I was reading a review of Gabriel Kuhn's book Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy, and among other things, the writer of the review had the following to say:
I appreciate his honesty in exposing the racism of the pirates and their participation in the slave trade; however in his presentation he heavily privileges this information at the expense of information on the connection between piracy and slave rebellions, which was in fact so strong a connection that it motivated the legislation of race and segregation in the new colonies. Kuhn mentions this latter information, but in passing, making it seem that he is more interested in busting the myth of racially liberated and liberating pirates than in exploring the complexity that this contradiction between pirate slavetrading and pirate support for slave rebellions suggests.
I'm pretty interested in this connection with slave rebellions, if it exists, and what (if any) motivating factors can be discerned. I can speculate (an opportunity to rob the masters and gain some new pirates, a common enemy in the slave masters who may also be the wealthy people sending ships after the pirates, or genuine belief in the abolition of slavery among specific pirates or pirate crews, not that any of these are mutually exclusive), but would rather actually read about it if anything is available.
I'm okay with resources in English or Spanish, but English is preferred.
In the 1570s, several English pirates (from the Spanish view) allied with bands of runaway slaves in Panama. These included Francis Drake and John Oxenham. Eventually, Spanish military efforts resulted in peace accords with the slaves and the foundation of two free black towns in Panama, the first in the Americas.
There is a nice synopsis in a relatively recent article by Ruth Pike: Pike, Ruth. "Black rebels: the Cimarrons of sixteenth-century Panama." The Americas 64.2 (2007): 243-266.
For the 1680-1730 period, I've yet to see any verified account of pirates helping with a slave rebellion. There's good amounts of evidence which show pirates of that time treating black people as slaves, but no outright helping enslaved black people by somehow contributing to rebellions. Some governors of colonies wrote of their concerns of slaves running away to pirates - but considering that pirates did engage in the slave trade and the gray area in which the status of black men stood in pirate crews much of the time, it appears that the governors may have been trying to use this threat of slave rebellion via pirates to gain some kind of political position, or at least get authorities back in Europe to take the treat of pirates seriously enough to send more help. Pirates threatened the commerce of the colonies and upset the livelihood of some of their wealthiest and most influential colonists. Exagerating the size of a pirate ship by overestimating their number of crew and guns by a little bit might just get a Governor a new Royal Navy frigate assigned to their waters, and saying pirates might threaten their slave economy might help that effort (and possibly convince some locals to fund the government more so they can outfit privateers they commissioned to hunt the pirates).