Pirates: A History
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Captain Phillips’ articles were again much the same as those laid out by Roberts. Thus there was one for the safety of the ship, which forbade firing arms onboard, or smoking in the hold without a cap to the pipe, or carrying a lighted candle without a safety case. If this happened, the perpetrator should receive Moses’ Law – 40 stripes, lacking one, on the bare back. Phillips’ articles included the usual threat against those wanting to run away – and Phillips killed two men that attempted this, while keeping a secret from the company was also a crime. These last two crimes were to be punished by marooning, a favourite punishment of the pirates, though it seems not to have happened very often. Phillips’ last rule forbade the pirates from molesting a ‘prudent Woman’ without her consent, which would be punished by death. It is not clear if this rule was obeyed, and one of Phillips’ crew, when about to be hung, did bewail his lack of chastity. The end of Phillips’ career was rather gruesome because seven captives onboard from several of his piracies combined to overthrow the pirate crew, and Phillips was hit with a mallet which broke his jaw, and he was then battered to death with a carpenter’s adze. Subsequently, Phillips’ head was cut off, pickled, and hung from the masthead.10
These rules show what the pirate captains intended rather than what actually happened, but there was a definite appeal to real equality and democracy. In this regard, Charles Johnson expanded on the customs of the pirate way of life. Firstly, Johnson pointed to the role of the quartermaster, who was a kind of civil magistrate onboard, carrying out punishment for minor problems by ‘drubbing or whipping’ the trouble maker. The quartermaster was a sort of trustee for the whole ship’s company, and also was first onboard any prize, and organized the division of spoils. Next, Johnson wrote of the captain’s powers onboard, which partly depended on the kind of man he was. Roberts was a strong captain, but even he found that he needed to use a small group of insiders to help him rule. By pirate tradition, the captain was only permitted to be captain by the will of the crew, and could be deposed at any time. But a pirate captain had certain rights, ‘The captain’s power is uncontrollable in chase, or in battle, drubbing, cutting, or even shooting any one who dares to deny his command.’ This meant that it was during battle that the captain had total power. Similarly, the captain reserved the right to deal with prisoners in any way he saw fit. Otherwise, for example, when deciding where to sail, the crew would vote on this, and would also vote on whether to attack a particular ship or place onshore. Thus the captain had very few privileges, except perhaps a better cabin than others, and a higher percentage of the treasure captured. Needless to say, some captains ruled by fear, some were quickly deposed, and some were able to retain command for the short period they usually had before their piracy came to an end.11
The question of the origins of pirate democracy is much debated. Essentially, did this life of democracy come about for practical reasons, or was there an ideological element to it? Certainly, pirates had no wish to live under the kind of rough justice they experienced onboard merchant and navy ships, and certainly there was a rejection of the hierarchical social world the pirates came from. Beyond this, there is the often quoted speech by Samuel Bellamy, a pirate captain, who reportedly wanted to marry a certain Maria Hallett of Eastham, Massachusetts, but her parents wanted a wealthier man. So Bellamy went to sea looking for shipwrecks to recover valuables from, and turned to piracy when he could not find any wrecks. Ironically, Bellamy drowned in 1717 when he was captain of the captured slave ship Whydah, which struck a sand bar. Before this happened, Johnson either invented or paraphrased a speech in which Bellamy addressed the captain of a sloop he had just captured:
…you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by laws which rich men have made for their own security, for the cowardly whelps have not the courage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery; but ___ ye altogether; ___ them for a pack of crafty rascals, and you, who serve them, for a parcel of hen-hearted numskulls. They vilify us, the scoundrels do, when there is only this difference, they rob the poor under the cover of law, forsooth, and we plunder the rich under the protection of our own courage.
