Poem: "The Democratic Armada of the Caribbean"
This poem came out of the July 2, 2024 Poetry Fishbowl. It was inspired by prompts from Dreamwidth users Siliconshaman and See_also_friend. It also fills the "Spirit Island" square in my 7-1-24 card for the Games and Entertainment Bingo fest. This poem has been sponsored by a pool with DW user Fuzzyred. It belongs to the series Peculiar Obligations.
"The Democratic Armada of the Caribbean"
[1600s]
Not long after the Europeans
arrived in the New World,
the pirates followed them.
In the 1500s, pirate havens
began to spring up all around
the islands of the Caribbean Sea.
San Juan, Puerto Rico was
among the first, and key in
smuggling throughout the area.
Portsmouth, Dominica became
a major port of call for the Spanish
and the English, which also made
the town into a prime hub for piracy.
By the 1600s, more had emerged.
Santa Isabel Village located on
Isla de Provedencia was one.
Some even appeared on
the Spanish Main, including
Xcalak and Portobelo.
In 1636, the Caribs drove
the European invaders
from their island Matinino.
After that, they preferred
to trade with the pirates.
Port Morgan, Île-à-Vache
near Hispaniola as well as
Tap House on St. Thomas
began to gain more traffic.
To the north, two towns in
Rhode Island grew popular with
pirates, Providence and Newport.
Tortuga Village on Tortuga Island,
part of the larger Hispaniola, was
the most famous for many years,
despite all of the giant turtles.
It was a golden age for pirates.
Then something interesting happened.
The Religious Society of Friends, who
were pacifists of all rare things, started
reaching out to the pirates in ports.
A few even started to take ship,
speaking of peace, and because
they were skilled at negotiation,
the Friends were ... tolerated.
The founder, George Fox,
annoyed a lot of stuffy people.
Pirates found that amusing,
and the Friends entertaining,
if more than a bit perplexing.
In the 1650s, female Friends
connected with female pirates,
teaming up to advance the rights
of women on an even wider scale.
The female pirates started to provide
escape routes for abused women
in general, frustrating men in power.
Bermuda had been stewing for a while,
and unrest finally erupted into revolt
in 1656 that made it a free pirate island.
Another great pirate haven arose in
Port Royal, Jamaica as people built
taverns, whorehouses, trading posts,
and other maritime attractions.
George Fox began to express
his doubts about slavery.
The pirates listened with
half an ear, because on
the one hand, freedom was
vital to their way of life, but
on the other hand, they were
mostly motivated by money.
The Friends were always
getting into trouble, though,
and pirates appreciated that.
In 1660, female pirates rescued
Mary Dyer from intended execution
and hauled her to the Caribbean
to prevent her from returning
to danger in New England.
It took her well over a year
to forgive them for uprooting her.
More pirate havens emerged as
foreign ships harassed older ones,
like Petit Goâve on Saint Domingue.
The British attempted to take control
of the Cayman Islands in 1670, which
ended with their official establishment
as free pirate islands -- and a lot of
British sailors getting fed to the basks
of truly enormous crocodiles that swam
around the beaches and the rivers
of the islands named for them.
Several Friends, including
William Edmundson and
George Fox, visited Barbados.
When they argued for treating
slaves humanely, the owners
became outraged and drove
the Friends off the island.
The pirates just laughed;
teasing the rich never got old.
Later they found out that George
published his Barbados sermons
in a little book that again urged
people to treat their slaves better.
Someone got hold of a copy
and passed it around the taverns,
spawning all manner of jokes.
A few years after those incidents,
Friend Alice Curwen traveled to
Barbados and pestered one of
the locals, Friend Martha Tavernor,
to release the slaves she owned.
It wasn't quite the catfight that
the pirates typically bet on,
but they bet on it anyway.
Eventually Alice won,
and her allies collected
their bets, and nobody
thought too much of it yet.
In 1683, William Penn
created a new colony
called Pennsylvania,
aimed at fostering love
and a spirit of brotherhood.
He insisted that the settlers pay
Indians a fair price for native land,
treat natives with dignity, and
respect their various cultures.
William even tried to enact
legislation against slavery.
The pirates just chuckled
about it over their rum.
