Captain Mission's Libertalia and Pirate Utopias

Home , Anne Bonny, Baymen, Captain Charles Johnson, Charles Johnson (writer), Child pirate, Christopher Moody

Masaryk University Faculty of Arts

Department of English and American Studies

English Language and Literature

Bára Skorkovská

Captain Mission’s Libertalia and Pirate Utopias

Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis

Supervisor: Stephen Paul Hardy, Ph.D. 2018

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.

……………………………………………..

Bára Skorkovská

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank my supervisor, Steven Hardy, for cheering me up and reminding me that there is still some time left to think about what I want to say. I would also like to thank all those

good souls who forced me to stop thinking and start writing and provided a safe haven when

I needed it the most.

Table of Contents Introduction ...... 2 Chapter 1: General History in General ...... 5 1.1. About the Book ...... 5 1.1.1. Editions and Reception ...... 5 1.1.2. Reliability ...... 9 1.1.3. Intentions ...... 10 1.1.4. Importance ...... 14 1.2. About the Author ...... 16 Chapter 2: Pirate Laws and Misson’s Ship ...... 20 2.1. The Background for a New Era ...... 20 2.2. Turning Pirate ...... 23 2.3. The Ordinary Pirate ...... 29 2.4. Life, Laws and Pirate Codes on Ships ...... 32 Chapter 3: Pirate Settlements and Libertalia ...... 44 3.1. Settling on Madagascar ...... 44 3.2. Libertalia’s Constitution ...... 47 3.3. Pirate Utopia ...... 49 3.4. Pirate Settlements ...... 52 3.4.1. Port Royal ...... 53 3.4.2. Nassau ...... 54 3.4.3. Baymen of Campeche and Honduras ...... 55 3.4.4. Salé ...... 56 3.4.5. Madagascar ...... 58 3.5. Real Utopias ...... 60 Conclusion ...... 63 Bibliography ...... 67 Primary Source ...... 67 Secondary Sources ...... 67 Resumé (English) ...... 72 Resumé (Czech) ...... 74

Introduction

In the second volume of A general history of pyrates titled The history of the pyrates : containing the lives of Captain Mission. Captain Bowen. Captain Kidd...vol. II

Charles Johnson, alleged author of the text, publishes biographies of living and imaginary pirate captains and their adventures. The biography of Captain Misson, a French navy officer turned pirate (although Misson’s crew never considered themselves pirates, as Caraccioli [Missons first man, former priest] insisted that they are

“no Pyrates, but Men who were resolved to assert that Liberty which God and Nature gave them” (Johnson 14)) contains a story of Misson’s turn to Deism, social critique and his reaction to unfairness of the world by his pursue of “Liberty!” as he sets his own laws and structures at first on his ship and later, continuing in the biography of Thomas

Tew, establishes an utopian settlement on the coast of Madagascar and the inhabitants’ struggle to maintain more or less utopian society on the basis of anarchism, democracy, socialistic ideas and anti-slavery – despite the outside and inside forces of the world around. This thesis explores the story from a historical angle – it tries to provide a closer look on its structure in terms of reliability or unreliability in the historical context of modern academic pirate research, drawing on a number of books and articles about piracy to provide information from more sources, as pirate studies are sometimes ridden with biases and exaggeration.

The aim of the first chapter is to provide a general overview of the historical background, public demand for pirate stories of the period, publishing history and how it influenced the book itself as well as the biographies in it. It discusses reliability of the work and mentions the possible intentions of the author for writing a collection of pirate biographies. It also provides some discussion of the influence the book had on the general public at that time as well as its influence on the modern culture. The main

2 sources for this chapter are books about piracy written mainly around 2000 (namely and frequently used are Cordingly’s Introduction to General History and Under the Black

Flag) some exceptions being written earlier (Schonhorn’s Introduction and Goose’s

History of Piracy), first and second volume of the History itself as a reference and primary source and academic journal articles which’s date of publication varies greatly as they are focused on different topics discussed in this chapter. The second part of the chapter discusses the authorship of the book, as there is a heated discussion still pending. It provides broad overview of the opinions of the authors frequently mentioned in this thesis and also states the approach this thesis has to the unresolved question of authorship.

The second chapter examines roughly the first part of the story. Firstly providing short overview of the period focusing on the position of privateers and pirates around the turn of the 16th and 17th century to later, in the second part, tie in on it with the reasons to turn pirate in comparison to Misson’s own personal story. In the third part,

Misson’s portrayal in the story and his characteristics are discussed in relation to the simplified profile of an ordinary pirate, and the reliability of the information about pirate life in the biography is examined. In the last part, the same thing is exercised with laws Misson establishes on his ship, Victoire. Overall aim of this chapter is to discover the source’s reliability and accuracy as well as to provide an overview of pirate laws and customs to see the resemblance or change in the laws and customs of Libertalia and other pirate settlements.

The third and final chapter focuses on the similarities and differences of

Misson’s Libertalia laws and other pirate settlements’ laws. The settlements examined here are mainly contemporary, from the Golden Age of piracy or a bit earlier as those are the only one somewhat close to the utopian Libertalia in terms of historical context

3 and ideology. Firstly, the chapter provides a discussion on the definition of pirate utopia and proposes its own definition to make the comparison to other settlements easier and more orderly. In the second subchapter the reasons for setting Johnson’s utopia on

Madagascar are briefly mentioned and in the third, Libertalia’s constitution and the changes from Victoire’s constitution are described to be compared, in the fourth subchapter, to the other settlements like Port Royal, Salé or Sainte Marie island.

This thesis is trying to establish Johnson’s book as one of the utopian writings of its period as well as a fairly accurate historical record of piracy in the early 18th century and potentially interest the reader in more pirate related writings. It’s main focus is the connection between pirates as they were in comparison to the pirates as Johnson wrote them in the biography of Captain Misson and Tohomas Tew – the whole and completely imagined utopian story of the pirate settlement of Libertalia. And as the

Golden Age of Piracy was in its peak at that time and many of the great and infamous pirates we know today as legendary were alive (and a daily source of awe and fear), the thesis also strives to provide little information about the book, that made pirates the myth they are today.

Chapter 1: General History in General

In this chapter, an overview of the main source for the story of Libertalia –

Johnson’s History – and its general background is discussed. The chapter is divided into two larger subchapters: about the book itself – its editions and reception, reliability, intentions and importance for history and popular culture and the second subchapter about the author – which discusses the progress of the academic research done in terms of the authorship of the book so far.

1.1. About the Book

This chapter focuses on the broader background for the story. The first part discusses the book in which the story is contained as well as a bit of a historical background, the additions made throughout its numerous re-prints and how were the editions received and how the reception influenced the next editions. The second part discusses History’s reliability as a primary source for pirate historians, literary scientists and writers as well. Later it focuses directly on Misson’s biography and its reliability or, in this case, known unreliability. The third part explores how the demand for pirate literature as well as for entertainment shaped the publication and what could have been the author’s intentions for writing a comprehensive book of pirate biographies as well as why to insert a fictional biography in two parts between them. The last part mentions the importance of the History for any consequent pirate related works.

1.1.1. Editions and Reception

A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the most notorious Pyrates, shortened sometimes to A General History of the Pyrates, General History or just

History was first published by Charles Rivington1 in his London based publishing house

1 b. 1688 5 in 1724, appearing for sale on 14th May. (Schonhorn xxii) At that time, the third phase of The Golden Age of Piracy2 was slowly ending (dating the end to around 1730), but the interest in pirate trials as well as their adventures and villainous acts had not ceased

– as it has not ceased until today. It contained biographies of really famous and mostly contemporary pirates such as Henry Avery (died 1699)3, Edward Teach (d. 1718), Stede

Bonnet (d. 1718), Bartholomew Roberts (d. 1722) “from their first rise and settlement in the Island of Providence, to the present time“ (Johnson) as the subheading of the book announces. It also contains biographies of two most famous women pirates Anne Bonny

(d. possibly 1782) and Mary Read (d. 1721), a highly popular characters, as their names made it even to the book’s title.

Its immediate success can be assigned as to the public interest in pirates as well as to the overall interest in adventure and discoveries ignited by the Age of Discovery starting in the 14th century and strengthened by the Elizabethan age hero-pirates Sir

Francis Drake (d. 1596) or John Hawkins (d. 1595) etc., whose acts were even approved by the Queen herself and also to the fact, that the number of pirate attacks rose in the years just before the book was published as a last peak before the absolute end of the

Age of Piracy. As David Cordingly states in his Introduction, the book was therefore

topical because there had been an alarming increase in pirate attacks during the

six or seven years prior to the book’s publication. The newspapers had reported

a succession of sensational pirate trials at home and abroad. Crowds of people

2 Cordingly in his Introduction dates The Golden Age of Piracy from 1695 to 1725 – from the rise of Henry Avery to the point where „most of the pirates described by Johnson had died a violent death and the number of pirate attacks dramatically declined.“ (341) Other sources date the start of the period roughly around 1650 and the end approximately to 1730, but the more modern the definition, the narrower the time range gets, sometimes only lasting for merely 10 years or more distinct subdivisions are applied etc. For more information about the dating, see Goose (1924), Botting (1978), Rediker (2004), Cordingly (1994) etc. 3 I am stating the dates of their death rather than of their birth, because in some cases the information is either unknown or unreliable. 6

flocked to Execution Dock on the Thames waterfront to watch the last moments

of condemned pirates [...] (vii)

In England, at around the same time the book was firstly published, reading about the brand new findings about the lives of pirates and following their trials was popular – there was a number of journals publishing biographies of pirate captains, stories about their raids and accounts of their trials. David Cordingy, in his Introduction to revised edition of History from 2002 and Manuel Schonhorn in his Introduction to the previous and also first scholarly edition of the same book (1972) mention some of the journals that published pirate news – Mist’s Weekly Journal (which also plays an important role in the discussion about the authorship of the book and is mentioned later in this chapter), Applebee’s Journal, The British Journal, The Daily Post, The London

Gazette, The London Journal, The Weekly Journal and British Gazette. Cordingly states that the stories they published were often from the newspapers from the West Indies and proposes The Boston News Letter4 as a “particularly rich source for stories of pirate activities.” (Introduction xi) From the number of journals mentioned it is quite clear that the demand for pirate stories was high as the journalists at that time focused on giving every little detail for the public to read on and that, combined with the aforementioned interest in discoveries, drama and sea voyages, made the first volume “despite its modest appearance” “sold briskly.” (Cordingly, Introduction vii)

The first edition was soon followed by the second edition – it was an updated version of the first, because, as Schonhorn argues it was full of errors and “much new information suddenly became available.” (xxxiii) The book changed its publisher to

4 First published 1704, continued until 1776. Published continuously in British North America as probably the only newspaper at that time. It reported on London affairs, English politics and it also reported the death of Blackbeard in 1718. 7

Thomas Warner5 and its content was rearranged and rewritten to reflect on the new information, to correct mistakes in most biographies, add new information and also to include a brand new chapters on Thomas Anstis (d. 1723) and later on John Phillips (d.

1724) and Francis Spriggs (d. 1725) (Schonhorn xxxiv) an it also contains a short abstract about civil law and its relation to piracy. The second edition appeared in

Warner’s shop in August 1724, just a few months after the first one, “but in spite of the corrections and the orderly reconstruction, the History did not sell well;” (Schonhorn xxxiv). The third edition was published in 1725 by the same publisher, “with a new title page, [which] was made up of old sheets of the second.” (Schonhorn xxxiv) This decrease in demand did not stop Johnson from rewriting and improving his book and the fourth edition, published by yet another publisher – Thomas Woodward6 – became available in 1726 with a yet new title page and minor correction. But in spite of the improving and rewriting, the information was not updated at all. Instead, the author “did now indicate the immediate release of the forthcoming second volume by pointing the reader to an Appendix in Volume II” (Schonhorn xxxvi). The second volume appeared in shops in July 1728, almost two years after its announcement. The book was supposed to cover the rest of the biographies of Anstis and Teach and was to be focused on piracy in the West Indies, but comprised mostly of biographies of earlier pirates like Thomas

Tew (died 1695) and Samuel Bellamy (d. 1717) or William Kidd (d. 1701), “narrative renderings of easily available English and colonial trials” and “manuscript of captivity”

(Schonhorn xlii) and “the reminder of the volume, one third of its contents, is the detailed, complex, although dateless, reconstruction of the escapades of English pirates in Madagascar and Indian waters from 1695 to 1707” (Schonhorn xxxvii) as well as

5 d. 1733. The second edition of the General History mentions: „Printed for, and sold by T.Warner, at the Black-Boy in Pater-Noster-Row, 1724.“ 6 Bialuschewski argues, that Woodward „who was new to the business, had probably bought the sheets from Mist, whilst in return receiving a promise to handle the publication of a future second volume.“ (“Daniel Defoe, Nathaniel Mist” 36) 8 a long fictional biography of captain Misson – the focus of this thesis. Misson’s biography occupies the first 48 pages and continues in the biography of Tew on pages

81 to 109, thus making about quarter of the second volume’s 419 pages. Later, more editions were printed, with minor or no additions or corrections, parts of the book were used in another books and some of the editions were shortened and sold under different titles, but the second volume of the third edition remains the biggest and last substantial addition to the History.

