We like our history neatly categorized, good guys and bad guys. But the only fully authenticated Golden Age pirate shipwreck ever discovered didn't begin as a pirate ship at all. It started its life as a state-of-the-art instrument of the Atlantic slave trade.

This episode unpacks the three distinct lives of the Whydah Gally: a purpose-built slaver, a floating heavily armed pirate utopia under Black Sam Bellamy, and a legendary treasure buried in shallow water for 260 years. It's a historical chameleon that refuses to let us simplify the past or separate its adventure from its tragedy.

• Commissioned in 1715 by London's foremost slave merchant, the 110-foot galley could hit 13 knots and carried 18 cannons, speed designed to maximize profit on the Middle Passage
• When Bellamy captured it in 1717, he gave the surrendering capt ...