Review: Captain Kidd by Samuel Marquis

Synopsis: The breakneck adventure of war, romance, politics, and betrayal, where noble gentleman privateer William Kidd becomes a scapegoat, and Crown and crew sink to unfathomable depths to brand him pirate enemy #1.

Captain William Kidd stands as one of the most notorious “pirate” outlaws ever, but his notorious legend is tainted by a bed of lies. Captain Kidd has captivated imaginations for over three hundred years and inspired many stories about pirates, but was he really a criminal? Just how many ships did he plunder, how many men did he force to walk the plank, and how many throats did he slit? Or is the truth more inconvenient, that he was a buccaneer’s worst nightmare, a revered pirate hunter turned fall guy for scheming politicians?

In Captain Kidd, his ninth-great-grandson, writer Samuel Marquis, reveals the real story. Kidd was an English-American privateer and leading New York husband and father, dubbed “trusty and well-beloved” by the King of England himself and described by historians as a “worthy, honest-hearted, steadfast, much-enduring sailor” who was the “victim of a deliberate travesty of justice.” With honors far more esteemed than the menacing Blackbeard or any other sea rover at the turn of the seventeenth century, how can Kidd be considered both gentleman and pirate, both hero and villain?

Marquis’ biography clears the foggy haze of five centuries of legend and British propaganda to illuminate the seafaring adventurer and civic leader. He scrupulously recreates Kidd’s perilous world of explosive naval warfare, the daring integrity he exemplified as a pirate hunter, and the political scandal that entangled Kidd in British-American history, rocking the New World and the Old and threatening England’s valuable trade with India.

Captain Kidd is both thrilling and tragic. Behind the legend is a real man woven into the tapestry of early America, rendering him a unique colonial hero and scapegoat, whose life story was fascinating, exciting, bizarre, and heartrending.

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Kidd was " ... hanged for doing so, whilst so many who did infinitely worse that he died in their beds in the odor of sanctity ... "

This is undoubtedly a well researched tome by the subject's ancestor, demonstrating to the reader the many facets of Captain Kidd's character, in an era of grey and blurred lines.

Marquis documents Kidd's career as a highly successful privateer, commissioned to protect English interests in North America and the West Indies, through to his fateful final voyage where he failed to find many targets, lost much of his crew and faced threats of mutiny. By the late 17th Century, the political climate in England had turned against him, and he was ultimately betrayed by his backer Bellomont, Governor of New York (and his own crew), and was denounced as a pirate.

The bulk of the narrative then focuses on Kidd's arrest and trial, with the author offering his personal opinion on Kidd towards the end of the book, before delving into the legend, the legacy and long-lost loot.

Overall, a worthy tome.

Review: The Pirate's Wife by Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos

Synopsis: The dramatic and deliciously swashbuckling story of Sarah Kidd, the wife of the famous pirate Captain Kidd, charting her transformation from New York socialite to international outlaw during the Golden Age of Piracy. Captain Kidd was one of the most notorious pirates to ever prowl the seas. But few know that Kidd had an accomplice, a behind-the-scenes player who enabled his plundering and helped him outpace his enemies.

That accomplice was his wife, Sarah Kidd, a well-to-do woman whose extraordinary life is a lesson in reinvention and resourcefulness. Twice widowed by twenty-one and operating within the strictures of polite society in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century New York, Sarah secretly aided and abetted her husband, fighting alongside him against his accusers. More remarkable still was that Sarah not only survived the tragedy wrought by her infamous husband’s deeds, but went on to live a successful and productive life as one of New York’s most prominent citizens.

Marshaling in newly discovered primary-source documents from archives in London, New York and Boston, historian and journalist Daphne Palmer Geanacopoulos reconstructs the extraordinary life of Sarah Kidd, uncovering a rare example of the kind of life that pirate wives lived during the Golden Age of Piracy. A compelling tale of love, treasure, motherhood and survival, this landmark work of narrative nonfiction weaves together the personal and the epic in a sweeping historical story of romance and adventure.

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I will preface my review by saying that I actually thought it was an historical fiction account of Sarah Kidd dressed up as a biography, not an actual biography.

It was an interesting read to get to "know" Sarah Kidd - details of her life before, during and after Kidd will be of interest. And hers is a story of survival and of a woman stepping beyond the social norms of her day to carve out her own destiny.

Having said that, there was much that could have been left out, including the almost mind-numbing account of Kidd's return, arrest and trial, which felt like it took up half the book due to the excessive amount of detail. I get that, based upon her surname, her time with the notorious pirate would be the drawcard - I mean, who would read a biography of some woman named Sarah: Cox, Oort or Rousby (her other married names)?

For me, as I mentioned, I thought it was a work of fiction - that just how it read. And maybe, it might have worked better as such.

The Sovereign and the Pirate by Lakshmi Subramanian

Around the turn of the nineteenth century, the northwestern littoral of India—largely comprising of Gujarat, Kathiawad, Cutch, and Sind—was battered by piratical raids. These attacks disrupted coastal trade and embarrassed the English East India Company by defying the very boundaries of law and sovereignty that the Company was trying to impose. Who were these pirates whom the Company described as small-time crooks habituated to a life of raiding and thieving? How did they perceive themselves? What did they mean when they insisted that theft was their livelihood and that it enjoyed the sanction of God?

