As readers of the Republic of Pirates know, the Bahama-based pirate gang frequented out-of-the-way, thinly settled, Indian-war-ravaged places like Maine and North Carolina to hide out from the law after blockading major ports. Documentary evidence proves several visited Cape Elizabeth, Damariscove, and Monhegan Island, and there's reason to believe somebody set up camp in Machias, though it wasn't Sam Bellamy.

If you live in or near Midcoast Maine, come on by and say hello.

MovableType, from which this blog is composed, is just terrible!  I have been intending to spend the time to learn how to export the site to another medium, but with book and journalism projects (and my other blog)  I just haven't had a chance.

One of my New Years' resolutions is to bring the Republic of Pirates blog into the 2010s. Please stay tuned.....

-- Colin Woodard

I was interviewed by The Christian Science Monitor about the possible historical lessons the official responses to the Golden Age Pirates might offer for the current situation. I described some of the extraordinary parallels between the Somali and Bahamas-based piracy outbreaks and the strategy the British successfully employed to defeat the infamous Flying Gang, described in my book, The Republic of Pirates.

-- Colin Woodard

I've been in the Turks & Caicos Islands, a British Overseas Territory, where I gave a talk on the history of the golden age pirates at this private resort island.

As told in my book, The Republic of Pirates, Blackbeard, Sam Bellamy, Calico Jack Rackham, and other members of the infamous Nassau-based pirate gang operated throughout the Bahaman archipelago, including the Turks & Caicos (where they enjoyed ambushing Bermuda vessels that came here to rake salt.) I also had an opportunity to compare colonial history notes with my fellow presenters: antique book and map dealer Graham Arader (who let me peruse an original copy of a famous 1655 account of the West Indies) and the erstwhile cocktail aficionado Patrick Costigan (who introduced me to The Hemingway.)

I also had a chance to speak with Turks & Caicos television and newspaper reporters about the island chain's ties to the real Caribbean pirates -- my first opportunity to talk to bring the pirates' story to the people of the greater Bahamian archipelago.

My feature on how the Royal Navy responded to the rise of the Golden Age pirates is in the new issue of Military History Quarterly.

"Quelling a Pirate Revolt," (Spring 2009, pp. 9-19) shows how Admiralty policies helped provoke the piracy outbreak and hampered the Navy's ability to respond to the threat. Based on previously unpublished accounts from the letters and logbooks of naval officers, the article sheds new light on how Blackbeard, Charles Vane, Sam Bellamy, Calico Jack Rackham and other pirates managed to destabilize three Trans-Atlantic empires. There's also a sidebar on the parallels with the recent Somalia piracy outbreak.

The piece isn't available online - they'd like you to subscribe to the magazine.

 -- Colin Woodard

Whenever I find the time, I try to expand the offerings at republicofpirates.net, and today I've added the Pirates in Philadelphia page. After all, Expedition Whydah's "Real Pirates" exhibit just wrapped up at Philadelphia's Franklin Institute; while the Whydah never made it to town, Blackbeard and Henry Avery's men certainly did...and maybe the arch-pirate himself.

My publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, was sacked by pirates last month.

The pirates -- the Ireland-based investment group that purchased Harcourt and merged it with Houghton Mifflin last year -- destroyed two century-old publishing houses in a single week by announcing they would no longer buy new books; one observer accurately compared this move with a butcher loudly decreeing they would stop buying fresh meat. My publisher, Rebecca Salaten, resigned in protest and authors were told to go elsewhere with their manuscripts. (Viking-Penguin is publishing my next book.) Massive layoffs followed.

Of course, you won't read about any of this on the company's website. As of today, their latest "news" isn't "Publisher destroyed" but rather an item on how Microsoft just named them "education partner of the year."

The folks at Microsoft might want to reconsider.

-- Colin Woodard

I double-checked the primary documents and am happy to report that my account is correct: Vane was tried in Spanish Town, Jamaica on 21 March 1721 (Julian) and executed in 29 March 1721. Unfortunately, that means that most other accounts out there -- including, at this writing, Wikipedia and most pirate websites -- have his death and, thus, the duration of his imprisonment, wrong by at least a year.

Part of the confusion may be due to one the period's famous "dating problems."  Until 1751, England (and her American possessions) considered the "legal year" to commence on March 25th. The effect: the day after December 31st of, say, the year 1720 was written as "January 1, 1720," when, for the rest of the world, it was 1721. The effect: for most dates from January 1 to March 25, you need to add a year.

Problem is, by the early 1700s, many Englishmen already thought this was silly and confusing and went ahead and wrote the year the way we would. This means historical researchers are forced to corrobate what year is really meant whenever the date falls between January and March.

Here's where the error creeps in. In the published trial records -- part of The Trials of Captain John Rackham and Other Pirates, (Jamaica: 1721) -- it is written that Vane's trial was held in "St.Jago de la Vega [Spanish Town], Wednesday, March 22 1720. But that's really 1721 with the calendar correction! 

How can we be sure? First, because the very same trial record later notes that on "wednesday the 29th day of March 1721...the said Charles Vane [was] executed at Gallow's Point in Port Royal..." (It then being after the 25th, it was officially the "new" year.) This was big news throughout the Americas, and ships departing Jamaica in late March and early April carried the news far and wide.

Both the (Philadeplhia) American Weekly Mercury and the Boston Gazette reported the news in their first issues of May 1721, as told  to them by sea captains just arrived from Jamaica (a trip that takes about a month). As the Boston Gazette put it: "On the 27th [of April in New York], arrived Capt. Johnson [of] the Albany Brigatine, 28 days from Jamaica, who says Vane, the famous Pirate and another man were hanged there for Piracy." With this double-corroboration there is no doubt which year Vane's trial and execution took place.

-- Colin Woodard