How black people turned piracy into a liberation machine

Long relegated to the fringes of legend, the Black pirates of the 18th century were far more than forgotten buccaneers. Fugitives from slavery and builders of a radical counter-society, they transformed the pirate ship into a space of insubordination, reinvention, and at times, power. Against the grain of sanitized narratives, this article exhumes the erased memory of these stateless revolutionaries and examines the sea as the first terrain of Black decolonization.


Born Enslaved, Died Free

On the shores of Madagascar in the late 17th century, a man named Abraham Samuel ruled a fortified trading post as if it were a forgotten kingdom. A formerly enslaved Black man turned pirate captain, Samuel was not an anomaly in the maritime world of his time—he was a symptom. Under his command, white sailors followed orders, treaties were negotiated with local tribes, and his authority extended far beyond the reefs. And yet, few speak his name today.

When we picture piracy, the images that come to mind are parrots, treasure chests, and raised cutlasses from children’s films. Hollywood has whitewashed the ocean, smoothing history into a whimsical fresco where the smell of gunpowder masks that of flesh. But those black ships flying grinning flags sailed not only in search of gold—they also carried lives in rupture, bodies refusing the racial order imposed on land.

For many Black people in the 18th century, boarding a pirate ship was not an escape but a transformation. Amid rigging and alternative laws, the former slave could become a man. The sea, far from plantations and slave codes, opened up a new space—not a utopia of equality, but a breach wide enough to reinvent one’s condition.

Thus, piracy should not be seen as mere adventure or criminal drift, but as a political stage. A theater of insurrection where Black people, in search of dignity, seized the helm of their own destiny. It was no escape. It was a reinvention.


Fleeing the hold or heeding the call of the sea

In the colonial imagination, the port was meant to embody order—customs officers, militias, cargo logs—everything was supposed to be monitored, weighed, and controlled. Yet it was precisely there, in the cracks between ships and taverns, between whispered cargo rumors and sudden departures, that many slaves saw a glimmer of escape. For the Atlantic ports—from Boston to Charleston, Bridgetown to Port Royal—were anything but sealed. They were bubbling crossroads, saturated with noise, languages, and clandestine gestures. Porous places, open to cunning and passage.

In these floating margins, enslaved men took their chances. Sometimes they had no plan, no ally—only the intuition that a ship might offer the distance needed to never return. Merchant ships, ever in need of cheap labor, readily accepted experienced sailors regardless of skin color—so long as they worked hard and kept quiet. Whaling ships, with their long and perilous journeys, discouraged white recruits, leaving Black sailors an opening—even at the cost of grueling labor.

These ships were not yet sanctuaries, but they created a breach. Once aboard, a fugitive was no longer a slave—he became a sailor. A man among others, able to set a sail, hoist an anchor, scan the horizon. And at the first port, the first mutiny, he could become a pirate. The ocean, vast and indifferent, became the silent accomplice in shedding an imposed identity (that of human property) for a voluntary metamorphosis.

At sea, chains rust faster. The rigid hierarchy of the mainland—where skin color determines fate—erodes with the tides. And on a pirate ship, it sometimes collapses. Not the dream of philosophers’ equality, but a pragmatic horizontality born of necessity: to survive, you need strong arms, sharp minds, seasoned wills. Everything else—origin, religion, pigmentation—becomes secondary.

The maritime world always had its own rules, but piracy pushed this logic to the extreme. Captains were elected, loot was shared, codes of conduct were signed. On some ships, the Black man—enslaved just the day before—could become a full-fledged crew member, even an officer. What drove this recognition wasn’t ideology, but competence. Knowing how to read the stars, steer a helm, load a cannon—these were the marks of respect.

For the Black man, the sea became a reversed mirror: what the plantation denied him—dignity, voice, power—the pirate ship could offer. Not without contradiction, not without abuse, but with an openness that, compared to the colonial straitjacket, was pure subversion. The slave ship’s hold had condemned him to silence; the pirate ship’s deck gave him a chance to redefine himself.

