The Republic of Pirates by Colin Woodard

Captains such as Blackbeard, "Black Sam" Bellamy, and Charles Vane rallied with their fellow pirates to create the "Flying Gang," thus establishing the Pirate Republic - a crude, distinctive, and all-too-brief democracy in the Bahamas. Indentured servants became free, blacks and runaway slaves could be equal citizens, and leaders were chosen or deposed by vote.

In cutting off trade routes, sacking slave ships, and severing Europe from its New World, the Pirate Republic shook the very foundations of imperialism and fanned democratic sentiments that would one day drive the American Revolution. The pirates became heroes in the eyes of the people, and in this, their untold story, the glorious Pirate Republic lives again.