Well, this ought
to get ... interesting.
By the 1690s, some of
the pirates ventured out
on long-distance voyages
from the Americas to raid
East India Company targets
in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.
The island of Bermuda shifted
its economy to maritime business
and incorporated many former slaves
as blacksmiths, masons, carpenters,
coopers, shipwrights, and sailors.
Then in 1692, disaster struck:
an earthquake and a great wave
severely damaged Port Royal.
Pirates and Friends alike
flocked to Jamaica and
rendered aid to survivors.
They quickly rebuilt the town
on safer ground, leaving only
the docks at sea level, and
renamed it Port Liberty.
Some pirates still shifted
their routes to Nassau on
New Providence Island in
the Bahamas, which was well
placed and hadn't been flattened.
On October 23, 1696 the Friends
in Philadelphia ruled against bringing
in any new slaves, and urged those
who still owned slaves to treat them
well and to take them to Meetings.
By this point the pirates were
used to it, because their crews
were mostly mixed and if you had
Friends then you also had Meetings,
because any two or three of them
would stick together like burrs.
The Delaware River had
long been favored for piracy
because of the heavy trade
that ran up and down it.
In 1699, the Friends and
the Pennsylvania Assembly
negotiated with the river pirates,
giving them Tinicum Island as
well as Tinicum Township, with
the understanding that they could
trade in the state and its towns
but could no longer raid in either.
However, the pirates remained free
to attack any enemies of Pennsylvania.
Everyone was very happy with this deal.
[1700s]
Pirate havens continued to emerge,
with Tylerton on Smith Island off
the shore of Virginia, and Eden on
Ocracoke Island off the shore
of North Carolina which had
a sympathetic governor.
In 1701, the War of
the Spanish Succession
broke out, with France and
Great Britain joining the fray.
This offered plentiful opportunities
for privateers to make a profit.
The Pennsylvania Assembly
passed an Act to prevent
the importation of slaves
in 1713, but they had
a hard time enforcing it.
That still marked a step
toward the end of slavery.
After the Spanish Succession
concluded in 1714, many of
the sailors and privateers
were left unemployed.
Some of these turned
to piracy in the Caribbean
and the eastern seaboard
of North America, others
to the Indian Ocean and
the West African coast.
It made for some unrest,
because they were new to
the area and didn't know
all the local customs yet.
So local pirates took to flying
a black flag with a white dove
if they had a Friend in the crew,
and they taught the newcomers
that you could haul alongside
such a ship and ask for help if
you needed a negotiator or doctor.
Ships with a Friend for a captain
flew a white flag with a white dove
on a red-and-black 8-pointed star,
with similar offers of assistance.
In 1715, another antislavery tract
made the rounds of the Caribbean,
this one with a long list of reasons
why it was such a terrible idea.
In Jamaica, the Maroon War
made it a free pirate island in 1730,
and people banned slavery there.
It became a haven, not just
for raiders of all sorts, but
also for freedmen and
for runaway slaves.
In 1733, a publisher in
Rhode Island released
a testimony on slavery, and
this one circulated widely as
one of the notable conjunctions
between Friends and pirates
on the topic of abolition.
The pirates, who had
been drifting more toward
freedom over money, grew
more convinced that slaving
wasn't any way to make a living.
On November 23 of the same year,
Saint John became a free pirate island.
From there the rebellion spread to
the rest of the Danish West Indies.
Saint Thomas followed suit in
1734. Fighting in Saint Croix,
the largest island, continued
until it broke free in late 1736.
In April 1756, a group of Friends
from Philadelphia established
the Friendly Association for
Regaining and Preserving
Peace with the Indians by
Pacific Measures. They
used trade and health care
to cement alliances with tribes.
Louisiana became more and
more friendly to pirates, with
Saint Malo in St. Bernard Parish
becoming a haven for them.
The Carib War made Saint Vincent
into a free pirate island in 1773.
Then slaves in Tobago revolted,
freeing it in 1770, followed by
Trinidad where a long bloody war
left it free in the summer of 1774.
On April 19, 1775, years of
rising discontent in the colonies
boiled over into open war with
the battles of Lexington and
Concord, Massachusetts.