1.1.2. Reliability

As the literary studies progressed and The General History of Pyrates was under a close examination of historians and literary critics alike for nearly a century, new evidence was found to support Johnson’s writings. It became clear that “the majority of the facts in Johnson’s History have been proved to be accurate.” (Cordingly,

Introduction ix) The previous claims about its inaccuracy and historical unreliability are now almost vanished and the books accuracy approved by a number of academic sources. For example Schonhorn has extensive list of sources for Johnson’s writings7, that are commented on their relevancy and he notes, that the first volume of History is so detailed and includes so much researched material that the writer had no space for any fillings and thus “felt no need to expand the volume with dramatic or imaginative sequences.” (xxxiv) Cordingly regards it “a prime source for the lives of many pirates of what is often called the Golden Age of Piracy” (Under the Black Flag xx), Marcus

Rediker writes in his 2004 book Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden

Age that “Johnson is widely regarded as a highly reliable source for factual information”

(180) and as early as 1932, Philip Goose writes that “there is no doubt that he [Johnson]

7 See Schonhorn’s Introduction. Although he argues strongly for the authorship of Defoe, the sources are undeniable never the less, as the information retrieved form the various sources there is identical to the General History’s biographies. 9 is on the whole to be believed.” (The History of Piracy 185) But this assurance of reliability covers mostly the first volume, as parts of the second volume were proven to be complete fiction. As mentioned before, more than sixty pages of biography containing the whole life of Captain Misson and the majority of Thomas Tew’s biography, both of these chapters concerned mostly with piracy around Madagascar coast that as a whole make a story of Misson is “certainly fictious although inspired by the pirate communities on Madagascar and the democratic regimes introduced on so many pirate ships.” (Cordingly, Introduction x) Cordingly also mentions some uncertainty regarding the facts in Anne Bonny and Mary Read biographies due to the lack of evidence. But apart from this, for the rest of the second volume, the information is also reliable as Schonhorn praises Johnson’s research on Madagascar piracy as

“remarkably consistent with the more sophisticated and academic investigation of the present day.” (xxxix)

1.1.3. Intentions

The change in approach on Johnson’s side from researched, comprehensive and strictly factual biographies in the first volume to still researched, but (for a quarter of the book) fictional biographies and at that time already old information in the second, poses an interesting question about the intentions of the author – why write a book about pirates in a first place and why the change in the narrative approach in the second volume. There are three basic answers to those questions: demand for more in depth and fun to read pirate stories was high, profit and social critique.

As mentioned before, the popular topics of the century were “travel, adventure and crime.”8 And as the demand for more information and entertainment grew, so grew

8 Richetti, John. Popular Fiction before Richardson: Narrative Patterns, 1700-1739. Oxford: Clarendon. 1969. 60-4. Print. 10 the demand for more comprehensive account of the pirate stories until now only published in journals. As Bialushewski states:

In most cases they [journals] provided little information other than the names of

the pirate commanders and a vague outline of events. One can suppose that these

superficial reports made readers curious to learn more about the origins, actions,

and fates of the most notorious marauders. (“Daniel Defoe, Nathaniel Mist” 31)

Author’s reaction to the needs and desires of the readership becomes quite obvious when a second book ascribed to Charles Johnson, A General History of the

Lives and Adventures of the most famous Highwaymen, Murderers, Street Robbers, &c. to which is added a genuine Account of the Voyages and Plunders of the most notorious

Pyrates published in 1734, comes to play9, the interest of the readership in adventures and crime in general can be easily observed. There was certainly a market for pirate related works – and not only for them exclusively. A General History of the Pyrates, with its exciting rendering of the “scanty and dull” (Schonhorn xxxv) reports in the journals and with its longer than ever descriptions of raiding, seafaring and piracy of all kind, was just the book the readers were waiting for. As Schonhorn argues, the narrative style of the book made a refreshing twist on the boring reports from the journals, sentence speeches and court records – authors “narrative skill and pertinent additions make them eminently readable and even exciting.” 10 (Schonhorn xxxv) The author also

9 Although the authorship of this book is disputable, sometimes ascribed to Charles Johnson and sometimes not – as Moore writes it is ”a "facetious rehash" of Smith's Complete history of the lives and robberies of the most notorious highwaymen (London, 1714) with added material from Daniel Defoe's A general history of the pyrates (London, 1724)“ (Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies. Bloomington, 1939, pg. 131-2), Goose considers it “another edition” (14) with the history of highwaymen added to the pirates. 10 For more about Johnson’s narrative rendering of the information and more sources discussion see Schonhorn’s Introduction to History p. xxxv, where he compares part of a news journal article from 1722 and Johnson’s rendering of it and provides further discussion of the changes and also Bialuschewski’s essay about Mist, where he also mentions different sources as he argues for Mist being the author of History. 11 had extensive knowledge of seafaring and seaman’s language11, if not firsthand then probably directly from accounts of pirates he interviewed in jail and sailors he knew personally, and the stories he presents in his book are therefore even more believable.

(Cordingly, Introduction xiii)

This approach to facts made the first volume of the book, as was discussed before, disappear from the counters almost immediately and one can imagine that it brought considerable amount of money back (although the profit made by authors themselves was scarcely a high one). And as both Schonhorn and Bialuschewski argue, money was certainly one of the main reasons for the creation of History. In the next part of the thesis, the authorship is discussed in greater detail as there is still an ongoing discussion on who wrote it in the first place. But even in these entirely different theories of the authorship, there is still a strong focus on the History’s author writing for money.

Bialuschewski argues that Nathaniel Mist registered the book under his name in anticipation of it becoming a hit and as an “author and printer of the General History,

Mist had every prospect of making a handsome profit” (“Daniel Defoe, Nathaniel Mist”

31-32) and as he lost considerable amount of money due to imprisonment, loss of readership (29) and expenses tied to his recovery from the imprisonment (30), the profit he would turn was certainly a sum to consider. Schonhorn, acknowledging Defoe as an author of the History, writes in his Introduction that Defoe’s “bankruptcy, [...] and succeeding business failures arising from his flight and imprisonment” (xxv) resulted in

Defoe changing career paths from merchant to the writer he is known as today.

As strong as the demand for pirate stories compendium and money motives are, there are certainly some other elements contributing to the author’s willingness to write

11 For an example of seaman language see. Cordingly 2006, chapter One, pg. 10-11, where he provides a short paragraph from The Seaman’s Manual (1844) and another extract from a book by a former pirate. The language is notoriously hard to understand as the expressions and phrases are completely unknown for a general public, therefore Cordingly has, at the end of his book (pgs. 275-278) a glossary of sea terms, that are practical to know when reading about pirates and sailors in general. 12

History – the changes that distinguish the first and the second volume of the third edition, according to Schonhorn, mark a change in author’s intentions about the message of his work and in his attitude towards the audience. As mentioned before, the first volume is factual historical study and biography at its best, but the second volume is comprised from biographies of earlier pirates, random scraps and additions and completely fictional parts. Schonhorn notes that the language of the second volume changes as well, from the highly factual biographical tone to much more critical and socially enagaged, as “he now used them [pirates] to indict and judge the hypocrisy, injustice and cowardice of English society” (xxxvii) and that “social satire impregnates many of the other historical chapters.” (xxxviii) Schonhorn lists, as an example, biographies of Captain Bellamy, where he “bluntly attacks the law of the rich, and the connivance of the Church in the deceptions practiced on the poor” (xxxvii), Captain

Thomas White who is against robbing children and Captain Lewis’s quartermaster who

“does not think it just that the innocent should suffer for the guilty.” (xxxviii)

Schonhorn also regards Misson and Libertalia, the focus of this thesis, the “most considered attack on the abuses of his day.” (xxxviii) In Captain Misson’s story and in the story of Libertalia, the underlying social critique is obvious as are the smaller, more focused messages about liberty, God and freedom scattered throughout the text – usually in longer monologues of a fallen priest and Misson’s right hand Caraccioli. But the moral of the story as a whole is absent or at least weakened considerably – by the author’s disinterest in following the utopian colony longer to potentially explore problems the society might experience and also by the abrupt end of both the colony and Misson’s life. As Lincoln Faller argues, Johnson does not exactly know where to go with the narrative of the utopian story, he sometimes advocates an idea but later completely dismisses the possible plotline supporting it, leaves some open ends, divides

13 his narrative in two12 and for him it is “better probably to see this text as a kind of

‘sport’, an instance of freewheeling, utopian and dystopian imagining from a single powerful premise.” (4) The division of the plot is interesting as it also makes the reader more eager to discover what happens next in Misson’s story, thus making them more interested in the topic itself. The second volume starts with Misson’s biography and the chapter ends as the pirates establish a colony and make friends with natives, some 50 pages later. At that time, much about Misson’s utopian dream is known, but the main utopian story of an ideal colony only starts in Tew’s biography. It is possible that this division into two is imposed willingly, as Thomas Tew was a more well known name and thus the reader’s excitement for his story would help them accept Libertalia and the social commentary there much more easily, or make them read the story in the first place. As Misson was completely unknown and, next to the more infamous names that made the list, there is a real possibility that his biography was not that interesting. Thus the positioning of Misson’s biography as first in the book makes sense, as readers generally tend to start at the start, and to be sure they read the whole story, the second half was hidden under more infamous name of Tew.

1.1.4. Importance

Despite all the problems the editions and the biographies of A General History of the Pyrates have, its importance as a major source for pirate stories coming after it is undeniable. The biographies contained in the book were and still are popular and significant source of information among academics as much as writers, creators and pirate enthusiasts. According to Cordingly “Captain Johnson created the modern conception of pirates” (Introduction viii) and “gave almost mythical status to the more

12 Faller argues that the author might have divided the story into two parts to get himself more time to think about it as “it was not uncommon for typesetting to follow close upon composition, and there may have been some delay here in supplying the additional copy; perhaps the writer needed some time to think on how to wrap things up.” (14-15) 14 colourful pirates such as Blackbeard, Calico Jack and the female pirates Mary Read and

Anne Bonny.” (Introduction viii) And it is certainly true that pirates became immensely popular among that period and are still in fashion these days – from the undying love for Stevenson’s Treasure Island, Salgari’s The Black Corsaire and all their adaptations, movies (Agains All Flags (1952) for all as it takes place in Libertalia) music (tying to

Libertalia Jake and the Infernal Machine’s song Libertalia (2014) or Ye Banished

Privateers song The Legend of Libertalia (2014)13), stage performances (Bellini’s Il pirata (1827)), festivals (Störtebeker Festival in Germany), manga (Eiichiro Oda’s One

Piece (1997)), series (Black Sails (2014)), art and video games (Sid Meier’s Pirates!

(1987), Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (2013), and Uncharted 4: A Thief's End

(2016)14 in both latter is Libertalia at least mentioned) to Pirates of Caribbean franchise, a flagship of pop culture piracy, recently releasing its fifth instalment and its sixth already announced, the interest seems to peak and not cease any time soon. It is undeniable that one of the major sources to all those works is Johnson’s General

History, and although Schonhorn regards it of “minor literary importance” (xxxiv) its

“coherent and readable structure, with minimum of invention” (xxxiv) popularised the material and gave birth to modern pop culture pirates as well as to a more serious research on pirate history as by most pirate scholars it is regarded “the indispensable

13 Another pirate bands include more famous The Jolly Rogers and Alestorm. 14 The fourth major instalment in the famous game series Uncharted ties to this thesis even more splendidly than the other aforementioned works, as one of its main story arcs contains Libertalia – the main character ventures into the ruins of the fallen colony, basically re-discovering it after 300 years. But since it makes even more fictional account of the already fictional utopia (in the game’s rendition of the story the colony was first imagined and later established by Henry Avery and Thomas Tew as a way to disappear from the world and to enjoy his treasure, and not by Misson and Caraccioli with a little less earthbound ideas of liberty and freedom in mind), and although this modern much more critical commentary on the 18. century utopian writing is by all means interesting, the game is not mentioned further in the thesis as it omits the utopian basis of the original. But as the rendering is interesting, I dare to mention one article about Libertalia in Uncharted 4 that contains some interesting ideas by the head writer of the game-developers team about pirate books and articles in 18th century as a way to escapism and utopianism for people that did not want to read Hobbes or Locke. (Rath, Robert. “The Pirate Republics that Inspired Uncharted 4's Libertalia.” zam.com, 19 May 2016, zam.com/article/539/the-pirate-republics-that-inspired-uncharted-4s-libertalia. Accessed 11 March 2018.). 15 record of English piracy in the first quarter of the eighteen century and classic in the literature of the sea.” (xl)

1.2. About the Author

This subchapter focuses on the various contributions to the discussion of the authorship of History by the authors mentioned in this thesis mainly as sources for secondary reading. It is included to avoid further confusion with the names mentioned in citations and to give a general overview of the academic discourse, but it also provides important overview and dating on the publications wrote by different pirate researchers and authors and provides this thesis’ position on the authorship itself at the same time discussing the background and possible identity of Johnson himself.

As early as around 1930’s can be traced the discussion about the authorship of

General History. Number of completely disagreeing or semi-agreeing theories had been proposed, dividing the discussion roughly into four distinguished trends: those who remain neutral and ascribe History to Johnson and discuss whether the name is an pseudonym or real name; those who agree with Robert Moore that History was written by Daniel Defoe; those who strongly oppose Moore; and those with completely new theories about the authorship.

Even before the discussion acquired the flaming ardour it seems to be exhibiting these recent 30 years, attributions to the authorship discussion had been made. In 1927 in A Bibliography of the Works of Captain Charles Johnson15 and later in 1932 in The

History of Piracy, Philip Goose acknowledges the fact that nothing is known about

Captain Charles Johnson only that “there is strong assumption that the author himself was, or had been, a pirate” and therefore it is quite obvious why he uses a pseudonym.

Goose also mentions another, less popular theory, that Captain Charles Johnson is a real

15 Goose, Philip. A Bibliography of the Works of Captain Charles Johnson. London: Dulau & Co., 1927. 16 captain with real name employed by Sir Thomas Lynch, but he argues that it is unlikely as he would have been too old (68) at the time History was published. Cordingly also maintains somewhat of a neutral attitude in both his 2002 and 2006 books. He mentions yet another Charles Johnson16 as well as Charles Rivington17 and Defoe as possible candidates for the authorship, but ultimately dismisses the theories as there are no convincing evidence to decide who is the real author. Marcus Rediker also operates with the name Johnson in his 2004 Villains of All Nations as well as Leeson in his article “An‐Arrgh‐Chy”.

