Quartermaster

Definition

In a Golden Age pirate company, the senior officer responsible to the crew rather than to the captain. The quartermaster was elected by the company, kept the articles, distributed plunder, mediated disputes among the crew, and held a veto on the captain’s authority in matters not directly concerning the handling of the ship in action. The role bears no relationship to the naval rank of the same name, which referred to a petty officer responsible for steering and signals; the pirate quartermaster was a constitutional officer of the floating republic that a pirate ship’s company nominally was.

The constitutional structure is documented most fully in Bartholomew Roberts’s articles, reproduced at the 1722 Cape Coast Castle trial. John Rackham was Charles Vane’s quartermaster before being elected captain after a 1718 mutiny.