Born a chieftain, Black Caesar spent years avoiding capture by white slavers on the western coasts of Africa. He was successful for a time but eventually found himself captured. He befriended a lone sailor on that ship, and they were the only two to survive an intense storm off the coast of Florida.
Shipwrecked and alone, Caesar turned to one of the few refuges for escaped formerly enslaved people. The golden age of piracy coincided with the height of the slave trade in the Americas. Loathing white colonialism, pirates frequently targeted slave ships, merchant vessels, and plantations throughout the Florida Keys and the Caribbean.
Caesar spent the years following his shipwreck amassing a sizeable fortune of up to $6 million by attacking slave and English merchant vessels. He’d keep any treasures he found, free the enslaved, then enslave the colonists. His reign, and that of other Caribbean pirates, caused havoc for white colonial rule.
Piracy was all about rebelling against white colonial norms and was one of the few viable ways to ensure some semblance of freedom. It earned bonus points as a means of revenge against white slavers. Their rebellion was beneficial for them while causing a headache for the system. It may be about time we do the same and cause a few headaches of our own.