6

The Golden Age

THE JOLLY ROGER. The fearsome, long-bearded pirate. The sun-soaked days and balmy Caribbean nights. Many of the images that have become synonymous with the word pirate originate in the Golden Age of piracy. This era spawned more legendary pirates and epic stories than almost all the other eras combined. Ask people to share a fact about piracy and, if they know one, chances are it will pertain to the Golden Age.

For something talked about so often, the Golden Age of piracy is surprisingly difficult to define. Just placing a time limit on the Golden Age is tricky. Some historians clock it from the 1650s to the 1730s, while others claim only a fraction of that time. Professor Marcus Rediker uses a framework for the Golden Age as 1716 to 1726—a mere ten years—and historian Angus Konstam provides one of the shortest definitions: eight years, 1714 to 1722. Where the line gets drawn depends on a number of factors: whether the buccaneer period is included, which execution actually marks the last great pirate to be hanged, and so on. While all definitions have merit, a generous, wider definition gives the reader the opportunity for a clearer understanding of how the Golden Age came to be and how it evolved.

Three major movements or periods define the Golden Age: the buccaneer period from 1650s to 1680s, the Pirate Round period from the 1690s to the 1700s, and the post–War of the Spanish Succession period from 1713 to the 1720s. That last period is often broken off by itself and called the Golden Age, as seen in Rediker’s and Konstam’s definitions, while the first two never stand alone as the Golden Age. The first two periods are like rough drafts to the Golden Age’s final copy—during these periods the politics and tactics of the Golden Age were developing and changing. Without these periods for context, the Golden Age would appear to have sprung fully formed out of nowhere, like Athena from Zeus’s head. While it is true that every age evolves from the age before it, and it’s fair to say that the Golden Age evolved out of, say, ancient Mediterranean piracy, the proximity in both time and place to the post–War of the Spanish Succession era render the buccaneer and Pirate Round periods especially influential to the development of “true” Golden Age piracy. For that reason, they are included in this definition of the Golden Age.

So who were the buccaneers, and why do they matter to Golden Age pirates? Well, strangely enough, they weren’t originally seafaring pirates at all, but hunters. They were mainly French settlers who lived off the land in Tortuga, part of present-day Haiti, hunting oxen, manatee, and wild pigs, then cooking the meat and selling it to passing ships. The native population had been virtually eliminated a century earlier by Spanish importation of diseases and enslavement of the natives to work in the Spanish gold mines. In the absence of predators or people, the livestock of the Taíno people had flourished, which made Tortuga the perfect hunting ground for the buccaneers. The name buccaneer is actually an Anglicized version of boucanier, the French word for a person who uses the boucan grill, as they did to prepare the jerky-like meat they sold.

These were famously rough men who dressed in animal skins stained with blood and who lived in primitive campsites. Their weapon of choice was a musket with a long barrel and a broad stock. These they kept in perfect condition because being able to hunt was what kept them both fed and paid. Buccaneers were great shots, much better with a gun than the Spanish soldiers they often came up against. Each crew was out for personal gain rather than the current causes or political movements of their homeland. Allegiance to the Brethren of the Coast superseded allegiance to any country or government for the buccaneers, despite the fact that many buccaneers were privateers in the employ of a nation. This is perhaps why so many buccaneers—male and female—went unrecorded in history. If it were not for historian Alexander Exquemelin, there might not be much known about them at all.

So where did they come from? During this period, Spain was the biggest game in town. Starting with the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494, Spain had called dibs on the American territories that Columbus “discovered” and defended them with deadly force. Any nation that they were currently at peace with back home in Spain was still regarded as an enemy down in the Caribbean; this was the doctrine of “no peace below the line.” No ally was safe once they left the comfort of Europe for the wilderness of the New World. Spain wanted to be the exclusive holder of all the colonies in the Caribbean and was prepared to fight for that right.

