Original subtitles

[Narrator] This is the tale of Bartholomew Roberts,

the improbable pirate king.

Captured at sea and forced into a life of crime,

he swiftly embraces outlaw life,

transforming from regular sailor to a pirate captain.

[Historian] From Africa to the Americas and back again,

he doesn't settle in one base.

He seems to exemplify this idea that pirates are "of the sea."

[Narrator] In an epic three-year spree,

he plundered 400 ships

and assembled one of the fiercest pirate fleets

the world had ever seen.

[Author] Bartholomew Roberts

might be the most successful pirate in history.

[Narrator] For a few bloody years,

Bartholomew Roberts reigned supreme,

but these were the dying days of the Golden Age of Piracy.

? ?

[birds twittering]

[Richard Blakemore] Roberts is from a small Welsh village

called Casnewydd Bach

near Abergwaun in Pembrokeshire.

And he's born into a seafaring family

and probably goes to sea early,

as many people from that region did.

[Iszi Lawrence] He was in the merchant navy.

It was hard work.

You were barely paid,

and if you were paid, it wasn't very much at all.

[Narrator] The young Roberts grew accustomed to hard labor,

low wages, and grisly conditions.

Roberts is now third mate aboard the Princess,

an English slave ship.

? ?

Several ships are spotted on the horizon.

Are they fellow merchant vessels?

Or pirates seeking their next prize?

The Princess is only lightly armed,

no match for battle-tested outlaws.

A flag is identified. The pirates are coming.

[Lawrence] Fleeing is probably not an option.

Those ships are probably much faster in the water

and more maneuverable because they'll be smaller boats,

and they do not want to fight.

Fighting is incredibly dangerous at sea.

There's no guarantee that you will survive it.

So, the captain of the Princess surrenders,

and at this point, he is at the mercy

of the captain of these two pirate vessels.

[Narrator] The captain of the pirate fleet

steps aboard the Princess and announces himself

as the famed outlaw Howell Davis.

He seeks men to join his crew.

More than 30 willingly volunteer,

but not Roberts.

He wants no part of piracy, but he's forced aboard their ship.

[Lawrence] It's unlikely he did this willingly.

I mean, to join a pirate crew,

you're basically saying that if anybody catches us,

which is very likely, we are going to be hanged as criminals.

And in order to join a pirate crew,

you're basically agreeing to be a criminal.

You're throwing your life away.

You're gonna risk everything.

And for what? For your own monetary greed.

It's not seen as a noble thing to do.

[Charles Ewen] We've really romanticized the pirate life,

but I think the average pirate had a miserable life.

A lot of folks that went into piracy

were either pressed into piracy when their ships were captured,

some went voluntarily,

but I think most people that did piracy

didn't have much other choice.

[Narrator] The pirates know a good sailor when they see one.

Roberts holds years of seafaring experience

and a sturdy reputation as a fine navigator.

Although reluctant,

the Welshman soon warms to his captors.

Piracy may not be as cruel a life

as he had initially assumed.

[Lawrence] Now, although he was forced to board,

Roberts was actually very popular.

It was clear that he was very good at chatting to people,

at getting along with them, and Howell Davis, the captain,

really liked him because they both spoke Welsh.

Howell could confide with Roberts

without any difficulty at all because they spoke a language

none of the other people in the crew spoke.

[Narrator] This shared language forms the foundation

of a dangerous friendship.

Roberts concedes. He's a pirate now.

Dropping his common name, John, he adopts a suitable alias.

The moniker Bartholomew Roberts

will soon send a shiver of fear

through seafaring men the world over.

[Lawrence] Already, Roberts has changed his name.

He's no longer John Roberts. He is Bartholomew Roberts.

Giving yourself an alias means

it might be easier to slip away and escape persecution,

so lots of pirates change their names.

? ?

[Narrator] And now Bartholomew Roberts gains

his first taste of pirate action.

