What We're Reading

The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down

Author: Colin Woodard
Publisher: Harcourt
$27.00 Cloth (383 p.)
ISBN: 9780151013029
B&T        MAJORS       YBP


Reviewed by Marcia A. Lusted, Statusing

Pirates have gotten a lot of attention in the past few years, thanks to Disney, but for most of us the actual history of piracy and the men who are most famous as pirates tends to be cloudy and made up more of myth and legend than truth. Piracy itself has always had a romantic history, yet it was a much briefer period than most people realize.

In The Republic of Pirates, Colin Woodard not only tells the real story of the pirates of the Caribbean, but also how they created their empires and how they were ultimately brought down. Beginning with the privateers who operated with the authority of the British king and plundered the ships of warring nations, pirates grew from the ranks of sailors, indentured servants, and slaves who were dissatisfied with the poor treatment and wages they received in the service of the Royal Navy and who branched out into piracy on their own as a revolt against those conditions.

In the early 1800s, these pirates, under the command of famous captains such as Sam Bellamy, Blackbeard, and Charles Vane, created a rough democracy in the safe havens of the Bahamas where black slaves had rights and everyone could vote on issues such as leadership. Woodard tells the story of how these bands of pirates were created, how they plundered ships and gained new recruits for their ranks, and the details of the pirate life that rarely make it into movies, such as careening ships to perform maintenance, the different classes of sailing ships, and how these ships would be maneuvered for battle or to combat inclement weather conditions. The book contains descriptions of shipwrecks and sea battles, but also illness and injuries and the stories of men who were forced into piracy because they had no other choice. Many pirates became the Robin Hoods of their day, heroes to common people who watched as they looted goods from wealthy merchants and nations and redistributed them among the poorer classes of sailors and their families.

Woodard tells of Woodes Rogers, once a privateer himself and a member of a wealthy merchant family, who finally brought the golden age of piracy to an end. Through his efforts, King George I of England offered all pirates a pardon for their crimes if they surrendered. This was enough to fragment the pirate community and eventually disperse the threat to the world's shipping.

Woodard's book is extremely readable and interesting, and perhaps the only difficult thing about it is that there is such a large cast of characters. There are so many names of both pirates and British captains and sailors, that it becomes difficult to keep them all straight. Alliances change, as well as political situations, and the reader almost needs a scorecard to keep from getting confused. The book is well worth it, and the reader ends up with a much more detailed understanding of the pirate era than can ever be gleaned from the adventures of Captain Jack Sparrow!