And who wouldn’t want to control the Caribbean? With sailors reliant on the breezes and currents to make their way from one place to the other, having a good geographical location was key. Currents lined up ideally in the Caribbean: sailors could sail from Europe to the New World and back via the islands. The Caribbean also became a vital stop in the transatlantic slave trade, which rose in popularity during this time. Europeans sailed to Africa with textiles and other goods, which were traded for slaves. Slaves were taken to the Caribbean, and later to the American colonies, where they were exchanged for sugar, tobacco, and cotton. These goods then were transported back to Europe, and the cycle began again.

Spain also sailed its heavily loaded treasure ships through the Caribbean on their way back to Europe from South America. There was a lot of money and treasure moving in and out of the Caribbean at that time—and most of it belonged to Spain. The French, English, and Dutch wanted to establish colonies to get a piece of that action, but Spain had a chokehold on the region. These countries were unable to maintain a full military presence in the area due to Spain’s no-peace policy in the Caribbean. What’s an enterprising country to do? Enter the perfect solution—the buccaneers. Buccaneers were often officially in the employ of France, England, or the Netherlands, but their primary interest was plundering—no matter if they were paid to do it or not. They used long dugout canoes to attack passing Spanish ships, and they unleashed the brutality they usually reserved for the animals they hunted on the Spanish men. Their privateering was “probably the most important source of capital for the infant colonies of the West Indies,” according to author Charles M. Andrews. Provincial governors of the time, rather than attempt to suppress the privateers, actively encouraged them in hopes that the money the privateers collected would stick around in the colonies and increase the colonies’ fortunes. These governors believed that the buccaneers were also their best hope of ending Spain’s colonial monopoly in the Caribbean. Until the arrival of Bahamian governor Woodes Rogers in 1718, buccaneers roamed where they liked in the Caribbean, knowing they outnumbered and outgunned anyone who might try to stop them.

The English buccaneers migrated south to the Caribbean on their own during the reign of James I. Unlike his predecessor Elizabeth I, who used privateering as state policy and actively recruited her sea dogs, James disliked these lawless men, and the feeling was mutual. No longer welcome as privateers, they headed to the Caribbean, where they turned outlaw. When Oliver Cromwell chartered Port Royal in 1666, these men were invited to sail on behalf of England again. Many became privateers-turned-pirates-turned-privateers, a perfect illustration of the state’s complicated relationship with privateers.

Most of what is known about the buccaneers comes from one source: The Buccaneers of America by Alexander O. Exquemelin. Although this is a seminal text, it is devilishly hard to track down details on the author. First published in Dutch in 1678, it has been translated into many languages, and very liberally adapted. Each edition and translation of the book changes a bit from the previous one and reflects the time and political climate in which it was published, so it’s fair to say the editions don’t bear much relation to each other.

Exquemelin’s life, much like the lives of the buccaneers he profiled, is wrapped in legends and myths. Very few concrete details are known about him. He may have been English, French, or Dutch, although most accounts agree that he was probably French. He sailed from Le Havre, France, to the Caribbean with the French West India Company in May 1666 and served there as an indentured servant for three years. He escaped a cruel master (or just completed his service, depending on the tale), and he sailed with the buccaneers for some time after that, most likely as a barber and surgeon. As a medical man, he would have had close contact with all the crew, including the captain. His access to the buccaneers allowed him firsthand knowledge of their daily lives and adventures. His descriptions of pirates, second only to Charles Johnson’s, have most influenced the modern idea of what a pirate is. But what drove Exquemelin to join the buccaneers? He is not shy about pointing out their sometimes inhuman cruelty. Could he not have found a more civilized post in the Caribbean? Without an understanding of what motivated him to sail with the buccaneers, it is almost impossible to examine his biases in his writing. Further complicating matters, subsequent editions of the book added chapters not written by the author, so it is sometimes hard to determine what was part of Exquemelin’s original story. Captain Henry Morgan, one of the latest and most famous buccaneers, sued the publishers of an English edition for libel and recovered £200 in damages regarding embellishments on his life story.