Howell Davis plots an assault

on the Portuguese island of Pr�ncipe,

off the west coast of equatorial Africa.

His goal-kidnap the governor and hold him to ransom.

But rather than risk a frontal assault

on the fortified settlement,

Howell opts for a shrewder approach.

[Blakemore] To enter a port, you have to use a ruse

to show that you're a friendly ship.

The normal way of doing this is to fly a flag of a nation

friendly to the port that you are entering.

And most ships, even merchant ships,

would be carrying multiple flags.

So you could fly an English flag

when you're entering an English port

or a French flag when you're entering a French port.

[Lawrence] At this time, when they approach Pr�ncipe,

which is owned by the Portuguese,

Britain and Portugal, they're rivals,

but they're not at war.

They could fly a flag which says,

"We're not gonna hurt you. We're not pirates,"

when all along they actually are.

[Blakemore] There could be some dangerous consequences

to carrying these flags and also paperwork

in different languages.

The advantage is that you can pretend to be, say, French

if you're attacked by a French ship.

But if you're attacked by an English ship

and they find French documentation aboard,

then you could be condemned as a prize.

Your ship could be taken away.

So it is a very dangerous game to play,

although it seems that most ships are playing it.

This is an international system that is abused a lot,

not just by pirates.

But it's a really useful technique for Roberts and Davis

to use as they're entering the port at Pr�ncipe.

[Narrator] With entry to the port secured,

Davis sets his sights on the Portuguese governor.

He sends the official an invitation to visit his ship.

[Lawrence] But the Portuguese aren't that foolish,

and they think those look like pirate ships out there.

How about instead of you guys

coming over to us, come to us first.

We'll have a bit of wine,

we'll have a bit of a sit-down, we'll have a chat,

and then we'll go over to your ship, no problem.

And Howell Davis falls for this.

[Narrator] Roberts stays aboard whilst Davis,

accompanied by a clutch of loyal pirates, goes ashore,

heading for the governor's residence.

? ?

Suddenly, the pirates are surrounded.

It's a trap.

[shouting]

? ?

? ?

Minutes later, Davis and his men are dead.

[thunder]

The pirates still have a ship, but no captain.

They assemble for a vote.

[Ewen] One of the interesting things

that kind of distinguishes a pirate ship from, say,

a merchant vessel is captains were elected,

so there was some more equality amongst pirates

than there would have been in a naval or even a merchant vessel.

[Lawrence] They actually had a sort of system

where they had a House of Lords,

like you get in the British Parliament,

and a House of Commons, like you get in the British Parliament,

except the Lords in this point

are all the officers aboard the ship,

and the House of Commons,

they're just your average seamen.

[Narrator] According to stories, they nominate candidates.

Then every crew member casts his vote.

[Lawrence] So, one of the officers aboard the ship

proposes Bartholomew Roberts,

a man who's only been on board for six weeks,

to be their leader.

[Blakemore] I think it speaks to Roberts' capability

as a navigator and perhaps also the force of his personality

that in that short time,

he has placed himself to become the leader of this band of men.

[Lawrence] They elected Bartholomew Roberts,

must have that leadership quality in him.

He must be seen as clever enough for this entire crew

to go, "That's our man. We want him to be leading us."

[Narrator] But Roberts is reluctant

to accept the responsibility.

After all, he only recently agreed

to embark on this life of piracy.

According to legend,

he eventually accepts the promotion,

claiming that "I have dipped my hands in muddy water.

If a pirate I must be,

'tis better being a commander than a common man."

This newly appointed Captain Roberts

must now decide, will he avenge his predecessor's death

or sail for safer waters?

[Lawrence] Roberts decides to take his revenge.

"Let's go after them.

Let's get them back for killing our captain."

[cannon fire]

[Narrator] 30 pirates storm Pr�ncipe.

[cannon fire]

Whilst cannons bombard the fort from the sea,

they breach the battlements.

[shouting and fighting]

[Lawrence] Now he has the fortress.

