Mention pirates and a
romantic image pops into most readers’ minds. Mike
Rendell’s goal is to remove those “rose-tinted
spectacles” to show the true pirates of a period
that is often referred to as the golden age of
piracy. In reality, it was anything but and
pirates were more than just thieves at sea. They
also committed acts of “rape, murder, arson and
torture.” (vi) Instead of looking at these men and
women from our modern-day perspective, he strives
to place them within the context of their own time
periods. He separates this age into three
segments: 1650-1680, 1680-1710, and 1710-1730.
This allows him to highlight their differences and
similarities, as well as to examine the history,
rather than the myths, to show what effects
pirates and privateers had on the British economy.
He also attempts to explain why such criminals are
now seen as honorable and romantic.
The first part of the
book, “Background,” provides readers with an
orientation into what piracy was and compares and
contrasts it with privateering. He also provides
three short case studies of early buccaneers –
Henry Morgan, William Kidd, and Henry Avery –
whose escapades sometimes crossed the murky line
separating privateers from pirates. They chose
careers that involved plundering, but the outcomes
of their deeds differed greatly.
Part two examines
“The Beginning of the End of the Golden Age.”
While initially tolerating pirates and their
ill-gotten booty, colonial governments and
citizens shifted from such acceptance to seeing
them as “enemies of all mankind.” This change did
not occur overnight and many factors influenced
it. To demonstrate how this occurs, Rendell
discusses royal proclamations and pardons, as well
as corruption in colonial government. He also
spotlights two governors who played instrumental
roles in fighting piracy: Alexander Spotswood of
Virginia and Woodes Rogers of the Bahamas. The
final chapter in this section explores pirate
ships.
“The Final Phase of
the Golden Age” surveys some of the pirates during
the second and third decades of the eighteenth
century. Here readers meet Henry Jennings,
Benjamin Hornigold, Samuel Bellamy, Edward
England, Charles Vane, Stede Bonnet, William Fly,
Olivier Levasseur, John Rackham, Edward Teach,
Howell Davis, and Bartholomew Roberts. The first
four are linked together because of the storm that
wrecked the Spanish treasure fleet off the coast
of Florida in 1715. The next three are grouped
together because they all danced the hempen jig.
Rackham gets his own chapter because of his two
female mates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read. The last
three were killed in action.
The last two sections
of this book investigate piracy’s portrayal in
literature and pop culture and the lure of
treasure hunting. In addition to an epilogue
entitled “The Big ‘What If’?”, the author includes
two appendices. The first is Governor Thomas
Modyford’s Letter of Appointment to Henry Morgan.
The second is an excerpt from Captain Charles
Johnson’s A
General History of the Pyrates detailing
Blackbeard’s last days. Readers will also find a
bibliography, an index, maps, and an assortment of
woodcuts and other artwork pertaining to pirates.
The title of this
book is somewhat misleading since Rendell includes
men who lived in the seventeenth century and the
first fifty years of this historical recap take
place during that period. This was the time of the
buccaneers, when pirates and privateers roved the
seas. While privateers can be found in the first
decade or so of the eighteenth century, the men
and women who preyed on ships between 1713 and
1730 were only pirates.
The author identifies
Johnson’s book as a work of fiction, because “many of the facts
set out in it are uncorroborated and quite
possibly heavily embellished.” (4) This is, in fact, true,
and today might be classified as biographical
fiction. What Rendell doesn’t explain is that many
facts detailed in A General
History can be corroborated. Since one of
his goals is to go beyond the myth to extract the
true history, why quote passages from a work of
fiction instead of quoting from contemporary
documents?
Particularly
noteworthy is that this volume incorporates both
well-known and lesser-known pirates. Rendell makes
some valid points and includes information that
can’t be found in other volumes on this topic. To
some extent the author achieves his goal of
separating myth from reality and examining piracy
from an eighteenth-century perspective, but
perhaps not as well as several other titles that
have been published in recent years. Several that
come to mind are Margarette Lincoln’s British
Pirates and Society, 1680-1730; The Golden
Age of Piracy edited by David Head; and
Douglas R. Burgess, Jr.’s The Politics
of Piracy.
What makes Rendell’s
Pirates and
Privateers in the 18th Century worth reading
are the mini-case studies in which he presents
each pirate. He’s also one of the few authors who
gives John Rackham higher billing than Bonny and
Read.
Review Copyrighted ©2019 Cindy
Vallar
PS As always, I have
attempted to provide readers with a fair
and impartial review. Full disclosure
requires that I am listed as one of the
resources in the author’s bibliography.
For that distinction, I thank him.
Pirates
and Privateers
