Speaker 1: The Roman Empire was crumbling off the coast of what
Speaker 1: would one day become Great Britain. A band of fifth
Speaker 1: century Irish pirates sent by King Nile sailed into a
Speaker 1: secluded cove. Then they raided the village of ben of
Speaker 1: Vem Tabernie. They made off with considerable treasures and even
Speaker 1: human cargo, including a sixteen year old boy named Sukat.
Speaker 1: According to the tale, Sucat had come from a prestigious family.
Speaker 1: His father was a Christian deacon and served as a
Speaker 1: government official for the Roman Empire. Once back in Ireland,
Speaker 1: the pirates sold Sukat. The chieftain who bought him put
Speaker 1: him to work as a shepherd on the slopes of
Speaker 1: Mount Slemish and County Antrim in the north. Few people
Speaker 1: lived in the area, and all Sukat had for company
Speaker 1: was his flock and his God. Six years into his captivity,
Speaker 1: he claimed an angel visited him. There is a ship
Speaker 1: that will soon leave Ireland. It told him, you will
Speaker 1: return to your country. After his vision, Suka set down
Speaker 1: his shepherd's hook and started the two mile trek, crossing
Speaker 1: Pete bogs and forests to finally reach the port. It
Speaker 1: was a rough journey and he nearly died before reaching
Speaker 1: his destination, although the legend doesn't exactly say how. At
Speaker 1: the port, he had to trust that the angel was
Speaker 1: right and that somehow he'd be allowed to board the
Speaker 1: ship and without money to pay his fare. At first,
Speaker 1: the captain refused, but then changed his mind. Suka believed
Speaker 1: that God had intervened and provided him with safe passage,
Speaker 1: but his journey wasn't over just yet. The captain miscalculated
Speaker 1: their course, and when they landed, everyone on board found
Speaker 1: themselves in the wilderness without supplies. Days into their travel
Speaker 1: on foot, the group had grown hungry, so Suka prayed,
Speaker 1: and suddenly a herd of wild pigs crossed their path.
Speaker 1: It's not clear how they killed the pigs, but the
Speaker 1: feast sustained the group until they reached their ended destination.
Speaker 1: Succott happily returned home to his family, and all seemed
Speaker 1: well until that is. The angel returned a short time
Speaker 1: later and encouraged him to return to Ireland, where he
Speaker 1: was to preach the word of God. Scat underwent extensive
Speaker 1: religious training before becoming a deacon in four eighteen a
Speaker 1: d By four thirty two, he had become a consecrated
Speaker 1: bishop and was given a new Latinized name, so, while
Speaker 1: awaiting his first assignment, he requested to be sent back
Speaker 1: to Ireland to work with the people there, But upon
Speaker 1: his arrival, the Irish were less than receptive to converting
Speaker 1: to Christianity. He persisted, though, using his knowledge of the
Speaker 1: Irish language and customs to eventually convert people by the thousands.
Speaker 1: Then he led ordained priests through communities, encouraging women to
Speaker 1: leave their disapproving families and become nuns. On the day
Speaker 1: he died in the year four sixty one, the Irish
Speaker 1: Catholics declared it a feast day, and if you guessed
Speaker 1: that day was March seventeen, you'd be right, because of course,
Speaker 1: Sucat's Latin name was Patrick st. Patrick to all of
Speaker 1: us today, and his story shows us one of the
Speaker 1: subjects most intertwined with piracy over the centuries. While it's
Speaker 1: a dark topic and certainly one riddled with tragic tales,
Speaker 1: not everything was as cut and dried as you might imagine,
Speaker 1: because oftentimes wherever you found pirates, you could also find enslavement.
Speaker 1: I'm Aaron Manky and welcome two pirates plantation owners in
Speaker 1: the Caribbean relied on slavery to meet the demands for sugar.
Speaker 1: In sixteen fifty, slaves, often from Africa, could be purchased
Speaker 1: for seven pounds, the equivalent of just over two thousand
Speaker 1: dollars today, and as the demand for cheap labor skyrocketed,
Speaker 1: that price increased with it, making the trafficking of humans
Speaker 1: for slavery even more profitable. Once taken from their family
Speaker 1: and homeland, people sold into slavery were stripped bare and
Speaker 1: presented to the ship's surgeon or captain for an examination.
