Blood and Silver

Pirates, privateers and buccaneers were the scourge of the Americas for two and a half centuries. From the 1520s onwards, pirate ships preyed on the Spanish galleons bearing riches back to Europe from the Americas. They also attacked ports and cities, ransacking and ransoming throughout the Caribbean and Pacific. Some were mere criminals, grown rich through looting. Others were agents of foreign policy, attacking Spanish targets in the name of country or religion. As the Spanish defended their New World empire, piracy became a matter of full-scale maritime warfare. Individuals such as Henry Morgan and Edward 'Blackbeard' Teach were among the most notorious of pirates, but acts of extraordinary daring and cruelty were carried out by many others, from England, France and Holland. Women were also involved, as exemplified by Mary Read and Ann Bonny, who narrowly escaped the gallows by being pregnant. A colourful mix of patriots and psycopaths made up the ranks of those whom the Spanish reviled as 'enemies of humankind'. In this new and original study of piracy, Kris Lane looks at the often mixed motives behind the phenomenon and the lives of those involved. Rejecting the romantic myth of the Elizabethan swashbuckler, he reveals a world of violence, hardship and fanaticism, in which self-enrichment was an obsession. From the first corsairs of the 16th century to the last of the buccaneers, he traces the rise and fall of a dangerous profession which encompassed slave-running, smuggling and ship-wrecking. Why did so many seafarers resort to piracy? What was life like aboard a pirate ship? What did pirates eat and what were their pastimes and vices? These are some of the questions answered in this vivid account of a much misunderstood period of history.