A
legendary pirate utopia, supposedly founded sometime in the
1690s.
Here's how the
story goes: Sometime in the 1680s, a
French sailor named
Mission met a
disenchanted Dominican priest named
Father Caraccioli, who
converted Mission to his personal
ideology of
rationalism and
liberty. Mission and Caraccioli became
pirates, and after a
battle with a British ship killed their officers, the pirates elected Mission as their new
captain.
Mission and the other pirates began
raiding ships around the coast of
Africa, specializing in liberating both
money and
slaves. Mission and Caraccioli eventually decided to found a "new
marine republic" called Libertatia on the island of
Madagascar, where they proclaimed that "every man is born
free, and has as much right to what will
support him as to the
air he respires." They decided that they were no longer pirates, so they quit flying the
Jolly Roger and instead flew a
white flag emblazoned with the word "
Liberté".
On Libertatia, all
property was
shared. The pirates and the
liberated slaves built
docks,
houses,
ships, and
fortifications, but no
fences. The
infamous pirate
Thomas Tew joined their ranks as its
Admiral and helped successfully
defend the
island from numerous attacking
European ships.
But no
utopia lasts forever. The Libertatians
quarreled, elected a
democratic government, and began keeping
personal property. The
colony attracted new
settlers, but in 1694, it was destroyed in a
surprise attack by the island
natives. Mission died in a
storm while traveling to
America with Tew.
However, the entire story of Libertatia comes from only one source: "
A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pyrates, Volume 2" by
Captain Charles Johnson -- a
pseudonym of
novelist Daniel Defoe. Aside from the novel "
Robinson Crusoe", Defoe's works include a number of
travel guides for places he'd never traveled to -- in other words, he might have made the whole thing up. Besides, Tew's career is quite well-
documented, and there's nothing to suggest that he had the time to play
Admiral for a
utopian island paradise...
Primary research: Suppressed Transmission: The Second Broadcast by Kenneth Hite, "Libertatia or Death", pp. 82-84.