Thus, piracy didn’t just attract—it transformed. It became an identity forge where the Black man no longer simply fled; he built himself. Not as a subject of empire, but as an actor in a parallel world, fleeting but profoundly political. A world where, for the duration of a crossing, horizontality replaced domination.


The black brotherhood (status, weapons, and voice)

On the creaking decks of pirate ships, colonial hierarchies didn’t entirely vanish—but they lost ground. Blue blood held no value, birthright even less. What mattered was stamina in the storm, precision in cannon fire, loyalty during a mutiny. Respect was earned through action, not property records.

In this shared-survival logic, skill was the only enduring currency. A Black man who could navigate a schooner in high winds, hold his ground during boarding, or repair a shattered mast was worth more than a clumsy, hesitant white man. Here, a form of tactical equality was born—imperfect, but real: a recognition of usefulness, courage, and intelligence.

Marcus Rediker summarizes this dynamic by describing pirate ships as true “floating democracies.” Captains were elected and could be deposed; decisions were made collectively; loot was divided according to pre-agreed shares. This model—radically opposed to slave or military ships—allowed men, even formerly enslaved ones, to be treated as actors rather than cogs.

But this fraternity wasn’t ideological; it was circumstantial. It arose from the fight against common enemies: the State, merchants, armies. An alliance of the margins, forged in urgency, sometimes broken as soon as fear faded. The Black man gained a voice, yes—but a fragile one, tolerated as long as it served the collective.

Still, the simple fact that a former slave could have a say in distributing loot or electing a leader was a sharp break from colonial order. On the pirate ship, he was no longer “property”: he was a peer. Not a brother, not a master—but a man.

If piracy wasn’t an egalitarian sanctuary, it was at least a social laboratory—and some Black men rose to heights unimaginable elsewhere. Archives reveal names of Black leaders lost to official history: Diego Grillo, John Mapoo, Abraham Samuel, and “Caesar,” an officer under Blackbeard. These were not honorary titles. They commanded crews, led boardings, even negotiated terms of collective survival.

The post of quartermaster, for example (a real counterbalance to the captain, managing loot and settling disputes), was held by several Black men. Hendrick van der Heul is a striking example. In the plantation world, he’d have been a “maroon slave” fit only for the whip. On his ship’s deck, he outweighed even the captain.

But the clearest sign of recognition was neither title nor treasure: it was the weapon. To carry a musket or flintlock pistols on a pirate ship was not just about combat—it was about trust. Kenneth Kinkor notes that no text records a formal ban on Black men bearing arms aboard, and many were noted as frontline fighters during assaults. On some ships, Black sailors made up the first wave—the ones entrusted with seizing the target. A mission of prestige. A mission of trust.

This speaks volumes. These men, torn from a slave world that ranked them lowest, became warriors. More: comrades-in-arms. Nothing more clearly reversed their status than a pistol at the hip and a fair share of the treasure. That recognition—though always conditional—restored what empire had denied them: human worth, a voice that mattered, and a force no one dared ignore.

Shadows of the black flag (limits and fractures)

The black flag may have flown against imperial powers, but it didn’t dispel all demons. Behind the illusion of equality at sea lay a more brutal, less glorious reality. While some Black men found elevated status aboard pirate ships, others continued to be treated as disposable pawns. Much depended on how they entered the system: as captured slaves, voluntary sailors, or spoils of war.

The island of Annobón, off the coast of West Africa, embodies this fracture. In 1721, pirates landed there and spread terror—mass rapes of African women, burning of villages, massacres of inhabitants. The “maritime brotherhood” vanished the moment boots hit the shore. The free Black man on deck became suspect on land; the native Black was merely prey. Piracy, in those moments, looked more like a colonial predator than a liberating force.

