20. The Whydah, by Martin W. Sandler

 

Sandler, M.W. (2017). The Whydah. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

 The Whydah was once captained by the fearsome Black Sam Bellamy, a pirate feared both by other pirates as well as the merchant ships he sought to plunder. This time was considered The Golden Age of Piracy.  The American colonies were young, and the tensions between Britain, Spain, and France offered pirates plenty of easy targets. The Whydah began as a slave ship.  It was captured by Black Sam and his crew and made the flagship of his fleet.  They loaded it with all of their plunder thinking it was the most secure.  Bellamy didn’t anticipate running into what is known as a “perfect storm” off the coast of Cape Cod. The storm sinks the ship not far from shore.  Through the centuries, treasure hunters tried to pinpoint the location and  recover the treasure from the wreck.  The general area of the wreck was known, but the condition of the sea  in the location made it impossible to search further.

The wreck was finally located in  1984 by Barry Clifford and other marine archaeologists.

The remainder of the book talks about the recovery of the artifacts.  It discussed what was found, and how it changed our perception of what a pirate was.

Throughout the story, the author includes plenty of supplementary material that is equally fascinating: the history of the Jolly Roger, the articles a pirate might have signed aboard ship, the strict democratic rule of law aboard pirate ships, myths of pirates, a brief history of diving, and more. Primary source documents in the form of notices, maps, and similar artifacts also occur frequently.

I thought it interesting the way democracy worked on board the pirate ships. It almost parallels growth of similar democratic principles in the American colonies. Pirates became pirates to escape backgrounds and oppression, similar to the early colonist.  When studying democracy, you could bring in the parallels of pirate ship life to better grab the attention of students.

This book was an Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction nominee.  The link below is an interview with the author about his research for writing the book.

 https://www.slj.com/?detailStory=rogues-and-riches-on-the-sea-martin-w-sandlers-the-whydah