happen?

Pirate priorities

For one, the Golden Age of piracy did not last long. By the mid 18th Century, the pirate revolution was over - the pirate republic on Nassau had disappeared, and most of the famous pirates were either dead or had received royal pardons, transforming into privateers or other state-supported roles. Piracy itself of course did not die, but this particular political revolution did.

This paired with the reality that pirates were focused on achieving freedom for themselves - acquiring resources, and using these resources to meet their needs (often food, drink and celebration). Blackbeard himself died in a battle with a state official, partly because his crew was caught off guard, drinking and entertaining guests.

The state, meanwhile, was focused on its own continued survival and thriving, which the pirates were threatening. In such a situation, it makes sense that the more powerful side will work to eradicate the enemy and spin their history, reality and legacy in any way that suits them. In this case, as “evil villains” or “Enemies of all Mankind” who should be treated with disdain and disgust. And the enemy, not focused on securing their legacy, will be able to do nothing about it.

This political tactic is nothing new, and is summed up well by Edward Said (apologies for the lack of free link):

…the ‘history’ that is made official as opposed to the history that isn’t— [is a way] in which all national states regulate public discussion and private identity.

Lessons on legacy

This makes me think about legacy in general. I subscribe to the idea that prioritising legacy over current realities is a recipe for both inner discontent and failing to address the world’s most pressing problems. However, not making room to communicate your thoughts and beliefs makes them vulnerable to reinterpretation and reshaping by others - to achieve any end. Whilst this is not inherently a bad thing (I believe the changing of stories over time to fit the social and cultural context they are in is necessary), in a world which is on a crusade to bend everyone into a pre-approved shape, this can lead to a homogenization of narratives. In such a world, perhaps maintaining space for authentic, subversive expression becomes not only ideal, but critical. Upholding and sharing heterogeneous ideas, stories, approaches and values is necessary if we are to honour the obvious fact that we are all different and valid. Otherwise dominant narratives win, and pirates have no interesting or progressive politics - they are just violent murderers.

Maybe this is my motivation for writing and sharing thoughts - not to find and distribute the answer, but to share what I have. So that at some point someone who thinks like me may stumble across these unfiltered, direct thoughts and have a moment of connection and validation. Or that someone who disagrees with me can open a dialogue, and we can clarify and better our understanding of ourselves and the world. Regardless of where it leads us, sharing our story and connecting with others through it seems like a fundamental and robust way to maintain agency and authenticity when embedded in constrictive systems. And this can be a way to secure our own legacies.

If only Sam Bellamy had lived long enough to pen a world-breaking treatise on political philosophy!

Final thoughts

I’ve enjoyed this journey into the world of the Caribbean pirates, and I really recommend Colin Woodard’s book for an absorbing, educational read. I’ve learned way more than I thought I would, and been left with a few lessons to chew on. 

If you want to be recognised for who you truly are, express yourself and share yourself with the world. And if you’re going to commit atrocities like genocide and ethnic cleansing and get away with it, make sure you do it hand in hand with the global elite.

Finally, putting the lessons of violence and legacy together, a gentle call to action - to make room for, engage with and listen to subversive points of view and counter-narratives. Making space for challenging viewpoints is one of the easiest ways we can fight hegemony in all its forms.

I also know I haven’t learned the full answers to these questions, and would love to hear your thoughts in the comments on Substack! What, if anything, surprised you about pirates above? How else do you feel the history of the Golden Age of Piracy applies today? Where else do these lessons in violence and legacy arise and apply?