August 18, 2026 • 11 mins
Love a good pirate story? This is a real life story of the most successful pirate in history. Black Bart Roberts was a gentleman who reluctantly became a pirate . . but who ultimately was a cold blooded killer as he plundered 400 ships in just 3 years, 10 times as many as Blackbeard! He was finally killed in battle at just 39 and it was the death knell for the Golden Age of Piracy.
Feel free to DM me if you have a story you’d like me to cover . . on Facebook it’s Patty Steele and on Instagram Real Patty Steele.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
What is it we love about pirates stories? We watched
flicks like Pirates of the Caribbean and we're rooting for
the pirates like Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbosa, Will Turner and
Elizabeth Swan. They kill whoever gets in their way and
take other people's stuff. So is it the adventure, the freedom,
the danger that we love? In the real life Golden
(00:21):
Age of piracy, there were a handful of legends, but
one stands out as the most successful of all. I'm
Patty Steele. Black Bart Roberts was a fastidius gentleman, but
he killed untold numbers and captured more ships than any
other any short run at the top. That's next on
the backstory. The backstory is back. The adventurous life of
(00:47):
a pirate seems like a thrill a minute, right, And
it was as long as you don't mind that life
was very short and very violent. That's what the life
of black Bart Roberts was all about. But he didn't
start out that way. He was born John Roberts in
sixteen eighty two in a little town on the Atlantic
coast of Wales. Not much is known about his early life,
(01:09):
but his childhood ended abruptly when he went to sea
at the age of thirteen. Now that's not as unusual
as it sounds for a poor kid. It was a
story of a lot of Welsh and English boys in
the late sixteen hundreds. The sea was kind of a
ladder out of poverty. It was brutal, dangerous, and often deadly,
but it paid and it took you everywhere if you survived.
(01:32):
For twenty five years, John Roberts sailed. He served on
merchant ships and eventually on slave ships. By seventeen nineteen,
he was the third mate aboard a slaving vessel called
the Princess. The ship was anchored off the coast of
what is now Ghana, loading its human cargo. When everything changed,
Howell Davis showed up. Like John Roberts, he was from Wales,
(01:56):
but he was also a pirate, a charming, cunning, room
ruthless one. And on that summer day in seventeen nineteen,
Davis's ship, the Royal Rover, sailed into the anchorage and
seized the Princess without much of a fight. Now here's
the thing. When pirates captured a ship, they didn't just
steal the cargo. They also took the crew, or at
(02:17):
least part of it. Skilled sailors, carpenters, surgeons, navigators were
often forced to join the pirate crew, whether they liked
it or not. They were needed, and John Roberts was
a really good and experienced navigator. Now, the problem is,
he wasn't at all interested in becoming a pirate. He
was thirty seven years old, respectable, on a path to
(02:39):
maybe someday becoming a captain of his own merchant ship.
On the other hand, becoming a pirate meant a short,
violent life, likely with a rope at the end of it,
but with little choice, off he went. Then just six
weeks later, everything changed again. The pirate who captured him,
Howell Davis, got himself killed while trying to capture a
(03:01):
local Portuguese official on an island off the west coast
of Africa. Suddenly, Howell's ship, the Royal Rover, had no
captain and the crew, a rowdy but democratic bunch. Like
most pirate crews, decided to hold an election. They voted
for John Roberts to be the new captain. So the
guy who'd been a pirate for less than two months
(03:23):
and an unwilling one at that, went from being a
very reluctant new recruit to captain in just a matter
of weeks. How did that happen? Well, the crew summed
it up by saying Roberts was smart and a phenomenal navigator.
He was also tall, imposing, and strong willed. He had presence,
he was well spoken. So he accepted the position with
(03:45):
a line that became legendary. He said, since I have
dipped my hands in muddy water and must be a pirate,
it's better being a commander than a common man. He
then took the name Bartholomew Roberts, and the legend of
Black Bart was born. Now here's what you have to
understand about this guy. He wasn't just successful, he was
(04:06):
terrifyingly successful. Within weeks of taking over the ship, he
sailed across the Atlantic to the coast of Brazil. Next,
he did something really gutsy. He and his crew came
upon a fleet of forty two Portuguese merchant ships anchored
together waiting for their military escort. Forty two ships, Bart
(04:27):
sailed right into the middle of them. He quietly boarded
one and with the help of a pistol, calmly asked
the captain to point out the richest vessel in the fleet.
The man pointed it out, Bart sailed over and attacked it.
