The republic of pirates Being the true and surprising story of the Caribbean pirates and the man who brought them down

ON Nov. 22, 1718, Edward Thatch, better known as Blackbeard, was killed in a bloody shipboard battle. His face slashed, his body rent by musket balls, he fought savagely until - and here surviving accounts of the battle diverge - he either succumbed to his many wounds or was felled by a single blow from a sword, which left his head dangling from his shoulder by a ribbon of flesh. Whether Blackbeard was decapitated in the heat of battle or only after death, in the cold administration of 18th-century punishment, justice had prevailed. His vanquishers - American sailors led by a dashing young lieutenant - lashed his head to their bowsprit for the journey home to Virginia, then hung their terrible prize from a pole on the banks of the Hampton River. In its violence and drama, Blackbeard's death was emblematic of the so-called golden age of piracy - actually a period of unrestrained murder, robbery and kidnapping on the high seas. Although his reign as one of England's most feared pirates was brief, the memory of his black, braided beard, flashing sword and wild eyes has lived on, coloring the modern image of pirates. Already commemorated in literature, movies and music, the pirates of the golden age and their predecessors, the privateers of the 17th century, are now the subject of three new books - "Empire of Blue Water," "The Sack of Panamá" and "The Republic of Pirates" - each of which adds a new dimension to an era that was, in equal parts, thrilling and disturbing. The story of piracy began, of course, many centuries before Blackbeard, when desperate men first realized they could find easy prey on the open sea, far beyond the reach of any authority. For most of history, unarmed merchant and passenger ships were on their own. The technology of seafaring had grown sophisticated enough to allow pirates to roam freely, but was too primitive for others to stop them. As a result, pirates terrorized ancient Greece, the Roman empire and the Qing Dynasty, and they kidnapped whomever they chose, from Julius Caesar to St. Patrick to Cervantes. By the 17th century, pirates had become so dangerously effective that many were enlisted by governments to act as privateers, commissioned to attack the ships and colonies of rival nations. One of the most notable of these, Capt. Henry Morgan, a predecessor to Blackbeard, had an uncanny ability to sack Spanish outposts, generating deep-seated fear throughout the Americas. So fascinating and complex was Morgan that both "Empire of Blue Water" and "The Sack of Panama" largely focus on his life as a privateer, which had its climax in the famous attack on Panama in 1671. As similar as the books are in subject matter, however, they differ significantly in approach. Stephen Talty, the author of "Mulatto America," keeps "Empire of Blue Water" moving at a fast clip. Its characters leap to life in a swashbuckling adventure story one expects from a book about privateers. It's marred only by Talty's creation of a composite character. In an effort to "profile a typical pirate/privateer," he invents "Roderick" and inserts him at pivotal moments in the narrative. The result is not a deeper immersion in the story, but periodic, jolting reminders that the author has introduced an element of fiction. "The Sack of Panamá," by Peter Earle, moves at a slower pace, at least in its initial chapters, but offers a more analytical and detailed discussion of the battle. Earle, the author of "The Pirate Wars," also takes a close look at the Spanish side of the story - not just the general fears of King Philip IV, but the specific trials of the president of Panama, Don Juan Perez de Guzmán, who was handed the nearly impossible task of defending the isthmus against Captain Morgan and his terrifying band. When Morgan sailed the seas, Spain ruled the Americas - and relied heavily on the gold, silver and other treasures it extracted from its colonies. The Americas were, as Talty puts it, "a place of gobsmacking riches," and England wanted a larger share. It was important, however, to maintain at least the pretense of peaceful intentions, so the British crown allowed privateers to do its dirty work. Its commissions entitled, and encouraged, privateers to "attaque, fight with or surprise any vessell or vessells whatsoever belonging to the King of Spain or any of his subjects." At the same time, understanding that there was no honor among thieves, the commissions banned the privateers, "upon pain of death without mercy," from interfering with British ships. Perez de Guzmán realized Morgan would soon set his sights on Panama, but