These marked the start of
the American Revolutionary War.
The American Continental Congress
ratified the Declaration of Independence
on July 4, 1776 but only included some of
the antislavery passages from earlier drafts,
and quite a bit from the Custom of the Coast.
On July 15, 1776 the Congress struck a deal
with a large group of pirates and privateers,
the Democratic Armada of the Caribbean.
They agreed to recognize each other
as nations and to work together as
allies against hostile European forces.
The Americans offered control
of Rhode Island to the Armada,
along with support of its claims
to various other locations, in
exchange for military support.
The Armada was happy to secure
Rhode Island and delighted to attack
every British vessel they could find.
A key feature of the Armada, however,
was that they based their identity on
ships as much as on pieces of land.
On July 8, 1777 the Vermont Republic
became the first state to outlaw slavery.
Then on March 1, 1780 Pennsylvania
passed an act for gradual abolition.
In 1781, the slave ship Zong ran
into trouble, and the crew debated
throwing its human cargo overboard.
Then the pirate ship Black Guillemot
discovered the slave ship and boarded
her, staging the Zong Rescue, in which
they freed all of the African captives.
Luke Collingwood and most of his crew
were either killed on board or thrown
overboard, by pirates or freed Africans.
A majority of the 132 Africans became pirates.
Due in large part to excellent alliances with
the Democratic Armada of the Caribbean
and several Native American tribes,
the Revolutionary War came to
an end on September 3, 1781.
In January of 1791, the island of
Dominica became a free pirate island
and thus outlawed slavery there.
A few months later, Spirit Island,
between Dominica and Martinique,
was set aside for the Carib People.
Pirates being a superstitious bunch,
they just didn't want to mess with it.
Also the island of Hispaniola, previously
divided as French Saint-Domingue and
Spanish Santo Domingo, became
a free pirate island, took the name
of Haiti, and banned slavery.
On February 1, 1793 France
and Great Britain went to war.
Privateers all over the Caribbean
rushed to seek Letters of Marque.
By 1795, the society of pirates
had gained considerable momentum,
with smaller groups joining the Armada
and more islands throwing off overlords.
In that year alone, Grenada, Saint Lucia,
and Curaçao all became free pirate islands
and banned slavery in their holdings.
[1800s]
In 1800, it became
a disownable offense
for Friends to own slaves
anywhere, even down in
the southern slave states.
Friends in those states who
owned slaves were obligated
to move somewhere else that
emancipating slaves was legal.
Some simply took up with pirates,
who generally favored freedom
and whose ships and crews
included many former slaves.
Louisiana became more of
a pirate haven with places such
as Manila Village in Barataria Bay.
The Friends had some successes in
sustaining fair treatment of tribal people.
These alliances helped the growing nation
develop good practices and withstand
pressures from foreign countries.
In 1803, attempts to enslave
free passengers of color from
ships docking in Cuba sparked
a rebellion that ended with Cuba
becoming a free pirate island in 1804.
A population of Taino, who had previously
escaped European invaders and hidden
in the mountains or settled elsewhere,
reappeared and became more willing
to trade with the current residents of
Cuba and the pirates who visited there.
In April of 1816, Bussa's Rebellion
made Barbados a free pirate island,
and they banned slavery there.
Then in 1821, Marcos Xiorro
led a great slave revolt against
the sugar plantation owners and
the Spanish Colonial government.
As a result, Puerto Rico became
a free pirate island, outlawing slavery.
During the 1840s to 1850s, Friends
hired freedom seekers and free blacks
to work on their farms and build cabins.
They encouraged black families
to send their children to school
and participate in community life.
Many of these families prospered
and in time bought their own land.
One such cluster of cabins, which
developed on property owned
by Friend James E. Bonine,
turned into Ramptown.
Eventually that became
a key black owned and
operated town, including
Friends among its residents
as well as closest neighbors.
Ramptown sent out missionaries
to teach other people, particularly
in the Caribbean, how to get along
and establish a healthy municipality.
This improved life and society there.
On April 12, 1861 the American Civil War
broke out over slavery, state rights, and
a bunch of other arguments that people
just couldn't seem to work through.
Then on April 29, 1861 the Union
met with the Democratic Armada
of the Caribbean and made a deal.
