The Only Pirate in the Village

Richard Sanders, If a Pirate I Must Be, 2007
Bartholomew Roberts (aka Black Bart) was the greatest pirate the Caribbean and Africa ever saw.  He was also Welsh and probably gay.  In a period of ten years - between 1712 and 1722 - he raided 400 ships, a figure dwarfing any other pirate before or after him (including the more notorious Black Beard).  Roberts, unlike his men, didn't drink or care for chaos.  He brought to piracy an order and focus that brought them riches but also made them the focal point for England's anger.

The most fascinating aspect of their lives for me was the heavily charged homoerotic relationships that existed and how little the "straight" pirates cared.  If you didn't like drinking though, you were some kind of weirdo.  The word "buccaneer" predates "pirate" and referred to a group of men descended from the French who lived recluse and democratic lives in Haiti a hundred years before the French Revolution and the golden age of pirates.  Many lived as couples deep in the Haitian jungle.  Richard Sanders speculates if Johnny Depp's  character in Pirates of the Caribbean is slightly based on research into these early pirates or perhaps even Roberts himself. Roberts apparently loved a young doctor, George Wilson, who he captured from a ship.

Roberts wasn't an abolitionist but his disruption of the English and Portuguese slave trade severely cut the numbers of Africans crossing the ocean.  Many became pirates under his rule when their ships were raided, though they were never allowed a share of the bounty like the other (always English and white) men.  The horrible things though that the pirates witnessed done to the slaves, mentioned in some gruesome passages, is hard to comprehend.