He's able to take whatever he likes from the Portuguese.

[shouting]

What better way of saying,

"Yeah, you were right to vote for me"

than delivering within a day of being elected captain.

[Narrator] Buoyed by his success at Pr�ncipe,

Roberts fully embraces his new identity

along with all of its finery.

[Blakemore] One thing we know about Roberts

is that he's a very stylish dresser.

He's said to have worn a crimson waistcoat,

matching breeches, and a plume in his hat.

[Lawrence] This boy from a poverty stricken part of Wales,

he's got now a costume,

and he struck a really flamboyant character.

[Blakemore] He's not hiding himself as a pirate captain.

He's setting out to establish a reputation.

? ?

[Narrator] Lusting after ever grander prizes,

Roberts decides to leave West Africa for Brazil,

the sparkling jewel in Portugal's imperial crown

and one of the largest slave colonies in the world.

Throughout the 17th century,

enslaved people had cultivated sugar here on a massive scale.

But by the opening decades of the 18th century,

an even more valuable commodity had been discovered-gold.

Brazil now harbors more of this precious metal

than can be found anywhere else in the world.

Roberts determines to make his fortune

in this alluring treasure or die trying.

[Blakemore] And he spends some time

cruising off the coast of Brazil,

and initially his luck is not good,

he doesn't encounter many prizes.

And his crew, getting restless, he's getting disappointed,

and they're just about to set course elsewhere

when they encounter a convoy of 42 Portuguese ships.

This is a jackpot for Roberts.

[Narrator] Roberts is near the port of Pernambuco,

within striking distance of a Portuguese treasure fleet

awaiting a military convoy to escort its gold and silver

back to Lisbon.

[Lawrence] Now, obviously, some of these ships have guns,

you know, he can't take the entire fleet.

But the thing is, he doesn't need to.

He just needs to take the richest ship.

[Narrator] Direct assault on a fleet of this size

would almost certainly mean a miserable death.

But the crew has already sailed 4,000 miles

with little to show for their progress,

and Roberts needs a prize.

He raises a Portuguese flag,

orders his men to conceal themselves,

and drifts into formation with the Portuguese flotilla.

[Lawrence] It's very easy for another ship to just infiltrate.

If you're not being aggressive, why would they even notice you?

They're waiting for another ship,

you know, you're one of several boats.

And so he literally slips in

like he's just one of the Portuguese ships.

[Narrator] Quietly joining the Portuguese fleet,

Roberts sails for one of the smaller ships.

? ?

He calls out, "Surrender or face attack!"

Confounded, the captain quickly submits.

Dragged from his ship, he's thrown before Roberts.

[Lawrence] This captain is given a choice.

Either we kill you where you're standing

and then attack your ship and kill your crew before escaping,

or you tell us which of these vessels

has the most amount of treasure on board.

Now, the captain at this point

is terrified because obviously he's heard all the stories

about how brutal pirates can be,

so he immediately points to this boat.

It's a 40-gun vessel called the Sagrada Familia.

[Blakemore] This is a substantial vessel.

It's larger probably than Robert's own vessel,

but he's not daunted.

[Narrator] Roberts might be outgunned,

but the element of surprise is on his side.

If he's able to rapidly subdue the mighty Sagrada Familia,

the surrounding ships will be too stunned to intervene.

[Lawrence] So, Roberts gambles everything

and decides to trust this other captain

that the Sagrada Familia is the ship to go for.

He's only got one shot at this.

The moment that he reveals to the rest of the fleet

that he's a pirate ship, they're going to be wary

and he won't get another chance.

He's got to take this boat by surprise,

and that's what he does.

[Narrator] Roberts' ship, the Royal Rover,

sidles up to the Sagrada Familia.

He calls out, inviting the captain to come aboard.

But the captain isn't so easily fooled.

He knows they're pirates.

Roberts orders an attack.

Several volleys of cannon fire hammer the Portuguese ship.

