Golden Age of Piracy

The Golden Age of Piracy spans roughly 1650 to 1730 across the Caribbean, the Atlantic, the West African coast, and the Indian Ocean. It included the buccaneers of the late seventeenth century, the Pirate Round to the Indian Ocean, and the post-1715 surge of Caribbean pirates such as Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, and Anne Bonny, ended by coordinated naval suppression and mass trials by about 1730. The era produced the black flag tradition and a body of folklore that still shapes the popular image of piracy.