He and his crew made off with an absolute fortune
in gold, jewelry, and sugar. He snagged forty thousand gold
(04:49):
coins that alone were worth by today's standards, as much
as ninety million dollars, and the jewelry stolen included a
diamond cross meant for the King of Portugal. It was
the one Bart would be wearing just a few years
later when he was shot dead. But it's still relatively
early now in his story. And from that huge success,
(05:10):
he became unstoppable. His territory ranged from Newfoundland to Brazil
to West Africa. He captured ships by the dozens. In
June of seventeen twenty, he sailed into a harbor in
Newfoundland with just his one vessel and twenty two ships,
and the harbor itself surrendered to him without firing a
shot twenty two just from the site of Black Bart
(05:33):
coming at them. Apparently, when one of the ships tried
to escape, he had his men set it on fire,
just to set an example. In the meantime, Bart wrote
a pirate code, his famous articles that governed his crew
lights out at eight pm. No gambling for money, no
women aboard the ship. Every man got a vote, They
(05:54):
got compensation for injuries, and equal shares of the loot,
with slightly more for all. It was actually more democratic
and better organized than most government navies of the era.
Because of that, his crew was considered the most disciplined, loyal,
and effective in the business. And much like twentieth century
mob boss John Gotti, called the Dapper Dawn, Bart had style.
(06:18):
He dressed impeccably. He drank tea, no rum. He was,
by the standards of pirates, oddly religious. He insisted on
observing the Sabbath, musicians and his crew were guaranteed day
off on Sundays. Bart was a total paradox, a devout,
tea drinking, charismatic leader who was also arguably the most greedy,
(06:40):
murderous pirate the Atlantic had ever seen. But here's the thing,
Just like John Gotti, when you're that successful, people notice
by early seventeen twenty two, Roberts had captured, by most estimates,
more than four hundred vessels. You got to compare that
to the more well known pirate Blackbeard, who only captured
(07:00):
about forty ships in his whole career ten times fewer.
The thing is, he was upending the entire Atlantic slave trade.
He was disrupting sugar shipments. He was basically turning shipping
in the Atlantic upside down. And the British Royal Navy
had had enough of it. They sent the HMS Swallow,
a fifty gun warship under Captain Challoner Ogel, with one mission,
(07:25):
find Bart Roberts and destroy him. On February fifth, seventeen
twenty two, the Brits found Bart's small fleet anchored off
the coast of central West Africa. They lured one of
Bart's ships out to sea and took it after a
short battle. Five days later, they went back in for more.
Bart's crew was hung over after capturing a merchant ship
(07:47):
the day before and drinking its cargo. When the HMS
Swallow appeared on the horizon. Bart was calmly eating breakfast.
He put on his finest clothes, his crimson waistcoat, his
diamond and cross made for the Portuguese king, and his
pistols on a silk sling. He was ready for battle.
He had a good plan. He'd sail straight at the Swallow,
(08:10):
taking one broadside and then raced past it into open
ocean where he could out maneuver her. It was the
kind of brilliant tactical move that had made him legendary.
Problem is, his luck was running low. The plan almost worked,
I said almost. His hungover helmsman didn't turn the ship correctly,
(08:31):
and it wound up taking a full broadside of grape shot,
and Bartholomew Roberts, the Gentleman pirate, the greatest pirate of
the Golden Age of piracies, took a shot to the throat,
dying almost instantly standing on his own deck in his
Crimson finery. His crew, following his standing orders, wrapped his
(08:51):
body in his sailcloth, weighted it with chains, and slid
it over the side into the sea. To this day,
Bartholomew Roberts lies somewhere in the Atlantic, off the coast
of Africa, in an unmarked ocean grave, exactly as he
wanted and expected. The surviving members of his crew were captured.
(09:12):
Fifty four of them were hanged. Following the largest pirate
trial in history, and with Blackbard's death at thirty nine,
historians agree the Golden Age of piracy came to an end.
There were pirates after him, of course, but never again
would one man in one lifetime capture four hundred ships
and hold the Atlantic in his fist. So why does
(09:35):
Blackbeard get the movies and the theme park rides named
after him, while Bartholomew Roberts black Bart, the actual king
of Pirates, gets forgotten, Well partly because Blackbeard was a showman.
He literally set his own beard on fire before battle.
Black Bart, on the other hand, drank tea and went
to church. But in the end he was unbelievably successful,
(09:58):
which got the attention of the powers that bee and
led to the end of people like him. He was
a dichotomy. He was a devout Christian and a mass murderer.
He put his crew first, but he took whatever he wanted,
no matter the cost in human lives. Black Bart Roberts
was democratic to his crew, but he was merciless to
(10:19):
his enemies, along with folks that simply got in his way.
I hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please
leave a review. I'd love it if you'd subscribe or
follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and
feel free to DM me if you have a story
you'd like me to cover on Facebook It's Patty Steele
and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The
(10:49):
Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premier Networks, the Elvis
Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Mike Pizeglia.
Our writer is Jake Kushner. Episodes are out every Tuesday
and Friday, and feel free to reach out to me
with comments and story suggestions on Instagram at reel Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
(11:11):
to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history
you didn't know you needed to know.