John Richetti in 2005 uses Defoe’s name as an author, but points out about not only History, but of more of Defoe’s works, “the question of just what Defoe actually wrote is still an open one” (vii) and adds that Defoe nevertheless contributed to the pirate stereotype. (233) This brings the discussion over to the second camp. In 1939,

Robert Moore, well known and respected biographer and bibliographer with more than

30 years of research on Defoe, states in his book Defoe in the Pillory,18 that he made a discovery that Defoe is the author of History. He based his claims largely on textual similarities with other Defoe’s writings such as Robert Drury’s Journal (1792) and that the 30 years he spent with Defoe’s writing gave him a particular eye for the style and language. And he convinces researchers as well as general public that Defoe wrote the

General History. He later published his Checklist19, listing History as one of Defoe’s books and this book became widely used as a reference for any Defoe researcher. In

16 1679 – 1748, playwright, author of The Successful Pirate, a play about Henry Avery and many more. Johnson argues that although it is tempting to assume that when he lived at the same time the book was published and wrote about pirates, he could have assumed the pseudonym, it is “difficult to imagine Johnson the playwright, who was ridiculed for being fat and for spending all his days in Buttons coffee House, writing with any conviction or knowledge about the perils of life at sea.” (Introduction xii) 17 The first publisher of General History. Cordingly argues that he never travelled outside England and that he, as far Rivington’s family biography tells us, never wrote anything himself. (Introduction xii) 18 Moore, John Robert. Defoe in the Pillory and Other Studies. Folcroft Press, 1969. 19 Moore, John Robert. A Checklist of the Writings of Daniel Defoe. Archon Books, 1971. 17

1963, Maxmilian Novak20 also quotes Defoe as an author of History and, as he did not cease to defend Defoe’s authorship of many of the works in Checklist until today, he still contributes immensely to the pending academic discussion. Emanuel Schonhorn, frequently cited in this thesis, also acknowledges Johnson as Defoe’s pseudonym and in his Introduction gives closer account of Professor Moore’s evidence.21 The most recent writer and follower of Moore’s theory is Jan Rogoziński, author of numerous books on pirates. In his Introduction to his 2000 book Honor Among Thieves, he states that he is

“not persuaded by the revisionist [Furbank and Owens] argument.” (xxii)

As much of a stirrup as Moore’s announcement did, the 1988 book The canonisation of Daniel Defoe by P.N. Furbank and W.R. Owens provoked the discussion even more. The authors claim, that nearly half of Defoe’s cannon of, at that time, more than 500 books are falsely assigned and among these books is General

History as well. They argue that Moore’s reasoning was inconsistent and relayed only on textual similarities and parallels and that it is too vague and has no external evidence backing it. James Kelly also joins this opposition with his essay about the pamphlet about Worcester Affair and its attribution to Defoe. This sceptical approach to the whole Defoe cannon completely changes the scholarly view on books attributed to

Defoe and History, and many of the books published after Furbank and Owens’s contribution have at least half a page dedicated to the authorship and the discussion itself – as can be seen in the overview just provided.

The last group of contributors is small, but by no means less interesting.

Probably the most pronounced theory of authorship is Arne Bialuschewski’s claim that

Johnson is “a former sailor who later became a printer and a journalist” (“Daniel Defoe,

20 Novak, Maximilian, Defoe and the Nature of Man. Oxford UP, London 1963. Internet Archive, archive.org/stream/defoeandthenatur002050mbp. Accessed 28 November 2017. 21 See page xxiii. 18

Nathaniel Mist” 24) Nathaniel Mist22 – publisher of Mist’s Weekly Journal23 and also of

History itself. He argues strongly for Mist’s authorship of the book, stating that nothing links Defoe to History, but that there is “a reasonable amount of evidence to assign the work to Nathaniel Mist.”24 (37)

Some authors mentioned before also argue for a co-authorship – that Defoe wrote parts of the book as, for example, Richetti mentions:

Professor Maxmilian Novak told me in conversation in September 2002 that he

thinks Defoe almost certainly wrote the sections on Misson and on Captain Tew

and probably the section on Captain Bellamy. He pointed out that Nathaniel Mist

was behind the publication of “Johnson’s” volume, and of course Defoe was one

of Mist’s chief writers. (382, note 11)

In conclusion, there is no reliable proof on who is the author of General History and therefore this thesis acknowledges the name under which the book was published as an author and refers to him as Johnson further on.

22 d. 1737 23 The journal also employed Defoe as a writer and it provided heavy coverage of pirate news all over the world. Mist was, as was his journal, prosecuted (he was a Jacobite) by government, but managed to keep up the work until 1737. Bialuschewski writes that Defoe and Mist fell out with each other and Defoe left the journal. 24 For his whole argument, read his article “Daniel Defoe, Nathaniel Mist, and the ‘General History of the Pyrates.’”. In the article, a number of previously discussed ideas about the author and the surrounding circumstances are mentioned. It is interesting to compare his arguments to those of Schonhorn in Introduction, as the background and the intentions for writing the book show interesting similarities despite the different approaches to authorship. 19

Chapter 2: Pirate Laws and Misson’s Ship

This chapter examines firstly Misson himself and subsequently the laws on his ship, Victoire, in a historical context of the age, comparing the story to the reality of pirate life. The first subchapter gives short overview of the political and socio- economical environment of late 17th and early 18th century sea life and piracy to establish a basis for the second subchapter discussing the reasons why to turn pirate using Misson’s story as a point of reference. This subchapter also provides comparison of Misson’s life to the life of an ordinary pirate and discusses the utopian as well as realistic parts of his biography in connection to the question of turning pirate. The third subchapter discusses the traits of an ordinary sailor and pirate and compares then, again, to Misson’s story and his traits, examining Johnson’s earlier mentioned familiarity with the sailor’s life and his historical accuracy as well as his obvious compromises in

Misson’s character to the overall notion of utopianism. The fourth subchapter compares, in the same way, pirate laws and customs to the laws and customs of Misson’s ship. The aim of this chapter is to examine the accurateness of Johnson’s writing and to discuss the real and pinpoint the unreal aspects of the utopian biography. The division of the chapter as well as of each subchapter tries to more or less follow the story and discuss the actions and themes as they occur to easily illustrate them.

2.1. The Background for a New Era

Before the start of the Golden Age of Piracy, in the 16th century to late 17th century, the last privateer25 ships with a government permission sailed out from the

25 There is a difference between a pirate and a privateer. Although privateers and corsairs (or buccaneers in Caribbean sea, although they were oftentimes operating without license) sometimes operated without a permission from the government and attacked even their own nation’s ships (Leeson 1052), they mainly operated under a license and “shared a predetermined portion of the proceeds from this activity with the commissioning government.” (Leeson 1079) and thus were under a direct authority of their employer (even their ships were owned by absentee owners, as Leeson 20 coast of Britain as well as from the other national harbours. The successors to the throne after Elizabeth I. were not willing to give privateers a free hand to capture and plunder enemy ships anymore and the Spanish and Portuguese also stopped employing ships to disrupt the flow of their economic opponents26. There is a new interest on the sea, an interest in making money – by international trade with goods, information and people.

And as the international trade and economic rivalry becomes more and more important for the five most prosperous and growing sea superpowers – Spain, Portugal,

Netherlands, France and Britain – the privateers and pirates find themselves surrounded by enemies in all directions. The sea they are sailing is owned by somebody, the ships they are plundering are watched over by a government navy that no more turns a blind eye to their deeds just because they belong to the same nationality. Pirates (and privateers that turned pirate) start to become a thread to the economic growth and stability – and most importantly, profit. (Rediker 24) After the Treaty of Madrid in

1670, that ended a fifteen year war between England and Spain (Land 174) and after the

Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, that ended the long struggle between France and Britain and established Britain as a maritime superpower, there was even more time to ensure the suppression and further elimination of piracy and complete abolition of privateering, as there was no more national conflicts to use them in. Number of legislations and procedures were introduced27 as well as rewards for pirates’ heads and by the end of

argues, which made even the social structure on their ships completely different from pirates) as opposed to pirates, who lacked any authority above them, had no permissions and shared with nobody. 26 As Chris Land argues, privateers were used as much for disrupting the trade of others as for accumulating the wealth for the nation employing them – they played important role in early accumulation of wealth and exploitation of colonies in the colonial world of 16th and 17th century – ant their activities provided basis for large colonial, industrialised economies to come: “Without monetization the commodity form could not have become generalized and industrial capitalism as we know it could not have developed. The privateers were indispensable to the eventual development of industrial capitalism in England.“ (Land 171) 27 The most important was, that pirates no longer had to be taken to London to trial and execute as it was before 1700 – which, as Cordingly argues, was not really effective in preventing pirates from any of their activities, as the convinced ones were hanging on Thames and not in the place of the crime. For 21

1730’s, the pirate population declined ten times. (Under the Black Flag 203) But still, a large number of people turned pirate before, after and especially around 1720’s, despite the more than real thread of being trialled and hanged or, if lucky, killed in battle. Of course seaman in 1720 did not know about the dark future waiting just around the corner to snatch the lives of so many pirates away, but the immediate danger of becoming a pirate was widely known and the stigma of turning pirate was imminent.

Many different seamen turned pirate after 1713 and Rediker states that they came mostly from merchant ships due to the bad conditions (discussed more in the next subchapter), but a huge portion was also from naval ships where the conditions were not much better as well as from fisheries, ports and logwood cutters. (42-50) Also, many privateers decided, after their conditions worsened or due to expired permission (Leeson

1052), to turn pirate – such as Captain Thomas Tew, whose biography concludes the story of Misson and Libertalia, does. According to Johnson, Tew is appointed to a ship for privateer account, given instructions from governor and sets sail accompanied by one another ship, but they are hit by a violent storm and the second ship gets lost. After this event, Tew observes, that this voyage is “a very injudicious Expedition, which did they succeed in, would be of no Use to the Publick, and only advantage a private

Company of Men, from whom they could expect no Reward of their Bravery; that he could see nothing but Danger in the Undertaking, without the least Prospect of Booty.”

(Johnson 85) As discussed before, privateers cannot be ignored as prospective pirates, but their numbers were scarce, as privateering was coming to an end at that time. Apart from the previously mentioned privateers, the most prominent group of salty folk most interested in the proposition of a better life under the black flag was sailors on merchant ships.

more about the suppression of pirates see for example Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag 11th chapter “Hunting Down the Pirates”. 22

2.2. Turning Pirate

All sources seem to agree, that without a sailing background, it was nearly impossible to become a pirate. Rediker states that a typical pirate “was experienced in the rough conditions of life at sea, in both navy and the merchant service.” (59) The experience, oftentimes acquired from very tender age, could have been obtained by sailing with the Royal Navy or with a merchant ship. This can be seen in Misson’s story

– he acquires letters of recommendation to sail on a ship under his relative when he is around 16 years old. His father has no money for all his children and therefore Misson has “but little Hopes of other Fortune than he could carve out for himself with his

Sword.” (Johnson 2) Misson grows fond of sailors life and he quickly learns everything there is to be learned to become a proper seaman and gets “a great Insight into the practical Part of Navigation” (Johnson 2) as well as to the “different Methods of working a Ship” (Johnson 2). Here Johnson mentions that Misson pays boatswain and carpenter to show him how to mend the ship, spends time with officers and others, but they always “paid [him] the Respect due to his Family.” (Johnson 3) There is, unfortunately, no mention of the ship’s purpose, but as Misson was “in his character and aims, unique” (Goose, The History of Piracy 186) and as he was of a familial relationship to the captain, there is a possibility that a life of ordinary merchant or navy sailor is not exactly the life he lived on board of Victoire, as is explained later and can be seen even in the short excerpt here, in the respect he is given by the rest of the crew.

Misson’s early sailor’s life does not account for the usual experience of an ordinary recruit. Suppose Misson was appointed to a merchant ship (although it is improbable, because of the amount of guns Victoire has – Cordingly states, that merchant ships were “rarely armed with more than eight or ten small guns” (Under the

Black Flag 202)). The fast economic growth of the five prosperous colonial countries

23 required a large number of trading routes, companies, investors, vessels and, of course, sailors to mend the ships that delivered the highly priced goods. Turning profit was important and therefore these ships held large cargoes with high values, to make the long journey profitable. But the profit lowered with each sailor’s payment – and thus, merchant ships had, usually, extremely small number of crewmen, ranging from ten to twenty men28. Generally pirate ships were larger than the merchant ones, but, even the smaller ones were much more populated. As Cordingly states: “very few pirate ships had crews of fewer than 30; many had 150 to 200.” (Under the Black Flag 165) These numbers, compared to the even larger navy ships able to take on pirates, that commonly had more than 200 men, shows how dangerous the pirate ships were for merchant sailors29 not only in terms of larger crews and ships, but also the bigger the crew, the more guns the ship could operate. And it also offers some early insight into the amount of work there was for each crewman on deck. As Cordingly says: “the much larger crews meant that there were more men to share the heavy jobs” (Under the Black Flag

134).

And as the smallest crews with the highest amount of work and the greatest stress placed on profit and expediency by their masters were among the merchants, naturally, as argued by Rediker, Cordingly and Leeson, “most sailors who entered piracy came from the merchant marine.” (Leeson 1055) On a merchant ship, the amount of work done by one man was extremely high (because of the small crew) and with the other factors like low, delayed or held back pay30, high death rate31, frequent corporal

28 Cordingly states that: “The average size of crew was sixteen men per ship.” (Under the Black Flag 165) 29 As were for regular naval ships, as Cordingly argues: “Two pirate ships armed with total of fifty guns had the firepower of a small army, and were invincible against any force less than a naval warship.” (Under the Black Flag 202) 30Leeson 1057, footnote 21. 31 Land argues that the death rate was not so high as on navy or privateer ships, but states that other factors, like the merchant ship trading for slaves, heightened the danger and, paraphrasing Earle (2004, 167) about quarter of the sailors did not make the cruise back home. 24 punishments32, malnourishment33, lowering of rations, fatigue, the overall danger of a long voyage on the sea, pirate attacks, slave trade and connected uprisings, punishments for lost or damaged cargo, overall worsening of the conditions34 and most of this, as Rediker argues, because of the autocratic captains appointed by the owners of the ship (discussed in the next part of this chapter in comparison to pirate captains), the temptation to trade the known for an idealised better life of a pirate must have been great.