Grappling hooks scratch across its decks.

finding purchase.

Pirates begin to board.

Portuguese sailors are cut down where they stand,

unable to beat back this furious onslaught.

And within half an hour,

the Sagrada Familia belongs to Bartholomew Roberts.

[Lawrence] Now, fortunately for Roberts,

the Sagrada Familia is easy to break away

from the rest of the fleet.

But he doesn't have time to check the hold.

He just has to put his men in charge and get out of there,

which is what they do.

They get as far away from the potential warships

that they know are coming to defend the fleet.

They get away.

They open up the hold and see what's inside.

[Narrator] Roberts and his pirate crew have just seized

the largest treasure galleon in the Portuguese flotilla.

[Lawrence] They were not let down.

Inside this ship's hold were 40,000 silver coins.

It's more than you could possibly earn

in like a dozen lifetimes.

This is enormous.

And as well as that, there is exquisite jewelry.

[Blakemore] One of the jewels that they seize

is a fabulous silver cross, encrusted with diamonds.

And supposedly Roberts takes this for himself

and wears it around his neck for the rest of his life

as a trophy or a token of this first big haul.

? ?

[Narrator] Some are eager to enjoy

their newfound fortune in peace,

wishing to retire from the constant hazards

of a life at sea.

But Roberts won't hear of it.

He's just getting started.

[Lawrence] Roberts knows that they can't stop now.

You're still on the run. You're still part of this crew.

And at this point, Roberts doesn't want to stop.

He's enjoying this life.

This is the first time he's had any sort of success.

[Narrator] Now with two ships at his command,

Roberts leaves Brazilian waters, sailing north.

His next victim is a sloop, which he adds to his fleet.

Then as he nears Devil's Island,

he spots another ship, a brigantine.

These are swift and easy to maneuver

and therefore highly prized by pirates.

He boards his new sloop and gives chase,

leaving most of his crew behind.

[Lawrence] Now, he'd left a man called Walter Kennedy in charge,

a trusted person on board.

But Walter was one of these men who was thinking,

"Well, why go to the West Indies and risk it anymore?

Let's keep low. Let's stay quiet."

And while Roberts was away,

he'd managed to convince half the crew to do just that.

They loaded half the treasure into a smaller vessel

in with the crew who wanted to stay with Roberts.

Honor among thieves.

And then they took the Rover and the Sagrada Familia, and left.

[Narrator] For nine wind-ravaged days and nights,

Roberts frantically hunts the brigantine.

Food and water supplies run dangerously low,

contrary winds blow him off course.

Eventually, he relents, sailing for the crew he left behind.

? ?

[Blakemore] When Roberts returns,

he finds that most of his wonderful gains have disappeared

and most of his crew and his larger ship.

So he's left with a small number of men and a small sloop.

[Narrator] The betrayal is a brutal blow

to the fledgling captain.

He's just lost many men, most of his loot,

and much of his prestige.

[Ewen] You did have to have a captain

that knew what he was doing,

that commanded the respect of the crew.

They were elected as long as they were good providers

and they were able to do a competent job

of finding ships and prizes and gathering them.

[Narrator] Roberts rallies the remaining pirates.

It's vital that mutiny never again threatens his command.

[Blakemore] Roberts seems to have learned a lesson

because, from here on, Roberts makes sure

that his men sign articles binding them to the ship

and providing a set of rules about how these pirates

are going to behave while they're part of the crew.

And this is a very interesting dimension

that has really become part of pirate lore, the idea of codes.

[Lawrence] Roberts is one of the few pirates

that we have the actual code that he had written down.

And this might be a sort of signal of how seriously Roberts

took the code more than other pirate captains.

This wasn't something you could just change

and chop up interchangeably when it suited you.

Roberts believed in it.

[Blakemore] There's a variety of rules

covering different aspects of life aboard a ship.

