One thing that the curator(s) did particularly well was contextualizing piracy within the Atlantic triangle, specifically the relationship between piracy and slavery in the early 18th Century. The rise in transatlantic commerce made piracy attractive due to both the temptation posed by the riches to be gained and due to the fact that sailor life aboard merchant ships was pretty hard. After the Treaty of Utrecht of 1713 ended the wars with Spain and the need for privateers, many sailors were left unemployed and vulnerable to pirates Pirates impressed both black and white sailors as well as the slaves captured in their slave ships raids (this wasn't always the case. As W. Jeffery Bolster points out, pirates were just as likely to sell slaves as to free them). Blackbeard's crew may have been as much as 60% black.In fact, there is some speculation that the massive crackdown on piracy prior to 1730 was spurred by the threat piracy posed to the slave trade
One of the more gruesome and haunting displays was of the shoe, stocking, and shinbone of a boy named John King who's estimated to have been between 8 and 11 years old. King and his mother were passengers of one of the ships captured by Bellamy's crew, and King was so enamored by the pirates that he threatened to kill his mother if she tried to stop him from joining them. He died with most of the Whydah's crew.
In terms of my own work, it's hard to say precisely how much will be useful. There were 2 things that might make it into the chapter if only as footnotes.
- The alterations made to the Whydah by Bellamy's crew seem similar to descriptions of the San Dominick in Benito Cereno. The partitions were removed to reflect the egalitarian ethos embraced by pirates.
- Cotton Mather was judge presiding over six members of Bellamy's fleet. He freed one who alleged to have been impressed into service.
