Turns out, it wasn’t just in the movies.
Pirate articles, or articles of agreement, were a code of conduct for governing ships of pirates, notably between the 17th and 18th centuries, during the so-called “Golden Age of Piracy”. The typical pirate crew was an unorthodox mixture of former sailors, escaped convicts, disillusioned men, and possibly former or escaped slaves, among others, looking for wealth at any cost; once aboard a seafaring vessel, the group would draw-up their own ship- and crew-specific code (or articles)…
Let’s not get too romantic about pirates. In the Caribbean, the most lucrative goods that ships carried were, in fact, not goods. They were people.
Every ship used a different code that the crew voted and agreed upon jointly. The code determined what benefits were given to a pirate that was maimed or disabled during the taking of a prize, the share he gained from a prize (a taken vessel), and the rights of the crew during the election of a new captain.
When it comes to dividing shares of a prize, among them were ‘rights’ of the crew to take slaves instead of money or goods. At least, on the ship of Henry Morgan.