The Pirate Republic of Libertalia

Pirate Republic of Nassau 1715

The history of Libertalia and the fall of old world piracy go hand in hand. In the Golden Age of Piracy taking place in the years 1690-1720, the world was at war, especially the English and Spanish with the pirates of old. Trade routes in the Caribbean sea were plundered and torched ship by ship, large english warships and their crew were boarded, anchored, slaughtered, and robbed. And the culprits? Calico Jack, Bartholomew Roberts, Henry Morgan, Henry Every, William Kidd, and most famous of all, the infamous Blackbeard.

Nassau, a brother island to Libertalia, became the pirate haven for those bloody years after Henry Every ported his famous ship “Fancy” in Nassau and unloaded his Indian Empire treasure onto the Nassau harbor. To achieve this, Every bribed the Governor of The Bahamas Nicholas Trott with gold and silver, among other exotic and useful treasures. Soon after word spread, all pirates looking to make a name for themselves began pulling their wealth together and investing it into the island and surrounding islands and their people which soon filled their crews.

One island however was left untouched by all of humanity, and one Pirate among the aforementioned infamous names had decided to keep the majority of his gold and loot separate from the rest, knowing the nature of pirates oh-too-well. Blackbeard was his name, and it is said he discovered a beautiful island with lush jungles waiting to be colonized by his own crew exclusively. He named it Libertalia, and the crew buried their treasure wherever they so wished, all of which was secretive and never found. The crew built up a small town called The Town of Libertalia, and a fort to defend the island. For years it remained their own personal heaven. A place the Spanish and English fleets never thought to look, as their attention was turned to the Bahamas.

In January of 1718, British Captain Woodes Rogers was named Captain General and Governor in Chief of Nassau, which quickly ended the Pirate Republic of Nassau. Most of the Pirates inhabiting the island at the time were presented with a King’s Pardon, which they quickly accepted. Some say this was the end of “The Golden Age of Piracy”, and truly it was. Despite this, there were still few that refused to concede.

Blackbeard’s ship The Queen Anne’s Revenge and her large fleet of 30 ships were caught in an unfortunate accident after a shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina. Blackbeard abandoned most of the crew, and set sail for Bath in the nearby state to meet with Governor Charles Eden, hoping to buy his way to freedom and earn a pardon. He nearly succeeded, however a request from North Carolina planters, Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia dispatched a large British naval force to deal with Blackbeard in North Carolina. On November 22 1718, Blackbeard and what remained of his crew were killed in “The Battle Of Ocracoke Island”. It is rumored that Blackbeard himself received five musket-ball wounds and 20 sword lacerations before dying.

Battle Of Ocracoke Island 22 November 1718

Among Blackbeard’s crew was a young man aged only 12 who was known as Deadeyes, otherwise known by his real name Damian Drake. A distant descendant of the famed Sir Francis Drake, the father of Pirates according to the Spanish of the time. He was young, and after challenging Blackbeard himself to a fist-fight on the top of the fort in Libertalia, he was sentenced to jail as punishment until the crew came back. Unfortunately for the young Drake, the crew never returned. With limited food or water, he managed to slip through the bars after his body became slim. The young Deadeyes was weak, but managed to nurse himself back to health after foraging on the island for lizards and crabs.

Damian, alone on the island, decided it was time to abandon his crew and sail as far away as possible. It is said he ended up bouncing islands for the remainder of his life, continuing the traditions of Piracy and keeping himself afloat by forming a crew in his older years and plundering trading vessels in the Pacific. Damian married in his 20’s, and his wife gave birth to a daughter named Imogen Drake.

Damian died fighting the Chinese, and his daughter Imogen ended up on the crew of renowned pirate Zheng Yi, spending most of her life plundering the seas of china. A couple generations later, a direct descendant named Philip Drake was born in Nassau in the year 1812. Philip Drake was born in a quickly changing age of modernization. The English and Spanish colonies were ridding the world of all Piracy, and despite his ancestry, he was left without a ship. The young man grew up poor and orphaned after his father died during a bank robbery gone wrong in Spain. The sea was all he had ever known, and Piracy was his tradition. He aged, and quickly sought out privateer-turned-pirate Don Pedro who was in his hometown of Catalonia Spain at the time.

Philip convinced Don Pedro to let him join his crew, using his heritage as his means of persuading him. For years Philip and Don Pedro plundered The Treasure Coast, making a name for themselves on The Panda by raiding American merchant vessels. Philip eventually departed from The Panda in 1832, shortly before the failed raid of The Mexican, which led to Don Pedro’s execution, along with The Panda’s crew.

Captain Philip “Silver Tooth” Drake 1845

Captain Philip Drake lived out his years plundering that same coast on his own with a small crew, using the tactics of his former Captain. He often challenged the United States, Mexico, and Columbia with bank robberies in coastal towns and cities, knowing his ship The Althea was faster than any vessel at the time. Narrowly avoiding death in 1862 while raiding supply lines of both the Union and Confederacy during the Civil War, Philip managed to escape to the Caribbean, back to his ancestral home in Nassau. He abandoned the life of Piracy, but took with him all the treasures he collected throughout his long life.

Years went by, and in his old age Philip managed to have 2 children with a woman he married Mariam Sjöberg named Alexander and Maria. Philip told the two there was an Island currently named Guarma off the coast of Cuba with treasures he could never find himself, now used as a plantation island for a dictator named Alberto Fussar. As the two came of age, and tired of Privateering, they took up a crew and used their father’s treasures to pay for a new ship.