Even in the 17th and 18th century, when pirates were more than imminent danger, the idealism about the grandeur of pirate’s life in freedom and camaraderie pervaded the society. Even contemporary writers and historians fuelled this notion as

Cordingly states: “The accounts of pirate life given Exquemelin and Captain Johnson suggest an anarchic round of drinking and gambling and womanizing, interspersed with fierce raids on helpless victims.” (Under the Black Flag 90) Land argues that the

“escape from the hardships of ‘honest service’ on a merchantman and a desire for freedom and self-governance – are combined with a lack of concern over death summarize the archetypical attitude of the pirate of the golden age” (176) Vision of freedom, revenge on the oppressive society and the need to escape establishment were the main topics in many a pirate’s speeches35 (both recorded on trials or in the books) and thus the image of much greener grass on the other side of the law was established and firmly kept intact. Iin Misson’s case, he is also “of a roving Temper, and much

32 See for example Land pg. 174-5 for an account of an extreme punishment of an 18 year old sailor by Captain Jeane, who was later trialled by his crew for murder or Cordingly’s overview of some cruelties done by captains on pgs. 132-3 in Under the Black Flag. 33 The voyages were long (months) and lowering of rations was both necessary (in some cases because of no place to buy supplies, or supplies going bad or stealing by the crew) and also used as a form of punishment. Pirates had it much easier concerning the provisions, as they raided other ships and stole their supplies – which meant “easier access to food and drink” (Land 175) as well as to rum, which kept pirates generally much better nourished, as well as prepared for another battle. 34 See Rediker pg. 23. 35 Leeson mentions a quote attributed to Bartholomew Roberts, see pg. 176. 25 affected with the Accounts he had read in Books of Travels, he chose the Sea as a Life which abounds with more Variety, and would afford him an Opportunity to gratify his

Curiosity” (Johnson 2) as he volunteers on board of Victoire. Young Misson is, maybe, if the idea can be stretched as far, also affected by the earlier accounts of sailors, among them, certainly privateers if not pirates, and his decision to undertake the life on the sea is thus driven by the idealistic, almost utopian, notion of bravery and adventure as well as possibly the great treasures the voyages promised.

It is not known how much could an ordinary pirate make on one raid36, but as piracy became more and more prominent and, as Leeson argues, showed “significant success of piratical plunder in some cases and the opportunity piracy offered to sailors for becoming incredibly wealthy” (Leeson 1077), many sailors (from which the overwhelming majority came from the lowest classes and moneyless background) turned pirate for the betterment of their conditions. Some sailors, driven perhaps by money, perhaps by ideals and most probably by both, even took the opportunity to turn pirate when they were attacked and their ship was taken by pirates as a prize (Leeson

1069) – the latter can be observed in Misson’s story, as he captures Dutch ship, but has too many prisoners, so he resolves to let all the prisoners go on the previously captured ship after he “ask’d if any of them was willing to share his Fortune: eleven Dutch came into him” (Johnson 31). As their fixed wages lowered and lowered, even if the wealth promised by piracy was exaggerated, the sailors were willing to take the risk because they “had much to gain and little to lose.” (Rediker 50)

Misson does not live through any of this discomfort, as far as Johnson’s biography makes apparent. His first voyage is as calm as it can be and although he is forced by a lack of money to undertake the life of a sailor, his family and status makes it

36 Leeson discusses pirate booty in his article, see pg. 1077 for further information. 26 almost impossible to hurt him in any way. Although he later fights in naval battles and is the last officer on board, there is still no mention of any discomfort in his life. It can be argued that Misson surely sails on a navy ship, which is much better equipped and has more crewmembers (in his case around 230, according to Johnson: “there were able

Hands two Hundred, and thirty five sick and wounded” (18)), and as Cordingly argues:

“Life for common seaman in the Royal Navy was nothing like so hard as life in a merchant service. The much larger crews meant that there were more men to share the heavy jobs, and sadistic captain was likely to find himself court-martialed.” (Under the

Black Flag 134), but as the danger of a violent death on a navy ship was much higher

(as they went against pirates and other dangerous enemies of the state) than on a merchant ship and captains also held immense power over their subjects, it must be noted, that the difference between the life of regular merchant sailor and Royal Navy sailor is not so great as it might be tempting to think. Life on navy ships was hard and the income as well as the outcome was sparsely a happy one – as merchantmen, ordinary navy sailors were also only rarely provided with any pension and many of them, when unable to work anymore, ended on the streets or worse, on the bottom of the ocean.

Misson’s easy and rather uneventful career on Victoire must be therefore taken more as a plot device to set the scene and establish the character rather than a realistic account of life on the sea. From the narrative point of view, Misson simply needed the seafaring background to have a chance of later becoming pirate and the high class background to distinguish him from the other pirate captains as someone more worthy, ideal and noble – although it contrasts with the profile of real pirate captains (as discussed in the later subchapters) it works in the context of pirate constitution as another layer of critique – Misson is of higher class, but by becoming pirate, the class

27 distinction as well as money and education does not matter anymore in the pursuit of freedom and the ever-present utopian “Liberty, Liberty!” (Johnson 16), because, as

Rediker concludes, the vast ocean cannot be controlled and everything is therefore possible. (24-25)

In conclusion, one important note must be highlighted – in Captain Misson’s story, Caraccioli directly states, that they are “no Pyrates, but Men who were resolved to assert that Liberty which God and Nature gave them” (14). They see themselves as free men, following the ”brave, a just, an innocent, and a noble Cause; the Cause of Liberty”

(16) and they strongly oppose any criminal or piratical behaviour. This, at one hand, mirrors the utopian nature of the story, but at the other hand, the claim strongly resembles the reasons why not more or all of the merchant and other seamen became pirates. Leeson argues that the main reasons were, firstly, “the risk of being caught.”

(1078), but secondly, he argues, “a merchant sailor who entered piracy had to be willing to plunder other ships, murder innocents, and brutally torture resisters.” (1078) Seamen were drawn to the idea of freedom and wealth, but not everybody was willing to face the “brutal features of piratical employment.” (1079) In his story, Johnson provides an alternative, a freedom and wealth without, seemingly, the need to be siding with the devil himself. He therefore denounces the pirates (as he does throughout his whole book) although he seems fascinated by them. He lifts Misson above the ordinary pirate by giving him morals and idealism as well as educated and high class background, but in the broader context of the story as well as from Misson’s character itself, it cannot be unseen, that he slowly strays from his concept and ultimately proposes almost realistic picture of a contemporary pirate, much less idealised than its utopian origins might entail.

2.3. The Ordinary Pirate

Much is now known and written about the ordinary pirate by both historians and popularisers of pirate culture. This exemplary creature is used in this subchapter as a muster for examining Misson as a possible real life character, because, as a main protagonist of Johnson’s pirate utopia, the reader may tend to read his characteristics as unreal and overstated as the proposition of the utopian pirate haven itself. But as

Johnson certainly personally worked with real pirates (or possibly was one, as discussed in chapter one in great detail), the character of Captain Misson in many aspects resemble the ordinary pirate of the turn of the century (Misson’s story is not dated, and as mentioned before, the second volume contains mainly earlier and not contemporary pirates biographies, but the work done on a ship and subsequently the features of a sailor did not change considerably in the course of half the century the story might have taken place in). And although some of his traits are exaggerated, his whole persona is certainly resembling the reality it was build upon.

As discussed before, the life on sea was hard and required strong and able people with endurance, vigour and sanity to overcome the hardships of a seafaring life. So it is not surprising that the general profile of an ordinary seaman as well as pirate was as follows: in his late 20’s, man, British or American, from the lowest class, uneducated, moneyless, without family, strong and able to endure extreme discomfort, with sailing background. (Rediker 59; Under the Black Flag 14-16; Land 173; Leeson 1054) From this short list, each of the characteristic can be compared to Misson’s persona and asses the realness of his character to provide an overview of how much Johnson knew his literary subjects and some interesting resemblances can be drawn and illustrated on the story itself.

Misson starts his sailing career at around age 16 and swiftly becomes an experienced sailor, supposedly in his 20’s, as he is “always one of the first on a Yard

Arm, either to Hand or Reef, and very inquisitive in the different Methods of working a Ship.“ (Johnson 2) As Cordingly states, the average age of a sailor in the eighteen century on any ship was 27, due to the “physical demands” that “required agility, fitness, stamina, a certain amount of physical strength, and an ability to put up with extreme discomfort above and below deck.” (Under the Black Flag 14) Misson’s gender is obviously a historically accurate and although there were a few women on the deck, the vast majority of sailors were men.37 What is interesting is the imbalance in pirates’ nationalities – Rediker states that “majority of the pirates were descended from people who had lived in England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales” (51) and that almost half were from England, quarter from Americas and ten percent from Ireland. Cordingly argues that in the 17th century majority of the buccaneers were French or British (Under the

Black Flag 14-15), around 1700 French privateers were the majority in Caribbean and only about 20 years later the English took over the majority of the ‘trade’. (Under the

Black Flag 15) It is apparent, though, that Misson as a French pirate is a minority in

Johnson’s History and consequently in the popular culture of today. The choice of his nationality poses a question whether the author wanted to distinguish him further as a person of higher status and better education than the average Englishman was, somebody rather unusual and revolutionary (almost 100 years earlier) enough to become believable in the eyes of a contemporary reader or to, on the contrary, indicate to the reader that this unusual story can be only experienced by an unusual person and is

37 About pirate women, see for example Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag ch. 4, where he discusses lives of the two well known pirate women on board of Captain Calico Jack’s ship or Land pg. 182 for other authors discussing the topic and general overview. Usually, women (as well as young boys) were strictly prohibited on pirate (and other) ships, sometimes punishable by death. 30 not achievable by a regular men, hinting about the nature of the utopian writing itself as an unachievable ‘no-place’.38

Misson’s family was already discussed as well as his education – his reason for becoming a sailor was the lack of money despite him being the son of a honourable and high class family that gave him good education and provided for him in his earlier years. This strongly contrasts with the reality of the real pirates – Land describes pirates as “largely drawn from the uneducated classes of mariners” (173), Rediker as “form the lowest social classes” and working in “the most proletarian of occupations.” (50) The captains were not an exception, they mostly hailed from the same background as their crew (mainly because they were elected from the crew and by the crew). There are exceptions to this rule, of course, somewhat explaining Misson’s unusual background – although there were, according to Cordingly, “no aristocrats among the Anglo-

American pirates in the early eighteenth century” (17), he mentions that there were several in the previous one as well as some well educated pirates.39 Considering that his fictional biography was published among other accounts of late 17th century or early

18th century pirates’ lives instead of contemporary ones, Misson’s background and education, although infrequent among captains, is possible and based on, even though unusual, truth. And even if he is well educated, noble and able to command a ship, all of these distinctly exaggerated traits are washed away by the fact that he is forced to provide for himself and therefore becomes sailor and later pirate – the path the ordinary

38 As in More’s Utopia, Hythloday is a learned, well read, extremely wise man, traveller, philosopher and an overall renaissance figure. His exceptionality is partly, what makes him the perfect person to observe an utopia, but also the perfect person whose existence is not to be believed. 39 For example Stede Bonnet, whose biography is also featured in General History, but according to Cordingly, he was more of a learned man and was not actually able to command a ship properly and the command of his ship was taken over by Blackbeard (Under the Black Flag 18), somewhat similar in faith to Christopher Moody, who was deposed by his crew (Rediker 50). Rediker also mentions Edward England and Henry Jennings, captains, that “were said to be educated” as well surgeons, carpenters, coopers to some degree (Rediker 50). 31 seaman, sometimes indebted for much more than he could dream to acquire, so often took.

In conclusion, although Misson’s existence has not been proven and pirate historians almost unanimously agree that his biography is all fiction, his characteristics of a sailor are corresponding to the reality of the time. Of course some deviations from the profile of an ordinary pirate established by Cordingly, Rediker, Leeson, Land and many more are to be expected, as Misson’s biography tends to imagine an ideal pirate rather than a real one, but, as discussed in a first chapter, Johnson works with factual knowledge, producing a character that is, in his personal traits at least, believable and in many ways reflecting the age his supposed life takes place.

2.4. Life, Laws and Pirate Codes on Ships

One of the main reasons to turn pirate, as discussed in previous subchapters, was the relative freedom and easier life aboard a pirate vessel. The expectations as well as the needs of the crew were much different than of those on regular ships – pirates exchanged their relative safety and regular lives for an opportunity to indulge, to get rich, to have fun and, most importantly, to be free from their former captains and subsequently from the government. As Land argues, pirates rejected anything, that

“might impose order from without” (179) and “formed their own social world based on revolutionary principles of liberty, equality and community” (189) and by this focus on autonomy and independence, were literally forced to establish new society, with its own rules, on democratic principles – “a hundred years before the French Revolution.40”

(Under the Black Flag 96) Their ships were governed as democracies, where the

40 Although, Land argues, their form of society and government is not really a revolution in the same sense as the French Revolution is, as pirates “do not offer a real alternative to the dominant forms of the social organization of production and reproduction” (190), because they do not overthrow anything, they just parasite on the flaws of the present society and “fail to offer a clear vision of a new political- economic order” (190). Land sees their form of protest against the government more as an historical influence. 32 majority of the crew decided almost everything – who is going to be their captain and quartermaster, on the destination, whether to attack a particular ship, the division of booty, the colours and symbols to sail under, the punishments and rewards, general guidelines of behaviour and social relationships on board and more.

Generally, these laws were written down into a set of articles agreed upon before voyage and sworn on by the whole crew. And, as Leeson notes, they were “strictly adhered to” (1072) most of the time, as it was in the pirates’ own interest to avoid any incidents and disagreements. They had to be prepared for anything that might have come, because, as they got rid of any outside force, were self-dependent and therefore must have fully trusted each other (Land 177), as there was no one else to count on.