They offered the Armada control
of Florida and Louisiana along
with some coastal islands such as
Smith Island off the coast of Virginia
and Ocracoke Island off the shore
of North Carolina, which the nations
had previously been sharing and
sometimes bickering about.
In exchange, the Armada
blockaded the Gulf of Mexico
so that neither merchant nor
military vessels could easily
aid the Confederate States.
At this time, the Armada
also voted to ban slavery
throughout their territory,
rather individually on
some ships and islands.
Similarly, female pirates
insisted on certain rights
for women of all stations.
On September 22, 1862
President Abraham Lincoln
issued new legislation, and
the Emancipation Proclamation
took effect immediately, freeing
all slaves held within America.
During the American Civil War,
the Bahamas followed by the Turks
and Caicos Islands became members in
the Democratic Armada of the Caribbean.
By this point, most of the islands had
shaken off European control and
taken charge of their own fate.
Despite having developed from
brigands and buccaneers, they
had learned enough skills from
the Friends to create societies
that were stable, comfortable
to live in, and most importantly
not based on enslaving anyone.
In May of 1863, the Civil War ended,
largely due to support from the Armada
which generally opposed slavery.
The Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States
was proposed on January 31, 1864.
It prohibited slavery and included
references to the penitentiary practices
by the Religious Society of Friends, so it
also forbade forced labor without pay.
Instead, prison wages must be saved
for payment upon release, giving
former inmates a temporary means
of support such that they could
secure a home and a legal job.
The Thirteenth Amendment was
ratified on December 6, 1864.
In the late 1800s, pirates
established a new haven
in Galveston town on
the island of Galveston
just off the Texas Shore.
The western states were
developing gradually, and
everyone wanted access
for trade or smuggling.
Texas just grumbled and
let them have it, lacking
the resources to dispute
possession so soon after
the South lost the Civil War.
Europe wasn't any happier,
but by then it was clear that
the pirates of the Caribbean
weren't going anywhere.
The Democratic Armada of
the Caribbean was just too
powerful and appealing for it
to fade away into the waves.
The United States and
the Armada enjoyed
a close if sometimes ...
peppery relationship.
At the turn of the century,
it looked like smooth sailing.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its map and content notes appear separately.
"The Democratic Armada of the Caribbean"
[1600s]
Not long after the Europeans
arrived in the New World,
the pirates followed them.
In the 1500s, pirate havens
began to spring up all around
the islands of the Caribbean Sea.
San Juan, Puerto Rico was
among the first, and key in
smuggling throughout the area.
Portsmouth, Dominica became
a major port of call for the Spanish
and the English, which also made
the town into a prime hub for piracy.
By the 1600s, more had emerged.
Santa Isabel Village located on
Isla de Provedencia was one.
Some even appeared on
the Spanish Main, including
Xcalak and Portobelo.
In 1636, the Caribs drove
the European invaders
from their island Matinino.
After that, they preferred
to trade with the pirates.
Port Morgan, Île-à-Vache
near Hispaniola as well as
Tap House on St. Thomas
began to gain more traffic.
To the north, two towns in
Rhode Island grew popular with
pirates, Providence and Newport.
Tortuga Village on Tortuga Island,
part of the larger Hispaniola, was
the most famous for many years,
despite all of the giant turtles.
It was a golden age for pirates.
Then something interesting happened.
The Religious Society of Friends, who
were pacifists of all rare things, started
reaching out to the pirates in ports.
A few even started to take ship,
speaking of peace, and because
they were skilled at negotiation,
the Friends were ... tolerated.
The founder, George Fox,
annoyed a lot of stuffy people.
Pirates found that amusing,
and the Friends entertaining,
if more than a bit perplexing.
In the 1650s, female Friends
connected with female pirates,
teaming up to advance the rights
of women on an even wider scale.
The female pirates started to provide
escape routes for abused women
in general, frustrating men in power.
Bermuda had been stewing for a while,
and unrest finally erupted into revolt
in 1656 that made it a free pirate island.
Another great pirate haven arose in
Port Royal, Jamaica as people built
taverns, whorehouses, trading posts,
and other maritime attractions.
