Jon Hagadorn

The book was originally credited to a Captain Charles Johnson.

Well, here's the catch.

Captain Johnson didn't exist.

For centuries, historians suspected it was a pen name for Daniel Defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe.

Others think it was a real seaman with a bone to pick.

Whoever he was, he had access to things he shouldn't have.

Trial records, private logs, and most chillingly, first-hand accounts from the men who survived the gallows or were waiting in prison for their end time to come.

And he didn't just write a history.

He wrote a manifesto for the outlaws of the Atlantic.

To understand why these stories matter, you have to understand the world of 1715.

The war of the Spanish succession had just ended.

Thousands of privateers, men paid by the crown to loot enemy ships, were suddenly unemployed.

The British Empire told them, go home and starve.

The sailors replied, no.

They turned pro.

They, quote, went on the account, end quote.

In the episodes to come, we aren't just looking at cartoons, we're looking at the man that many have called Edward Thatch, better known as Blackbeard, a man who braided slow-burning fuses into his beard to look like a demon from hell.

We'll meet Anne Bonny and Mary Read, who proves that the most terrifying fighters on a ship weren't always the men.

And we'll explore the Pirate Republic of Nassau, a brief, shining moment where the world's most wanted men tried to build a democracy of thieves.

Why are we still obsessed with them?