(Leeson 1076) Leeson argues that pirate constitutions were invented and exercised to also prevent any inside abuse of power, mainly from the position of captain and quartermaster, that could have otherwise misuse their positions of power (1069) – by severely punishing sailors that fell out of their favour41 or usurp provisions for themselves, etc. This system of checks and balances was, as Leeson notes, probably adapted from the 17th century chasse-partie42, a buccaneer articles that also “specified the division of booty among the officers and crew along with other terms” (1070) and its later evolved and institutionalised successive “system of customary law and metarules called the ‘Custom of the Coast,’ or the ‘Jamaica Discipline.’” (Leeson 1071)

Pirate constitutions had one interesting quality – they were very similar across the various pirate crews. (Leeson 1071) This connects to the notion of the trust and brotherhood, as pirate ships frequently greeted each other with gunfire and joined

41 See. Leeson 1060. 42 Leeson has an excerpt from Exquemlin’s The Buccaneers of America, see pg. 1070. 33 together43 when met and greeted usually by a short cannon salvo. And it was at that time, that they exchanged news, raided in fleets and most importantly shared their constitutions and customs such as black flags. (Under the Black Flag 112) In Misson’s case, he joins his voyage with Thomas Tew, “a leading figure in this [Madagascar] illegal trade” (Under the Black Flag 89). Upon seeing Tew’s ship, he does exactly what he is supposed to do – fires his canon as a greeting and sends one of his lieutenants to meet Tew and give him “short Account of their Adventures and new Settlement, inviting him very kindly on board Captain Misson.” (Johnson 84) At this point, Tew tells Misson’s emissary that he needs to consult the visit with his crew and only after their general consent he boards Victoire. He observes Misson’s ship and crew and upon return, gives his own crew “Account of what he had learned” (Johnson 84). Only after this procedure the crew consents to join with Misson and set the course to Libertalia.

And the same thing happens yet again – they arrive and the settlement salutes them

“with nine Guns” (Johnson 87) and Tew and his crew are welcomed with “Civility and

Respect.” (Johnson 87) Tew is immediately admitted to join Libertalia’s “Council of

Officers” (Johnson 88) to discuss what to do with the new prizes and prisoners. Calling of council, according to Cordingly drawing from Exquemelin preceded the start of the voyage or the election of the new captain or quartermaster – in the presence of the whole crew the constitution was drawn, leaders elected, attacks planned and provisions discussed. (Under the Black Flag 96-7) It was oftentimes accompanied or ended by drinking44, singing and universal merrymaking.

Apart from the previously examined shared constitutions and voyages as well as councils, the thing that stands out the most in Misson’s encounter with Tew is the fact

43 See. for example Cordingly 112, Leeson 1055, Land 178. Leeson also argues, that even “when multiple ships joined together for an expedition, they created similar articles establishing the terms of their partnership.” (1072) 44 See Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag 93-4 for drinking and another pastimes of pirates and sailors in general and Goose for yet another pastimes pg. 191. 34 that not Tew himself, but his crew decided what is going to happen in the situation. This is another important part of pirate constitutions – their captains and quartermasters, the two most important leadership posts, were democratically elected and could have been deposed at any time, when the crew decided they do not fulfil their duties accordingly – so the crew had full power over their leaders basically from two sources: elections and constitution. Pirates despised the idea of someone ruling over them, and, as Leeson argues, the most important work of the captain on commercial ship was to oversee and

“align the crew’s interests with those of the ship’s absentee owners” basically by any means (1064) – this heightened status of a captain could not have been tolerated on pirate vessels. For an ordinary merchant vessel, owned by a group of trustees45 and designed for profit, the autocratic captain was an ideal and relatively cheap monitoring device to assure that sailors did not neglect heir duty or sabotage the voyage. Merchant captains were sometimes given a part of profit or intentionally chosen from a family of one of the merchant holders, to further heighten his interest in a successful completion of the voyage. This obviously led to a number of instances of, as Leeson puts it,

“captain predation” in various forms, such as the aforementioned problems on merchant ships that led to such an influx of merchant seaman to pirates’ lines. (1059) So although pirate captains in popular culture seem to be portrayed as authoritarian leaders with full power over their crew, and although some exercised more power than others for sure, the real position of a captain was largely and almost solely concerned with battles. In battle, Leeson states, “there was no time for disagreement or debate [...], and conflicting voices would have made it impossible to undertake the most essential tasks.” (1064)

Therefore the authority was entrusted to the person the majority thought the best suited for the task – and as plundering and fighting was the purpose of the whole voyage,

45 More about owning a merchant ship in Leeson’s work pgs. 1056-9. 35 pirate captains certainly held a lot of power in their hands. To counterbalance this focus of power onto one individual, quartermaster was elected. This post dealt with everything peace related – from rationing and dividing the acquired booty (of course according to previously written constitution), law enforcement and settling disputes to the representation of the whole crew in approving captain’s decisions. Leeson states that nor captains nor quartermasters had any special lodgings or provisions (1068) and

Cordingly adds that even though captain was “given use of the great cabin, he did not have it exclusively to himself, but must expect other members of the company to come in and out, to use his crockery, and to share his food and drink.” (Under the Black Flag

98) This ‘almost equality’ applied to any member of the crew that was assigned a rank, which was much less common than on navy or merchant ships, as pirates “had no use for the ranks of lieutenant and midshipman”, but they did elect, also by democratic vote system, “a boatswain46, a gunner, a carpenter, and a cook; there was usually also a first mate and a second mate.” (Under the Black Flag 98)

Misson’s career as a captain starts at the exactly same point as his career as a pirate. After a long and bloody encounter with Winchelsea47, “an English Man of War of 40 Guns” (Johnson 12), in which “Captain, second Captain, and the three

Lieutenants“ (JOhnson 12) are all killed and Misson is left the only living officer on board. He takes the lead, tells Caraccioli to be his lieutenant and commands a successful counterattack, leading the crew to victory. After this incident, the crew sees Mission as their new leader. They unanimously elect him the new captain and he accepts with

46 Boatswain was in charge of the ship’s gear. For a glossary of sea terms, see Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag, pgs. 275-8. 47 Winchelsea was a real ship, as well as Misson’s own ship, Victoire. Novak states in his Introduction to Misson’s story, that the ship was “lost in the West Indies at the end of August, 1707“, therefore an approximate dating of the story can be estimated to the first decade of the 18th century. Johnson uses real known names to give his story realistic sound, he even comments on the sinking of Winchelsea by the French that “none ever knew before this Manuscript fell into my Hands how the Winchelsea was lost” and gives therefore even further support for the realness of the biography. 36 a speech in which he swears that he is never going to misuse his power, “that he was their Friend and Companion” (Johnson 13) and that if anybody opposes the idea of the whole crew turning pirate, or as he puts it “upon a Life of Liberty” (Johnson 13) or has any objections to his election, they “would declare themselves, and he would set them ashore.” (Johnson 13) This short part of the story reveals interesting similarities with the way pirates voted for their captains and voyages as well as with the position and duty of the captain aboard the pirate ship. Misson becomes captain after he proves his leadership skills in battle, which, as mentioned before, was basically the most important part of captain’s work – he demonstrated his leadership and tactical skills, so important for a successful pirate raid. When the captain, or any other officer, did not meet the expectations of the crew, he could have been deposed any time – Misson, upon his election, reassures his crew, that they do not have to be concerned about him becoming predatory at the same time as he exercises another pirate custom, that assured peace on the ship – that of splitting the crew if disagreeing. Leeson writes that “ in the event a pirate disagreed with their conditions, he was free to search elsewhere for more satisfactory terms.” (1071) This split happens in the story, although not to Misson’s crew, but to Tew’s, as part of his men decide to follow the quartermaster leaving the ship.

After the captain election, the crew chooses their officers. As Caraccioli is already a lieutenant, they vote for second and third lieutenant, boatswain, quartermaster and a gunner. It is interesting, that the quartermaster is never mentioned again – the reason probably being that the focus of the whole biography is solely upon Misson and

Caraccioli, alternatively Tew, and the text, although fairly accurate, does sometimes bend and adjust to suit the intentions to the author. Officers are agreed upon unanimously and are called to the great cabin to form a council and discuss the details

37 of the cruise as well as necessary details of the behaviour on board. At this point, the constitution is formed. The course is set for the Spanish coast – and as the story progresses they change the course a number of times, which is not unusual for pirate ships as “there was little forward planning” due to the democratic principles and “this inevitably led to many decisions being made on the spur of the moment. A study of the tracks of the pirate ships shows many of them zigzagging all over the place without any apparent reason.” (Under the Black Flag 90) Also the colours of the flag48 are chosen – the boatswain proposes black as the most terrifying, but the colour white is agreed upon after Caraccioli proposes that it is better suited as they are not pirates and therefore should distinguish themselves accordingly. They also do not use the infamous Jolly

Roger nor any other pirate insignia, which, together with the notorious black colour,

Land argues, was a symbol of death as a reminder for their enemies as well as for pirates themselves and their “lack of concern for their own mortality.” (177) During this process, the “Cabbin Door was left open” (Johnson 16) and the crew listened to the discussion and agreed upon the decisions of the council.

The next thing the crew does is bringing all the possessions of the deceased officers on board and put them into a chest, Misson arguing that everything should be in common and that stealing from the booty “should defraud the Publick.” (Johnson 16)

This is also part of the pirate constitution, as every crewman received a fair share of the prize, it was considered one of the worst crimes to steal something for oneself (under the punishment of marooning). (Leeson 1074) The shares were also set before the start of the voyage, ordinary crewmen receiving one part and officers or exceptional sailors or fighters49 receiving up to two shares of the booty. The chest is used probably because

48 More about pirate flags and the colour and symbol coordination and meanings see Cordingly‘s Under the Black Flag 114-116 or Land pg. 177. 49 Leeson argues, that bonuses were used to reduce laziness and potential stealing, because “one team member’s laziness directly reduces the income of the others.” (1074) The other productivity booster 38 of the indivisible items – Leeson states that “when booty was indivisible or there was question as to its value and thus how many shares it counted for in payment, pirates sold or auctioned the troublesome items and distributed the divisible proceeds accordingly.”

(1073) From the rest of the booty, consisting of clothes, the crewmen “in most Want of

Cloaths” (Johnson 16) received them. Clothes are distributed in the story yet once more, when Misson attacks a slave ship and rescues its slaves – after they are given their freedom and made crewmembers on one of the Misson’s ships, he gives them clothes of their former oppressors.

Another interesting thing concerning Misson’s encounters with different nationalities as well as races, in this case, is the amount of black and mulatto pirates.

Cordingly states that a “considerable number of the men on the pirate ships were black”

(Under the Black Flag 15) and other authors agree, some stating that the diversity among pirate crews were much greater than among other ships (Leeson states that from samples of 23 pirate crews, “between 13 and 98 percent [were] black” (1054). Misson frees a number of slaves as he attacks slave ships and integrates them into his crew successfully and one of his ships later has more than half of the crewmen former slaves

– he clothes them50, teaches them how to work the ship and assures that they understand they are free and that they are to live as pirates, against which the slaves do not protest.

It seems unusual in the story that Misson completely abolishes the idea of slavery and frees all the slaves he encounters, but in the light of previously mentioned numbers, the action does not really clash with the historical facts. What might be unusual is the equal status of the slaves in the story, as it is not known, what their status was in reality, as

was a pirate social insurance, a payment for any limb or other body part lost in action, see Leeson pg. 1070, Land pg. 180,Cordingly’s Under the Black Flag pg. 97. 50 Stealing clothes from prizes was one of the cardinal offences against the pirate constitution and therefore giving slaves the clothes that belonged to the whole crew can be an indication of their equal position on the ship. 39 many pirate ships engaged in slave trade as well as in the disruption of it. (Under the

Black Flag 16; Land 183)

These benefits of free clothes and other parts of crew’s booty distributed among the most in need, might, at first sight, seem to violate the established share system. It can be explained, of course, by Misson’s good will and humanism. But, more realistically, can also account for the simple fact that pirates needed to be prepared and in best shape possible to make profit by plundering. As pirate ships operated on a simple rule “no prey, no pay”, the importance of preparedness is obvious.

Crewmembers were encouraged to be in the best shape possible, as well as to keep their weapons and tools in the best condition. The next target might have been just around a corner – and with half naked, hungry, ill and unprepared crew the chance of taking it considerably lowered. In this light, Misson’s following speech about brotherhood, liberty and love to each other and banning of alcohol also resonates with the real pirate constitutions. Pirates did every possible thing they could to prevent quarrels upon deck, because it was dangerous for the whole voyage and their main intention of acquiring wealth. As Leeson says, they prohibited all activities “that generated significant negative externalities and threatened the success of criminal organization aboard their ships“ (1073) – drunkenness at night (to get sufficient sleep), prohibited fighting and swearing, women, gambling for money, stealing as well as deserting in battle and leaving the voyage before the official end. Misson’s speech then ends with him calling all crewmembers aboard, and “as they were muster’d, they were sworn” (Johnson 18) – corresponding with the previously mentioned approval and vow to obey the constitution by the whole crew before the start of a voyage.

The importance of the prohibition of alcohol and swearing aboard Victoire is brought up later in the story. As Misson’s ship captures prizes regardless of their

40 colours, occasionally takes prisoners or frees prisoners of different nationalities, such as

French or Dutch, and integrates them into their own crew. This makes for even bigger and more diverse party – but also for more and more problems, as the new recruits are sometimes completely oblivious to the rules of the ship or they willingly do not follow them as they had not sworn on the constitution. This is best seen when Misson takes upon his deck Dutch prisoners from a recently captured ship and they swear and drink.

The other crewmen follow the example that “began to lead ‘em into Swearing and

Drunkenness.” (Johnson 29) Misson solves this problem in accordance to the constitution, as any violation is to be punished – he threatens the Dutch by announcing, that “the first whom he catch’d either with Oath in his Mouth or Liquor in his Head, should be brought to Geers, whipped and pickled, for an Example to the rest of his

Nation” (Johnson 30) and later, as they capture another Dutch ship, gives them the vessel and lets them leave for a Dutch settlement nearby – therefore exercising the splitting and letting go again rather than risking the peace and order on board.

