Libertalia was a legendary free colony founded by pirates led by Captain Misson,[1] although most historians have expressed doubts over its existence outside of literature.
Like some historically documented pirates, they practiced direct democracy, where the people as a whole held the authority to make laws and rules, and also used systems of councils composed of delegates who were supposed to think of themselves as "comrades" of the general population, not rulers.
[4] The pirate utopia's motto was "for God and liberty," and its flag was white,[5] in contrast to a Jolly Roger.
In Rome he ran into Caraccioli – a "lewd Priest" who over the course of long voyages with little to do but talk, gradually converted Misson and a sizeable portion of the rest of the crew to his way of thinking: he fell upon Government, and shew'd, that every Man was born free, and had as much Right to what would support him, as to the Air he respired... that the vast Difference betwixt Man and Man, the one wallowing in Luxury, and the other in the most pinching Necessity, was owing only to Avarice and Ambition on the one Hand, and a pusillanimous Subjection on the other.
[8][9] There were pirate settlements on and around Madagascar, on which Libertalia may have been based: Abraham Samuel at Port Dauphin, Adam Baldridge at Ile Ste.-Marie, and James Plaintain at Ranter Bay were all ex-pirates who founded trading posts and towns.