Database: Golden Age of Piracy

While piracy has existed in most places across history, the Golden Age of Piracy refers specifically to a period between the 1650s and the 1720s, when global circumnavigation, the discovery of the New World, and increasingly wealthy international trade across largely lawless, unpatrolled seas ushered in a period of unprecedented opportunity for pirates.

The harsh conditions aboard most colonial ships—where common sailors were badly paid, and often press-ganged, indentured, or convicts—could lead to mutinies with entire crews turning outlaw. In many cases, piracy was not only the natural but the only choice for these crews to survive.