George Fox began to express
his doubts about slavery.
The pirates listened with
half an ear, because on
the one hand, freedom was
vital to their way of life, but
on the other hand, they were
mostly motivated by money.
The Friends were always
getting into trouble, though,
and pirates appreciated that.
In 1660, female pirates rescued
Mary Dyer from intended execution
and hauled her to the Caribbean
to prevent her from returning
to danger in New England.
It took her well over a year
to forgive them for uprooting her.
More pirate havens emerged as
foreign ships harassed older ones,
like Petit Goâve on Saint Domingue.
The British attempted to take control
of the Cayman Islands in 1670, which
ended with their official establishment
as free pirate islands -- and a lot of
British sailors getting fed to the basks
of truly enormous crocodiles that swam
around the beaches and the rivers
of the islands named for them.
Several Friends, including
William Edmundson and
George Fox, visited Barbados.
When they argued for treating
slaves humanely, the owners
became outraged and drove
the Friends off the island.
The pirates just laughed;
teasing the rich never got old.
Later they found out that George
published his Barbados sermons
in a little book that again urged
people to treat their slaves better.
Someone got hold of a copy
and passed it around the taverns,
spawning all manner of jokes.
A few years after those incidents,
Friend Alice Curwen traveled to
Barbados and pestered one of
the locals, Friend Martha Tavernor,
to release the slaves she owned.
It wasn't quite the catfight that
the pirates typically bet on,
but they bet on it anyway.
Eventually Alice won,
and her allies collected
their bets, and nobody
thought too much of it yet.
In 1683, William Penn
created a new colony
called Pennsylvania,
aimed at fostering love
and a spirit of brotherhood.
He insisted that the settlers pay
Indians a fair price for native land,
treat natives with dignity, and
respect their various cultures.
William even tried to enact
legislation against slavery.
The pirates just chuckled
about it over their rum.
Well, this ought
to get ... interesting.
By the 1690s, some of
the pirates ventured out
on long-distance voyages
from the Americas to raid
East India Company targets
in the Indian Ocean and Red Sea.
The island of Bermuda shifted
its economy to maritime business
and incorporated many former slaves
as blacksmiths, masons, carpenters,
coopers, shipwrights, and sailors.
Then in 1692, disaster struck:
an earthquake and a great wave
severely damaged Port Royal.
Pirates and Friends alike
flocked to Jamaica and
rendered aid to survivors.
They quickly rebuilt the town
on safer ground, leaving only
the docks at sea level, and
renamed it Port Liberty.
Some pirates still shifted
their routes to Nassau on
New Providence Island in
the Bahamas, which was well
placed and hadn't been flattened.
On October 23, 1696 the Friends
in Philadelphia ruled against bringing
in any new slaves, and urged those
who still owned slaves to treat them
well and to take them to Meetings.
By this point the pirates were
used to it, because their crews
were mostly mixed and if you had
Friends then you also had Meetings,
because any two or three of them
would stick together like burrs.
The Delaware River had
long been favored for piracy
because of the heavy trade
that ran up and down it.
In 1699, the Friends and
the Pennsylvania Assembly
negotiated with the river pirates,
giving them Tinicum Island as
well as Tinicum Township, with
the understanding that they could
trade in the state and its towns
but could no longer raid in either.
However, the pirates remained free
to attack any enemies of Pennsylvania.
Everyone was very happy with this deal.
[1700s]
Pirate havens continued to emerge,
with Tylerton on Smith Island off
the shore of Virginia, and Eden on
Ocracoke Island off the shore
of North Carolina which had
a sympathetic governor.
In 1701, the War of
the Spanish Succession
broke out, with France and
Great Britain joining the fray.
This offered plentiful opportunities
for privateers to make a profit.
The Pennsylvania Assembly
passed an Act to prevent
the importation of slaves
in 1713, but they had
a hard time enforcing it.
That still marked a step
toward the end of slavery.
After the Spanish Succession
concluded in 1714, many of
the sailors and privateers
were left unemployed.
Some of these turned
to piracy in the Caribbean
and the eastern seaboard
of North America, others
to the Indian Ocean and
the West African coast.
It made for some unrest,
because they were new to
the area and didn't know
all the local customs yet.