Exploring the phenomenon and politics of predation in the region, Lakshmi Subramanian teases out a material history of piracy—locating its antecedents, its social context, and its ramifications—during a crucial period of political turbulence marked by global expansion of commercial exchanges headed by the Company. She investigates the fissures within the colonial project of law and anti-piracy regulations and, through the lens of maritime politics, unravels the skeins of a distinct mode of subaltern protest.

About the Author

Lakshmi Subramanian is Professor of History at Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta (CSSSC), Kolkata. She was previously Professor of History at Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi, and University of Calcutta, Kolkata.

No Limits to Their Sway by Edgardo Perez Morales

No Limits to Their Sway: Cartagena's Privateers and the Masterless Caribbean in the Age of Revolutions by Edgardo Perez Morales offers a fresh perspective on a Revolutionary era, focusing on the role of Afro-Caribbean privateers in the struggle for South American independence from Spain Following the 1808 French invasion of the Iberian Peninsula, an unprecedented political crisis threw the Spanish Monarchy into turmoil. 

On the Caribbean coast of modern-day Colombia, the important port town of Cartagena rejected Spanish authority, finally declaring independence in 1811. With new leadership that included free people of color, Cartagena welcomed merchants, revolutionaries, and adventurers from Venezuela, the Antilles, the United States, and Europe. Most importantly, independent Cartagena opened its doors to privateers of color from the French Caribbean. Hired mercenaries of the sea, privateers defended Cartagena's claim to sovereignty, attacking Spanish ships and seizing Spanish property, especially near Cuba, and establishing vibrant maritime connections with Haiti. 

Most of Cartagena's privateers were people of color and descendants of slaves who benefited from the relative freedom and flexibility of life at sea, but also faced kidnapping, enslavement, and brutality. Many came from Haiti and Guadeloupe; some had been directly involved in the Haitian Revolution. While their manpower proved crucial in the early Anti-Spanish struggles, Afro-Caribbean privateers were also perceived as a threat, suspected of holding questionable loyalties, disorderly tendencies, and too strong a commitment to political and social privileges for people of color. 

Based on handwritten and printed sources in Spanish, English, and French, this book tells the story of Cartagena's multinational and multicultural seafarers, revealing the Trans-Atlantic and maritime dimensions of South American independence.

Review: Anne Bonney by Phillip Thomas Tucker

Phillip Thomas Tucker's "Anne Bonny the Infamous Female Pirate" is one of the more even-handed portrayals of Anne - her life, her times, her piratical activities, her end - that I have read in a long time.

We are given a real sense of the times despite a lack of documentation - afterall, many of those involved in piracy operated under aliases and in secrecy, and did not leave a written account, and very few survived to tell their tales. Even Anne did not leave an account of her life, preferring to retire into obscurity.

Anne was first portrayed "as a psychological female maniac cursed with a homicidal temper and unstoppable rage .." in Captain Johnson's book on pirates published a few years after she was captured and imprisoned (c.1724).

But what led Anne to a life of piracy is the question. From the scandal of her parent's relationship and her early childhood in Ireland, to her arrival in Charles Town where her father sought a new life (c.1708), Anne's refusal to bend and submit, saw her embark on an ill-fated marriage to Jim Bonny. When life Charles Town became too stifling, the couple fled to the Caribbean (c.1718) where a life of piracy - for Jim at least - seemed the easiest way to make a living.

It would be her meeting of Calico Jack Rackman (1719) that would see Anne embark on her "career" as a pirate - all for her love of a man. In the end, it would be the courageous actions of two women, who led the final hopeless last stand before their capture (1720).

What is implied from Anne's trial, which drew much publicity, was that both she and Mary Read "... had been sentenced to death to pay for the crimes and sins of all those successful pirates who had come before her ...". She was 22.

As a glimpse into the world of piracy that is far from either whimsical or fantastical, then this conveys the harsh realities of piracy which saw over 400 pirates hanged in a ten year period. Tucker's aim was " .. to present a corrective view ..." of Anne's story, which I felt he achieved.

read more:

• A General History of the Pyrates by Daniel Dafoe
• A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates by Charles Johnson
• Bold in Her Breeches: Women Pirates Across the Ages by Jo Stanley
• The Pirate Trial of Anne Bonny and Mary Read by Tamara J. Eastman and Constance Bond
• Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920 by Margaret S. Creighton and Lisa Norling
• The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard
• Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Among the Pirates by David Cordingly

and for something a little more tongue in cheek, one of my all time favourites - "The Pyrates" by George MacDonald Fraser.

The Swashbuckling History of Women Pirates

From The Smithsonian:

Few historical figures ensnare the imagination in the same way as pirates do. The rum, the talking parrots, the hats and cloaks and treasure—all make for dramatic, theatrical tales. But Duncombe’s book does more than revel in the mystery and infamy of lady pirates: It contextualizes them, providing history and background on the societies they came from. Whether it’s the Moroccan pirate queen Sayyida al-Hurra (who terrorized the Mediterranean during the mid-16th-century) or Queen Elizabeth I’s woman sea dog, Lady Mary Killigrew, Duncombe separates the myths from the facts and considers the charm of a little-understood group of women.

read more here @ The Smithsonian as Lorraine Boissoneault interviews Laura Sook Duncombe about her her new book Pirate Women: The Princesses, Prostitutes, and Privateers Who Ruled the Seven Seas.