Raiders and Rebels: The Golden Age of Piracy [Paperback]

Frank Sherry (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2000

Raiders and Rebels is a rich and vivid account of the golden age of piracy. From 1692 to 1725 pirates sailed the oceans of the world, terrorizing seamen and plundering ships laden with the riches of India, Africa, South America and the Caribbean. Beneath these well known facts lies the true story of pirates. They were common men and women escaping the social and economic restrictions of 18th-century Europe. Their activities threatened the beginnings of world trade and jeopardized the economic security of several European nations even as they formed one of the first true democracies in the world.

Product Details

• Paperback: 404 pages
• Publisher: Backinprint.com; illustrated edition edition (October 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0595144128
• ISBN-13: 978-0595144129
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 7.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,564,376 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An entire musuem between two covers., September 5, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Raiders and Rebels: The Golden Age of Piracy (Paperback)

"Raiders and Rebels" heeds the advice of telling an entire story from background to climax while being kind enough to remove all the unnecessary parts. We learn about the conditions of miniscule earnings, rotten food, and brutal merchant captains that turned ordinary sailors into authority-hating pirates. We learn truth from myth without losing an ounce of the wonder that made the stories of pirates into centuries-old legends.

Told in a linear narrative from 1692 to 1725, "Raiders and Rebels" succinctly establishes the sea settings and major players of the era and moves us along the rise and fall of piracy's golden age replete with anecdotes of captured prisoners' heads set afire, Spanish monks made to run in circles while being whipped and stabbed by the entire pirate crew, and daring escapes and defiant last stands and a famous beheading of a legend.

In 1692, sailors were harshly treated, malnourished, minimally paid, and essentially enslaved to the boat and its profitting captain and owners. The ships themselves were evenly matched (even if outgunned) with naval warships in technology and seamanship, making rebellion possible. And the Navigation Acts dating from 1651 had forced the American colonies to trade only with England, artificially driving up prices and making fine goods a rarity in the colonies. These Acts created a huge demand and subsequent black market in the colonies for illegal goods. This was the world that sailors toiled in when the outbreak of privateering struck the maritime world.

Privateering was the practice of one country issuing a license to a private ship to attack and plunder merchants from an enemy country. In an instant, privateers swarmed the seas, each ship promising its crew better pay than the more honest sailors would ever earn.

But when peace was declared, these hardened privateers were essentially asked to return to their shackles and sentences aboard merchant ships. Many rebelled and turned to privateering without licenses, the lack of which made them official pirates.

Pirates flourished, gained freedom and fame, corrupted governors, built island kingdoms in Madagascar, the Bahamas and even off the American coast, they established anarchic towns of debauchary, and threatened the burgeoning shipping industry to the point of collapse. Truly democratic, pirate societies gave the promise of freedom and power to desperate men. Heroes arose among the pirates and the pirate-hunters and Frank Sherry gives due account to both.

Most interesting to me, however, was that piracy was not possible without atrocious conditions in the merchant business and a willing market in the Americas to deal in pirated goods. While pirates certainly committed evil acts, they were not without their root causes. A lesson that rings true today.

A fascinating read, I found myself compulsively taking notes throughout the entire book. An excellent account of history with a touch of artistic sensitivity to keep it grounded and readable. Read. Enjoy.

7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Will Ye Join Us, Brother?", March 10, 2003

By 

Bruce Rux (Aurora, CO) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Raiders and Rebels: The Golden Age of Piracy (Paperback)

This is the single best overall book available on piracy's Golden Age. Sherry organizes his material very well, telling a straight chronological history of piracy's evolution from early buccaneers to king's privateers to outright pirates. He devotes separate chapters to the most famous captains, elucidating their personal histories and careers in a clear and concise manner - Henry Morgan, Edward Teach (Blackbeard), Edward Low, Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart), Calico Jack Rackham (and his lesbian pirate associates, Anne Bonney and Mary Read), the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and more. He also renders a wonderful biography of Woodes Rogers, the privateer-turned-governor of Nassau, a fascinating character whose actions, perhaps more than anyone else's, most damaged the cohesion of piracy - helping it fall apart of its own accord, due to disorganization and lack of discipline and foresight.

Sherry does not write merely about piracy as seagoing theft, but about the short-lived and surprisingly democratic "Maritime Nation." Few people realize that the "Brethren of the Coast" (as they styled themselves) were one of the earliest "countries" - and certainly the only one of their age - to institute accident and disability insurance and elected leadership, not to mention equal opportunity employment and what essentially amounted to equal-share company stock options. Sherry does an expert job of illustrating the brutality and oppression of the age, making it clear why so many sailors voluntarily joined ranks with the seafaring rebels - whose primary battle cry was not "death to all," but "Will ye join us, Brother?"

Many myths are explored and deflated, and many others shown to have a great deal of validity. There is only one recorded instance of anyone being made to walk the plank, for instance, (even if the pirates played on that prevalent myth to their own advantage), though marooning was indeed the favored form of pirate capital punishment.

Most importantly, Sherry does a fine job of making the reader feel what daily life was like for the pirates - and for their suffering cousins in the merchant marines and the Royal Navy - and portrays them in a sympathetic and understanding light. He doesn't soft-pedal the darker side of piracy, but he does put it into perspective.

Equally recommended is David Cordingly's "Under the Black Flag," though Sherry's "Raiders and Rebels" is better organized and actually more thorough.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Excellent Reference Book about Pirates and Piracy!, August 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Raiders and Rebels: The Golden Age of Piracy (Paperback)

I beg your pardon, Mr. Bruce Rex, top 500 Reviewer! Your review was well-written and accurate except for one HUGE ERROR! You commented that the pirates, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, were lesbians?!!! That, sir, is far from the truth. As the author of RAIDERS & REBELS states, Anne Bonny was the young wife of James Bonny, a n'er-do-well sailor. After a few months of marriage, she ran away to sea with the notorious but handsome Calico Jack Rackham. (Mr. Sherry states Anne had many lovers before Jack, but I wonder where he got that information. I never read anything of the sort except in fictional novels!) As for Mary Read: She had worn men's clothing most of her life, fought in the War of the Spanish Succession, and fell in LOVE with a fellow soldier!!! She and her soldier married, were discharged from the army, and ran a pub in the Nederlands before her husband died. After his death, she again donned men's clothing, went to sea on a merchantman, and eventually ended up sailing on Calico Jack's ship where she and Anne became best friends. It is believed Anne had two children by Calico Jack. And Mary was pregnant with a child of her new love (an unnamed pirate aboard Rackham's ship) when they were captured in Negril Bay off the west coast of Jamaica. Frank Sherry included an index and bibliography as well as chapter notes in his wonderful book! I recommend it for everyone.I also recommend a children's novel that has photos and accurate information about pirates including Anne Bonny and Mary Read: The Diary of a Slave Girl, Ruby Jo includes a scene about Blackbeard and his men in 1718 Charles Town, SC. Also, a must read for any age!