You're listening to an airwave media podcast.

My name is Greg Jackson.

I'm a PhD holding historian, a professor and the creator of history that doesn't suck.

A podcast that makes legit seriously researched

American history come to life through entertaining stories. Join me for a

chronological telling of the United States story. From the revolution to

fractious civil war, tenacious inventors, brave reformers, and more.

With more than 100 episodes, you can already binge a listen to your way from 1776 to the early 20th century.

Listen to history that doesn't suck on Spotify.

Today's episode is brought to you by our supporters on Patreon, including our Commodore class.

That's Commodore's Craig, Kenway, Hefei, Jennings, Drunken-Dac, Two-Gunney, The Pirate Nopales, Matthew the Navigator, Bull, Vertagon, Rumgut, and Bootstraps Bailey, and of course our quartermasters, Samuel and Adam. The Oh, Hello, welcome to the Pirate History Podcast. My name is Matt. Thank you for listening.

Today we're going to introduce My name is Matt. Thank you for listening.

Today we're going to introduce the villains of our story,

not just our current narrative of William Dampier in Southeast Asia,

but the villains of our whole overarching story.

The big bad of pirates and piracy, and it's not pirates, it's not the Royal Navy, nor is it the

Windward Fleet.

If I could be forgiven a Lord of the Rings analogy here,

those two institutions would be the Grema Wormtong and Soramon of this tale. Villains to be sure, but ponds and occasional rivals, of

Sauron, the big faceless evil that casts a shadow over everything in the world.

And if the topic of today's episode is Sauron,

the big bad of Lord of the Rings,

...