Exquemelin does not mention any female buccaneers in his book. But his work certainly shaped attitudes about buccaneers, which in turn no doubt influenced the authors of the women’s stories, so it is worth considering his perspective. His agenda may have been no more complex than to make some money off his adventures after returning home to Europe. No matter why he penned his account, historians have benefited because his glimpse into the world of the buccaneers sets the stage for the Golden Age that came after.

The most famous buccaneer Exquemelin profiles is better known for the popular rum that bears his name than for his exploits: Captain Henry Morgan. He was born in Wales sometime around 1635 to a farming family, but he decided not to go into the family business and went to sea to seek his fortune instead. He wound up in Jamaica, where he was first a sailor for England and then joined a band of buccaneers. Morgan quickly adapted to their rough-and-tumble way of life, and when he and some comrades scraped together enough money to buy a ship of their own, Morgan was made captain.

Morgan’s life was full of adventures, many of which he pulled off only by extreme cunning. His fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants style is a good example of how the buccaneers lived. As Exquemelin explains, “These buccaneers remain in the bush up to two years. . . . Upon arrival [in Tortuga] they squander in one month all they have earned in the previous two years. The spirits pour like water.” These wild men had little allegiance to anyone other than themselves and the pursuit of a good time. They faced hardship and life-threatening danger at sea and on land, so they lived it up while they could. Their rough life did not usually include time for families or wives, which is perhaps why there were so few female buccaneers. The two women profiled here have very few sources, none of which are from the buccaneer period, and although their stories are prevalent, they are likely fictional. The two women have very different stories, and both illustrate different facets of buccaneer life. The first woman is Anne de Graaf and the second is Jacquotte Delahaye.

Few details exist regarding Anne “Dieu-le-veut” de Graaf’s early life. Her maiden name is unknown. According to Klausmann et al. (the only major published source to cover her story in detail, although she is mentioned in other books), she was a Frenchwoman, most likely from Brittany, a hilly peninsular region in the northwest part of France. She arrived in Tortuga during the reign of Governor Bertrand d’Ogeron, which would have been sometime roughly around 1665 to 1675. Why she left France for the Caribbean is unclear. Jon Latimer suggests that she may have been part of a program sponsored by France to ship women to the colonies. The French colonial governors requested that women be sent from France to civilize the men and tempt them into getting married and settling down, finally becoming the plantation farmers France so deeply desired. As a result of these shipments of women, the population of Tortuga was roughly equal parts male and female, which was unusual for a Caribbean colony. The women, however, did not have the desired effect on the men, as very few chose to plant tobacco. At any rate, there was nothing civilized about Tortuga during this era.

Anne might also have been deported to the island; criminals and prostitutes were often sent from Europe to the colonies during this era. Prostitution and piracy have a long and twisted history, and both practices were alive and well in Tortuga. Exquemelin says that the buccaneers went to Tortuga to “celebrate . . . the goddess Venus, for whose beastly delights they find more women than they can make use of.” The women of Tortuga were financially dependent on the buccaneers’ patronage. While some of these men eventually fell in love with and occasionally married the bawdy women, many more took out their more violent urges on the prostitutes in encounters that were “predatory in nature,” John Appleby reports. Rape complaints in nearby Jamaica were “made a jest of even by authority,” claim the state papers from the period. Many of the young, poor, and vulnerable women of the Caribbean, plenty of whom had been deported there, were abused and assaulted by the ruthless buccaneers. The Tortuga of Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean franchise conjures up sassy tarts who slap an offensive man’s cheek, but in reality it was the women who were slapped—and worse. Native women, poor women, and African women were disproportionally affected by these crimes.

