The Buccaneers of America

The Buccaneers of America: A True Account of the Most Remarkable Assaults Committed of Late Years upon the Coasts of the West Indies by the Buccaneers of Jamaica & Tortuga by Alexandre O Exquemelin

Editied by Matt Albers, translated by William Swan Sonnenschein

The West Indies in the late 17th Century was home to a group of sea raiders that were not yet pirates, and not quite privateers. The Buccaneers. The Brethren of the Coast, as they called themselves, lived dissolute lives of violence, debauchery, thievery, & murder.

These are the stories of Captain Henry Morgan and his raids on Campeche, Porto Bello, and Panama. Of Francois l’Ollonias and the terror he inflicted on the people of Maracaibo and Cabo Gracis a Dios. Of Pierre le Picard, Roche Brasiliano, and Pierre le Grand. These are the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

From the English city of Port Royal & the French island of Tortuga they sailed in fleets of small ships hunting for Spanish silver.…

Life Under the Jolly Roger

Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy by Gabriel Kuhn

Over the last couple of decades, an ideological battle has raged over the political legacy and cultural symbolism of the “golden age” pirates who roamed the seas between the Caribbean Islands and the Indian Ocean from roughly 1690 to 1725. They are depicted as romanticized villains on the one hand and as genuine social rebels on the other. Life Under the Jolly Roger examines the political and cultural significance of these nomadic outlaws by relating historical accounts to a wide range of theoretical concepts—reaching from Marshall Sahlins and Pierre Clastres to Mao Zedong and Eric J. Hobsbawm via Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. With daring theoretical speculation and passionate, respectful inquiry, Gabriel Kuhn skillfully contextualizes and analyzes the meanings of race, gender, sexuality, and disability in golden age pirate communities, while also surveying the breathtaking array of pirates’ forms of organization, economy, and ethics.…

Villains of All Nations

Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age by Marcus Rediker

Villains of All Nations explores the ‘Golden Age’ of Atlantic piracy (1716-1726) and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates.

Rediker introduces us to the dreaded black flag, the Jolly Roger; swashbuckling figures such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard; and the unnamed, unlimbed pirate who was likely Robert Louis Stevenson’s model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island.

This history shows from the bottom up how sailors emerged from deadly working conditions on merchant and naval ships, turned pirate, and created a starkly different reality aboard their own ships, electing their officers, dividing their booty equitably, and maintaining a multinational social order. The real lives of this motley crew-which included cross-dressing women, people of color, and the’outcasts of all nations’-are far more compelling than contemporary myth.

Pages: 248

Published: 2005

ISBN: 978-0807050255

Show all the books

Tom Mason and the Blue Buccaneers

Tom Mason and the Blue Buccaneers are a wild band of Nashville musicians who dress like pirates and play a rollicking mix of piratical sing-alongs, rousing historical rave-ups, afro-cuban tinged ballads, Cajun sea shanties, and bluesy Irish jigs, transforming big festivals, performing arts centers, and urban nightclubs into bustling seaside taverns at the turn of the seventeenth century.

Sadly Tom Mason passed away in August 2024.

John Brownrigg

The 36-year-old John Brownrigg is an experienced seaman from Newcastle. Although he officially holds the position of coxswain on Dream Chaser, he is one of the most indispensable crewmembers in the day-to-day running of the vessel, as well as maintaining the sails and rigging. Generally good-natured, he is known to be hot-tempered at times, especially with regards to the love-hate relationship that has developed between him and William Benton. A committed Jacobite, he was a sailor on a privateer vessel which took the Old Pretender, James Stuart, from France to Peterhead in Scotland, although they arrived too late for the battle.