Martin,
Dr. W. Jeffrey Bolster sites of the 5,000 pirates who roamed the Caribbean Sea during that Golden Age of Pirates there were about 25%-30% black and mulatto. It was not a difficult choice to make during that period given the opportunity: die as an enslaved labourer in about seven years or possibly die as a free man with the other possibility of making a lot of money... The infamous but orderly Welshman, Black Bart, usually had about 30% of his crews being African or African descendant, in fact his purser was an African.
What I find more interesting are the many many mariners and shipwrights who were not given any historical recording for the day to day work they were doing to support their families and communities in British America and later in the USA. It is estimated that most of the Eastern Seaboard coastal trading vessels and fleets were crewed by up to 70% black and many riverine freighters were all black. Most of the riverine, delta and bay vessels held large percentages of captains and pilots who were black up to the mid-19th century. The influence of these men, most of whom were enslaved, upon the land labourers must have been tremendous. The great Underground Railroad to the North used those enslaved mariners expertise in moving them on a regular
basis. Harriet Tubman brought her children out of slavery via sailing river vessels.
British America is a topic that really needs its histories investigated. I have attached a small list of mariners that I have picked up in incidental readings during my research labours that are, again, in the presentation, Black Folk Don't Sail.
Ross
re: John Julian, mentioned at the end of the second slide. There’s a good
National Geographic website for children about the wreck of the
Whydah
and I use this with students at school. At
http://www.nationalgeographic.co.uk/whydah/
children can find out about John Julian and the rest of the crew. The site
says that 25-30% of pirates in the ‘golden age of piracy’ were black.
From: [log in to unmask]" ymailto="mailto:[log in to unmask]" target="_blank" href="mailto:[log in to unmask]">Herman Ross
Sent: Monday, March 11, 2013 10:49 AM
Subject: Re: Black pirates
Marika,
The
attachments show a small number of the black pirates I include in my Black Folk Don't Sail
presentation.
Ross
From ‘A brief history of piracy’, in New
African March 2013 (reproduced by courtesy of the Royal Naval Museum
Library):
‘Pirate captains in the Caribbean welcomed
runaway slaves who made up as much as one-third of some pirate
crews’.