The major problem with the accuracy of Misson’s story is the fact that the constitution is never mentioned to be written down. Misson proposes the rules and the crew agrees by chanting, but the physical form of the rules is arguable. Pirates had written constitutions, and this, adding to the omission of the quartermaster’s importance on ship, makes the story somewhat less accurate. It seems, that Misson used the general organisation of a navy ship and applied pirate rules and customs as well as ideology on it, as his position, although certainly much less authoritarian, is still the most important and decisive – together with Caraccioli, the first lieutenant. Again, this can be explained by the focus on the main characters and their virtues much more than on the actual reality of pirate communities.

There is also the question of importance of religion for pirates. Misson, at the start of his journey, gets completely disillusioned as he goes through the city and observes the “licentious Lives of the Clergy, the Luxury of the Papal Court, and that nothing but hulls of Religion was to be found in the Metropolis of the Christian

Church.” (Johnson 3) He is later converted by Caraccioli to deism, and the whole story is interweaved with Caraccioli’s talk about the unimportance of church – the argument about corrupt church against the natural law and deism is one of the biggest themes in it.

But for real pirates, the religious question seem to be of much smaller if of no importance. For privateers and other government supported raiders the answer to this question is somewhat easier, as they did not abolish any of the ties they had with their mother nation, which, for some of the pirates surely meant abolishing the religion of their former oppressive country51. Many pirates did not practice any religion, often even mocking it by toasting “to the devil, or to the Pretender to the British throne.” (Under the Black Flag 93) As Cordingly states, “many pirates had no time for religion and even less for the clergy” (Under the Black Flag 234) and preferred instead to focus on their raiding. It is interesting, though, that many of the captured and sentenced pirates did, at the end, confess their crimes to a priest – sometimes under the pressure of very active and convincing “Ordinary, or prison chaplain.” (Under the Black Flag 234) In Misson’s case, the reform did not come, as he dies unexpectedly in a storm and Caraccioli earlier in the attack on Libertalia. Thomas Tew also does not repent, as he sails to America and later, according to Johnson, is killed on an unsuccessful raid.

In conclusion, Misson’s life is highly idealised, as well as his crew and their voyage. But despite those idealisations of pirate captains and under the mist of utopian narrative, the story presents quite an accurate picture of the pirates life starting as

51 Land argues, that even the choice of Jolly Roger as a flag symbol “made explicit their rejection of the nation state as a foundation for community and their challenge to its monopoly on violence.” (178) 42 a disillusioned (most probably) merchant seaman, looking for less oppression and more pay or for the vague notion of freedom, establishing his own anti-predatory constitution

(described extremely accurately in Johnson’s story), with life full of drinking and danger, ending unexpectedly in a storm or with a rope.

Chapter 3: Pirate Settlements and Libertalia

The colonisation of islands seems to interest people of non-conforming ideas for a long time. Moursi argues, that there is a positive connotation linked to an island, because of utopian writings and the idealistic effect they have on their readers: ”The positive connotation of islands in the public subconscious could partially be attributed to utopic narratives such as Atlantis.” (54) Cordingly states, that even seamen themselves told stories about utopian islands (such as the one about Libertalia) (Under the Black Flag 146) According to Moursi, “in the case of utopic visionaries, desire for political freedom remains the key motivator,” (54) while governments see them in much more negative light as a “dumping-ground” of “quarantine-prison-island”, places to

“isolate unwanted members of society.” (54) Both these connotations seem to be advantageous for pirate settlements as well as for adventurers and fugitives, as will be discussed in this chapter, mainly focusing on pirate settlements and their comparison to pirate utopia as a concept reflected in Misson’s biography. The first subchapter focuses on the reasons for, mainly, pirates to colonise Madagascar. The second subchapter then draws a quick overview of the changes made in their constitution when Misson’s pirates settled on land and established a colony, to prepare a base for the attempt to describe what defines pirate utopia in Johnson’s work. These rules for proper pirate utopia searching are then applied, in the fourth subchapter, to the contemporary pirate settlements (Port Royal, Nassau, settlements of logwood cutters, Salé and settlements on Madagascar) that existed around the world. In the last subchapter, the conclusion on the existence of real pirate utopias is drawn.

3.1. Settling on Madagascar

Madagascar as an utopian island is not Johnson’s invention. As early as the 16th century, there were attempts to settle on the island and establish functional, although in

44 most cases commercial, colonies, as the island provided “a potential golden land of opportunity” (McDonald 61) advertised in the same way as Americas. McDonald argues, that most of the interest for the island was raised because of the colonial propaganda, as the harsh reality of life on the island, full of arid or completely hostile areas, angry natives, completely unmapped regions and, of course, pirates, made the new settlers completely disillusioned as they arrived. There was an ever-changing trade connection with the natives (from the early 16th century, Portuguese explorers established contact), as they sometimes welcomed merchants and traded for arms, iron and knowledge, but in many cases, the natives were the main reason the settlements failed. The early English attempts, or any at all, to establish proper colonies on

Madagascar were largely failures and the interest in colonisation of Madagascar for the

English was further reduced by the absence of East India Company around

Madagascar’s northern coast for a long time (McDonald 68) – as Goose notes, East

India Company avoided the island and the adjacent waters for the danger of pirates (The

History of Piracy 236) and it also refused to establish any permanent colonies, trading posts or connections with the natives. (“Population in Madagascar” 404) Never the less, there was a thriving trade route around Madagascar, dominated, ironically, by the East

India Company, as well as slave trade with Malagasy people (natives of the island) in which took part not only English (but Bialuschewski argues, that EIC “did not ship slaves to the colonies” (“Population in Madagascar” 404)), but also Portuguese, Dutch,

Indian or Moorish etc. – therefore plenty of prizes to attack for pirates. There were also independent or pirate trading posts established on the island. This, together with the relative remoteness and an inviting environment, made Madagascar the “safe refuge where they [pirates] could careen their ships, repair their rigging and supply themselves with food and water.” (Goose, The History of Piracy 194) But as Bialuschewski argues,

45 in the first decade of the 18th century, the “prospects of easy loot faded and vessels had to be given up, most crews dispersed and the men sought their fortune in various coastal villages.” (“Population in Madagascar” 421-2)

Misson resolves to set sail to the coast of Madagascar, with his now fleet of two ships (many a new men from attacked ships decided to join) and find themselves on an island called Johanna. Here they help local natives with a war against another native kingdom and Misson, as well as Caraccioli, marry native women – Misson marries queen’s sister and Caraccioli her niece. By that they establish a connection with the natives, and with the help in war earlier, they become really close and friendly with the natives, who later help them immensely with settling on Madagascar by providing them with workforce to build their structures as well as with wives. It was mutually advantageous to have good relations with the neighbouring natives, as many colonies on

Madagascar ended their existence under the angry raids of neighbouring native groups – the same end that Libertalia meets in Johnson’s work later on, but from the hand of another tribe. The marriage contract is not unusual, as Bialuschewski argues:

The establishment of family ties through marriage was likely the crucial factor

that led to the integration of outsiders into Malagasy society. Traditionally,

marriage has been an institution designed to form or confirm strategic alliances

of people within their own communities as well as between different cultural and

ethnic backgrounds. With the arrival of pirates, who proved to be highly

opportunistic, such relations gained a new dimension. For the indigenous

population the reception of these men promised access to sophisticated technical

skills and offered the prospect of further beneficial contacts with European

seafarers. (“Population in Madagascar” 421)

Later they proceed to Madagascar and Misson notes about it “the Soil, which he found rich, the Air wholesome, and the Country level” (Johnson 45) and tells his men that this is a place they should settle, build and fortify a small town with docks and

“have some Place to call their own; and a Receptacle, when Age or Wounds had render’d them incapable of Hardship, where they might enjoy the Fruits of their Labour, and go to their Graves in Peace.” (Johnson 45) As argued before, Madagascar was full of material and inviting to settle in, as well as remote enough to provide the ageing, ill or peace-craving pirates the haven they wished for. Is Johnson’s biography was a propaganda is not known, what is certain though is the amount of pages in the second volume dedicated to Madagascar alone (almost third of its content). At that time,

Madagascar was surely an interesting and new topic to cover, as the slave and goods trade thrived and the English were still fairly new in the region.

3.2. Libertalia’s Constitution

Libertalia is established upon the same constitution as Misson’s ship was, but in a larger and much more agrarian focused scale. They build wooden houses and fortify the colony by setting forts armed with spare canons. Preparing for attack from the outside, to prevent any external force or “transcendent law – such as national law or religion – that might impose order from without.” (Land 179) The community becomes largely agrarian, sowing seeds and corn, quickly starting to provide food to be self- sufficient. This also illustrates the fear of any outside forces, in this case economical.

The major change from Misson’s ship is the necessity to establish “wholesome Laws”

(Johnson 100) in the community shared by two crews – Misson’s and Tew’s. It seems that the provisional constitution they had drawn at the start of the joint voyage is not sufficient any more, as the conditions surrounding the agreement are entirely different on land. They assemble the council and call in the whole colony to agree on a new form

47 of government – democratic, but adapted to the much larger and diverse society of the settlement. Every ten men choose their representative to the government, which would propose the laws. The booty and property of the settlement is divided between the settlers, as well as the land is now owned by a person. These new laws cover mainly the things that could not have been regulated by the pirate constitution before, simply because there was nothing like land or property beyond money, clothes or weapons:

They would divide themselves into Companies of ten Men, and every such

Company chuse one to assist in the settling a Form of Government, and in

making wholesome Laws for the Good of the whole: That the Treasure and

Cattle they were Masters of should be equally divided, and such Lands as any

particular Man would enclose, should, for the future, be deem'd his Property,

which no other should lay any Claim to, if not alienated by a Sale. (Johnson 100)

They also build a house for the “Body of Politicians” (Johnson 100) to meet, establish laws and have speeches in. Caraccioli argues for an election of “supream

Power in the Hands of one, who should have that of rewarding brave and vertuous

Actions, and of punishing the vicious, according to the Laws which the State should make; by which, he was to be guided” (Johnson 100), elected for three years, called

Lord Conservator with “all the Ensigns of Royalty to attend him.” (Johnson 101)

Misson is elected Conservator “with Power to create great Officers, &c. and with the

Title of Supream Excellence.” (Johnson 101) Caraccioli’s speech is applauded to and the proposed changes are made. The state is said to meet once every year or when necessary and that nothing can be approved without the governmental hearing. They then establish laws, that are printed and dispersed among the settlers and the

Conservator selects Tew as admiral and Caraccioli as the secretary of state. The council is established by Conservator, equally “without Distinction of Nation or Colour”

(Johnson 101), and it also starts to use language incorporating all of the different languages spoken in the colony.

They still, instead of killing or enslaving the prisoners from the captured ships, free them and send them away returning them everything they lost from Misson’s share after he “required an Oath of every one, that he should not serve against him” (Johnson

90) – of course, by settling down, the pirates did not give up their way of life, both

Misson and Tew still attack ships and take prizes.

Libertalia, as a settlement, becomes much less democratic and communist when compared to pirate constitution, much closer to the modern democratic systems of government. But the laws and structures established in it, although much more authoritarian, are still inherently piratical and again oppose the common structures of the contemporary society and still largely value freedom, democracy and practicality as pirate constitutions did – so, in a sense, Libertalia still, or now even more, qualifies as pirate utopia, by still, even against all hardships, following the pirate code and establishing society on its basis.

3.3. Pirate Utopia

Utopias are the projections of the man’s biggest dreams upon his environment.

They are an ideal communities, a “commonwealth whose inhabitants exist under seemingly perfect conditions”52, the “unreal and impossible”, but the only thing, that we

“set [...] against the world” to make it more tolerable. (Mumford 11) Mumford also states that utopias change by the age they were conceived in, arguing that the most pronounced utopian stories like Plato’s Republic or More’s Utopia are a reaction to “the hopelessness of conditions” (11-12), “disorder and violence” (12) and concludes, that

52 The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica. “Utopia.” In Encyclopædia Britannica online. Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 2018. Retrieved from https://www.britannica.com/topic/utopia. Accessed 13 February 2018. 49 only “our fall into a chasm of disillusion has stimulated us to discuss in a more thorough way the ultimate goods, the basic aims, the whole conception of ‘good life’ by which, in modern times, we have been guided.” (12) This general definition of utopia as well as the implications Mumford mentions are reflected in Misson’s story – for example just in the simple fact, that Johnson chooses pirates to be the main protagonists of his utopian narrative. As argued before, pirates are inevitably connected to the notion of freedom and fight against the oppressive reality of present conditions, striving to find a better life for themselves by actively searching – and although this concept of a free pirate is totally inaccurate and highly idealised, it is and always was (see chapter 1) still deeply rooted in the public consciousness, making Misson the ideal protagonist for founding the settlement in a ‘no-place’.

Hakim Bey, an anarchist writer and theoretician, coins the term pirate utopia used in this thesis as a reference to Libertalia. He defines pirate utopias as TAZ’s – another of his inventions, Temporary Autonomous Zones, places that temporarily and actively oppose the common social structures. The temporariness is important, as he argues that anything that strives to become permanent must also slide back into a structured system. He defines pirate settlements in the late 17th and early 18th century as mostly temporary (although he mentions Libertalia as being intended to last longer) as “the corsairs’ true ‘republics’ were their ships, which sailed under Articles. The shore enclaves usually had no law at all.” (Utopias: Moorish Corsairs and European

Renegradoes) This tendency to establish more and more laws as the time progresses can be seen on Libertalia itself, as they are forced to establish governmental structures. But, as Bey himself admits, Libertalia is certainly not meant to be temporary – and he later creates more suitable term PAZ, permanently autonomous zone. It is not clear, which one of those two would Libertalia become, when lasting longer, as PAZ’s are not

50 controlled by any government and Libertalia surely started to create one – but as the story stands, Libertalia’s short existence can be also considered temporary. Therefore this thesis uses TAZ when referring to the reluctance to establish government, not to the temporariness, as Libertalia was certainly meant to be long-term settlement. Bey’s theories, as well as his other writings, were questioned by a number of authors

(Bialuschewski examines his utopian description of Salé) – and this thesis does not try to meditate upon the reliability of his work, but the concept of TAZ’s and pirate utopias as well as the terms themselves are useful for establishing at least some basic rules for the settlements compared to Libertalia.