Bellamy asked the captured captain to join his crew, but the captain refused, so Bellamy started off again:
You are a devilish conscience rascal … I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world, as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea, and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me: but there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them around at pleasure.12
It is hard to say how accurate this speech is. It may reflect Johnson’s attitude as much as Bellamy’s, but it is very likely that many pirates harboured similar anti-establishment views. Hence, Bart Roberts compared the miserable life of underfed and mistreated merchant sailors to the wonderful possibilities that could happen with piracy, and frequently drank the following toast, ‘D__n to him who ever lived to wear a halter.’13
These anti-establishment views can be seen in the clothes the pirates wore, for example, ‘Calico Jack’ Rackam, whose shirts opposed the sumptuary (anti-extravagance) laws of the time, or Bart Roberts’ fine clothes, or the gold chain and gold toothpick that the pirate John James happily wore round his neck.14 Then there was the free spending, normally the activity of a gentleman of means, by newly enriched pirates, who drank, caroused, gambled, and threw money away recklessly. Other anti-establishment attitudes came through in the brutal treatment of unpopular merchant captains and officers as revenge when they were captured, for example, the pirate Philip Lyne claimed to have killed thirty-seven masters. Conversely there was better treatment if the individual had been a kindly captain, as happened to William Snelgrave when his ship was taken at Sierra Leone. The pirates were about to dispatch Snelgrave when one of his crew pushed forward and said, ‘For God’s sake don’t kill our captain, for we were never with a better man.’ This was enough to spare Snelgrave.15 On the other hand, pirates often wanted to make themselves gentlemen through the simple means of getting enough wealth to act as gentlemen. So in 1721, one pirate crew made a rich haul of some 9,000 pounds sterling from a valuable ship, enough to make them ‘gentlemen of fortune’, while the pirate Captain Howel Davis tried to entice the crew of the captured ship Princess to join him, saying ‘he would make gentlemen of them all’ if they would join his crew. And it is the case that the great majority of pirates, when they were not forced, and when they did not mutiny for lack of food or pay, set out to improve their lives by obtaining material goods and wealth if they possibly could. And some pirate treasure was remarkably large, as in the loot of the French pirate Jean Hamlin, who sent ashore in 1683 as much gold dust as could be carried by eight slaves, plus 150 pigs of silver and 120 bags of coins.16
Africans Onboard Pirate Ships
Yet there was one component of almost all pirate crews which normally did not share in the democracy onboard, and this was the African slaves. Many Africans were captured when slave ships were taken by pirates off the coast of West Africa, or on the way to the Caribbean and the Americas. It is well known that when Roberts’ ships were taken by the Royal Navy in 1722 somewhere between 70 and 75 Africans were also captured, having served on Roberts’ fleet. The question to be asked in Roberts’ case is whether these Africans were forced, or were volunteers, and in general, one can say that they were forced into working on his ships. Partly for this reason, no African slaves from Roberts’ ships were executed, and instead they were sold into further slavery. On the other hand, when a member of Roberts’ crew testified at his trial, he said that two Africans with loaded pistols forced the crew of a ship at St Christopher to sign ships’ articles. In this situation, these two Africans were probably willing participants. On another occasion, a privateer turned pirate was blocked in the port of Soulière, near St Augustine, in 1700, by the Royal Navy ship Lizard, which found there were 400 blacks in arms onboard the privateer. These Africans we
re evidently active pirates.17 It is also known that onboard Blackbeard’s ship in his last fight there was an African named Black Caesar, ‘a resolute fellow, a Negro who he [Blackbeard] had brought up, [entrusted] with a lighted match in the powder room with commands to blow up when he should give him orders.’ Black Caesar duly attempted to blow up the ship but was prevented by others onboard. When the trial of Blackbeard’s pirates was held, Black Caesar refused to bargain with the authorities, although four other African pirates did try to turn state’s evidence. However, black slaves were not allowed to testify by law in South Carolina, and in the end Black Caesar, and the other four African pirates, were hung along with the rest of Blackbeard’s crew.18
Another incident involving Africans occurred in 1721 when Richard Taylor and a large number of pirates at Madagascar decided to go and try and seek a pardon in the West Indies. An eye witness recorded that, ‘… thereupon the sd. Richard Taylor with a hundred & twelve white men & forty Blacks voted to go to the West Indies and came onboard the Cassandra …’ This sounds as though the forty Africans had the choice of a vote, and could decide whether to continue piracy or seek a pardon. On the other hand, Africans were frequently forced onboard pirate ships, and had no choice. Their normal fate on a pirate ship was to do the hard labour. Yet some Africans were no doubt happy to have escaped transportation as slaves, and were willing to join the pirate crew as active participants.19
Marooned!
