Black Bart, or Bartholomew Roberts, was a successful pirate who captured over 400 vessels during the Golden Age of Piracy. He was a skilled captain and navigator, and enforced moral rules on his crew. He operated in the Caribbean, off the coast of New England and Africa, and his treasure is estimated to be worth billions. He was killed in battle in 1722.
Black Bart was one of the most successful pirates active during the Golden Age of Piracy, capturing over 400 vessels across the Atlantic Ocean in his short and brutal career. While Black Bart is not as well known as other pirates of the same era, such as Blackbeard, his skills as a captain and pirate were quite formidable, and many pirate characters in film and fiction are based on Black Bart, who was known as Bartholomew Roberts during the his life.
Bartholomew Roberts was born in Wales in 1682 as John Roberts; “Bartolomeo” is probably a pseudonym taken at some point during his sailing career. John Roberts first put to sea at the age of 13, and little is known of his career as a legitimate seaman, except that he was sailing as third mate on a slave ship in 1719 when he was commissioned on a pirate ship. Pressuring valuable crew members of captured ships was a common practice among pirates, and Roberts was apparently a very skilled navigator.
Six months after being commissioned, Roberts had been elected captain and embarked on a reign of terror that did not end until 1722, when he was killed in battle off the coast of West Africa. As captain, Black Bart proved decisive, savage, and ruthless, keeping order among his crew and not afraid to chase down vessels of all sizes for their precious cargo.
The total value of the treasure Black Bart captured is not known, because much of it was never recovered, but it is estimated to be in the high billions. He has operated in the Caribbean, an area rife with potential looting thanks to heavily loaded Spanish and Portuguese treasure ships, and has also worked off the coast of New England and Newfoundland and off the coast of Africa.
The character of Black Bart was quite curious. Though he was ruthless, he also enforced strong moral rules on his crew members; by signing the ship’s articles, pirates agreed to refrain from bringing women aboard, for example, and were also not allowed to play cards or fight aboard the ship. Black Bart himself was a teetotaler, he preferred tea to coffee, and even a bit of a dandy, preferring to dress in clothes more befitting a gentleman than a pirate.
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