There are certain subjects folk prefer approached from a distance.
Some would rather not speak of them at all.
Others speak of little else.
Neither habit has ever struck me as particularly useful.
A navigator who marks only calm waters upon a chart soon discovers how little use the chart becomes.
The age in which we sail is filled with contradiction.
Men speak of civilisation whilst funding war.
They speak of liberty whilst denying it to others.
They speak of virtue whilst counting profit.
This is no revelation.
It is merely the world as it presently stands.
Among the matters most commonly argued over, and most commonly misunderstood, is that of slavery.
It exists.
No amount of looking away alters the fact.
It moves through ports, ships, kingdoms, markets, and empires.
Fortunes are built upon it.
Reputations are defended by it.
Entire enterprises depend upon it whilst pretending otherwise.
Treasure Bounty shall not ignore such things.
Nor shall we devote ourselves entirely to them.
Where the record requires mention, mention shall be made.
Where events demand observation, observation shall be given.
No more.
No less.
It is also worth remembering that captivity has never confined itself neatly to a single coast or people.
Many speak as though chains travel only one route across the sea.
The record suggests otherwise.
Across the Mediterranean, countless souls have been carried from their homes and sold in distant ports.
Coastal settlements have been raided.
Fishing villages emptied.
Merchantmen seized.
Ransoms demanded.
The waters between Europe and North Africa have long carried more than cargo.
Men taken from Italy.
From Spain.
From France.
From Ireland.
From England.
Some returned home years later.
Many did not.
Elsewhere, countless Africans have suffered the same fate upon different routes, carried across oceans for the profit of men who preferred accounting to conscience.
Neither reality cancels the other.
Both belong to the same record.
And the record is what concerns us.
The same applies to the merchant families, financiers, privateers, trading houses, and enterprises that shaped ports and kingdoms throughout the age.
Some accumulated fortunes through trade.
Some through war.
Some through privateering.
Some through ventures that modern readers may view very differently from those who participated in them.
Their influence nevertheless altered the course of cities, routes, industries, and nations.
To omit them would not clarify the record.
It would merely leave part of it unexplained.
Certain families, merchant houses, financiers, and maritime enterprises will appear more frequently than others within these pages.
Not because they are beyond criticism.
Nor because they are especially deserving of praise.
But because their influence upon ports, trade routes, industries, cities, and kingdoms was too significant to ignore.
To understand an age requires understanding the people, families, and institutions that helped shape it.
Readers will therefore find such matters appearing from time to time within these pages.
Not because we seek them.
Nor because we avoid them.
But because they were present wherever ships sailed, fortunes were made, and power was exercised.
As for the crew themselves, they hold differing opinions on most matters.
That is usually healthy.
Yet I have never known Cap’n Rumfellow to think much of slavery.
His objections are not scholarly.
Nor are they especially complicated.
He has been known to observe that a man in chains is unlikely to offer useful conversation and makes for poor company aboard a vessel.
From Rumfellow, this is considered a strongly held view.
Treasure Bounty does not exist to celebrate conquest, piracy, war, or bondage.
Neither does it exist to pretend such things are absent from the age.
We observe the tide as it is.
We record what passes before us.
And we leave the reader to draw his own conclusions.
A chart that omits every hazard may appear pleasant.
It is also liable to sink the ship that trusts it.
— Alex Chartwright
From the Chart Room
