In between Fact and Fiction

Storytelling and politics have a complicated and intertwining history, especially when looking at the period deemed as the Golden Age of Piracy. Since pirates did not have great military power, they relied on different tactics. By creating stories to scare the merchants they preyed on into surrendering their cargo, they managed to mainly avoid an actual battle. Due to this common practice among pirates it has been increasingly difficult for historians to separate the facts from the legends within primary sources. However, historians have seldom looked at the political implication of these 'pirate legends' and how they were received among the public and the government in their time. The focus of this research is what these sources, whether semi-fictional or not, imply and how they were used by both the pirates themselves and the government that prosecuted them. This brings us to the question: To what extent did the mythmaking and 'pirate legend' of Henry Every and Edward Teach shape English political decision-making about the prosecution of piracy during the Golden Age of Piracy (1694-1724)? The issue has been addressed according to the method of Discourse Analysis of multiple and various primary sources concerning both the mythicization of these two pirates and the prosecution of piracy at the time, such as letters, proclamations and newspaper articles. Secondary sources were used in order to create a deeper sense of understanding of historical context in which these primary sources ought to be read. Furthermore, there has been made use of two case studies, that of Henry Every and Edward Teach (alias Blackbeard) to establish a chronological trend in the influence and usage of narrative of the 'pirate legends' of these two pirates. Throughout the analysis and discussion of the sources we have found that the English government was not only influenced by the mythicization and 'pirate legend' of Henry Every and Edward Teach with regards to political decision-making concerning the prosecution of piracy, they equally made use of these legends. All in all, a certain trend of progression in the tactics by means of using 'pirate legends' by the English government has been established according to the two case studies, showing an advancement in the using narrative to influence public opinion with regards to piracy.