The problem with defining pirate utopia is that it does not entirely coincide with concepts of utopia, pirate laws and TAZ's merged together, as it might be tempting to assume – when taking Libertalia as a reference, not only it goes further than just building settlement to hide in and make attacks from. Libertalia is a society of its own, its community is self-sufficient and cooperative enough to make the whole community thriving and happy. The establishment of the laws that might seem as disturbing to the pirate utopia’s freedom and egalitarianism is rather a consequence of outside force than its own decision, as the first settlers, Misson's crew, are entirely utopian people, such as

Misson and Caraccioli themselves. Only after the crew starts to admit new members, the concept starts to crumble. If the colony was occupied entirely by the former crew, it would meet the requirements for a ‘perfect society without any problems’. It is hard to decide whether Libertalia itself, or rather the previous establishment on Misson’s ship is the proper utopian idea in Johnson’s utopian story. The whole concept is also underlined by a wide range of philosophical and religious ideas which are hard to compare to the real pirate settlements of the time or even to the pirates themselves, as they largely seem to have no religion and are only interested in pursuing their own

51 freedom and interest, not any higher ideas – but the ideological aspect of the story is, although interesting, not a focus of this thesis. The only signs of pirate utopia, derived from the story of Liberatlia for an easier comparison to the other settlements therefore are: established or occupied mostly by pirates; independent on and opposing the standard governmental structures – a TAZ; self sufficient as the pirate ships were; with a more or less egalitarian society built upon pirate constitution; meant as a long-term settlement, not just a free port to sell goods in; and eventually, agrarian or piratical more than merchant – therefore not dependent on external forces.

3.4. Pirate Settlements

The new laws of Libertalia and the whole establishment do not really correspond with the other pirate settlements examined here, as they were largely either pirate havens – cities occupied by pirates or merchant settlements trading with them, therefore already not meeting one of the criteria. As Levant and Maziane argue, the pirate cities and settlements of the late 17th and early 18th century “were merely ‘frontier towns’ and not really pirate cities, apart from Libertalia in Madagascar.” (2) In some cases, pirates drove out any suppressive powers and used the city for their favourable location

(Port Royal, Nassau) – merchant settlements and states (Madagascar merchant settlers on Saint Marie, Salé) or small pirate settlements as a refuge (logwood cutters of Bay of

Honduras or Campeche, Saint Augustin bay in Madagascar). Never the less, the comparison between an idealised nonexistent pirate utopia and its realistic equivalent can show interesting resemblance and possible Johnson’s inspiration when writing

Libertalia.

3.4.1. Port Royal

Port Royal is, thanks to the aforementioned movie Pirates of the Caribbean, one of the most well-known pirate havens that ever existed, and although its history as a pirate haven ends by mass hangings at the end of the 17th century (from 1680 to as late as 1830’s) and in 1692 by an earthquake and is thus more of a predecessor than contemporary of Libertalia, it is still an interesting comparison. As English and French privateers and buccaneers from nearby Tortuga flooded the city after their former haven was repeatedly attacked by the Spanish, Port Royal, a small town in Jamaica, “became one of the richest and probably most vicious spots on the face of the globe.” (Goose

154) The government licensed pirates, privateers, were “encouraged to make Port Royal their base by successive governors of Jamaica who believed that their presence would dissuade the Spanish from attempting to recapture the island.”53 And with the privateers, the wealth followed, as “there were no serious attempts to attack Jamaica, and the merchants and shopkeepers of Port Royal grew rich and on the plunder brought in from the raids.” (Under the Black Flag 143) Pirates also benefited from the newly acquired safe haven and came in large numbers, as the town was “well placed as a base from which to launch attacks on the Spanish settlements in the Central America or on the ships passing to and fro among the West Indian islands.” (Under the Black Flag

143) Port Royal was the exactly the harbour they needed to repair their ships and spend all their money on drinking and women. Cordingly writes, that during the 1660s, the pirate activity was at its peak – the harbour was used as a base of operations by such notorious names as Henry Morgan and the town provided a place where they could “not only be free from attack but where they could sell their plunder, get drunk and, when

53 Cordingly, David. "Pirates and Port Royal." History Today, vol. 42, no. 5, May 1992, p. 62. EBSCOhost, ezproxy.muni.cz/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&AuthType=ip,cookie,ui d&db=asn&AN=9205183682&lang=cs&site=eds-live&scope=site.

53 their money was all spent, find another ship to sail in.” (Goose 154) This is probably one of the most common examples of pirate settlement – a place to sell booty and buy provisions, have fun and slow down for a bit, without any fear of being oppressed by government in most cases. It was certainly occupied largely by pirates and the city more or less worked to provide for them. The lack of any laws is questionable, as privateers were still licensed, the town had a governor and pirates were illegal to enter the harbour

– but in reality, their crews enjoyed the town never the less. But for the sake of clearness, assume that Port Royal was still outside government dependent. What is clear is the question of self-sufficiency, as pirates used the towns shops and taverns, but did not really contributed to the economy other way than providing money. In short, Port

Royal was a place for opportunistic pirates to have a short breather, not a long-term settlement to live in and work for such as Libertalia was.

3.4.2. Nassau

Nassau, formerly a British colony founded in 1670, was much closer to the pirate utopia in terms of freedom from the government. Pirates from Port Royal, who escaped the prosecution and hunting by the government forces, set their course on

Bahamas in search of a new safe haven and found it on New Providence island, in

Nassau. The colony’s government and the town itself was slowly seized by pirates and proclaimed ‘republic’ governed by pirate governors such as Captain Jennings under the code of conduct – a pirate constitution similar to the ones they used on their ships.

Around 1715, Nassau “acted as a meeting point for pirate ships operating throughout the Caribbean and the Atlantic Ocean.” (Under the Black Flag 150) This lasted for about 15 years. The fact that Nassau was governed by pirates, for pirates and under the pirate constitution is interesting, as it supports Johnson’s utopian story about Libertalia being governed by a democratic system of government – in short, it was possible to

54 govern a large group of pirates by the constitution. In this sense, of course, Nassau was opposing any external form of government and was, as far as can be deduced from the constitution, was egalitarian. The problem with arguing that Nassau was the closest to the utopian settlement such as Libertalia is, again, its opportunistic temporariness. Both

Port Royal and Nassau, although possibly the closest to real pirate utopias, are flawed in a sense, that they are highly opportunistic – in the same way as pirates were – lacking the duties to the community so emphasised in Misson’s Libertalia. Libertalia is, in addition to pirate society, also an agrarian one and the pirates not only anchor and attack from there, but also live and work for the community.

3.4.3. Baymen of Campeche and Honduras

There were primarily work oriented settlements, such as the community of logwood cutters of the Bay of Campeche or Honduras – they were “hard men earning a difficult living in primitive conditions, unfettered by the constraints of society.”

(Under the Black Flag 149) Rediker states, that they lived by the same rules as exercised on pirate ships, having everything in common and their own form of government, “one of which prohibited capital punishment.” (45) Many of them were former pirates and in the spare time attacked villages on the coast as well as merchant ships passing by. (Under the Black Flag 149) Their living conditions were, according to

Cordingly, terrible – conditions they often treated by a large amounts of alcohol: “They drank rum, punch, wine, ale, or cider by the barrel until they were senseless; then, when they woke up, they would start drinking again.” (Under the Black Flag 149) These settlements had its own structure, were government independent and probably self- sufficient, established and inhabited mainly by pirates – but their commercial purpose as well as the bad conditions do not really resemble Libertalia. Libertalia’s inhabitants cut wood only for the sole purpose of providing material to build houses and government

55 buildings, they did not sell it or traded with another settlements in any way (only with the aforementioned natives that were, at least in a sense of oppressive governments, less than a thread).

3.4.4. Salé

The Republic of Salé (or Sallee), a city state founded in the first half of 17th century by merging together three cities “Salé-le-Neuf (the present-day Rabat), Kasbah or Qasba (now a district of Rabat), and Salé-le-Vieux (now Salé)” (Levant, Maziane 3), became a prosperous and thriving settlement inhabited and re-founded by the deported

Spanish Muslims during the Inquisition raids. (Levant, Maziane 9) Its location was ideal for launching attacks on merchant and enemy ships and it quickly “became a privateer port which offered the institutions, financial and military structures for any privateer wishing to settle there.”( Levant, Maziane 10) It is argued by Hakim Bey to be an actual pirate utopia:

[...] not just a pirate hang-out or safe harbor, but a pirate utopia, a planned

structure for a corsair society. Perhaps a kind of Franco or lingua franca might

have emerged in Sale as in Algiers, though we have no evidence for it. But Sale

had its own language of signs and institutions, of relations and ideas, of goods

and peoples, which clearly coalesced into some identifiable social entity.

But Levant and Maziane counter this claim in their research of the economic model of Salé at that time and conclude that the city was certainly not governed by pirate constitutions, nor was it the egalitarian utopia Bey imagines. They state that the social hierarchy on land influenced the hierarchy on Salé’s ships – therefore they had not been egalitarian in a way pirate ships were organised, as Salé was “rather a capitalist city of privateers organized according to a strict pecking order – a plutocratic merchant city.” (Levant, Maziane 15) Their ships were owned by the captain or an outside owner

(which means that the captain had full power over the assigned crewmen). The

“distribution of all gains was based on religious law” – upon arrival into the port by an attendant to shareholders, government of Salé, to the ruler of the city etc., and although the crews consisted of many nationalities such as “Andalusians, captive Christians, black slaves, renegades, or, to very limited extend, native Muslims” (Levant, Maziane

9), it did not mean they were equal in status. The same thing applied to the city itself.

Comprised of many nationalities54 and inviting for newcomers55, it still operated on bases of capitalism, and the social stratification was highly hierarchical and oftentimes the communities within the system lived separately and had separate laws: “different communities which often had different laws and different economic and political powers, were living close to each other but in separate districts.“ (Levant, Maziane 15)

The city’s main purpose was not making of utopia, but a profitable trading centre, even recognised by other European states. (Levant, Maziane 17) And most importantly, the privateering was strictly organised by the government and therefore, if it nevertheless proved to be utopian in nature, it should have been called privateer utopia instead.

In Salé, commercial raiding was controlled by the Republic and directed against

its enemies with permission from the authorities. The ships could not go to sea

without being in possession of a special commission from the Admiral of Salé or

from the government. They were also sometimes provided with a letter of

marque issued by friendly foreign nations. (Levant, Maziane 8)

54 See Levant and Maziane’s work pgs. 13-15 for a full overview of the national and religious composition of the city. 55 The closest the city got to its utopian ideal was the incorporation of different nationalities and its relative openness for newcomers, mainly merchants and renegades (those who converted to Islam). There was much greater social mobility for renegades (as the free people could achieve quite high posts in Salé’s pirate navy), but Levant and Maziane argue, that they were still despised by the followers of other religions and “therefore had their own district, separated from those of the Moriscos, Christians, and Jews.” (14) The trading opportunities and the relative religious freedom made for a “promised land for new ‘self-made men’ of the seventeenth century.” (Levant, Maziane 18) 57

Additionally, the city was very much “involved in the highly profitable trade of captives” (18) and the profit both from the trade and especially from the buccaneering that “was to the benefit of only a small sector of society, namely the ship-owners

Hornacheros, to some extent the Moriscos, the governors or the rich merchants [...] most of the gains went to the ship-owners, the captains and the governors” (Levant,

Maziane 18) although Levant and Maziane admit, that it was more or less profitable for the crews as well. (22) Salé was a highly successful merchant settlement, using privateers as one of its profitable business opportunity, but not exclusively. Its government was independent on any external ones, but it was certainly not based on pirate constitutions and “it was far from the idealized image of a pirate utopia built on the reduction of social inequalities and a new hierarchical system.” (Levant, Maziane

15)

3.4.5. Madagascar

There were plenty of pirate or merchant settlements providing for pirates on

Madagascar, for the reasons explained in the previous chapters. There are two

Madagascar settlements mentioned here – Ile Sainte Marie and Saint Augustin Bay, the first because it is a typical merchant settlement and also because of its end, resembling

Libertalia (discussed in the closing part of this chapter), and the second because of its interesting trading relationship between pirates and Madagascar natives.

St. Mary’s island, situated next to the northeast coast of Madagascar, was chosen by a New York based merchant as a place to establish a trading post. The island’s southern end was an “excellent harbor” (“Population on Madagascar” 406) and its relative isolation lowered the chance of conflicts with natives and others on Madagascar mainland. In 1691, the expedition arrived, but five of the seven men died within a year, leaving only two survivors “Baldridge and a boy referred to as his ‘apprentice’.”

(“Population on Madagascar” 406) Baldridge, “a former buccaneer” (Under the Black

Flag 146), married a native woman and built a trading post with a small fort –

Bialushewski argues, that the presence of the fort means that Baldridge never really integrated into Malgasy society and expected attacks from the natives. Baldridge started to trade with slaves, but the profits lowered as “American slavers increasingly sailed to ports on the west coast of Madagascar where they found more favorable trading conditions“ (“Population on Madagascar” 407) and, eventually, the island “became a prime destination for European pirates.” (“Population on Madagascar” 407) Pirates raided the rich merchant ships sailing from India and when their decks were full of loot and their bellies empty, they went to St Mary’s island, where they “careened and repaired their vessels, from scurvy and the strains of shipboard life, and traded spoils for provisions, stores, ammunition, clothing, and other commodities.” (“Population on

Madagascar” 408) Bialushewski states that most of the supplies for Baldridge’s trading post were sent from New York, as it was profitable business opportunity for the merchants there. (“Population on Madagascar” 408) The most important thing that

Baldridge provided for the pirates was food – he mediated a connection between pirates and natives, who, in exchange for pirate’s booty such as textiles, coins or copper rings, provided rice, cattle and fowl. (“Population on Madagascar” 408-9) This relationship lasted for some time, but the settlement was eventually destroyed by the natives.