Speaker 1: Those deemed healthy were sent to the cargo hold. It's
Speaker 1: hard to believe one human can treat another so abysmally,
Speaker 1: and I can't imagine all the emotions the captured people felt.
Speaker 1: What I can do is tell you the conditions in
Speaker 1: which they were kept, because it's an important context for
Speaker 1: the rest of our journey today. The more humans a
Speaker 1: ship could pack into the hold, the higher the profits.
Speaker 1: Often there was no standing room, and to prevent mutiny
Speaker 1: or escape, they were secured in place with leg irons
Speaker 1: or even chained together. Adding the many diseases that were
Speaker 1: prevalent on long journeys, plus the general seasickness and a
Speaker 1: complete lack of sanitation, and well, you get the picture.
Speaker 1: The guards aboard the slave ships were all armed. After all,
Speaker 1: chains and shackles didn't stop people from rebelling against captivity.
Speaker 1: Men and women looked for anything they could use as
Speaker 1: a weapon, and the guards distrusted the children too, because
Speaker 1: if not watched carefully, they were likely to bring weapons
Speaker 1: to the adults. Abuse, as you might imagine, was widespread,
Speaker 1: both mental and physical. Women were at additional risk of assault,
Speaker 1: and thanks to the frequent stops each of these ships
Speaker 1: made these painful, horrific journeys tended to last for months.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, suicide was common. Crewmen tossed the bodies overboard,
Speaker 1: which attracted sharks. In fact, some historians today are fairly
Speaker 1: certain that some species of sharks change their migration patterns
Speaker 1: just to follow the slave ships, all because this happened
Speaker 1: with such frequency. And of course, as we've already learned,
Speaker 1: slave vessels were also targeted by pirates. Remember, these ships
Speaker 1: carried more than human cargo, and pirates were the quintessential opportunists.
Speaker 1: Although the crew aboard slave ships carried weapons, they sailed
Speaker 1: with smaller numbers, and smaller numbers could easily overtaken. Pirates
Speaker 1: also knew that the crew on board slave ships weren't
Speaker 1: treated much better than the humans and chains below deck.
Speaker 1: It's estimated that about of the crew on each ship
Speaker 1: died from malnourishment and disease, while others died from injuries
Speaker 1: sustained from disciplinary actions. So when the pirates boarded, the
Speaker 1: crew didn't often fight back. Many even chose to join
Speaker 1: the pirates, where conditions and pay were better now. Sometimes,
Speaker 1: when taking over a slave vessel, the pirates would hold
Speaker 1: the human cargo for ransom. Each stolen life was valuable
Speaker 1: to the owner of the ship after all. Other times, though,
Speaker 1: they simply freed the slaves or offered them a place
Speaker 1: among their crew. It's probably stating the obvious, but life
Speaker 1: as a pirate was far better than life as a slave,
Speaker 1: and it didn't take long for pirate captains to discover
Speaker 1: that these newly freed men were also formidable warriors. Despite
Speaker 1: their criminal reputations, many pirates were also antislavery, going so
Speaker 1: far as to attack slave trade forts and strongholds on land.