Democracy onboard pirate ships relied partly on adherence to the articles or rules drawn up by captain and crew. Marooning was one of the punishments decreed by Bart Roberts, yet the word itself had a different history from the commonly understood practice of abandoning individuals on desert islands. Initially, the word ‘maroon’ was derived from the word for escaped African slaves, who often fought against the Spanish, and were called ‘cimarrones’. The French and English reduced this word to ‘maroons’. By the 1660s, Caribbean pirates called themselves ‘marooners’, because of their occasional practice of marooning victims, while sometimes those marooned were the pirates themselves.
An example of pirates calling themselves marooners is that of Thomas Lawrence Jones and his associates. Jones gave a long story to the High Court of the Admiralty in 1723 that explained how he eventually came to be a marooner. Jones’ account starts with him serving on a ship called the Merrie in 1720, when it was taken off the Guinea coast by the pirate Howel Davis. Soon after, Davis was killed, and Bartholomew Roberts became captain. Jones claimed that he and 14 others were forced to join Roberts’ ship, the Ranger. Subsequently, some ships were captured by Roberts, and then a sloop was taken, which was named the Good Fortune. Jones claimed that he was forced to sign articles on the Good Fortune by two ‘Negroes with loaded pistols’. Now occurred a violent episode that Jones did not relate in his testimony, in which he had a fight with Roberts over the death of a friend who had been killed by Roberts because this friend, in a drunken state, had insulted Roberts. According to Charles Johnson, Roberts ran Jones through with his sword, but Jones fought back and severely beat Roberts as he was pinned underneath a cannon. Jones recovered from his wound, but was given a severe whipping by the crew of the Good Fortune, who administered two lashes per crew member on the unfortunate Jones. Jones resented this treatment, and resolved to desert Roberts, which he achieved by sailing away at night with other malcontents on a captured brigantine under the command of Captain Anstis. Now, finally, according to Jones, these deserters from Roberts resolved ‘to live a marooning life – till they would have an answer to a Petition to his Majestie for a Pardon …’20 So Jones and his shipmates captured two more ships, in one of which they sailed to ‘a marooning Key …’ According to Johnson, this Key was an uninhabited island off the south-west coast of Cuba called Rattan. (This island, actually called Roatan, is close to what is now Honduras.) This petition from Anstis’ crew was signed in ‘round robin’ fashion, to prevent the detection of ring leaders, and Johnson records the petition in full. It essentially condemns Roberts as wicked, while Anstis, Jones, and the rest of the crew sought a better life for themselves. Meanwhile, Anstis, Jones, and the rest of the pirates took a number of French, Spanish and English ships, lived a ‘maroon’ life on Rattan [Roatan] and other islands for eight months, and sent a second petition. No answer coming to their appeals, Jones and eighteen others eventually left off pirating and sailed to England and dispersed, living free for eight months before being captured. Johnson notes that Jones later died in London’s Marshalsea prison.21
Turning from marooners to ships’ articles, it is well known that some pirate captains in the early eighteenth century required their crews to sign these articles, which usually included marooning as a punishment for various crimes against the crew. Thus Captain Phillips’ articles on the Revenge, in 1723, included three articles that mentioned marooning. Article 2 read, ‘If any Man shall offer to run away, or keep any secret from the Company, he shall be marooned, with one Bottle of Powder, and Bottle of Water, one small Arm, and Shot.’ Article 3 read, ‘If any Man shall steal any Thing in the Company, or Game, to the value of a Piece of Eight, he shall be maroon’d or shot.’ It does not seem that Captain Phillips or his crew put the first article into practice – in fact, according to Johnson, two members of the crew who attempted to leave the ship were simply killed by Phillips, thus contradicting Article 2. Of course, there may not have been a suitable island or land close by for marooning in these two cases. Meanwhile, Article 4 read, ‘If at any time we should meet another Marrooner [that is Pyrate,] that Man that shall sign his articles without the consent of our Company, shall suffer such Punishment as the Captain and Company shall think fit.’ It is worth noting that only a few of Phillips’ crew were voluntary pirates, and so Phillips no doubt wanted to keep as strict a hold as he could over his crew.22