So local pirates took to flying
a black flag with a white dove
if they had a Friend in the crew,
and they taught the newcomers
that you could haul alongside
such a ship and ask for help if
you needed a negotiator or doctor.
Ships with a Friend for a captain
flew a white flag with a white dove
on a red-and-black 8-pointed star,
with similar offers of assistance.
In 1715, another antislavery tract
made the rounds of the Caribbean,
this one with a long list of reasons
why it was such a terrible idea.
In Jamaica, the Maroon War
made it a free pirate island in 1730,
and people banned slavery there.
It became a haven, not just
for raiders of all sorts, but
also for freedmen and
for runaway slaves.
In 1733, a publisher in
Rhode Island released
a testimony on slavery, and
this one circulated widely as
one of the notable conjunctions
between Friends and pirates
on the topic of abolition.
The pirates, who had
been drifting more toward
freedom over money, grew
more convinced that slaving
wasn't any way to make a living.
On November 23 of the same year,
Saint John became a free pirate island.
From there the rebellion spread to
the rest of the Danish West Indies.
Saint Thomas followed suit in
1734. Fighting in Saint Croix,
the largest island, continued
until it broke free in late 1736.
In April 1756, a group of Friends
from Philadelphia established
the Friendly Association for
Regaining and Preserving
Peace with the Indians by
Pacific Measures. They
used trade and health care
to cement alliances with tribes.
Louisiana became more and
more friendly to pirates, with
Saint Malo in St. Bernard Parish
becoming a haven for them.
The Carib War made Saint Vincent
into a free pirate island in 1773.
Then slaves in Tobago revolted,
freeing it in 1770, followed by
Trinidad where a long bloody war
left it free in the summer of 1774.
On April 19, 1775, years of
rising discontent in the colonies
boiled over into open war with
the battles of Lexington and
Concord, Massachusetts.
These marked the start of
the American Revolutionary War.
The American Continental Congress
ratified the Declaration of Independence
on July 4, 1776 but only included some of
the antislavery passages from earlier drafts,
and quite a bit from the Custom of the Coast.
On July 15, 1776 the Congress struck a deal
with a large group of pirates and privateers,
the Democratic Armada of the Caribbean.
They agreed to recognize each other
as nations and to work together as
allies against hostile European forces.
The Americans offered control
of Rhode Island to the Armada,
along with support of its claims
to various other locations, in
exchange for military support.
The Armada was happy to secure
Rhode Island and delighted to attack
every British vessel they could find.
A key feature of the Armada, however,
was that they based their identity on
ships as much as on pieces of land.
On July 8, 1777 the Vermont Republic
became the first state to outlaw slavery.
Then on March 1, 1780 Pennsylvania
passed an act for gradual abolition.
In 1781, the slave ship Zong ran
into trouble, and the crew debated
throwing its human cargo overboard.
Then the pirate ship Black Guillemot
discovered the slave ship and boarded
her, staging the Zong Rescue, in which
they freed all of the African captives.
Luke Collingwood and most of his crew
were either killed on board or thrown
overboard, by pirates or freed Africans.
A majority of the 132 Africans became pirates.
Due in large part to excellent alliances with
the Democratic Armada of the Caribbean
and several Native American tribes,
the Revolutionary War came to
an end on September 3, 1781.
In January of 1791, the island of
Dominica became a free pirate island
and thus outlawed slavery there.
A few months later, Spirit Island,
between Dominica and Martinique,
was set aside for the Carib People.
Pirates being a superstitious bunch,
they just didn't want to mess with it.
Also the island of Hispaniola, previously
divided as French Saint-Domingue and
Spanish Santo Domingo, became
a free pirate island, took the name
of Haiti, and banned slavery.
On February 1, 1793 France
and Great Britain went to war.
Privateers all over the Caribbean
rushed to seek Letters of Marque.
By 1795, the society of pirates
had gained considerable momentum,
with smaller groups joining the Armada
and more islands throwing off overlords.
In that year alone, Grenada, Saint Lucia,
and Curaçao all became free pirate islands
and banned slavery in their holdings.
[1800s]
In 1800, it became
a disownable offense
for Friends to own slaves
anywhere, even down in
the southern slave states.
