![]() ![]() ![]() You could be press-ganged into the navy and endure conditions far worse than those experienced on board a pirate ship: "Conditions for ordinary seamen were both harsh and dangerous - and the pay was poor. The Church dominated all aspects of life and women had few options beyond marital slavery. ![]() Euro-American society of the 17th and 18th centuries was one of emergent capitalism, war, slavery, land enclosures and clearances starvation and poverty side-by-side with unimaginable wealth. We can easily imagine the attraction of life as a sea-rover, answerable to no-one. From these mini-anarchies - 'temporary autonomous zones' - they launched raiding parties so successful that they created an imperial crisis, attacking British trade with the colonies, and crippling the emerging system of global exploitation, slavery and colonialism. They operated from land enclaves, free ports 'pirate utopias' located on islands and coastlines as yet beyond the reach of civilization. ĭuring the 'Golden Age' of piracy in the 17th and 18th centuries, crews of early proletarian rebels, dropouts from civilization, plundered the lucrative shipping lanes between Europe and America. No, a merry Life and a short one shall be my Motto" - Pirate Captain Bartholomew Roberts. "In an honest Service, there is thin Commons, low Wages, and hard Labour in this, Plenty and Satiety, Pleasure and Ease, Liberty and Power and who would not ballance Creditor on this Side, when all the Hazard that is run for it, at worst, is only a sower Look or two at choaking. ![]()
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