Speaker 1: In fact, it's reputed that a pirate's ship captain, a
Speaker 1: guy named Peter Scudamore once even incited a slave rebellion,
Speaker 1: But what about those who chose not to join, while
Speaker 1: they were allowed to leave when the stolen ship arrived
Speaker 1: at the next port. The British Royal Navy even hired
Speaker 1: black sailors, although usually for less money than their white shipmates,
Speaker 1: and private merchant ships were also known to take on
Speaker 1: black sailors, but those who chose to stay found a
Speaker 1: better sense of equality among the pirates than the navy
Speaker 1: or private sector. Pirate crews were often diverse. It's where
Speaker 1: we get the term motley crew, most notably from Captain
Speaker 1: Morgan's crew, which consisted of black, white mixed descent, French
Speaker 1: ex military, and a host of other nationalities, all seeking
Speaker 1: shelter from prosecution. Black pirates voted on important issues right
Speaker 1: alongside their non black shipmates. Plus the treasure was always
Speaker 1: divided equally. All told, most pirate captains cared more about
Speaker 1: fierce loyalty than skin color. Of course, pirates targeted slave
Speaker 1: ships for another reason, the ship itself. Those vessels were large,
Speaker 1: providing ample space for crew and provisions. Captains outfitted them
Speaker 1: to meet their needs, making them a great choice for
Speaker 1: a flagship. In fact, one of the most legendary pirate
Speaker 1: ships in all of history started out life as a
Speaker 1: slave ship. After refitting it with cannons and equipping it
Speaker 1: for everything else, the practice of piracy demanded, it became
Speaker 1: an object of fear across the seas, and the ship
Speaker 1: Blackbeard's own the Queen Ann's revenge. During the Golden Age
Speaker 1: of piracy, approximately one third of all pirate ship crews
Speaker 1: had once been enslaved, and I can only imagine what
Speaker 1: might have happened to slavers onboard those ships when confronted
Speaker 1: by men they once tried to sell into slavery. Overall,
Speaker 1: the effect of piracy on slavery was profound. Transporting slaves
Speaker 1: had already been an expensive and risky endeavor between rampant
Speaker 1: disease and mutiny, but pirates made the risks even worse.
Speaker 1: When the age of piracy ended, the slave trade once
Speaker 1: again flourished, becoming more lucrative than ever. Of course, pirates
Speaker 1: only slowed down the slave trade. Plantation owners in the
Speaker 1: Caribbean never stopped clamoring for cheap forced labor thanks to
Speaker 1: an explosive demand for sugar, and the slavers the people
Speaker 1: who hunted and captured humans to sell into slavery saw
Speaker 1: this and raised their prices. But it wasn't easy for
Speaker 1: them either. Capturing people had started to become more difficult,
Speaker 1: and many African villages were becoming a depth at avoiding
Speaker 1: the slavers altogether. So to keep up with demand, those
Speaker 1: in the slave trade had to get creative. One such
Speaker 1: example of trickery revolves around the legend of history's most
Speaker 1: famous black pirate, a man named Black Caesar. Reportedly, before
Speaker 1: he turned to piracy, he had been a prominent African chief,
Speaker 1: some say of considerable intellect and physical strength. He and
Speaker 1: the rest of his tribe had managed to evade capture
Speaker 1: numerous times. That is, until he faced the ultimate betrayal.
Speaker 1: It said that a trusted friend told him of a
Speaker 1: trade ship containing valuables. Caesar and twenty of his men
Speaker 1: agreed to meet the trader and examine the treasure. The
Speaker 1: trader first showed him a pocket watch and then used
Speaker 1: it to lure all of them on board with the
Speaker 1: promise of more treasures, things that were either far too
Speaker 1: heavy to carry or too numerous to bring ashore. Caesar
Speaker 1: had trusted this man, and therefore he let his guard down,
Speaker 1: which was easy considering the warm welcome they received Hackett
Speaker 1: almost sounds romantic. While they looked over the treasure, musicians
Speaker 1: played in the background. The traders even served wine and
Speaker 1: food while Caesar and his men considered an array of
Speaker 1: silks and jewels. Sources vary on what exactly happened next.
Speaker 1: Some say that while the traders distracted Caesar, the captain
Speaker 1: raised anchor and just sailed off. Once Caesar realized what happened,
Speaker 1: he and his men put up a fight, but were
Speaker 1: outnumbered by the ship's well armed crew and were eventually subdued.
Speaker 1: He might also have been forced into restraints under gunpoint.
Speaker 1: Another account, though, claims that he was tricked into going
Speaker 1: below deck and was ambushed there. However, it happened. With
Speaker 1: their prize secured, the captain set sail over the journey.