Spain refused to send more money or even a single man to help defend the colony. In the Spanish colonies, Earle explains, "nothing could be spent on defense until the enemy was almost at the gate." By that time, of course, it was too late. Morgan arrived with 38 ships and 1,500 men in December of 1670. A month later, the privateers had captured a burned and largely abandoned Panama City. Perez de Guzmán was later put on trial by the Spanish government for his humiliating defeat. He was eventually acquitted, but died three years later, "heartbroken and defeated," Earle writes, with only his honor intact. The uproar over Morgan's tactics was so great that even his British masters felt obliged to distance themselves from their freebooting mercenary. In an effort to placate the furious Spanish, King Charles II had Morgan arrested and brought back to London. Morgan, however, was never imprisoned. In a turnabout that reflected his true value to the British monarchy, he was later knighted and named Jamaica's deputy governor. Perhaps the greatest paradox of Morgan's career was that, in the end, his government put his privateering talents to use capturing - and hanging - pirates. So rapidly were the pirate ranks growing, however, that not even the great Captain Morgan could hold them back. Soon the golden age of piracy had begun, marked by the ascendancy and defeat of history's most infamous pirates, from Blackbeard to Samuel Bellamy to the cruel and sadistic Charles Vane. What these men and their crews achieved, and destroyed, is the focus of Colin Woodard's fascinating book, "The Republic of Pirates." Woodard, the author of "The Lobster Coast" and "Ocean's End," chooses as his central characters not only Blackbeard, Bellamy and Vane, but also Woodes Rogers, the man who hunted them down. Among the reasons piracy became so rampant in its golden age, Woodard argues, was that many of its practitioners were looking for more than simply an exciting life and the chance for great riches. They "undertook nothing less than a social and political revolt," he writes. They rebelled against oppression in its many forms, from press gangs to brutal navy captains to slave holders - many pirates were themselves runaway slaves - and they were effective. They disrupted British trade routes and communication among the colonies and accumulated such wealth that they were able to bribe merchants, plantation owners and even colonial governors. If some pirates had goals beyond personal wealth, however, treasure was, at the very least, a means to an end, and their way of acquiring it had no limits in cruelty and violence. To persuade their victims to hand over all they owned, pirates made regular use of every form of torture, including the rack and woolding, in which a knotted cord was wrapped around a man's head and tightened until his eyes popped out. They were known to place burning matches inside a victim's eyelids and slice off a man's lips, then force him to watch as they were broiled. Finally, the situation became so desperate that the king of England appointed Woodes Rogers to end the pirates' reign of terror. Rogers had not only circumnavigated the world - a rare feat at that time - but, like Captain Morgan, had also been a privateer. His plan was to divide and conquer. At Rogers's suggestion, King George I offered a pardon to all pirates willing to surrender. "Holdouts," Woodard explains, "would be hunted down without mercy." In the Bahamas, where Blackbeard had helped to establish a base for piracy - a "pirate republic"- the king's so-called Act of Grace created an immediate split within the pirate ranks. Half the men were eager to accept the pardon and return to civilization. The rest, who considered themselves not common criminals but proud insurgents, were enraged. The result was exactly what Rogers had hoped for: a weakening of the pirate alliance. That victory, coupled with the deaths of many of piracy's best-known men - Blackbeard in battle, Bellamy by drowning and Vane by hanging- eventually brought the Golden Age of Piracy to a close. In the three centuries that have passed since pirates and privateers struck fear in the hearts of every ship captain, passenger and crew member, these scoundrels have somehow become popular symbols of bravery and daring. But the appalling toll of their predations leaves little room for nostalgia. What these three books offer, beyond rip-roaring adventure stories from a distant past, is an opportunity to understand pirates as they truly were - and to be grateful that the worst of them, at least, are gone. Candice Millard is the author of "The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt's Darkest Journey."

