The New Yorker:

We’ve long viewed them as liberty-loving rebels. But it’s time to take off the eye patch.

By Daniel Immerwahr

The ocean is a lonely, perilous place. It is especially so when you are aboard a leak-prone wooden vessel laden with a rich cargo of sugar, silks, and opium, like the traders sailing the Quedagh Merchant around India’s southern tip in 1698. They surely panicked when they spied a massive warship with thirty-four mounted guns bearing down on them—or would have, had it not been flying French colors. The Quedagh Merchant had a document, written in an elegant hand, guaranteeing safe passage from France. French ships posed no threat; they might even offer protection, information, or supplies.

The Quedagh Merchant sent over a boat with a French gunner carrying the pass. As he stepped aboard the warship, though, it hoisted a new flag: the English one. The gunner soon realized it was a trap. This wasn’t a French ship; it was Captain William Kidd’s Adventure Galley. And this wasn’t a parley; it was a robbery.

For Captain Kidd, it was a life-changing haul, one that he predicted would “make a great Noise in England.” He was right. Kidd became the “Subject of all Conversation” there, a contemporary wrote, his life “chanted about in Ballads.” One is still sung today: “My name is Captain Kidd, / And God’s laws I did forbid, / And most wickedly I did, / As I sailed.”

Go to link