On the Account in the Golden Age: Piracy and the Americas, 1670-1726

Piracy along American coastlines and in the Caribbean in the late 1600s and early 1700s is often seen today through a colorful set of modern media archetypes. The reality, however, was usually uglier and frequently lethal. In this book, author Joseph Gibbs goes back to original memoirs, monographs, newspaper articles, and trial records to present a stark picture of piracy in the era of Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, and Ann Bonny and Mary Read. The contents are introduced, annotated, and carefully edited for modern readers. They offer a glimpse of piracy far removed from, and often more engaging than, the romanticized version provided by later writers and filmmakers. They describe the ordeal-filled marches of the Caribbean boucaniers, who were tough enough to eat leather while sacking the cities of the Spanish empire. They also shed light on the pirates’ tactics at sea and on land; their practice of “forcing” captives to join them; their often-sadistic cruelty; and their ships’ “articles” and the primitive democratic standards they upheld. Enhanced with classic maps and illustrations, On the Account in the ‘Golden Age’ offers an unvarnished look at those who sailed, and often died, under the dreaded black and red flags of the era. Readers will see pirates as they actually were—in pursuit of prey, in battle, and sometimes on the way to the gallows.