During this period, Woodard says, "ordinary people were upset about the growing gap between rich and poor, and the growing authoritarian power of the British empire." Though a hanging offense (unless one bribed officials), piracy was an attractive option for men in desperate circumstances with some knowledge of seafaring and a deep loathing for authority. Many of the men who turned to piracy off the American coast were escaped slaves and indentured servants or colonists who had failed to make a living on land. Piracy was a lifestyle, a profession and a political cause in the early 18th century. People saw pirates as Robin Hood figures, socking it to the man on their behalf." Though the authorities characterized pirates as "devils and demons, enemies of all mankind," Woodard says, "many colonial citizens supported them. But even during their lifetimes, pirates like Edward "Blackbeard" Thatch (or Teach) and Ann Bonny were romanticized. The popular pirate, as known from Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island to the recent Pirates of the Caribbean movie trilogy, was inspired by these buccaneers. "Stede Bonnet was part of a gang of pirates operating in the Caribbean that are responsible for the images we have of pirates today," says historian Colin Woodard, author of The Republic of Pirates. But why did a man who seemed to have everything give it all up for a life of crime?įor a few years in the early 18th century, from about 1715 to 1720, piracy experienced a golden age. Though his crew and fellow pirates judged him to be an inept captain, Bonnet's adventures earned him the nickname "the Gentleman Pirate," and today his legend lingers in the annals of pirate history. In 1717, Bonnet, a retired British army major with a large sugar plantation in Barbados, abandoned his wife, children, land and fortune bought a ship and turned to piracy on the high seas. Stede Bonnet's career as the "Gentleman Pirate" may represent the worst midlife crisis on record.
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