Speaker 1: One of the sailors tasked with feeding Caesar began to
Speaker 1: make friends with him. Before long, Caesar refused to take
Speaker 1: food or water from anyone else, and Caesar learned his
Speaker 1: captor's language quickly. Though records don't indicate which language it was,
Speaker 1: it's believed that it may have been Spanish, since the
Speaker 1: ship was headed towards Florida. As they neared the Florida Keys,
Speaker 1: the ship encountered a hurricane. The storm quickly worsened, and
Speaker 1: the crew on board realized their inevitable fate. They were
Speaker 1: headed for the Florida Reef, facing the thrashing hurricane winds
Speaker 1: and the brutal coral beneath them. The ship didn't stand
Speaker 1: a chance. While his crewmates scrambled for their lives, the
Speaker 1: kind hearted sailor freed Caesar. They both emerged from below deck,
Speaker 1: determined not to go down with the ship. Instead, they
Speaker 1: armed themselves and forced the captain and the rest of
Speaker 1: the crew to stay clear while they loaded a longboat
Speaker 1: with supplies. Amidst the rough waves and howling winds, the
Speaker 1: two men managed to row away from the ship before
Speaker 1: it crashed upon the reef. According to the legend, Caesar
Speaker 1: and the sailor were the only survivors. Eventually they made
Speaker 1: it to safety on a small nearby island, possibly Elliott Key.
Speaker 1: Effectively stranded, all they could do was wait for another
Speaker 1: ship to come along and rescue them. But while they waited,
Speaker 1: the two men conspired and their rescue plan suddenly began
Speaker 1: to change. When we think of pirates, the image of
Speaker 1: large ships, deadly can and sword wielding crews often comes
Speaker 1: to mind, but that wasn't always the case, and some
Speaker 1: pirates actually became successful with much smaller numbers. Caesar and
Speaker 1: his friend had perfected their craft when they saw another
Speaker 1: ship on the horizon. They rode out in their longboat
Speaker 1: and attracted the ship's attention by pretending to need rescued.
Speaker 1: Once on board, they told a half truth that their
Speaker 1: ship had been wrecked and they were the only survivors.
Speaker 1: But Caesar and his friend were hardly looking to be rescued. Instead,
Speaker 1: using his strength and the weapons they had snuck on board,
Speaker 1: the two men held up the crew. They then looted
Speaker 1: the ship, taking supplies and ammunition. They even recruited men
Speaker 1: willing to join them, and they did it more than
Speaker 1: once too. In fact, it remained a successful scheme for
Speaker 1: several years, and that small island of Theirs quickly became
Speaker 1: their unofficial headquarters. Life was good, well right until Caesar
Speaker 1: and his friend had a falling out. As the story goes,
Speaker 1: they had raided a ship and captured a woman who
Speaker 1: had been on board. Both men wanted to claim her
Speaker 1: for their own, and like any good Hollywood film, the
Speaker 1: tensions rose to end the argument, Caesar shot and killed
Speaker 1: his friend. Afterward, he spent his time growing his crew
Speaker 1: and eventually took a ship to find more vessels to raid.
Speaker 1: But through it all, his main territory remained near the
Speaker 1: floor to keys, and it turns out getting men to
Speaker 1: join him proved to be rather easy. Escaped enslaved men
Speaker 1: flocked to him looking for employment. Black Caesar and his
Speaker 1: crew stayed close to the keys. They knew the area
Speaker 1: well and avoided capture by using the many inlets and
Speaker 1: spaces between the islands. Then, over time, Caesar captured more
Speaker 1: women from the ships he raided. It's estimated that he
Speaker 1: had a harem of approximately one ladies and treated them
Speaker 1: no better than any other prisoner he took hostage. In fact,
Speaker 1: he had a prison camp set up on the island
Speaker 1: where he kept all of the men, women, and children
Speaker 1: that he hoped could earn him some ransom money. In
Speaker 1: the early seventeen Dreds, Caesar killed the woman that he
Speaker 1: had fought over with his friend and then left the
Speaker 1: island behind. He eventually ended up in Nassau, where his
Speaker 1: reputation was already well known, and it was there that
Speaker 1: he met another famous pirate Edward Teach. Teach had a
Speaker 1: fleet of five ships, and after meeting Caesar, he offered
Speaker 1: him a place among his crew, either as a lieutenant
Speaker 1: or possibly even as a captain of one of the ships.
