The crew of the Elizabeth was “put upon” mutiny in the face of inhumane treatment and sought, after becoming pirates, to create a freer and more just way of living. Fly, however, fared no better in his captainship than his predecessor. Scarcely two months after he and his crew became pirates, a second mutiny ousted him from his position and landed him on Boston’s gallows. The Fames Revenge’s first mutiny was a common story during the Golden Age: a rebellion against an abusive captain which became a radical new lifestyle. The fact that there was a second mutiny, however, presents a challenge to this narrative. From our vantage point on the Fames Revenge, near the demise of the Golden Age, we can see both the conditions that encouraged the rise of piracy and the conditions that snuffed it out. The story of the Fames Revenge illustrates how change in imperial policy caused the downfall of buccaneer culture and subsequently the Golden Age of piracy itself.
My poster will explore through visuals and text the social and political conditions that made possible the rise of Golden Age piracy, what made Golden Age piracy and buccaneer culture so successful, and the way in which it was crushed once it had stopped serving the aims of imperial capitalism.