The Althea’s Revenge & The Pirate Republic Flag

In the year 1897 Captain Alexander and his sister Maria both on their ship The Althea’s Revenge decided to take on the Cuban puppet Fussar and reclaim the island for the sake of their ancestry, and the treasure that was hidden there. Knowing the age of piracy was over, the two rid themselves from the fear of death, feeling it was better to die Pirates, than to live as anything other.

The siblings sailed right up to the harbor in the dead of night on November 13th, and used a rowboat to make their way to shore with 100 sticks of dynamite shared between them both and the crew. Alexander and Maria were responsible for blowing holes in the main deck of the Ironclad warship called Viene el Infierno. The crew of both ships were responsible for taking out all the trading vessels in the harbor using the same methods, all armed with a pocket watch and the instruction to detonate at exactly 1:00am, and immediately begin a ground attack on the plantation to arm the laborers with guns, bidding them to fight for their freedom.

The time came, 1:00am, and without complication the harbor went up in flames, marking the start of “The Battle Of Guarma 1887”. Maria was instructed to lead half the crew into the plantations to arm the slaves, while Alexander held off the guards standing watch at the compound of Aguasdulces. Maria made her way into the sugar cane fields, while Fussar’s Guards rushed down to the harbor to put out the flames and investigate what happened.

Alexander flanked around the compound with a crew of 15, all armed with rifles and cutlasses. The crew hopped the wall and open-fired on the surrounding guards. Half of Alexander’s men died almost as soon as the fight started, far outnumbered by the well trained Guards who began to close in on their position behind carts and the rum distillery. Alexander took a bullet to the shoulder and a laceration across his left eye which left him half-blind.

As Alexander’s men were cut down, Maria and a small regiment of slaves began their attack on the front gates, slowly moving up inch-by inch until they finally stormed the compound. With the guard force surrounded, they were quickly slaughtered by both sides, leaving the manor alone left to conquer. Maria took her 3 most trusted crewmen, and Alexander his two remaining men, and stormed both entrances of the manor. Cutting their way up the stairs, and through 10 guards, Maria and Alexander stormed Alberto Fussar’s bedroom.

Fussar was hiding under the bed, and was promptly dragged out by Alexander and thrown onto the sheets. “Thee Pirate Republic of Libertalia begins anew when yer heart stops beating.” Alexander famously said, before stabbing Fussar through the belly with his cutlass. Maria then shot Fussar through the head, putting him out of his misery. And thus, the Pirate Republic was formed after a few days of celebration on the island. And the island was officially renamed to Libertalia.

Captain Alexander “The Devil” Drake 1887

The Drake’s colonized the island and established their Republic, electing Captain Alexander as Pirate King, and Maria as Grand Skullbreaker. However, the celebrations and time of peace lasted only a few weeks before a detachment of the Spanish fleet, which was weak compared to its full force due to the ongoing Spanish-American war, sailed to Libertalia on December 8th 1897 to reassert their power and take back the sugar plantations.

Captain Alexander and the crew of The Althea’s Revenge were prepared however, oftentimes staying out at sea and patrolling the island during the days and on most nights, waiting to put out the final flame of hope within the Spanish Empire. When the Spanish detachment was spotted by the watchmen at the fort Cinco Torres, The Althea’s Revenge was signaled, and the carefully devised plan began. Using a smaller merchant vessel, Maria and a crew of 10 were to distract the Spanish detachment coming from the east, while giving Alexander time to bring The Althea’s Revenge around their flanks. Maria did far more than that however, she learned of her father’s tactics of sea robbery which he learned from Don Pedro. And understood this was the opportune time to use them.

Maria, being in a small merchant vessel with a much smaller keel and depth than the large war ships, was able to trick the Spanish into sailing into what the siblings called “The Bomber Lane” of Libertalia, otherwise known as a large spreadout grouping of coral reefs which acted as a deterrent to invaders, but to those unaware it meant certain death to try and cross it. The unaware detachment sailed right into Maria’s trap, scraping the bottom of their hulls and flooding each and every one of their warships with an unsuppressable amount of sea water, quickly sinking them and eliminating their crews.

The flagship St Luce was still sailing however, and as day turned to night, Alexander with a battered crew and ship figured he would look to the days of old for guidance, specifically Blackbeard. Alexander prepared his crew for boarding, as he did so he stuck hemp twine and lit matches in his beard, making his face light up and smoke in the blackness of night, granting him the nickname “The Devil”. He commanded his entire crew to do the same, seeing as they all had some semblance of facial hair, and with smoking fiery faces in the dead of night, the crew of The Althea’s Revenge used ropes and hooks to pull the Spanish warship against their own hull, before climbing aboard and unsheathing their cutlasses.

One by one, the crew of the St Luce were struck down, stricken by fear of the unsightly pirates, most ran and hid, while others jumped overboard. Feeling drowning would be a better way to die than at the hands of a beast from hell itself. Pirate King Captain Alexander Drake, along with his crew, used the rum stores aboard to light the flames that eventually turned the ship to ash there in the cove of Libertalia.

This marked the end of war in Libertalia, making the island of Libertalia officially a free state, led and governed by Pirates, and relatives of Maria and Alexander. In 1899, the Pirate King sent a letter to farmers of Lemoyne, inviting them to his island to buy large sums of sugar among other goods, starting business with the United States underground communities, smuggling goods into the country away from the watchful eyes of tax collectors.

Modern Day Libertalia

[TBC]