What is it we love about pirates stories? We watched
flicks like Pirates of the Caribbean and we're rooting for
the pirates like Jack Sparrow, Hector Barbosa, Will Turner and
Elizabeth Swan. They kill whoever gets in their way and
take other people's stuff. So is it the adventure, the freedom,
the danger that we love? In the real life Golden
(00:21):
Age of piracy, there were a handful of legends, but
one stands out as the most successful of all. I'm
Patty Steele. Black Bart Roberts was a fastidius gentleman, but
he killed untold numbers and captured more ships than any
other any short run at the top. That's next on
the backstory. The backstory is back. The adventurous life of
(00:47):
a pirate seems like a thrill a minute, right, And
it was as long as you don't mind that life
was very short and very violent. That's what the life
of black Bart Roberts was all about. But he didn't
start out that way. He was born John Roberts in
sixteen eighty two in a little town on the Atlantic
coast of Wales. Not much is known about his early life,
(01:09):
but his childhood ended abruptly when he went to sea
at the age of thirteen. Now that's not as unusual
as it sounds for a poor kid. It was a
story of a lot of Welsh and English boys in
the late sixteen hundreds. The sea was kind of a
ladder out of poverty. It was brutal, dangerous, and often deadly,
but it paid and it took you everywhere if you survived.
(01:32):
For twenty five years, John Roberts sailed. He served on
merchant ships and eventually on slave ships. By seventeen nineteen,
he was the third mate aboard a slaving vessel called
the Princess. The ship was anchored off the coast of
what is now Ghana, loading its human cargo. When everything changed,
Howell Davis showed up. Like John Roberts, he was from Wales,
(01:56):
but he was also a pirate, a charming, cunning, room
ruthless one. And on that summer day in seventeen nineteen,
Davis's ship, the Royal Rover, sailed into the anchorage and
seized the Princess without much of a fight. Now here's
the thing. When pirates captured a ship, they didn't just
steal the cargo. They also took the crew, or at
(02:17):
least part of it. Skilled sailors, carpenters, surgeons, navigators were
often forced to join the pirate crew, whether they liked
it or not. They were needed, and John Roberts was
a really good and experienced navigator. Now, the problem is,
he wasn't at all interested in becoming a pirate. He
was thirty seven years old, respectable, on a path to
(02:39):
maybe someday becoming a captain of his own merchant ship.
On the other hand, becoming a pirate meant a short,
violent life, likely with a rope at the end of it,
but with little choice, off he went. Then just six
weeks later, everything changed again. The pirate who captured him,
Howell Davis, got himself killed while trying to capture a
(03:01):
local Portuguese official on an island off the west coast
of Africa. Suddenly, Howell's ship, the Royal Rover, had no
captain and the crew, a rowdy but democratic bunch. Like
most pirate crews, decided to hold an election. They voted
for John Roberts to be the new captain. So the
guy who'd been a pirate for less than two months
(03:23):
and an unwilling one at that, went from being a
very reluctant new recruit to captain in just a matter
of weeks. How did that happen? Well, the crew summed
it up by saying Roberts was smart and a phenomenal navigator.
He was also tall, imposing, and strong willed. He had presence,
he was well spoken. So he accepted the position with
(03:45):
a line that became legendary. He said, since I have
dipped my hands in muddy water and must be a pirate,
it's better being a commander than a common man. He
then took the name Bartholomew Roberts, and the legend of
Black Bart was born. Now here's what you have to
understand about this guy. He wasn't just successful, he was
(04:06):
terrifyingly successful. Within weeks of taking over the ship, he
sailed across the Atlantic to the coast of Brazil. Next,
he did something really gutsy. He and his crew came
upon a fleet of forty two Portuguese merchant ships anchored
together waiting for their military escort. Forty two ships, Bart
(04:27):
sailed right into the middle of them. He quietly boarded
one and with the help of a pistol, calmly asked
the captain to point out the richest vessel in the fleet.
The man pointed it out, Bart sailed over and attacked it.
He and his crew made off with an absolute fortune
in gold, jewelry, and sugar. He snagged forty thousand gold
(04:49):
coins that alone were worth by today's standards, as much
as ninety million dollars, and the jewelry stolen included a
diamond cross meant for the King of Portugal. It was
the one Bart would be wearing just a few years
later when he was shot dead. But it's still relatively
early now in his story. And from that huge success,
(05:10):
he became unstoppable. His territory ranged from Newfoundland to Brazil
to West Africa. He captured ships by the dozens. In
June of seventeen twenty, he sailed into a harbor in
Newfoundland with just his one vessel and twenty two ships,
and the harbor itself surrendered to him without firing a
shot twenty two just from the site of Black Bart
(05:33):
coming at them. Apparently, when one of the ships tried
to escape, he had his men set it on fire,
just to set an example. In the meantime, Bart wrote
a pirate code, his famous articles that governed his crew
lights out at eight pm. No gambling for money, no
women aboard the ship. Every man got a vote, They
(05:54):
got compensation for injuries, and equal shares of the loot,
with slightly more for all. It was actually more democratic
and better organized than most government navies of the era.
