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2. Secondly, there is the evidence of black pirates like Black Caesar, who was the second in command of one of the era's most infamous pirates, and Laurens de Graff, who was actually elected a captain, and who at the peak of his power "had a vast fleet of ships and commanded 2,000 men"(JBHE, 56). These men indicate that it was possible for black pirates, usually escaped slaves, to be elected to positions of power over white men, which is a phenomenon that occurred nowhere else in Colonial America and the Caribbean.
So far in this section, I've shown you some pretty pictures, and a rather complicated graph. You might find yourself thinking: "Okay, so there were some black pirates. So what?"
Well, that's a good question. Why is the presence of Black pirates significant? I believe it is for two main reasons
1. First of all, it's significant because of the positions of the black pirates. One might assume that, due to the ships' proximity to the plantations of the Caribbean and the South, that blacks on pirate ships were conscripted as manual labor by pirates to do the hard labor on board. This was not the case. Black pirates were full, voluntary members of their crews, and they "received shares in any treasure taken and voted with the rest of the crew whenever a decision had to be made"(Vallar, 3).
Both of these things lead to the following conclusion: "that the deck of a pirate ship was the most empowering place for blacks within the eighteenth-century white man's world"(Kinkor, 201). Part of the reason for this was that pirates were engaged in a revolt against common oppressors. The
same system that oppressed blacks through slavery also oppressed the white pirates, albeit in differing ways. Another reason for the racial equality on pirate ships was a practical one: "Pirates needed competent, hard-working deck hands, regardless of skin color"(Jones, 2). This pragmatism also applied to captains; whomever the crew thought was best for the job was elected, regardless of race.
Conorach - Spanish Ladies
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