Violence against women pervades many periods of piracy—toward captives and paid companions alike. However, this fact is often downplayed in pirate stories, while the more palatable elements—such as the swashbuckling and adventure—are often glorified. Sullivan claims that pirates’ appeal lies beyond historical facts, which seems true and accounts for why pirate lovers accept violence as part of the narrative. Klausmann and other scholars have suggested that the heightened violence of this period is part of what prompted later storytellers to insert Anne and Jacquotte into the narrative, or at least tell the women’s stories in such a way to counteract the prevailing theme of violence against women of the period.

Anne may have been one of the many prostitutes who plied their trade in the Caribbean. Soon after she arrived, Klausmann says that she married Pierre Le Long, a minor political figure and local scallywag. He died soon after their marriage, possibly killed by pirate Laurens de Graaf. Anne’s largest claim to fame is her affiliation with de Graaf, a Dutch pirate who served the French colonies in the Caribbean during the late seventeenth to early eighteenth century. According to Klausmann, he is included in an edition of Exquemelin’s The Buccaneers of America. De Graaf (also spelled de Graff) appears in numerous other sources as well, such as Benerson Little’s The Buccaneer’s Realm: Pirate Life on the Spanish Main, 1674–1688. Reportedly, Henry Morgan called de Graaf “a great a mischievous pirate.”

Klausmann reports that Anne met de Graaf after he had slandered her. Other stories claim that she challenged him to a duel after he killed her husband. In all versions of the story, the initial meeting was a thrilling one. Anne was furious and threatened to kill de Graaf for his offense. She was itching for a fight, which so charmed Laurens that he proposed to her on the spot. Anne is not the only pirate woman to inspire such ardent devotion with her fury—Cheng I Sao would later allegedly attract a husband in the same way. Klausmann says Anne accepted de Graaf’s proposal due to his good looks. Jon Latimer claims that the two were never formally married.

Anne was not much of a fighter, according to Klausmann. Instead, she preferred to accompany her new husband on raids as a sort of lucky charm. Despite the fact that women were generally regarded as unlucky aboard a ship, Anne seems to have been well liked by the men of de Graaf’s crew because her presence did bring them success. She was given the nickname Anne Dieu-le-veut, which translates to “God wills it.” It seemed that when Anne wanted something, she always got it, as if God himself handed it to her.

Laurens and his crew most likely raided in the typical buccaneer fashion. The buccaneers used small boats, such as canoes, to sneak up on their much larger prey in the dead of night. They wrapped their enemy’s oars in fabric to immobilize the ship, then boarded. The large, slow-moving vessels were ripe for the plucking by the buccaneers’ smaller, faster ones. Like the early Mediterranean pirates, the buccaneers used their size and speed to their advantage. As more and more men in need of employment flooded the Caribbean, buccaneer bands became larger and more sophisticated. They participated in coordinated attacks both on land and at sea, accumulating ever more wealth.

Although the buccaneers were fiercely individualistic, they lived by a code they called “the custom of the coast.” This was a skeletal system of government that acknowledged individual sovereignty both on land and at sea. Over one hundred years before the Declaration of Independence, the buccaneers organized a strong government that was in many ways a model democracy. A contemporary author, Charlevoix, explains that “[the buccaneers] had established a kind of Democratic Government; each free person had a Despotic authority in his own habitation, & every captain was sovereign on board; as long as he was in command, but one could depose him.” Each ship was a mini world of its own, part of a decentralized power.

These men were loosely allied across racial, religious, and political lines into what came to be called the Brethren of the Coast. These Brethren were mostly English and French Protestants, but they included a variety of people such as some Spaniards, Africans, and nationless outlaws. Based in Tortuga, they were for a time the largest and most powerful governing body in the Caribbean. They shared a “remarkably democratic concept of justice and class consciousness,” and onboard a pirate ship was “just about the most democratic institution in the world in the seventeenth century,” according to Marcus Rediker. A former buccaneer wrote that “the prizes that [they] make are shared with each other with much brotherhood and friendship.” It appears that in spite of their more violent tendencies, the buccaneers respected one another—just not always women. Laurens, Anne, and the rest of his crew most likely lived in relative harmony with one another and the rest of the Brethren of the Coast.