Speaker 1: Caesar was on board when Teach blockaded Charleston, and he
Speaker 1: was also there when he accompanied him, along with Quartermaster
Speaker 1: William Howard, to North Carolina, where they accepted the governor's pardon,
Speaker 1: And in all likelihood, Caesar was at the various parties
Speaker 1: on Ocracoke Island where Teach entertained fellow pirate Charles Vane,
Speaker 1: and according to the stories, Caesar was there when Virginia's
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Governor Alexander Spotswood illegally sent the Royal Navy to
Speaker 1: track down and kill Blackbeard. I mentioned all of that
Speaker 1: because capture poses a different sort of risk for black
Speaker 1: pirates compared to their white counterparts. You see, while white
Speaker 1: men were hanged, black men were often sold back into slavery.
Speaker 1: Either way, Caesar and the others had no intention of
Speaker 1: being captured. It seems that he had been ordered to
Speaker 1: blow up the ship's magazine if the British managed to
Speaker 1: board them, but Caesar never got the chance He was
Speaker 1: captured before lighting the gunpowder and dragged off the ship
Speaker 1: along with several other crewmen. Later, after Blackbeard was dead,
Speaker 1: the Royal Navy arrested all the survivors, including Caesar. From there,
Speaker 1: they were taken to Virginia and tried for piracy. Black
Speaker 1: Caesar was hanged alongside his crewmates in November of seventeen eighteen.
Speaker 1: The golden age of piracy had begun to fade away,
Speaker 1: and without the pirates to raid the slave ships, that
Speaker 1: industry faced little resistance. It seems that all those ships
Speaker 1: filled with criminals, drunkards, and fools had been one of
Speaker 1: the few things capable of holding back the tide of
Speaker 1: human trafficking, and with them gone, those horrific waters rushed
Speaker 1: back in. For the people that chose to live life
Speaker 1: at sea, rhythm was everything. A significant amount of the work,
Speaker 1: things like rowing, hauling cargo, and hoisting the sails, all
Speaker 1: had to be done in unison so to keep things
Speaker 1: running smoothly. Pirates and sailors alike found that singing not
Speaker 1: only past the hours, but it also kept them in sync.
Speaker 1: For as long as ships have sailed, sea shanties have
Speaker 1: been part of sailors lives traceable back to sometime around
Speaker 1: the mid fourteen hundreds, although that's not what they've always
Speaker 1: been called. The word shanty only goes back to eighteen
Speaker 1: sixty nine, essentially arriving as a variation on the spelling
Speaker 1: of the word chant. But shanties could be broken into
Speaker 1: two categories. The first, known as capstin shanties, were used
Speaker 1: for jobs like raising the anchor. The old ballad Farewell
Speaker 1: and Adoe to you Ladies of Spain is just one example.
Speaker 1: The other kind, known as pulling or long drag shanties,
Speaker 1: were sung while performing irregular work, things like raising the
Speaker 1: yard arm or hoisting the sails. They were tasks that
Speaker 1: required sailors to stay in rhythm and pull at the
Speaker 1: same time. It was clever, really. The call and response
Speaker 1: of the songs signaled when the men should pull the
Speaker 1: ropes or releasing grip the next section. Usually one person
Speaker 1: called the shanty man, saying the verse, while the others
Speaker 1: responded with the chorus. Now, I bring up all of
Speaker 1: this for an important reason. It seems that black sailors
Speaker 1: were often chosen to serve as shanty men. Although shanty
Speaker 1: is of French origin, the current belief is that these
Speaker 1: songs combined Anglo Irish lyrics with strong African influence. It
Speaker 1: seems the shanties might have been a collaborative effort between
Speaker 1: all races and nationalities on board many ships. Historians point
Speaker 1: to similarities between the songs and a variety of different cultures, honestly,
Speaker 1: making it hard to say for sure who came up
Speaker 1: with them. Oddly, though, while popular on pirate, merchant and
Speaker 1: slave ships, the Royal Navy forbid their men from singing shanties.