The treatment of Black captives varied based on immediate usefulness. Some were absorbed as crew after being captured; others were simply resold as slaves. Piracy, despite its supposed rupture, still participated in the logic of the human market. Bartholomew Roberts, a famed pirate, kept slaves on board to perform the most degrading tasks: pumping water, cleaning latrines, rowing without rest. Even there, skin color could remain a dividing line—especially when skills or the will to be free weren’t asserted.

These ambiguities reveal an uncomfortable truth: while piracy occasionally opened the door to racial meritocracy, it was never free of racism. That racism wasn’t always systemic or doctrinal; it was often pragmatic, cynical—driven by ship needs or a captain’s whim. But it existed, and resurfaced whenever the fragile balance between usefulness and solidarity collapsed.

Thus, the black flag didn’t always protect its own. It welcomed, used, sometimes elevated—but could also betray. For Black crew members, freedom was never guaranteed; it was a daily, conditional conquest.

The deck of a pirate ship could be a site of radical transformation—but that metamorphosis was reversible. A return to land, approach of a colonial port, or capture by naval forces was enough to collapse this fragile scaffolding of equality. In the eyes of the empire, the Black man once again became a claimable body, a commodity to be recovered—even if he had been a fighter, an officer, or a leader at sea.

This precarity was not only external. It was also embedded in pirate logic itself. Aboard ship, rules could change depending on the crew, the captain’s temperament, or the moment’s circumstances. What made a Black man a peer today could make him a slave tomorrow if group interest demanded it. One poorly executed mutiny, one bad port call—and the new identity acquired could dissolve back into chains.

Distinctions also arose between “chosen” Black men (those who joined the crew by will or cunning) and the “taken” ones—those forcibly pulled from slave ships. The latter were often kept in subordinate roles, as though they hadn’t yet “earned” their place on deck. In these cases, piracy mirrored colonial society: more fluid, perhaps—but still capable of reproducing exclusionary patterns.

And then there was the gaze of others: that of the mainland, the courts, the white chroniclers. Black pirates rarely survived in recorded history. They disappeared from trial transcripts, popular legends, archives. When they reappeared, it was often through distorted lenses: caricatured, anonymized, reduced to color or treachery.

The freedom won at sea, real as it was, guaranteed neither safety nor memory. It remained conditional, threatened, erasable. The black flag offered a breath—not absolution. And for many, that breath was merely an interlude before a return to the old order.


The ship as a subversive utopia

At a time when imperial order policed seas and lands with codes, trading posts, and catechisms, the pirate ship stood as a floating anomaly. It flew no national flag, recognized no divine or royal authority. It positioned itself resolutely outside the system—and in doing so, embodied a radical form of dissent. It was a “temporary autonomous zone” before the term existed—a liminal space where hierarchies could be suspended, rearranged, or even overturned.

Far from anarchic chaos, piracy was structured by its own rules—written, debated, ratified by the crew. What we now call pirate articles served as a proto-egalitarian constitution. They contained surprisingly modern principles: equal shares (based on role, not social status), voting rights for electing the captain, protections for wounded sailors, even clauses for settling internal disputes—sometimes via duels ashore, sometimes by arbitration.

This internal code wasn’t naive—it was vital. In a perilous maritime environment and under constant colonial threat, survival depended on cohesion, loyalty, and a perceived minimum of fairness. Everyone knew that injustice or arbitrariness could trigger mutiny, division, or collective death.

For a Black man, often excluded from protective laws on land, this form of social contract was worth more than any imperial constitution. Here, he could demand a share of the loot. He could challenge a leader. He could inscribe his voice—not in the margins of a trial, but in the very text of the common rule. The ship wasn’t a perfect utopia—but it was a functional one. A theater of reinvention where the wretched of the earth could, for the span of a voyage, become full political subjects.

Pirates are often portrayed as unattached adventurers, driven by gold and revelry. But this romantic image erases a far richer truth: pirate ships were filled with outcasts, survivors, men ejected from the “civilized” world. White sailors fleeing conscription, petty criminals, escaped slaves, ruined dockworkers—all converged on these ships like an ark of rupture. It wasn’t a utopia for the chosen—it was a coalition of the damned.

