The Golden Age of Piracy

>>1437654
>or blood thirsty murderers and thieves?
Depends. Most that started the whole thing were legitimately Privateers, signed off by the local governor to raid Spanish ships.

Depends on the character but most were not as bloodthirsty and violent as youve heard.
Theres strong evidence to suggest that Blackbeard disliked violence, and that alot of the folklore surrounding him was British propaganda.

Sailin around singing shanties with your mateys, seein some punk ass frigate and giving chase flying pirate colors, laying into them with a broadside of cannon fire and then boarding them for some swashbucklin and butt raping sounds like my kinda party

>>1437654
OP I highly recommend you read a book called 'Empire of the Blue Water'. It's a pretty well-written and concise summary of the period.

>>1437708
>months out at sea
>confined in a tiny ship
>with potentially hundreds of crew mates
>all smell like shit
>you probably got scurvy and a whole plethora of other diseases
>most likely all your teeth dropped off decades ago if you've been doing this for a while
I wonder what drove men to sea
Serving in legit navy or merchant men wasn't any better and you were probably paid a pittance
Thinking about it most sailors were probably gangpressed criminals anyway
Pirates must have been the lowest of the low

>>1438864
I imagine it was mostly people whose lives on land weren't much better (so like you said, criminals, debtors, etc), though I imagine there must have been at least a few genuine adventure seekers amongst them. The potential for profit as a pirate is also probably far higher than on a merchant or navy ship - also gotta remember that navies during the golden age of piracy were still pretty far from professional.

>>1438864
Also like someone above said, a lot of them probably started off as the crew of a privateer - and the leap from privateer to pirate in those days wasn't a big one.

>>1437654
free markets on the open seas
too many unknowns for me

>>1437690
Blackbeard liked to spread rumors of his brutality so people would be less likely to fight him.

>>1438864
the Royal Navy used to kidnap homeless people and force them to serve on the ships under pain of death

>>1438864
Elaborating some more
You probably worked hard manual labor most of the time, when you didn't then what
There's nothing to do, nowhere to go
You probably gambled your pitiful fortunes back on forth or rather what was owed you more likely than actual money
No women so you were either very frustrated and had to settle either for your hand or in the best(?) case your mate's ass
Fresh water doesn't stay fresh so what you drank was either foul smelling still water or alcohol
Food sucked, mostly dry rations, sea biscuits and shit
So there you are, in the middle of the sea, confined in an area the size of maybe half a football field, working around the clock, tired af, hungry, horny, bored, probably sick and shitfaced to boot and you barely made a living

>>1437690
there btw isn't any proof to suggest that blackbeard ever even killed anybody

>>1437654
Most were just former privateers who had been laid off by the navies they had served and had no other trade to their name. Raiding was the logical next step. They're no different in that respect from unemployed foederati and mercenaries in the final years of the Roman Empire going around pillaging shit.

>>1438938
>clean the streets of the unfortunate/criminal scum
>give them jobs
The horror

>>1439803
Loook up what press gangs were