The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down by Colin Woodard

Author:Colin Woodard [Woodard, Colin]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3, pdf
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: 2008-05-12T04:00:00+00:00

As he looked over his new prize, Blackbeard knew he had finally found a proper flagship. La Concorde was as big, fast, and powerful as Bellamy’s now infamous Whydah, maybe more so. With such a vessel, Blackbeard knew his men could cause more havoc than the rest of the old Flying Gang put together. All the French slaver needed was a little refitting and a change of name.

The pirates took La Concorde to Bequia, a hilly, forested island with a large protected anchorage located nine miles southeast of St. Vincent. Blackbeard knew they were unlikely to be bothered there, for unlike most of the surrounding islands, St. Vincent and Bequia were not controlled by Europeans, but by the mixed-race descendents of Carib Indians and the African survivors of the 1635 wreck of two slave ships.* These people, the Garifuna, had tenaciously defended their land from the Europeans, but their naval operations were limited to a handful of Carib-style war canoes. Even if they did show up in force, they were likely as not to be pleased with the pirates for stopping a slave ship from reaching its destination.

The hundreds of slaves in La Concorde’s hold had little reason to celebrate, however. While Blackbeard had several crewmen of African descent, they had probably been born in the West Indies, men familiar with European customs, language, and technology. Most Africans Blackbeard’s men encountered “straight off the boat” appear to have been treated as cargo, creatures from an alien culture who were ineligible to join the pirates’ ranks. The vast majority of the 455 slaves chained in La Concorde’s hold were turned over to Captain Dosset, whose men guarded them on the shore of Bequia. Blackbeard kept sixty-one slaves aboard La Concorde, probably for use as laborers, although a few may have been inducted into his company. On this point, sadly, the historical record has little to say.

The pirates forced ten of Dosset’s crewmen, and their choice illustrates their company’s needs: the chief surgeon and his deputy, a pilot, both gunsmiths; the master carpenter and his deputy, an expert in the art of caulking hulls; a cook; and one seaman with unspecified skills. In addition, four of Dosset’s men begged the pirates to let them join, including the coxswain and both of his cabin boys. The boys, fifteen-year-old Louis Arot and slightly older Julien Joseph Moisant, were the worst-paid members of the slaver’s crew, receiving a paltry five and eight livres (£0.2 and £0.35) a month respectively. Young Arot may have had reason to dislike Dosset and his officers, as he went out of his way to cause them harm, informing the pirates that they had a secret stash of gold dust hidden somewhere on the ship or their persons. Blackbeard’s men interrogated Dosset and his officers, threatening to cut their throats if they failed to turn over the gold. The Frenchmen complied, and were rewarded with the pirates’ small, forty-ton sloop; the pirates were keeping La Concorde for themselves. The pirates also gave them “two or three tons of beans” to prevent the slaves from starving.

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