The early eighteenth century was the so-called golden age of piracy, particularly in the Caribbean. Although much of the romantic musings about pirate honor is nonsense, an unusual group of pirates, led by Edward Blackbeard Teach and Sam Bellamy, actually set up a functioning government in the Bahamas with pretensions to establishing a form of social justice. Their republic attracted deserting sailors who could not tolerate harsh naval discipline, runaway slaves, and impoverished farmers. In this republic, called New Providence, a rough but democratic and egalitarian ethos apparently took hold. But, according to Woodard, the British government saw the existence of this independent entity as an intolerable threat. So, on the theory of sending a thief to catch a thief, they sent Woodes Rogers, a former privateer, to crush the republic. This breezy, fast-moving book is filled with exciting action and colorful characters. It will provide general readers and those with a special interest in the period much enjoyment. --Jay Freeman Copyright 2007 Booklist

Woodard (The Lobster Coast) tells a romantic story about Caribbean pirates of the "Golden Age" (1715-1725)-whom he sees not as criminals but as social revolutionaries-and the colonial governors who successfully clamped down on them, in the early 18th-century Bahamas. One group of especially powerful pirates set up a colony in the Bahamas. Known as New Providence, the community attracted not only disaffected sailors but also runaway slaves and yeomen farmers who had trouble getting a toehold in the plantation economy of the American colonies. The British saw piracy as a threat to colonial commerce and government. Woodes Rogers, the governor of the Bahamas and himself a former privateer, determined to bring the pirates to heel. Woodard describes how Rogers, aided by Virginia's acting governor, Alexander Spotswood, finally defeated the notorious Blackbeard. Woodard's portrait of Rogers is a little flat-the man is virtually flawless ("courageous, selfless, and surprisingly patriotic"), and the prose is sometimes breathless ("they would know him by just one word... pirate"). Still, this is a fast-paced narrative that will be especially attractive to lovers of pirate lore and to vacationers who are Bahamas-bound. Maps. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

chapter oneThe Legend1696The sloop arrived in the afternoon of April Fools Day 1696, swinging around the low, sandy expanse of Hog Island and into Nassaus wide, dazzlingly blue harbor. At first, the villagers on the beach and the sailors in the harbor took little notice. Small and nondescript, this sloop was a familiar sight, a trading vessel from the nearby island of Eleuthera, fifty miles to the east. She came to Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, on a regular basis to trade salt and produce for cloth and sugar, and to get news brought in from England, Jamaica, and the Carolinas. The bystanders expected to see her crew drop anchor, load their goods into their longboat, and row toward the beach, as the capital had no wharves or piers. Later, their cargoes disposed of, the crew would go drinking in one of Nassaus public houses, trading updates of the ongoing war, the movements of the infernal French, and cursing the absence of the Royal Navy. But not on this day. The sloops crew rowed ashore. Its captain, a local man familiar to all, jumped onto the beach, followed by several strangers. The latter wore unusual clothing: silks from India, perhaps, a kerchief in bright African patterns, headgear from Arabia, as rank and dirty as the cheap woolens worn by any common seaman. Those who came near enough to overhear their speech or peer into their tanned faces could tell they were English and Irish mariners not unlike those from other large ships that came from the far side of the Atlantic. The party made its way through the tiny village, a few dozen houses clustered along the shore in the shadow of a modest stone fortress. They crossed the newly cleared town square, passing the islands humble wooden church, eventually arriving at the recently built home of Governor Nicholas Trott. They stood barefoot on the sun-baked sand and dirt, the fecund smell of the tropics filling their nostrils. Townspeople stopped to stare at the wild-looking men waiting on the governors doorstep. A servant opened the door and, upon exchanging a few words with the sloops master, rushed off to inform His Excellency that an urgent message had arrived.~Nicholas Trott already had his hands full that morning. His colony was in trouble. England had been at war with France for eight years, disrupting the Bahamas trade and supply lines. Trott received a report that the French had captured the island of Exuma, 140 miles away, and were headed for Nassau with three warships and 320 men. Nassau had no warships at its disposal; in fact, no ships of the Royal Navy had passed this way in several years, there not being nearly enough of them to protect Englands sprawling empire. There was Fort Nassau, newly built from local stone, with twenty-eight cannon mounted on its ramparts, but with many settlers fleeing for the better protection of Jamaica, South Carolina, and Bermuda, Trott was finding it almost impossible to keep the structure manned. There were no more than seventy men left Excerpted from The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.