Although Anne was supposedly a good-luck charm, her luck ran out, according to Klausmann, during a battle with the Spanish. Her husband was struck by a cannonball and killed in front of her and the crew. This legend runs afoul of the historical record of Laurens de Graaf’s life. Other sources claim that de Graaf, after being reunited with his family who had been taken hostage by the English for a few years, disappeared from the Caribbean and ended his days somewhere in the American South, fate unknown. Only stories featuring Anne include this detail of his death by cannon in the Caribbean. In Klausmann’s telling, Anne, horrified at the loss of her husband, nevertheless leaped into command of the ship. Her husband’s crew followed her orders and put up a brave fight, giving the Spaniards a long and bloody battle. The Spaniards ultimately prevailed, though, and Anne was captured along with the surviving crew. Her ultimate fate is unknown, although Klausmann and others mention a daughter of Anne’s who would grow up into quite a firebrand herself. This daughter allegedly became famous for fighting in a duel with a man—no doubt her mother would have been very proud.

Anne’s story illustrates several typical buccaneer characteristics. First and foremost, she was independent. As a widow, she could have spent her life shut away from the world, but instead she challenged a fierce pirate to a duel and ended up joining his crew. Her ability to look out for herself mirrors the buccaneer way. Also, she assumed command of her ship after her captain was taken out, just as Henry Morgan and others did. There wasn’t time midbattle to elect a new captain, but her crew’s willingness to follow her orders suggests she was fit for the job. Finally, as a woman she was a nontraditional crew member. Buccaneer crews included formerly enslaved people, as well as other outcasts from society. As long as he agreed to the terms in the articles at the beginning of the raid, each man onboard was treated equally. The conditions in the buccaneer crews were far more permissive and tolerant than conditions on land, and especially the conditions back in Europe. Anne’s story reinforces the point that buccaneers were a special group that operated outside the confines of polite society.

If Anne de Graaf has only a small chance of having really lived, Jacquotte Delahaye has an even smaller one. Spanish author Germán Vázquez Chamorro in his book Mujeres Piratas (Pirate Women) claims that she certainly never existed, but she was added into the lore of the buccaneer period to make the ruthless men more palatable to the modern reader. He argues that although she is fictional, her story has made an impact on history—something that many more real people have not been able to do. Interestingly, Chamorro reports that Delahaye’s fictional life corresponds closely with that of a pirate he claims is not fictional: Anne Dieu-le-veut.

Details of Jacquotte’s life are understandably few and far between. Some stories give her Haitian heritage, while others claim that at least one of her parents was a Spaniard. Regardless of which country they hailed from, all accounts agree that they were killed by the Spanish when Jacquotte was young. Some accounts claim that this forced Jacquotte into a life of piracy to support herself and her younger brother, who is often described as mentally challenged or autistic. Like Sayyida al-Hurra before her, Jacquotte is, in most versions of her story, motivated by revenge. It is definitely a dramatic scenario: A young girl cowers with her small brother in a corner while their parents are killed in front of them in their own home. The girl vows to avenge her family’s deaths and take care of her brother by undertaking a life of piracy. Years pass, and Jacquotte’s anger stays bottled up inside of her as she bartends or serves as a lady’s maid. Every day her anger grows as she and her brother barely survive on the pittance she makes. Finally, her anger burns so brightly that she can no longer ignore it. It is finally time for a reckoning with those who killed her family. It is time to be able to give her beloved brother more than just crumbs. She summons all her courage and devotes herself to the dangerous life of a buccaneer.

