Why did piracy boom between 1650 and 1730?

Piracy boomed between about 1650 and 1730 because three things lined up: more treasure on the sea, fewer ships guarding it, and many out-of-work sailors who knew how to fight. Historians call this stretch the Golden Age of Piracy, though they disagree about its exact dates: a period when maritime piracy was a significant factor in the history of the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Valuable cargoes were crossing vast ocean areas to Europe, some regions had reduced European navies, and corrupt, ineffective colonial governments often looked the other way.

The boom came in waves. First came the buccaneers, whose letters of marque were freely granted by the early English governors of Jamaica after England seized the island from Spain in 1655. Their story peaked with Henry Morgan's 1670 expedition to Panama, which saw Panama City plundered, sacked and burned. In the 1690s, pirates sailed to the Indian Ocean, where India's output dwarfed Europe's in goods like silk and calico, and no powerful navies protected local ships or East India companies' vessels.

The last wave is the one in the movies. When the War of the Spanish Succession ended in 1713 and 1714, thousands of seamen, including privateers, were relieved of duty just as colonial trade began to boom. Many were already unhappy: merchant sailors suffered mortality rates as high or higher than the slaves being transported, and living conditions were so poor that many began to prefer a freer existence as pirates.

Some colonial officials did not mind. One defended a pirate because he thought it very harsh to hang people who bring gold to the provinces. Pirates barred from Kingston and a declining Port Royal based themselves at Nassau, in the Bahamas.