'Black Sails' Is Based on Real History, however It's Not Completely Accurate

'Black Sails' features some real historical figures in addition to some people who are utterly fictional.

Apr. 17 2024, Published 11:13 a.m. ET

Although the display has been over for several years, Black Sails was offered to an entirely new audience when it arrived on Netflix in 2024. Following its arrival, many who are new to the show have questions on it, and those questions vary from what the show is about to whether it is based on actual history.

The sequence follows Captain Flint, a good, fearsome pirate who sails the high seas in 1715 and fights for the liberty of a debauched island that he loves.

The display lasted for 4 seasons, working from 2014 to 2017 on Starz, and many want to know whether any of the tales it tells are true. Here's what we know about whether or not Black Sails is a true story.

Is 'Black Sails' a true story?

Black Sails artfully combines fiction and precise historical past, regularly inserting fictional characters in and around exact events. Some of the pirates on the show, like Charles Vane, are real folks from historical past. Many of the show's central characters, though, together with Captain Flint and Long John Silver, are fictional. In reality, Black Sails is riffing on some of the fashionable items of pirate fiction ever written.

'Black Sails' is based on 'Treasure Island.'

The collection is a prequel to Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island, and features many of the identical characters as that novel. The novel was once the primary to amalgamate actual history with fictional characters, and Black Sails is merely taking a web page out of the same playbook. Some of the individuals are real figures, whilst others are fictional. The similar is true for the events of the collection. Some of the main ones in reality came about, whilst others are totally made up.

The co-existence of fictional characters with actual historical figures allowed the show to be flexible in its storytelling, and gave it area to diverge from precise historical past when the story can be better off as a end result. Over the course of its 4 seasons, Black Sails built-in fiction and history more effectively than maximum TV displays ever have.

Which pirates in 'Black Sails' are based on actual folks?

Although lots of the display's primary characters are fictional, the show additionally contains appearances, every so often in outstanding roles, by way of real pirates like Blackbeard, Charles Vane, Anne Bonny, Benjamin Hornigold, Jack Rackham, Ned Low, and Israel Hands.

Some of those characters don't get major roles on the display, however others, like Charles Vane, are in fact relatively prominent as characters.

Charles is a nice example of the way that real historic figures may just co-exist with fiction on Black Sails. While he was initially meant to have a small function on the display, he turned into a fan favourite to such an extent that his function was increasingly prominent as the show went on.

Now that Black Sails is on Netflix, it is likely to earn a a lot wider target audience than it did when it was still on Starz. On best of that, it's going to most likely inspire many more other people to know about the real historical figures the display is based on, and perhaps even learn Treasure Island too.

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