"Real Pirates" explains the intersection of slavery and piracy

Published Dec. 17, 2012

The National Geographic exhibition is called "Real Pirates," but the sprawling new show at Milwaukee Public Museum is more complex than the name suggests. The focus is the story of the Whydah, but the three-masted, 300-ton galley was built in Britain in 1715 to carry slaves from West Africa to the Caribbean. Suddenly, this is more than a Depp-style fantasy tale of swashbuckling buccaneers.