Another pirate who set out ship’s articles was Captain George Lowther, on the Delivery, in 1721, but it is notable that none of his eight articles mentioned marooning. Instead, all crimes against the ship and crew were to be punished according to what the captain and majority of the company should see fit. This was obviously a more flexible system, and did not preclude marooning. Ironically, Lowther and some of his men marooned themselves on the island of Blanco (near Tortuga), in 1723, to avoid capture by a South Sea sloop from Barbados. Lowther was taken by surprise while careening his ship, which made the ship and crew extremely vulnerable. Johnson reported that Lowther probably shot himself on Blanco, being found dead with a burst pistol by his side.23
The next pirate whose articles Johnson lists was the famous Captain Bart Roberts. Johnson treats the case of Bart Roberts in the greatest detail, since he evidently had very good information on Roberts’ career. In regard to Roberts’ articles, dated around 1720, two of them mention marooning. The first article, no.2, declares, ‘Every Man to be called fairly in turn, by list, on Board of Prizes, because, (over and above their proper Share,) they there on these Occasions allow’d a Shift of Cloaths: But if they defrauded the Company to the Value of a Dollar, in Plate, Jewels, or Money, MAROONING was their Punishment.’ Johnson added the comment that marooning was a barbarous custom, but noted that if the robbery was between individuals, rather than against the whole crew, then the guilty one would be put ashore, not in an uninhabited place, but where the guilty party would suffer hardship. This would obviously be a lesser punishment than marooning on a deserted island. The second article mentioning marooning was no.7, ‘To Desert the Ship, or their Quarters in Battle, was punished with Death, or Marooning.’ It is notable that in Roberts’ mind, as with Phillips’ articles, marooning was clearly a particular punishment for those who transgressed against the ship and crew as a whole.24 It seems that Roberts also used marooning as a punishment when the pirates’ victims fought back – thus in 1722 when a French ship resisted Roberts’ two ships, the remaining prisoners were marooned on the most desolate island that Roberts could find.25 On the other hand, Roberts rescued thirteen naked sailors maro
oned on the island of Dominica in 1720 by a Spanish coast guard ship, who understandably joined Roberts’ crew rather than remain marooned.26
These examples are from the early 1720s when pirates were under particular stress from renewed naval efforts to capture and eradicate them, and so pirate captains tended to be stricter in dealing with their crews. But of course, marooning was practiced earlier, from at least the sixteenth century. It also occurred sometimes by accident of fate, when a sailor would be left ashore somewhere, as happened to a Moskito coast native man called William the Striker. On a raid in the South Seas, Captain Watling and his buccaneers anchored at the Juan Fernandez Islands in 1681, and were forced to leave suddenly as three Spanish ships hove into sight. Left ashore was William the Striker, who had become hidden ‘under a treed slope’ – although Watling and his crew did send a canoe to try to find him before leaving, but could not. William had to wait three years until 1684 when another South Seas voyage under Captains Cook and Eaton visited the Juan Fernandez Islands, and William was rescued from his marooned state. William Dampier, who was present, described the touching scene as William the Striker came to the beach as another Moskito native, called Robin, joined others as they went ashore in canoes. Robin waded through the surf and ‘running to his brother Moskito man, threw himself flat on his face at his feet.’ Then they embraced, and William was brought onto the ship.27