Speaker 1: The theory was that if the men were singing, they
Speaker 1: weren't listening for a senior officers commands and therefore disrupting operation.
Speaker 1: And although we call them sea shanties today, those sailors
Speaker 1: did not. They were simply work songs. And while we
Speaker 1: associate the songs with pirates, even whalers sang work songs,
Speaker 1: while rowing and professional fishermen did the same while out
Speaker 1: at sea wherever and however they originated, shanties fell out
Speaker 1: of favor once steamships became more popular. There simply wasn't
Speaker 1: enough manual labor that needed the call and response rhythm
Speaker 1: of sailing ships, which, if I'm honest, is just a
Speaker 1: shame because so much of life is better with a
Speaker 1: bit of song. The time of pirates and shanties maybe
Speaker 1: long gone, but they're hardly forgotten. After all, one scroll
Speaker 1: through TikTok or Instagram can make anyone feel like they're
Speaker 1: on board a ship flying the Black flag. Even without
Speaker 1: the vessels they were created for, the sea, shanties have remained,
Speaker 1: and maybe it's proof that there's still a bit of
Speaker 1: pirate spirit inside all of us. MM. The overlap between
Speaker 1: the Transatlantic slave trade and the golden age of piracy
Speaker 1: was an intersection filled with drama, tragedy, and even a
Speaker 1: bit of adventure. And I don't know about you, but
Speaker 1: it's a corner of the pirate world that's helped me
Speaker 1: see beyond the characters to notice the humans in the
Speaker 1: middle of it all. And with that in mind, we've
Speaker 1: pulled together one more tale of human trafficking and legendary pirates,
Speaker 1: and my teammates Alie Steed wants to share it with you.
Speaker 1: Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all
Speaker 1: about it. Decades before the Civil War, the Founding Fathers
Speaker 1: wrestled with banning slavery. I think we can all agree
Speaker 1: they didn't wrestle with that question hard enough, but it
Speaker 1: was on their minds, and one of the first steps
Speaker 1: happened on January first of eighteen o eight. That was
Speaker 1: the day the Act to Prohibit the Importation of Slaves
Speaker 1: took effect, shutting down the centuries long flood of ships
Speaker 1: filled with human cargo. Of course, it didn't end slavery.
Speaker 1: It simply prevented America from participating in the Transatlantic slave trade,
Speaker 1: meaning no new enslaved people could be brought in on ships, which,
Speaker 1: if you read between the lines, means that there were
Speaker 1: still problems. First, domestic slave trading continued inside the country,
Speaker 1: and any child born to an enslaved woman also inherited
Speaker 1: their mother's lack of human rights. And second, the Transatlantic
Speaker 1: slave trade didn't stop altogether. There were still ships filled
Speaker 1: with stolen humans out on the water, and there were
Speaker 1: still buyers on land, So importing enslaved peoples became the
Speaker 1: realm of smugglers. Jean and Pierre Lafitte were two such men.
