17th-18th century piracy

The strategically most important business of Europe's rising economies in the 17th and 18th centuries was the slave trade. Ant the most advanced technology of the age was the ship. Those who controlled the ship and the Atlantic controlled the rising European power.

Meanwhile, the life of a sailor was not much better than the life of a slave. The discipline was harsh, and the living standard on board a ship was as brutish as possible.

So sailors had reason to protest. And they did. According to most sources there were, in every year about 1680-1720 about 30 ships sailing in the seas, captured by a total of ca 2000 sailors.

These ships engaged in capturing more ships, to deprive slave-dealers and other merchants of their often ill-gained goods, and liberate other sailors and slaves. The life of a liberated sailor was often short and he would likely end in a battle or on the gallows, but most sailors who had the choice preferred that to what they were used to, because they in the meantime could live like humans, in a democratic and reasonable affluent society.

There was an understanding between free sailor communities, lower-class American settlers, and plantation slaves, expressed in the language of the English 17th century revolution. Many captured sailors/pirates were saved by the population in the towns where they were about to be hanged, and sailors helped rebellious slaves.

This kind of industrial action could flourish because the main European states of the time were at war with eachother and had no time nor resources to pursue fugitive sailors. The last pirates were hounded down in the 1720s by navies that were then free from other war duty.

Reading
Marcus Rediker: Atlantic pirates in the golden age, Beacon Press 2004
Peter Linebaugh & Marcus Rediker: The many-headed hydra, Beacon Press 2000