Reviews
Black Flags, Blue Waters: The Epic History of America’s Most Notorious Pirates by Eric Jay Dolin (Liveright Publishing, New York, 2018, 365pp, illus, notes, biblio, index, isbn 978-1-63149-210-5; $29.95hc) Black Flags, Blue Waters is a fast-paced scholarly narrative about seamen who turned rogue to terrorize the seventeenthand eighteenth-century Atlantic and Indian Ocean shipping routes. This brash, aberrant, but small segment of the North American colonial population became legendary in American history. Brigands of the sea, pirates have fascinated generations since their roughly two-century so-called golden age. Subjects of countless books, plays, movies, and other forms of entertainment, they have become more famous in death than in life. Eric Jay Dolin masterfully writes about this popular topic and then takes his reader upon a fascinating literary journey by exposing little-known events that surround and flesh out pirate history. Pirates were “miscreants [who] found sport to do mischief; where prodigious drinking, monstrous cursing and swearing, hideous blasphemies, open defiance of heaven and contempt of hell itself, was the constant employment.” Many of the troublemakers Dolin visits over the course of the book are familiar: Bellamy, Bonnet, Drake, Kidd, Low, Quelch, Roberts, Teach or Thatch (a.k.a. Blackbeard), Vane, Worley, and many more. He also introduces the reader to a few obscure, but engaging villains. After being admonished by fireand-brimstone clergy such as the likes of Cotton Mather, many ended up being hanged before a public gathering (dancing the “Tyburn jig”). Their corpses were left hanging in an iron cage near the harbor entrance or prominent point as a warning to those who harbored thoughts of engaging in piracy. Astonishingly, British colonists first welcomed pirates in American ports because they brought with them valuable items the colonists needed and/or desired. That the goods were obtained by thievery and occasionally murder in a remarkably religious emigrant society was self-serving, if not outright hypocritical. This was presumably considered acceptable because the seagoing bandits plundered Mughal “infi-
del” ships on distant oceans. Some saw this as a positive activity, a modern extension of the Crusades. When the pirates chose to attack British, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch vessels in American waters, attitudes changed. This was also the era of privateering, when a governmental agency could grant a captain or a vessel a
Eric Dolin has produced an elegantly written history. His streaming writing style makes for enjoyable reading, and his penchant for distinguishing where fact has been garnished and morphed into legend creates sundry unexpected revelations. These romantic or repulsive sea rovers continue to captivate the imaginations of the public. Over the years, many books about pirates have been published, but Black Flags, Blue Waters is distinctive and an excellent addition to this subdivision of maritime history. Louis Arthur Norton West Simsbury, Connecticut
Pamir The Glencannon Press 4 col. inches (2.25 x 4.5 inches) Prefer right hand page, bottom right.
Sailing the Pacific during WWII by
Bernard Diederich
letter of marque (an official license) to attack any vessel flying an enemy’s flag and take the ship and its cargo as a prize. With this authorizing document, the officers and crew would have the rich bounty auctioned off and divide the proceeds according to a predetermined contract or pact. The line between legal privateering and larcenous piracy eventually became blurred. Peace may have been achieved between belligerents, yet, because of sluggish communications, a privateer sailing far away on the high seas might be unaware of it. If he unknowingly attacked what was a former foe, it was considered a piratical act. For financial gain, some colonies were more tolerant of pirates and even created safe havens. The most underpublicized of these was the New York City area, and to a lesser degree Massachusetts, the Carolinas, and parts of the Caribbean. The stories of governmental officials who profited from this arrangement makes fascinating reading. Dolin also describes the thought-provoking pirate articles-of-agreement before a voyage began. These were a quasi-social security system for the crew, as well as a remarkable example of the pirate’s code of democracy.
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