Friends in those states who
owned slaves were obligated
to move somewhere else that
emancipating slaves was legal.
Some simply took up with pirates,
who generally favored freedom
and whose ships and crews
included many former slaves.
Louisiana became more of
a pirate haven with places such
as Manila Village in Barataria Bay.
The Friends had some successes in
sustaining fair treatment of tribal people.
These alliances helped the growing nation
develop good practices and withstand
pressures from foreign countries.
In 1803, attempts to enslave
free passengers of color from
ships docking in Cuba sparked
a rebellion that ended with Cuba
becoming a free pirate island in 1804.
A population of Taino, who had previously
escaped European invaders and hidden
in the mountains or settled elsewhere,
reappeared and became more willing
to trade with the current residents of
Cuba and the pirates who visited there.
In April of 1816, Bussa's Rebellion
made Barbados a free pirate island,
and they banned slavery there.
Then in 1821, Marcos Xiorro
led a great slave revolt against
the sugar plantation owners and
the Spanish Colonial government.
As a result, Puerto Rico became
a free pirate island, outlawing slavery.
During the 1840s to 1850s, Friends
hired freedom seekers and free blacks
to work on their farms and build cabins.
They encouraged black families
to send their children to school
and participate in community life.
Many of these families prospered
and in time bought their own land.
One such cluster of cabins, which
developed on property owned
by Friend James E. Bonine,
turned into Ramptown.
Eventually that became
a key black owned and
operated town, including
Friends among its residents
as well as closest neighbors.
Ramptown sent out missionaries
to teach other people, particularly
in the Caribbean, how to get along
and establish a healthy municipality.
This improved life and society there.
On April 12, 1861 the American Civil War
broke out over slavery, state rights, and
a bunch of other arguments that people
just couldn't seem to work through.
Then on April 29, 1861 the Union
met with the Democratic Armada
of the Caribbean and made a deal.
They offered the Armada control
of Florida and Louisiana along
with some coastal islands such as
Smith Island off the coast of Virginia
and Ocracoke Island off the shore
of North Carolina, which the nations
had previously been sharing and
sometimes bickering about.
In exchange, the Armada
blockaded the Gulf of Mexico
so that neither merchant nor
military vessels could easily
aid the Confederate States.
At this time, the Armada
also voted to ban slavery
throughout their territory,
rather individually on
some ships and islands.
Similarly, female pirates
insisted on certain rights
for women of all stations.
On September 22, 1862
President Abraham Lincoln
issued new legislation, and
the Emancipation Proclamation
took effect immediately, freeing
all slaves held within America.
During the American Civil War,
the Bahamas followed by the Turks
and Caicos Islands became members in
the Democratic Armada of the Caribbean.
By this point, most of the islands had
shaken off European control and
taken charge of their own fate.
Despite having developed from
brigands and buccaneers, they
had learned enough skills from
the Friends to create societies
that were stable, comfortable
to live in, and most importantly
not based on enslaving anyone.
In May of 1863, the Civil War ended,
largely due to support from the Armada
which generally opposed slavery.
The Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States
was proposed on January 31, 1864.
It prohibited slavery and included
references to the penitentiary practices
by the Religious Society of Friends, so it
also forbade forced labor without pay.
Instead, prison wages must be saved
for payment upon release, giving
former inmates a temporary means
of support such that they could
secure a home and a legal job.
The Thirteenth Amendment was
ratified on December 6, 1864.
In the late 1800s, pirates
established a new haven
in Galveston town on
the island of Galveston
just off the Texas Shore.
The western states were
developing gradually, and
everyone wanted access
for trade or smuggling.
Texas just grumbled and
let them have it, lacking
the resources to dispute
possession so soon after
the South lost the Civil War.
Europe wasn't any happier,
but by then it was clear that
the pirates of the Caribbean
weren't going anywhere.
The Democratic Armada of
the Caribbean was just too
powerful and appealing for it
to fade away into the waves.
The United States and
the Armada enjoyed
a close if sometimes ...
peppery relationship.
At the turn of the century,
it looked like smooth sailing.
* * *
Notes:
This poem is long, so its map and content notes appear separately.