Because of that, his crew was considered the most disciplined, loyal,
and effective in the business. And much like twentieth century
mob boss John Gotti, called the Dapper Dawn, Bart had style.
(06:18):
He dressed impeccably. He drank tea, no rum. He was,
by the standards of pirates, oddly religious. He insisted on
observing the Sabbath, musicians and his crew were guaranteed day
off on Sundays. Bart was a total paradox, a devout,
tea drinking, charismatic leader who was also arguably the most greedy,
(06:40):
murderous pirate the Atlantic had ever seen. But here's the thing,
Just like John Gotti, when you're that successful, people notice
by early seventeen twenty two, Roberts had captured, by most estimates,
more than four hundred vessels. You got to compare that
to the more well known pirate Blackbeard, who only captured
(07:00):
about forty ships in his whole career ten times fewer.
The thing is, he was upending the entire Atlantic slave trade.
He was disrupting sugar shipments. He was basically turning shipping
in the Atlantic upside down. And the British Royal Navy
had had enough of it. They sent the HMS Swallow,
a fifty gun warship under Captain Challoner Ogel, with one mission,
(07:25):
find Bart Roberts and destroy him. On February fifth, seventeen
twenty two, the Brits found Bart's small fleet anchored off
the coast of central West Africa. They lured one of
Bart's ships out to sea and took it after a
short battle. Five days later, they went back in for more.
Bart's crew was hung over after capturing a merchant ship
(07:47):
the day before and drinking its cargo. When the HMS
Swallow appeared on the horizon. Bart was calmly eating breakfast.
He put on his finest clothes, his crimson waistcoat, his
diamond and cross made for the Portuguese king, and his
pistols on a silk sling. He was ready for battle.
He had a good plan. He'd sail straight at the Swallow,
(08:10):
taking one broadside and then raced past it into open
ocean where he could out maneuver her. It was the
kind of brilliant tactical move that had made him legendary.
Problem is, his luck was running low. The plan almost worked,
I said almost. His hungover helmsman didn't turn the ship correctly,
(08:31):
and it wound up taking a full broadside of grape shot,
and Bartholomew Roberts, the Gentleman pirate, the greatest pirate of
the Golden Age of piracies, took a shot to the throat,
dying almost instantly standing on his own deck in his
Crimson finery. His crew, following his standing orders, wrapped his
(08:51):
body in his sailcloth, weighted it with chains, and slid
it over the side into the sea. To this day,
Bartholomew Roberts lies somewhere in the Atlantic, off the coast
of Africa, in an unmarked ocean grave, exactly as he
wanted and expected. The surviving members of his crew were captured.
(09:12):
Fifty four of them were hanged. Following the largest pirate
trial in history, and with Blackbard's death at thirty nine,
historians agree the Golden Age of piracy came to an end.
There were pirates after him, of course, but never again
would one man in one lifetime capture four hundred ships
and hold the Atlantic in his fist. So why does
(09:35):
Blackbeard get the movies and the theme park rides named
after him, while Bartholomew Roberts black Bart, the actual king
of Pirates, gets forgotten, Well partly because Blackbeard was a showman.
He literally set his own beard on fire before battle.
Black Bart, on the other hand, drank tea and went
to church. But in the end he was unbelievably successful,
(09:58):
which got the attention of the powers that bee and
led to the end of people like him. He was
a dichotomy. He was a devout Christian and a mass murderer.
He put his crew first, but he took whatever he wanted,
no matter the cost in human lives. Black Bart Roberts
was democratic to his crew, but he was merciless to
(10:19):
his enemies, along with folks that simply got in his way.
I hope you like the backstory with Patty Steele. Please
leave a review. I'd love it if you'd subscribe or
follow for free to get new episodes delivered automatically, and
feel free to DM me if you have a story
you'd like me to cover on Facebook It's Patty Steele
and on Instagram Real Patty Steele. I'm Patty Steele. The
(10:49):
Backstory is a production of iHeartMedia, Premier Networks, the Elvis
Duran Group, and Steel Trap Productions. Our producer is Mike Pizeglia.
Our writer is Jake Kushner. Episodes are out every Tuesday
and Friday, and feel free to reach out to me
with comments and story suggestions on Instagram at reel Patty
Steele and on Facebook at Patty Steele. Thanks for listening
(11:11):
to the Backstory with Patty Steele. The pieces of history
you didn't know you needed to know.
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