One says every man shall have a vote in affairs of moment,

which implies a certain democratic tendency,

although I think we have to be very careful there,

because, again, we know from other evidence

that actually many of the crew

are forced by violence to join in,

so they probably don't have a vote.

Another rule says there should be no fighting aboard ship.

And to settle any disputes,

pirates had to go ashore and fight a duel.

But we know people did get into fights,

and this rule may not always have been observed.

[Lawrence] Roberts is also really strict

about women and boys on board.

He couldn't have that sort of sexual jealousy on board.

He says in the rules that if a woman is on board,

that a man will be placed in front of her to guard her.

And this goes to show how scared, I suppose, Roberts was

that infighting would completely ruin his plans.

[Narrator] In addition to keeping the peace,

Roberts' pirate code included articles governing

the working conditions of the crew.

[Blakemore] We do know that there were musicians aboard,

and some of these musicians do complain

that they were forced to play, even though they didn't want to,

and that they were prisoners aboard the ship.

So, one of my favorite rules is that musicians get Sundays off.

[Narrator] They pledge to live by this new code.

Roberts will need loyalty where they're headed-

the Caribbean, one of the richest places on Earth

and an incredibly dangerous region for pirates.

[Narrator] After facing years of terror at sea,

Europe's major empires have finally

strengthened their defenses in the Caribbean.

Naval gunboats and well-armed colonial ships

now patrol these waters on the hunt for pirates.

But Roberts isn't easily intimidated,

and his sloop, now renamed the Good Fortune,

soon seizes several prizes.

[Blakemore] Roberts continues plundering.

And indeed, he's now so well-known that the governors

of the various colonies in the Caribbean

send out expeditions to try and hunt him down.

[Narrator] French pirate hunters

finally catch up with Roberts,

firing a barrage of grapeshot into his ship,

ripping into the crew and splintering the rigging.

[shouting]

The pirates are outgunned but scramble to escape.

Roberts won't soon forget this defeat.

The Good Fortune has sustained terrible damage.

Many of the pirates are dead or injured.

They sail into port at Dominica for repairs to the ship.

Having sustained such heavy losses,

finding competent replacements proves tough.

Sourcing skilled recruits is practically impossible.

[Blakemore] Injury and disease

was a very common experience for sailors,

so one of the groups

that Roberts was always keen to recruit were surgeons.

[Narrator] Sea surgeons were typically jacks-of-all-trades,

serving as physicians, dentists, and barbers

to the ship's crew.

[Blakemore] Often surgeons on merchant ships or naval ships

would be young men, perhaps apothecaries or apprentices,

people looking to establish themselves

and taking the opportunities for employment.

Sometimes they were old men whose careers had gone badly,

and they were taking whatever they could get.

It certainly wasn't the most desirable employment

in this period.

We know that at least one of the surgeons who served with Roberts

was described as a very bad man and often a drunkard,

so he seems to have let took the opportunity

to join Roberts' crew and live the lifestyle

that he was looking for.

But others were captured as prisoners

and forced under threat and beatings to tend to the crew

and would later protest that they had never wanted

to be pirates at all.

? ?

[Narrator] Roberts' code also made provision

for those injured in the line of duty.

Wounded combatants would receive additional shares

of plunder, pirate insurance.

[Blakemore] We know that within his pirate articles

there was provision for injured sailors.

So a sailor who lost a right arm would get �800.

A sailor who lost a left arm would get �700.

A sailor who lost an eye or a finger would get �100.

And this is very common in other pirate ships as well,

and indeed is a tradition that goes back

several decades at least.

These are very substantial sums,

possibly more than most sailors would earn in a lifetime.

So this is really quite a generous reimbursement

for these injuries that these sailors

might encounter during battle.

[Narrator] Roberts and his crew lay low for several months

after their near-fatal encounter

with the French pirate hunters.

As spring turns to summer

and the oppressive tropical heat

of the Caribbean intensifies,

Roberts decides to sail for more temperate waters.

He follows a common pirate circuit,

heading towards the fishing grounds of Newfoundland.

