Cindy Vallar's Blog - Posts Tagged "mike-rendell"

Pirates and Privateers in the 18th Century: The Final Flourish by Mike Rendell

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


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.




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