About the Archives

The Archives is a collection of pirate history built from the documents up: trial records, commissions, correspondence, protection papers and the physical remains of ships and ports. It grows out of the research behind Sailing the Black Flag, Neil Johnson's history of pirate democracy, and it exists to let readers examine the evidence rather than take the legend on trust.

Everything here is organised around records. Each person, ship, place, event and document has one canonical record, and every page draws on those records rather than restating facts that can drift apart. Collections are guided routes through an argument, built from the same records, with the evidence kept in view.

The founding Collection is Captain Kidd: nine rooms from commission to execution, built around the papers his jury never saw.

What the Archives is not

It is not finished, and does not pretend to be. A claim resting on less than confirmed evidence carries its confidence level; a reconstruction is labelled a reconstruction. Where the record cannot answer a question, the page says that too.

How the evidence is handled is set out on the Method page. Mistakes, once found, are handled through the process on the Corrections page.