The reality of what drove most people to buccaneering was much less cinematic. These nomadic hunters-turned-pirates were motivated primarily by economic concerns. As discussed earlier in the chapter, Spain’s treasure ships sailing from the New World back to Europe were large and slow—perfect targets for a quick, enterprising buccaneer. The opportunity to get rich off of Spain’s work in South America was too tempting to pass up for a certain type of independent man. Jacquotte’s legend puts a more sympathetic face to the trade of buccaneering. Giving Jacquotte a brother to support as a reason for her buccaneering contradicts the typical buccaneer situation—most lacked any family ties. It almost seems as if her legend was constructed entirely as a counterpoint to the prevailing stories of buccaneer life.

No matter how young Jacquotte ended up among the buccaneers, all tales agree that she quickly rose through their ranks. Some accounts claim she commanded a hundred men. Some claim that she began her life of piracy dressed as a man, while others contend that she took a male alias only after faking her death during a battle. Most agree that she did dress as a man at some point in her career. This fact is complicated by the consistent occurrence of her flaming red hair in the legends. It is described as her distinguishing feature, which made her stand out from a crowd. She is often referred to as “Back from the Dead Red,” a reference to her return to piracy after her faked death.

A few accounts of her life claim that she teamed up with Anne Dieu-le-veut, but Anne’s arrival in the Caribbean occurs after Jacquotte’s death. Perhaps the storytellers confused these two buccaneer women with another Caribbean female pirate duo: Anne Bonny and Mary Read. In any case, the loving wife Anne would have had little in common with the single Jacquotte, who is always depicted as a loner. A quote attributed to Jacquotte (although no primary source could be found) says, “I couldn’t love a man who commands me—any more than I could love one who lets himself be commanded by me.” Her desire for freedom above all else is emblematic of not just the buccaneers of her era but of all pirates. Only in this does her story run along with and not contrary to buccaneer life.

One of Jacquotte’s most epic accomplishments, according to Klausmann, is the capture of Fort de la Roche on Tortuga in 1656. The small, turtle-shaped island of Tortuga, first used by buccaneers in the early 1620s, was a hotly contested spot variously controlled by the French, Spanish, and English, to say nothing of the native Taíno population. French governor Jean La Vasseur was a friend to the buccaneers and happy to have them around, as long as they shared some of their booty. He built Fort de la Roche, also known as de Rocher, in 1639 to defend the island from the Spanish, who had raided it a number of times. The fort was built high on a hill near the harbor, accessible by ladder. Niches were carved in the rock below to shelter the men defending it. It was a nearly impregnable fortress, vulnerable only from a nearby mountaintop. In 1654 the Spanish exploited that weakness and took possession of the island.

In 1656 the fort was wrested from Spanish control by the English, who were friendly to buccaneers. Theoretically, Jacquotte could have aided the English to retake the base. The buccaneers did have a history of helping out their fellow settlers to repel the Spanish, who were hostile to the pirate presence on Tortuga. Jacquotte and her crew might have helped the English gain access to the fort due to their familiarity with the land.

By the 1670s, Tortuga had lost its seat at the center of piratical goings-on in the Caribbean. Buccaneers moved to the nearby town Petit-Goâve and eventually to New Providence in the Bahamas, leaving Tortuga mostly abandoned. Jacquotte Delahaye would not live to see the new island base. She was killed, according to Klausmann, in a shoot-out with the Spanish in the 1660s. With forty Spaniards against only three buccaneers, the obvious choice would have been to surrender, but Jacquotte’s death is fitting for a true pirate: going out guns blazing rather than fading into obscurity.

