The Golden Age of Piracy

The Mariner's Mirror Podcast

Scholars debate the period when pirates actually ruled the waves - and the answer certainly depends on the location in question - but by general consensus it was all over by 1730 and it had begun some 80 years earlier, around 1650. The Golden Age of Piracy had been born in this crucial period when European maritime powers were flexing their muscles and starting to project naval power beyond the horizon. As empires grew so did the quantity and quality of trade and the seas became littered with merchantmen carrying indescribable wealth across the oceans. And yet this was a time when the maritime geographies of the new empires was imperfectly known, and when navigation was still as much guesswork as it was a science - this was the period immediately before the means to calculate longitude accurately had been discovered. The result was that ships carried this trade at predictable times of year, on predictable routes, in locations that were impossible to police adequately. Although European naval powers did create naval bases in the tropics, it was a slow process and one with many pitfalls. At the same time thousands of young men were learning how to sail and how to fight in a near endless series of maritime wars. The result? A period of piracy so intense and colourful that it still lives on today in myth, legend, and increasingly detailed and accurate histories. To find out more Dr Sam Willis spoke with pirate historian Dr Jamie Goodall.

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