Along the way, he picks off several ships.

[Lawrence] Fishing vessels don't contain much money,

but they're very easy to take.

They contain things like, you know,

alcohol and provisions for the crew

and can be easily transformed into more pirate ships.

[Blakemore] And he's also recruiting men

from many of the prizes that he captures.

Some of them are volunteers.

Others are forced through violence,

through threats, to join the ships.

They're forced to sign the articles,

and this binds them to the crew.

This means that they are legally liable for charges of piracy

because they've signed up to receive a share of the plunder.

? ?

[Narrator] June 21, 1720, dawns like any other day

in the quiet fishing town of Trepassey

on the southern shore of Newfoundland.

But then, in the distance,

a faint din of trumpets and drums.

As the music grows louder,

the shattering sound of cannon fire

suddenly echoes across the harbor.

This can mean only one thing-pirates.

Panic-stricken men abandon their ships in droves

and rush ashore for safety.

[Blakemore] When he sails into Trepassey,

which is quite different to the earlier attempt

to trick the governor of Pr�ncipe,

he's really making a big show.

He's fearless. He's bold.

He's demonstrating that he's not afraid.

[Narrator] As the Good Fortune sweeps into port,

an ominous black flag can be seen flying from the mast.

[Blakemore] Roberts is making no pretense here.

Flying a black flag declared that you were a pirate.

[Narrator] Legends claim that Roberts' flag featured

a skull with a single cutlass beneath it.

Variations on this theme

incorporating skulls, skeletons, and cutlasses

are widely used by pirate crews at this time.

These flags would come to be known as Jolly Rogers.

[Blakemore] This is a warning that the pirates

are going to be brutal.

It's a way of intimidating the victims of piracy.

And this saves the pirates danger,

it saves the pirates work.

[Ewen] A lot of being a pirate was like being a terrorist.

You wanted to inspire terror.

You wanted to intimidate them into just giving up.

That way, you didn't have to fight or damage the vessel

and you could take all their stuff relatively unharmed.

[Narrator] This theatrical show of force works.

Trepassey's sailors surrender without firing a shot,

despite vastly outnumbering Roberts

and his meager crew of 60.

Bartholomew Roberts is now master of the town,

taking command of its 22 ships and over 200 fishing vessels.

? ?

Local captains are brought before Roberts.

He invites the most experienced men to join his crew,

knowing better than anyone that merchant sailors

can be turned into pirates whether they're willing or not.

[Lawrence] He invites them on board his ship.

And he tries to convince them, this is the way the pirates are.

You can live like free men. You can be like us.

But there was a threat behind that.

And it was a threat he actually carried out,

which was, if you didn't join and you didn't become a pirate,

well, then they would burn your ship.

[Narrator] For several weeks,

Roberts scours the North Atlantic

for fishing vessels and merchant ships,

forcibly converting ever more men to a life of piracy.

He now has the fighting force and firepower

to storm the Caribbean, seeking bloody revenge

on the pirate hunters who so nearly defeated him.

[Narrator] Roberts prowls the Windward and Leeward Islands,

snatching ship after ship.

In one productive three-day stretch,

he captures 15 French and English vessels.

Pirates often remained loyal to their monarch,

but not Roberts;

he's an equal opportunity freebooter,

preying on every ship he spots, regardless of nationality.

[Blakemore] Merchants are afraid to send their ships to sea

because they fear that they might be captured by Roberts.

He plunders so many ships in the Caribbean

that he practically brings trade to a standstill.

There have been pirates active in this area

over the last few years, but Roberts really stands out

in the way that he distorts the trading networks

through his plundering activities.

[Narrator] For six months, Roberts' brazen attacks

across the seas around the French colonies

of St. Lucia and St. Kitts humiliate the authorities.

Roughly 350 pirates now sail under his command,

and only the largest naval vessels dare confront him.

[Lawrence] He was the final scourge of the seas

that had to be put down.