Why are these two women included in buccaneer lore? Their stories do not have much in common with each other. Women of all races and classes had been a part of the Caribbean colonies since their founding but had been left out of their history. While the women were physically mistreated, they were also erased. Surely the lives of those women—uprooted from Europe and all they knew, sent on a journey across the sea, and deposited on an unfamiliar and unfriendly shore—were noteworthy and interesting, yet there is no counterpart to Exquemelin’s book covering their exploits. We are left to imagine their lives, while the lives of the male buccaneers are covered in detail. Anne and Jacquotte’s stories give women a voice in the narrative and put them back into the story, this time as victors instead of victims. Instead of nameless props in the buccaneer story, these women are portrayed as heroes: women who, despite the unpleasant and tragic circumstances they found themselves in, lived their lives on their own terms and valued personal freedom above all else, just as the male buccaneers did. Whether Anne or Jacquotte really existed, their stories are emblematic of the kind of adventurous women who did live during this period and whom history has forgotten.

Instead of going out guns blazing like Jacquotte, the buccaneers instead came to a slow and quiet end like the city of Tortuga itself. By 1690 buccaneering had all but died out. Countries abandoned privateering: first the Dutch in 1673, then the English in 1680, and finally the French in 1697. Spain’s chokehold on the region had ended, and other nations had established colonies in the Caribbean, including Jamaica and Hispaniola. The privateers had done their duty so well that they had worked themselves out of a job. When the world ceased its warring, the privateers were a threat to order, and so they had to go. Privateers such as Morgan were rebranded as patriotic heroes, although most of them had been less than heroic. Many buccaneers retired and started families, happily living off the loot they’d won. But some were unwilling to leave the sea just yet. There wasn’t much left for them in the Caribbean, so they had to seek new waters to plunder.

Newer research suggests a blurred line between the buccaneers, privateers, and pirates of this era. Timothy Sullivan argues that despite small regional differences, these groups were all one large group: both a subculture and a counterculture. Philip Gosse’s The History of Piracy, published in 1932, was the first book to look at pirates all together in one work, which allows him to link the three groups. They may appear diverse, but all played a part to stake a claim in formerly all-Spanish territory, and they fused their native European customs with the indigenous cultures they encountered, with various degrees of success. This frontier culture theory unites the different phases of the Golden Age and demonstrates that the buccaneers were neither a distinct section of the Golden Age nor a separate, unrelated period of piracy, but rather the first wave of the Golden Age. The pirates and privateers shared experiences, goals, and methods in the Caribbean. They have more in common than they have differences. The Pirate Round phenomenon further links these two groups into one continuous movement.

The Pirate Round route, used during the second phase of the Golden Age, grew out of the end of the buccaneering period. Pirates started in the New World, sailed across the Atlantic, and continued down around the Horn of Africa to Madagascar. From there, they plundered ships traveling to and from India and the Ottoman Empire, collecting vast fortunes. Thomas Tew appears to be the first pirate to make this voyage, but many others—including former buccaneers—raced to follow his example.

In Raiders and Rebels: A History of the Golden Age of Piracy, Frank Sherry describes the great pirate stronghold on Madagascar that advanced the Pirate Round. There, the pirates established their first real republic. From that common base, they were able to organize into a powerful entity that was much stronger than any previous coalitions, including the Brethren of the Coast. Without the restrictions of a privateering license, these pirates were able to attack at will. In the Indian Ocean, the buccaneers-turned-pirates refined their ship-hunting tactics, swelled their ranks, and established rules of governance that would come to characterize the piracy of the Golden Age. Madagascar was the triple-A baseball league where the pirates honed their skills and grew their confidence. Once the War of the Spanish Succession ended and vast numbers of skilled sailors were suddenly unemployed, the pirates were ready for the big leagues—the Caribbean.

The War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1714—the spark that lit the fuse of the final phase of the Golden Age and brought the pirates back in full force to the Caribbean. With the lessons learned in Madagascar and the Pirate Round, the new pirates of the Caribbean were ready to terrorize ships of all nations. They were poised to become the most famous pirates of all time, the pirates people think of when they hear the word pirate. These stories are now ingrained in myth and pop culture. Along with the oft-repeated names of Blackbeard and Jack Rackham, many other pirates sailed under the black flag during the Golden Age, at least two of whom were women: history’s most notorious female pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read.