Bartholomew Roberts - Personal Characteristics

Personal Characteristics

Most of the information on Roberts comes from the book A General History of the Pyrates, published a few years after Roberts' death. The original 1724 title page credits one Captain Charles Johnson as the author. (The book is often printed under the byline of Daniel Defoe, on the assumption that "Charles Johnson" is a pseudonym, but there is no proof Defoe is the author, and the matter remains in dispute.) Johnson devotes more space to Roberts than to any of the other pirates in his book, describing him as:

... a tall black Man, near forty Years of Age ... of good natural Parts, and personal Bravery, tho' he apply'd them to such wicked Purposes, as made them of no Commendation, frequently drinking 'Damn to him who ever lived to wear a Halter'. —A General History of the ... Pyrates (1724), p.213

After his exploits in Newfoundland the Governor of New England commented that "one cannot with-hold admiration for his bravery and courage". He hated cowardice, and when the crews of 22 ships in Trepassey harbour fled without firing a shot he was angry at their failure to defend their ships.

Roberts was the archetypal pirate captain in his love of fine clothing and jewelry, but had some traits unusual in a pirate, notably a preference for drinking tea rather than rum. He is often described as a teetotaler and a Sabbatarian, but there is no proof of this. He certainly disliked drunkenness while at sea, yet it appears that he drank beer. Ironically, Roberts' final defeat was facilitated by the drunkenness of his crew. The Sabbatarian claim arises from the fact that musicians were not obliged to play on the Sabbath – this may merely have been intended to ensure the musicians a day's rest, as they were otherwise obliged to play whenever the crew demanded.

Black Bart was not as cruel to prisoners as some pirates such as Edward Low, but did not treat them as well as did Samuel Bellamy, Howell Davis or Edward England. Roberts sometimes gave cooperative captains and crews of captured ships gifts, such as pieces of jewelry or items of captured cargo. He would sometimes ill-use prisoners if he felt that the crew demanded it, but:

When he found that rigour was not expected from his people (for he often practised it to appease them), then he would give strangers to understand that it was pure inclination that induced him to a good treatment of them, and not any love or partiality to their persons; "For", says he, "there is none of you but will hang me, I know, whenever you can clinch me within your power." —A General History of the ... Pyrates (1724), p.183

In 1997, one author claimed that Bartholomew Roberts was a female transvestite. It was argued that Roberts' corpse was thrown overboard to conceal this fact. The book did not explain why, if Roberts were a woman, "she" would draw up articles that provided the death penalty for bringing a woman aboard in disguise, which would have led to "her" own death had "she" been discovered. Other than the disposal of Roberts' body, no evidence was produced to support the thesis, and it has not been accepted by the majority of nautical historians. It was fairly common for pirate captains to request that their bodies be dumped into the sea if they die in battle, so there corpses would not be desecrated and put on display by various navys. Whatever the truth of Roberts' gender, he could not possibly have been Anne Bonny in disguise, as some supporters of the thesis have claimed. Bonny was aboard Calico Jack Rackham's sloop, cruising off Jamaica in October 1720, at the same time that Roberts, on the Royal Fortune, was in the mid-Atlantic trying to reach the Cape Verde islands.