The problematic relationship with the natives does not seem to occur in Saint

Augustin Bay. Originally a site where English decided to settle and failed, and from the early 1690’s, the place was full of pirates and “the merchant vessels generally avoided calling there.” (“Population in Madagascar” 410) The pirates only stopped to set up temporary camps, purchase food from natives and drink. Bialuschewski states, that “the indigenous population made the best of the pirates’ presence by forcing up the price of

59 cattle” (“Population in Madagascar 410) and that the trading contact between the inhabitants and visiting pirates was mutually beneficial, as the inhabitants turned a big profit – but no cultural ties were established, as “there is no evidence that imported goods were distributed among clients to generate or maintain ties of political allegiance.” (“Population in Madagascar 411)

3.5. Real Utopias

In these two last cases, the settlements were firmly tied to the native inhabitants of the island and that made them, in the long term, profitable and successful. although mainly merchant colonies, they illustrate the importance of a relationship with the indigenous communities the same way as Johnson’s biography does – Misson marries a sister of a queen in exchange for help. the natives decide, that because of the familial relationship, pirates cannot attack them neither can they be attacked anymore.

Establishing ties with the natives around Libertalia on trade basis was not enough at the end, as argued before, marriage was probably the only way to become a part of the native society, and sometimes not even that, as Bialuschewski argues “the process of acculturation was long, difficult, and not always successful.” (“Population in

Madagascar” 421)

What Liberatlia has certainly in common with the other pirate settlements is its end by an outside force, usually abrupt and violent. Many of the settlements, including

Libertalia, were extremely short lived, not lasting longer than 20 years, oftentimes ceasing to exist even much earlier than that. Libertalia’s end is recounted by Misson, as he flees the settlement that has been attacked by natives of the island (from the inside, where he did not build any fortifications) and completely wiped out. Port Royal was destroyed by anti-pirate laws and, physically, by an earthquake “so violent that whole houses had been swallowed by the earth, and much of the town had sunk beneath the

60 sea.” (Under the Black Flag 141) The existence of Pirate Republic of Nassau was ended by Woodes Rogers and his fleet, freeing the port and hanging pirates that did not flee fast enough or surrender in promise of an apology. On Saint Marie “the pirates had failed to develop respect for the Malagasy” and were therefore “overthrown by the indigenous population” (Bialuschewski, “Population in Madagascar” 409) the same fate as Libertalia’s – it is interesting, that Baldridge, the merchant of the settlement, survived as he was away when the attack occurred56 and after he had learned about it, he sailed back to America, as Tew and, partially, Mission did. Salé was seized by Morocco and remains its part until today. The external forces also made the community of logwood cutters turn pirate (sometimes again, as Cordingly argues) and flee to Nassau or other ports – apart from a horrible living conditions, they were attacked by Spanish “in retribution for piracies that had occurred up to 1717.” (Rediker 45)

As argued at the start, there probably was no real pirate utopia like Libertalia.

But there were still settlements resembling, in some of their aspects, Johnson’s story and could have been the potential inspiration. Port Royal was opportunistic and free to enjoy for every pirate coming there, a safe harbour to repair a ship and buy supplies as well as enjoy the loot. Nassau established its own government on the basis of pirate constitution and proclaimed itself republic, governed by a pirate and for pirates. The

Baymen lived also by pirate laws and democratically, both working in a settlement and raiding at the same time, the same thing as Misson does. Baldridge on St. Mary’s island mediated trading relationship between natives and pirate’s and provided them with safe port and provisions – in Libertalia’s case, the pirates trade for cows with the natives as well and the result is also the same, complete obliteration at the end. But when looking closely, these resemblances are vague and far-fetched – in reality, there is not much that

56 Bialuschewski argues that that was actually the reason the attack took place in the first place: “for the Malagasy. In the absence of a mediator, the locals retaliated swiftly by killing the malefactors.” (“Population on Madagascar 409) 61

Libertalia has in common with the reality and harshness of its contemporary neighbours and it can be concluded, that, apart from its end and some pieces of the social system, the settlement is a complete piece of fiction.

Conclusion

The aim of this thesis was to establish Johnson’s work, precisely his biographies of Captain Misson and Captain Tew (in which Misson’s story concludes) as not only a utopian writing, but also as a heavily researched and fairly accurate representation of piracy in the late 17th and early 18th century.

The first chapter examines the book’s (and the biography’s) historical background – its editions and reception as the public opinion about pirates shaped the demand for more in-depth pirate related writings. In the later subchapters, the historical accurateness of the book and the story is explored, implying that Johnson did immense amount of work collecting pirate’s life stories and facts about piracy, making his work very accurate and still relevant as a source of information on pirates until today. The chapter also focuses more on Misson’s biography, concluding that although it is largely fictional, the facts about Madagascar, pirate communities and societies as well as their constitutions are consistent with the reality – establishing the main argument of the thesis. The second part of the chapter discusses Johnson as an author, collecting different theories about his identity and drawing a possible image of the author as being close to pirates and most likely having sailing experience at the same time as showing that, although historians and literary researchers’ opinions might differ, they oftentimes come to the same conclusion about Johnson.

The second chapter compares Misson’s life and the rules on his ship with the reality of pirate’s life and their constitutions. Some of Misson’s characteristics (like his family background, education, power over his crew and, of course, his overall idealism and niceness) are recognised to be an obvious compromise to the utopian nature of the biography, but the overall outcome of the comparison is in favour of the historical accurateness. The chapter uses the character of an ordinary pirate, an imaginary

63 characterisation of the most common traits pirates of the time had to make the comparison easier. Later, the same approach is exercised in the comparison of the laws on Misson’s ship and the real pirate constitutions, exploring yet more resemblances the text has to the source material, but also arguing, that Johnson’s ideal pirate hierarchy much more resembles the one on navy ships – which is a possible Johnson’s criticism of pirates. The conclusion of the chapter is in favour of Johnson’s accurateness in describing pirate society and life, although he presents the facts in much better light, subsequently building the utopian theme of the whole biography.

The third chapter discusses pirate settlements in the same way as the previous one, comparing the writing with the historical facts. As established in the first chapter, the geography and the overall conditions of Madagascar as well as the settling there are historically accurate, as Johnson had a good knowledge of the Indian Sea piracy and the island itself. Here, Libertalia constitution’s change to much more authoritarian and government like structure is observed, coinciding with Bey’s theory of TAZs being only temporary and, as the time progresses, needing more and more laws. It also tries to define pirate utopia by finding out what are the main elements of it in the Libertalia story – resulting into a checklist of six main features of Libertalia. These six features are then compared to the chosen real pirate settlements – usually, they have one or two of those features in common with Libertalia, Nassau being the closest to the ideal settlement described by Johnson. But overall, the settlements are mostly pirate havens or merchant ports, not intended as a real pirate colonies, and although the comparison shows some interesting similarities, the outcome is largely negative. Libertalia is most likely imagined by Johnson rather than assembled from the parts of real pirate settlements, or, if it is, than it is still hugely idealised interpretation of pirate

64 constitutions applied on land rather than a possible reinterpretation of any of the examined colony.

The story itself is based on research into pirate life, their constitutions, the environment they lived in, their motives and interests as well as their quick and adventurous lives with often terrible ends. It uses facts about pirates as well as about

Madagascar itself to create the impression of reliability to disguise the idealistic, utopian or ideological arguments and to provide an interesting, readable, but highly unreliable story – the story even surrounds itself with real biographies and uses various other approaches (such as using real characters, ships or dividing the story into two) to try and make itself undistinguishable from the others.

It must be mentioned that this thesis does not cover the ideological and philosophical part of the story. It is certainly interesting, but, for the sake of sanity of the reader this part was left out for a further research. But, as the ideological and utopian part of the story cannot be completely omitted even from a historical comparison, one strong notion that protrudes the whole story and most possibly this thesis must be tackled: in the light of the misfortunes of an ordinary seaman, the democratic constitution pirates sailed under and after reading Captain Misson’s and

Tew’s idealised biographies about the utopia they have set for themselves, it might be tempting to see pirates in much better light than the encounters with the men of black flagged ships were actually described. As Cordingly argues, pirate attack was

... a terrifying and deeply shocking experience. [...] There was a confused and

frightening phase during which the pirates ransacked the ship, interrogated the

captain and crew, and frequently employed torture to extract information. And

all too often the attack ended with some of the victims lying dead on the deck or

with their bleeding bodies being thrown over the side to sharks.” (Under the

Black Flag 241)

This description does not really resonate with the mood of the biography, as

Johnson presents his pirates as gallant and gentlemanly sailors whose biggest shame would be to harm anyone – on many occasions, Misson even invites his prisoners to dine with him and later gives them ship to sail back home or puts them ashore nearby their nation’s colony. In these cases, the author is much more unfaithful to the sources he probably interrogated himself. Pirates were not like Misson, most of them were uneducated young men who embarked on the voyage under the black flag with the vision of money or at least less oppressive captain above them. They were drunk, swearing and often times brutal men in brutal conditions, opposing anything that was not advantageous for them, their captains “often vicious and sadistic villains” (Under the Black Flag 244), and their deaths sudden and cruel (as mentioned before, no main character of the Libertalia story dies calmly).

Still, even though they were murderers living miserable lives, pirates loved stories. (Rediker 41-42) And this passion for a good narrative and original ideas (such as Libertalia was at that time and is even today) they could project on their own lives and make them somewhat more bearable, is most likely what drove them forward.

People share this love for imagination, and even though Libertalia was a utopia and nothing similar probably ever existed, the story is still deeply embossed in the general consciousness. Pirates knew utopias are important and the modern society could make use of this knowledge as well.

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Resumé (English)

In 1724, Charles Johnson wrote A General History of the Most Notorious

Pyrates, a book comprised of a number of famous pirates’ biographies. Four years later, a second volume followed, containing a biography of an unknown pirate Captain

Misson and his adventures on Madagascar concluding in establishing a utopian pirate settlement called Libertalia. This thesis tries to establish Johnson’s writing as historically fairly accurate portrayal of pirates, their customs and lives. It also argues that Misson’s story, although fictional and certainly utopian, is based on accurate facts about pirates, Madagascar and pirate settlements.

In the first chapter, the reliability of Johnson’s books is assessed, drawing on a number of works by pirate historians and literary researchers such as Goose,

Cordingly, Rediker or Schonhorn. The chapter concludes that Johnson’s work is extremely accurate in depicting pirate lives, although certainly adjusted to the tastes of the age. It also establishes the author as a possible seaman or somebody acquainted with the life on sea, further supporting the reliability of his work.

The second chapter discusses Misson as a character, the first part of his story, his pirate laws and the establishment on his ship. It concludes that even though Misson is an idealised character and some of his characteristic are utopian, his overall portrayal resembles the ordinary pirate and pirate captain. Misson’s pirate constitution is also, although a bit idealised and applied on a navy ship structure, an accurate depiction of pirate constitutions of the time.

The third chapter focuses on the comparison of Libertalia and other pirate settlements such as Salé, Nassau or Port Royal. It provides a look on Libertalia’s constitution and later, on the basis of the constitution and the definition of pirate utopia created for this thesis by highlighting Libertalia’s most prominent features, compares

Libertalia to the other settlements and their utopian qualities. It concludes, that

Libertalia as a utopian colony was most probably only inspired by idealised pirate constitutions rather than by the real contemporary pirate settlements, but there are still some facts underlining the utopian story.

Resumé (Czech)

Roku 1724 vydal Charles Johnson A General History of the Most Notorious

Pyrates, obsahující biografie známých pirátů Zlaté éry. O čtyři roky později vyšel i její druhý díl, ve kterém se objevuje biografie kapitána Missona a popis jeho madagaskarských dobrodružství zakončených založením Libertalie, pirátské utopie.

Tato práce se snaží ustanovit Johnsonovu tvorbu jako historicky relativně přesný popis pirátů, jejich života, zvyků a zákonů. Také se snaží dokázat, že přestože je Missonova biografie fiktivní utopií, Johnson ji podkládá historicky doložitelnými fakty o pirátech,

Madagaskaru a pirátských usedlostech.

V první kapitole je diskutována spolehlivost Johnsonových knih. K analýze je využito vícero knih jak historiků zabývajících se pirátstvím, tak literárních vědců, například Goosea, Cordinglyho, Redikera nebo Schonhorna. Kapitola dochází k závěru,

že Johnsonova tvorby je velice přesná v zobrazení pirátství, přestože je její forma přizpůsobena požadavkům tehdejšího čtenáře. Kapitola také představuje Johnsona jako možného námořníka, eventuálně pak člověka dobře obeznámeného s životem na moři – podporujíc tak důvěryhodnost jeho textů.

Druhá kapitola se zabývá Missonem, jeho charakteristikou a také první částí jeho příběhu obsahující pirátské zákony na palubě jeho lodi. Uzavírá zjištěním, že přestože je Misson idealizovanou až utopizovanou postavou, jeho vypodobnění je odrazem běžného piráta stejně, jako pirátského kapitána. Přestože je Missonova pirátská

ústava také idealizovaná jako sám kapitán a aplikována na struktury námořnictva, stále odráží reálné dobové pirátské ústavy.

Třetí kapitola se zaměřuje na srovnání Libertalie s ostatními pirátskými sídlišti jako Salé, Nassau nebo Port Royal. Také popisuje ústavu Libertalie a vytváří definicí pirátských utopií z jejích nejvýraznějších znaků, kterou následně porovnává s reálnými

74 pirátskými usedlostmi. Tato kapitola uzavírá svůj rozbor konstatováním, že Libertalia byla inspirována spíše idealizací pirátských ústav než jejich usedlostmi, ale její příběh je stále vystavěn na faktech.