He's basically the pinnacle

of all of these famous pirates from history.

[Narrator] Relief for the French colonies arrives

in the spring of 1721

in the form of three heavily armed frigates.

Two more British warships also sail for the Caribbean,

desperate to finally corner the man now known around the globe

as the great Pirate Roberts.

Roberts decides not to risk confrontation

with French or British forces.

Instead, he shifts his operation,

sailing for the familiar waters of West Africa,

in search of more plunder.

Much has changed in the intervening two years.

Then he was merely a common sailor;

now he's the feared pirate Bartholomew Roberts.

[Lawrence] The British Royal Navy are after him.

So many different people have been complaining,

so many different colonies, so many different merchant vessels,

that he's become something they need to extinguish, and fast.

[Blakemore] But Roberts doesn't seem to care

that he's being pursued.

Or perhaps it inspires him to even greater

and more dramatic violence and greater destruction.

[Narrator] British warships now patrol the African coast,

but they're of little concern to Roberts,

who continues to seize

merchant vessels and their crews.

Two French patrol ships chase him down

near the mouth of the Senegal River.

Roberts turns and captures both boats.

In Sierra Leone, he abandons his old French ship

and captures the Onslow,

which they rename the Royal Fortune.

January 1722.

He now sails for the port of Whydah,

discovering 12 slave ships in its harbor.

Raising the black flag,

he demands their immediate surrender.

[Lawrence] And he does his old trick.

He gets the captains to, you know, give in to him,

or he'll burn their ships.

[Narrator] The captain of one ship, the Porcupine,

refuses to negotiate with Roberts.

[Lawrence] Roberts thought, "Well, if I can't, you know,

convince you, I'm going to destroy your cargo."

And so they set the ship alight.

[Blakemore] This is one of the most excessively violent acts

that Roberts commits.

He seems to be reaching a height of violence

and damage and destruction.

[Lawrence] He burnt that ship

that had 80 enslaved people aboard

and just let them die in the most horrific way

that you could possibly imagine.

? ?

? ?

[Narrator] A month later,

Roberts is anchored in a bay at Cape Lopez.

It's the morning after the capture of yet another frigate,

and the crew is recovering from their celebrations.

? ?

[Blakemore] The Royal Navy ship Swallow,

under Captain Chaloner Ogle,

has arrived on the coast of West Africa with a convoy,

and his mission is to hunt down Roberts.

He finds Roberts off Cape Lopez.

[Narrator] The pirates are roused from their sleep.

Worse for wear, they stumble and scramble to their posts

and prepare to engage.

[shouting]

[Blakemore] The pirates outnumber the Swallow

and the naval vessels,

but the Navy have more powerful firepower.

So Ogle uses a tactic where he sails in

and then pretends to flee,

and this is too tempting for the pirates.

[Narrator] Roberts takes the bait.

Assuming the Swallow to be a richly loaded merchant ship,

he dispatches the Ranger.

The pirates give chase, barely noticing they're now

some distance from the safety of Roberts' fleet.

Suddenly, His Majesty's Ship the Swallow swings around,

revealing its true identity

as a heavily armed navy warship.

Unloading a crippling broadside,

the men aboard the Ranger are blown to pieces.

Roberts is now exposed, trapped in the bay by a powerful enemy

who is headed straight for him.

[Lawrence] Roberts must know the game is nearly up.

HMS Swallow knows where he is and is moving in.

Now, at this point, Roberts decides to flee,

but he's been trapped in a bay,

and it's so hard for him to maneuver out of this bay

without going broadside to this ship.

[shouting]

? ?

The Swallow fires.

[gunshot]

[Blakemore] A large number of small musket balls

are fired out of a cannon,

so this is a hail of shot that sweeps across the deck

and hits Roberts in his throat.

[Narrator] Roberts is killed instantly.

Panic sets in amongst the survivors.

Their mast has been obliterated,

their captain is dead,

and the British warship is closing in.

