The Real Pirates of the Caribbean, and Why We Think We Love Them

Even before Captain Jack Sparrow, western audiences have been fascinated by Caribbean pirates. We have projected onto them every romantic characteristic we can imagine, and we have seen ourselves reflected on them, either as children or even as adults.

This presentation will do two things: one, we will go briefly over the history of piracy in the Caribbean, its origins, its very unromantic motivations, its rise, and fall. Then we will talk about some of the most important moments in the popular representations of piracy in western culture, and how they differ from the real pirates, and why, despite it all, we have come to love them.

Juan José Ponce Vázquez is an Associate of Professor of History the University of Alabama. He loves pirates, even though considering all he knows about them, he should not.