So, you're Daniel Defoe, writing volume two of a bestselling compilation of pirate biographies. Needless to say, you're going to slip in your own private pirate, entirely fictional, and pretend it's a true story (Fuck you, Oprah!) -- you'll even pull the old "a private manuscript has come into my hands" gag. You cleverly dovetail your fictional pirate's story with actual, historical events and people, in order to give your man's story an air of veracity -- and then you so cavalierly ignore chronology that a careful reading of the dates given elsewhere in your own book prove that the story can't be true. Why? Because that's just the kind of dude you are.
Unfortunately, I have to report that -- apart from the fun-and-games with fact & fiction aspect -- Capt Mission is a bit of a dud. The good captain is a ridiculously idealistic figure, who together with his trusty lieutenant (a lapsed priest given to long, Thomas Paine-esque speeches about the equality of man and the iniquity of churches and states) founds a Utopian colony in -- wait for it -- Madagascar. The colony is done in by bad luck and some poor planning (fortifying heavily against attacks from sea, but underestimating the danger of attacks by land), but there's every implication that, with a little luck, it could have flourished -- a thoroughly workable model of church-free democracy and racial equality.
The "racial equality" bit is the most interesting part, here. Mission and his men all marry native women, and there's none of that nonsense about christianizing or civilizing them, nor a trace of racial anxiety in their attitude; they also make a habit of raiding slave ships, rescuing the would-be slaves, and then integrating them as equal citizens in the newly founded nation of (I shit you not) Libertalia.
This goes some ways towards atoning for the truly atrocious, cringe-inducing middle section of Colonel Jack, which devolves into little more than a pamphlet on why slave-owners should treat their negroes kindly (ie, because it will maximize your profits in the long run). But it doesn't make this section of the General History of Pyrates any more entertaining.
(Since I already mentioned Col Jack, I can't resist the urge to quote its full title, which is my favourite book-title ever:
Unfortunately, I have to report that -- apart from the fun-and-games with fact & fiction aspect -- Capt Mission is a bit of a dud. The good captain is a ridiculously idealistic figure, who together with his trusty lieutenant (a lapsed priest given to long, Thomas Paine-esque speeches about the equality of man and the iniquity of churches and states) founds a Utopian colony in -- wait for it -- Madagascar. The colony is done in by bad luck and some poor planning (fortifying heavily against attacks from sea, but underestimating the danger of attacks by land), but there's every implication that, with a little luck, it could have flourished -- a thoroughly workable model of church-free democracy and racial equality.
The "racial equality" bit is the most interesting part, here. Mission and his men all marry native women, and there's none of that nonsense about christianizing or civilizing them, nor a trace of racial anxiety in their attitude; they also make a habit of raiding slave ships, rescuing the would-be slaves, and then integrating them as equal citizens in the newly founded nation of (I shit you not) Libertalia.
This goes some ways towards atoning for the truly atrocious, cringe-inducing middle section of Colonel Jack, which devolves into little more than a pamphlet on why slave-owners should treat their negroes kindly (ie, because it will maximize your profits in the long run). But it doesn't make this section of the General History of Pyrates any more entertaining.
(Since I already mentioned Col Jack, I can't resist the urge to quote its full title, which is my favourite book-title ever:
The fact that the title as a whole is not particularly accurate as a description of the book's contents is pure bonus. If I'm not mistaken, the first edition title-page had the visionary and beautiful mistake "Four Times Married to Five Whores", which he should have known better than to correct. )The History and Remarkable Life Of the truly Honourable Col. Jacque, commonly call'd Col. Jack, who was Born a Gentleman, put 'Prentice to a Pick-Pocket, was Six and Twenty Years a Thief, and then Kidnapp'd to Virginia, Came back a Merchant; was Five times married to Four Whores; went into the Wars, behav'd bravely, got Preferment, was made Colonel of a Regiment, came over, and fled with the Chevalier, is still abroad compleating a Life of Wonders, and resolves to dye a General.