Still, they manage to fulfill Roberts' final wish

for a pirate's burial.

They grab his body and toss it overboard

so it can't be carried back to London in triumph

by the British Navy.

They surrender, finally bringing to a close

one of the deadliest eras in pirate history.

[Narrator] Bartholomew Roberts' three-year reign of terror

has come to a bloody end,

his ship seized, his men arrested.

[Blakemore] Many of his men are executed.

This is a statement of intent by the British government.

The empire is asserting its power,

and it's saying they will pursue

and destroy pirates anywhere.

So Roberts' death and the execution of his men

becomes part of this big political statement

as the British Empire tries to eradicate piracy

over these years.

? ?

[Narrator] In the decades following his death,

the name Bartholomew Roberts passes into legend.

He and his crew appear in swashbuckling chronicles

and popular novels such as Treasure Island.

Later, he'll become known as Black Bart.

[Blakemore] Two years after Roberts' death,

The General History of the Pyrates is published,

and of all of the pirates discussed in that book,

Bartholomew Roberts gets the largest chapter.

It's a really extensive narrative.

That's partially because he has such a long piratical career

by pirate standards,

but it's also because he's such a dramatic figure.

And this is part of how his legend comes to circulate

in the years after his death.

[Narrator] Bartholomew Roberts

was the last of the great European pirates.

No other captain could boast

of what Black Bart had achieved.

In less than three years, he had sailed 35,000 miles,

captured roughly 400 ships, and briefly paralyzed

the trade routes of Europe's mightiest empires.

Defiant to the last,

his death in 1722 marked the final dramatic act

in the Golden Age of Piracy.

[Blakemore] Bartholomew Roberts is really iconic of this one era

in the history of piracy,

where these pirates are not based in a single port.

They're not necessarily associated with

or supported by a colonial governor.

They are out for themselves.

And while Roberts may have wished to retire

with all his plunder like other pirates did,

he does keep going for a long time.

And you have to wonder if he's just doing it

for the sake of it,

if he's just plundering to keep on plundering.

Maybe he just really liked being a pirate.

And this is really unusual.

It's the image of piracy that we have today,

but it's not what most pirates in history do.

But it is what Bartholomew Roberts does.

[Narrator] After the violent death of Roberts,

the world's remaining pirates

are hunted to extinction by European navies.

The age of Morgan, Blackbeard, Rackham, and Roberts

has come to an end.

[Mark Hanna] It's not self-sustaining.

If you have no place to fence your goods,

you have no communities to settle down,

eventually it's not going to function any longer.

[Narrator] The kings and queens of Europe

congratulate themselves for securing the seas,

ridding the world of those they labeled

the enemies of all mankind,

as captured and convicted pirates are sent

to the gallows by boatload,

pirates that had sought their fortune through robbery,

murder, extortion, and abduction.

They were bandits of a chaotic era,

a time of slave traders

plundering Africa of its people,

of Europe's lords using commoners for their labor,

of colonists

forcing Native Americans from their land.

So, were these pirates any worse

than the authorities that pursued them?

[Margarette Lincoln] Often with piracy

it's a question of perspective.

[Tara Rider] Who's being attacked and who is attacking?

[Narrator] While at sea,

pirates maintained a degree of equality

that didn't exist in the societies they left behind.

Social class held little significance,

and even the lowest born could rise to be captain.

Plunder was shared, the wounded insured.

[Lincoln] They had no culture to speak of

other than what they made up for themselves.

[Narrator] So, were these pirates skilled seamen,

loyal to their crews, or savage criminals

ready to kill for their treasure?

[Hanna] We see this going from Drake to Blackbeard

as the total extremes

in the way we understand

the history of piracy.

On the one hand, the anarchistic maniac,

on the other, a heroic figure supported by his own community.

[Narrator] Perhaps they were both.

Most of these outlaws achieved exactly what they sought-

a merry life,

but a short one.

? ?

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