In that alliance, solidarity wasn’t a moral luxury—it was a strategic necessity. One had to trust, sleep under the same boards, fight side by side, share meager rations and constant peril. It was in this forced closeness that an unprecedented form of brotherhood was forged—born of exhaustion, courage, and compromise.

Black and white crew members often shared more than cramped space: they shared a past of humiliation, oppression, and exploitation. One had fled the whip, the other unpaid wages or the rotting huts of poor sailors. Together, they built an alternative order—where loot was divided, power debated, and (sometimes) judgment rendered collectively. For the colonial powers, these men were all the same: pirates—colorless, nameless, condemned.

This bond, built on mutual rejection of masters, did not guarantee equality of heart. Racism didn’t magically vanish offshore. But it was pushed aside, contained, neutralized by a brotherhood of experience. What land had separated by whip and pulpit, the sea rejoined through labor, cutlass, and—sometimes—last rites.

Piracy didn’t offer an ideological revolution—it offered a ground for alliances among the excluded. And in this fragile but real convergence, fugitive slaves and marginalized sailors sketched, however unknowingly, the beginnings of a transracial solidarity—not dreamed, but lived.


The erased history of stateless revolutionaries

They existed—these men without crest, without nation, without legacy—and yet their memory has vanished like mist at cannon’s dawn. No statues, no streets bear their names. Not even a serious mention in schoolbooks. Why? Because they embodied a double scandal: the rebel poor, and the commanding Black man.

Black piracy was systematically suppressed for two main reasons. First, class contempt: pirates were seen as “sea scum,” too loud, too unruly to fit the glorious narratives of maritime expansion. Second, racial erasure: acknowledging that Black people organized, led, and survived in an autonomous insurrectional order meant admitting a capacity for emancipation outside the colonial framework—an intellectual heresy for the powers that were, and sometimes still for historians.

But these men were far more than improvisational corsairs or fortune-seeking criminals. They were political actors, inventing, through action, another kind of society. Brutal, yes—but more porous, more horizontal, and deeply subversive. Every weapon carried, every word uttered at a crew council, every refusal to bow to racial order was an act of sovereignty. A declaration of humanity.

It is time to reclaim them. Not as flawless heroes, but as figures of rupture. Their insubordination wasn’t aimless: it had logic, a target, and reach. They didn’t just fight for gold—they fought for status, voice, and recognition.

And what if, in truth, the first modern Black revolution didn’t begin in Saint-Domingue—but earlier, on the deck of a pirate ship, somewhere between Africa and the Caribbean? What if the sea was the first stage of decolonization—not proclaimed, but lived?

History may never answer with certainty.
But it is our collective memory’s duty to ask the question—and to never again look away.


SOURCES
Marcus Rediker, Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Boston: Beacon Press, 2004).
Kenneth J. Kinkor, “Black Men under the Black Flag,” in Bandits at Sea: A Pirate Reader, ed. C. R. Pennell (NYU Press, 2001).
Arne Bialuschewski, “Black People under the Black Flag: Piracy and the Slave Trade on the West Coast of Africa, 1718–1723,” Slavery & Abolition, vol. 29, no. 4 (2008): 461–475.
Charles R. Foy, Ports of Slavery, Ports of Freedom (PhD diss., Rutgers University, 2008).
Daniel Defoe, A General History of the Pyrates (1724), ed. Manuel Schonhorn (Dover, 1999).
Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1989).

Table of Contents

  1. Born Enslaved, Died Free
  2. Fleeing the Hold or Heeding the Call of the Sea
  3. The Black Brotherhood (Status, Weapons, and Voice)
  4. Shadows of the Black Flag (Limits and Fractures)
  5. The Ship as a Subversive Utopia
  6. The Erased History of Stateless Revolutionaries
  7. Sources
Charlotte Dikamona
Charlotte Dikamona
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