416 pages, Liveright, ISBN-13: 978-1631496226
When one thinks of the American Colonies pre-1776, what does one think of? If “Vicious Treacherous Bloodthirsty Reprehensible Piracy” does not top your list well then, brother, you’ve got a wee bit of enlightenment coming your way, for as Eric Jay Dolin recounts in Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates, Yanks were as enthusiastic about piracy as we were about freedom, tobacco and not paying taxes to an unjust and far off parliament. If you’re anything like me, then your knowledge of pirates is principally based on movies and novels (I think Disney and their Pirates of the Caribbean movies - and before that Robert Louis Stevenson and Treasure Island - ill-prepared me for the real-life stories of these usually despicable men). I knew very little about the Real Story of (American) piracy and its role in shaping Colonial America, but, Dolin has written a fascinating history of the rise and fall of the Yankee Pirate Complex, with a focus on its (sometimes colorful, ofttimes awful) participants. You, Dear Reader, will learn about the unglamorous, violent, terrifying but often lucrative realities of the lives of those who were involved in this (it turns out) very American trade during the late 17th and early 18th Centuries.
Perhaps what I appreciated most about Dolin’s work was his investigation into the “whys” of piracy as much as the “hows”, such as the (never-ending) attempts by the Colonists to get around England’s restrictive mercantile system which taxed and stifled native prosperity and industry; the would-be victims who had no vested interest in defending themselves against a black-flagged pirate ship raising the blood-red (read: “no quarter”) flag; and revenge by abused seamen against cruel captains (said cruelty sometimes being real but just as often imagined). For a time American pirates were quite successful: the colonies served often as home-bases out from which the pirates sailed to plunder Spanish ships in the Caribbean or Muslim ships in the Indian Ocean (that’s right; Yankee vessels reached all the way to India to practice their bloody trade). The pirates would then come home and share their treasure with their hard-money-starved communities through lavish spending and gifts, thus explaining why these supposedly-loyal subject of the Crown of England tolerated these nefarious goings-on (indeed, in the words of William Merritt, Mayor of New York from 1695 to 1698, “Pirates had been civil to him, and that the money they brought with them was an advantage to the country”).
Perhaps what I appreciated most about Dolin’s work was his investigation into the “whys” of piracy as much as the “hows”, such as the (never-ending) attempts by the Colonists to get around England’s restrictive mercantile system which taxed and stifled native prosperity and industry; the would-be victims who had no vested interest in defending themselves against a black-flagged pirate ship raising the blood-red (read: “no quarter”) flag; and revenge by abused seamen against cruel captains (said cruelty sometimes being real but just as often imagined). For a time American pirates were quite successful: the colonies served often as home-bases out from which the pirates sailed to plunder Spanish ships in the Caribbean or Muslim ships in the Indian Ocean (that’s right; Yankee vessels reached all the way to India to practice their bloody trade). The pirates would then come home and share their treasure with their hard-money-starved communities through lavish spending and gifts, thus explaining why these supposedly-loyal subject of the Crown of England tolerated these nefarious goings-on (indeed, in the words of William Merritt, Mayor of New York from 1695 to 1698, “Pirates had been civil to him, and that the money they brought with them was an advantage to the country”).
Dolin, then, goes far in debunking the myths and legends surrounding some of America’s most (in)famous pirates and tells the real tales behind these men, proving once again that the most fascinating and eye-opening tales ever told are Ten Thousand times more interesting than the fantastical stories made up by storytellers of their day or ours. So avast ye landlubber, if’n ye no wanna dance the hempen jig nor seem a scallywag to an Old Salt, blimey ye better fetch and meter Black Flags, Blue Waters or ye’ll feed the fish in Davy Jones’ Locker. Arg.
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