Speaker 1: They had become successful shortly after Congress passed the Embargo
Speaker 1: Act of eighteen seven. While the law was meant to
Speaker 1: curtail British ships from impressing American men into serving in
Speaker 1: their military. It also had a profound effect on goods
Speaker 1: and services available from European countries. Smugglers were more than
Speaker 1: happy to step in not only to fill the gap,
Speaker 1: but also fill their own pockets, and that included the
Speaker 1: Lafitte Brothers, who operated from the Grand Terra Islands and
Speaker 1: Louisiana's barri Teria Bay. At first, they were just involved
Speaker 1: with goods and supplies. The community of New Orleans profited
Speaker 1: from much of the cargo brought in by the brothers,
Speaker 1: sparking huge new growth in the area and seeing as
Speaker 1: how the new inflow of goods helped local businesses earn
Speaker 1: more money, the residents loved the brothers. They were looked
Speaker 1: upon as gentlemen by a lot of people, despite the
Speaker 1: fact that their work more closely resembled the unsavory world
Speaker 1: of piracy. They literally robbed ships then sold the goods
Speaker 1: in New Orleans. Sure Joan grew angry whenever anyone called
Speaker 1: him a pirate, But as they said, a fit walks
Speaker 1: like a duck and quacks like a duck. While you
Speaker 1: get the idea. In eighteen sixteen, Mexican rebel Jose Manuel
Speaker 1: de Herrera established a privateer government in Galveston, Texas. Herrera
Speaker 1: appointed Louis Michelle or Is the governor, and an interesting
Speaker 1: thing to know about or is that he had once
Speaker 1: been a French naval captain. In other words, he knew
Speaker 1: what he was doing better than most. In fact, the
Speaker 1: area pretty much became like the Pirate Republican nasaw. Smuggled
Speaker 1: and stolen goods came and went through the port, and
Speaker 1: that included enslaved people's. At the time, Cuba acted as
Speaker 1: a depot for the illegal slave trade, which meant pirates
Speaker 1: frequently targeted Cuban ships or sold hundreds of slaves to
Speaker 1: landowners in Mississippi, and then left Galveston in April of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventeen to seek out even more. He was fairly
Speaker 1: successful that summer and began his return before reaching port. However,
Speaker 1: slaves on board came down with a fever. Fearing it
Speaker 1: might spread to himself and the crew, he sent the
Speaker 1: ship adrift. When he reached Galveston, he found another surprise.
Speaker 1: The Lafitte brothers had moved from Louisiana and established their
Speaker 1: own slave trade business nearby. In a relatively short time,
Speaker 1: John and Pierre had set up a sizeable racket using
Speaker 1: middlemen to sell slaves. Now the most creative middlemen were
Speaker 1: the Bowie brothers. The Lafitte sold the slaves to the brothers, John,
Speaker 1: Resin and James for about a hundred and forty dollars each.
Speaker 1: Then the Bowie brothers did something weird. They turned those
Speaker 1: slaves over to customs officials. Why well, it was a
Speaker 1: scheme to get rich and it worked. You see, those
Speaker 1: customs officials received fifty of all reward money paid out
Speaker 1: for finding and confiscating enslaved people's being illegally transported into America.
Speaker 1: But rather than returning them back to Africa, the marshals
Speaker 1: simply put them up for auction. That's when the Bowie
Speaker 1: brothers were turned. They would buy the very same slaves
Speaker 1: they'd handed over to the customs officials right off the
Speaker 1: auction block, and usually for half the price. It was
Speaker 1: a scheme that took advantage of a loophole allowing them
Speaker 1: to import and sell slaves despite the new law against it,
Speaker 1: and it earned the Bowie brothers the modern equivalent of
Speaker 1: one point five million dollars, which they proceeded to spend frivolously.
Speaker 1: One American officials discovered the scheme, they pressured the brothers
Speaker 1: to leave, which left control of the area in the
Speaker 1: hands of the other brothers, the Lafittes, who were now
Speaker 1: the most infamous pirates in all of Texas. The end
Speaker 1: arrived in eighteen twenty one, when one of their fleet
Speaker 1: captains raided an American merchant ship. In response, the government
Speaker 1: sent the U. S. S. Enterprise to shut down pirate
Speaker 1: activity on Galveston Island. John de Fitte left after that,
Speaker 1: but not before burning down the buildings they'd used for
Speaker 1: their operations, buildings that held the records of the exact
Speaker 1: number of enslaved people they had sold, And like every
Speaker 1: good pirate movie, Lafitte sailed off into the open ocean,
Speaker 1: the beautiful Caribbean sunset before him, and the dark shadow
Speaker 1: of his evil ways never far behind. Pirates was executive
Speaker 1: produced by Aaron Manky and narrated by Aaron Manky and
Speaker 1: Alexandra Steid. Writing for this season was provided by Michelle Mudo,
Speaker 1: with research by Alexandra Steed and Sam Alberty. Production assistance
Speaker 1: was provided by Josh Thain, Jesse Funk, Alex Williams, and
Speaker 1: Matt Frederick. To learn more about this and other shows
Speaker 1: from Grimm and Mild and I Heart Radio, visit grim
Speaker 1: and Mild dot com.