Notorious Pirates
Pirates were some of the most vial, low down, untrustworthy people of their times. Maybe that's why we are so fascinated with them.
Let's take a closer look a few of them. Check back often to this page. I intend increasing this page with more pirate articles. Let's dig in.
Click the Name for the link to the article. If you find any information here in to be inaccurate, please send me an email by clicking here.
Sir Henry Morgan
Sir Henry Morgan wasn't an Actual Pirate at all. He was
a Welsh privateer, who made a name in the
Caribbean as a leader of
buccaneers. He was among England's most notorious and
successful privateers.
Henry Morgan was the eldest son of Robert Morgan, a squire of Llanrhymny in Glamorgan, Wales; there is no record of Morgan himself before 1665. He said later that he left school early, and was "more used to the pike than the book." Exquemelin says that he was indentured in Barbados but he was forced to retract and subsequent editions were amended after Morgan sued the publishers for libel and was awarded £200 against the publishers [1]; Richard Browne, his surgeon at Panama, said that Morgan came to Jamaica in 1658, as a young man, and raised himself to "fame and fortune by his valor".[2] Jamaica had been conquered by the English Commonwealth in May, 1655.
His uncle Edward Morgan was Lieutenant-Governor of Jamaica after the Restoration of Charles II of England in 1660, and Henry Morgan married his uncle's daughter Mary. Therefore it is more likely that he was the "Captain Morgan" who joined the fleet of Christopher Myngs in 1663 and accompanied the expedition of John Morris and Jackman when the Spanish settlements at Vildemos, Trujillo and Granada were taken.
In the autumn of 1665, Morgan commanded a ship in the old privateer Edward Mansfield's[3] expedition sent by Sir Thomas Modyford, the governor of Jamaica, which seized the islands of Providence and Santa Catalina. When Mansfield was captured and killed by the Spanish shortly afterwards, Morgan was chosen by the buccaneers as their admiral.
Governor's commission, privateering career
In 1667, he was commissioned by Modyford to capture some Spanish prisoners in Cuba in order to discover details of the threatened attack on Jamaica. Collecting ten ships with five hundred men, Morgan landed on the island and captured and sacked Puerto Principe, then went on to take the fortified and well-garrisoned town of Portobelo, Panama. It is said that Morgan's men used captured Jesuits as human shields in taking the third, most difficult fortress.
The governor of Panama, astonished at this daring adventure, attempted in vain to drive out the invaders, and finally Morgan consented to evacuate the place on the payment of a large ransom. These exploits had considerably exceeded the terms of Morgan's commission and had been accompanied by frightful cruelties and excesses, but the governor of Jamaica endeavored to cover the whole under the necessity of allowing the English a free hand to attack the Spanish whenever possible. In London the Admiralty publicly claimed ignorance about this, whilst Morgan and his crew returned to their base at Port Royal, Jamaica, to celebrate.
Modyford almost immediately entrusted Morgan with another expedition against the Spaniards, and he proceeded to ravage the coast of Cuba. In January 1669, the largest of his ships was blown up accidentally in the course of a carousal on board, with Morgan and his officers narrowly escaping death. In March he sacked Maracaibo, Venezuela which had emptied out when his fleet was first spied, and afterwards spent a few weeks at the Venezuelan settlement of Gibraltar on Lake Maracaibo, torturing the wealthy residents to discover hidden treasure.
Returning to Maracaibo, Morgan found three Spanish ships waiting at the inlet to the Caribbean; these he destroyed or captured, recovered a considerable amount of treasure from one which had run aground and exacted a heavy ransom as the price of his evacuating the place. Finally, by an ingenious stratagem, he faked a landward attack on the fort which convinced the governor to shift his cannon. In doing so, he eluded the enemy's guns altogether and escaped in safety. On his return to Jamaica he was again reproved, but not punished by Modyford.
The Spaniards on their side were moreover acting in the same way, and a new commission was given to Morgan as commander-in-chief of all the ships of war in Jamaica, to levy war on the Spaniards and destroy their ships and stores - the booty gained in the expedition being the only pay. Thus Morgan and his crew were privateers, not pirates. Accordingly, after ravaging the coasts of Cuba and the mainland, Morgan determined on an expedition to Panama.
He recaptured the island of Santa Catalina on December 15, 1670, and on December 27, he gained possession of the castle of Chagres, killing three hundred of the garrison. Then with one thousand four hundred men he ascended the Chagres River, some of the worst swampland in the area. When his force finally appeared outside of Panama they were very weakened and tired.
Burning of Panama and loss of English support
On January 18, 1671, Morgan discovered that Panama had roughly fifteen hundred infantry and cavalry. He split his forces in two, using one to march through the forest and flank the enemy. The Spaniards were untrained and rushed Morgan's line where he cut them down with gunfire, only to have his flankers emerge and finish off the rest of the Spanish soldiers. After looting and taking booty that exceeded a hundred thousand pounds, Morgan had his men burn the city and massacre all its inhabitants, an action considered, to this date, the most barbarous atrocity ever perpetrated by a British pirate against Spanish colonies in America.
However, because the sack of Panama violated a peace treaty between England and Spain, Morgan was arrested and conducted to England in 1672. He was able to prove he had no knowledge of the treaty, and in 1674 Morgan was knighted before returning to Jamaica the following year to take up the post of Lieutenant Governor.
By 1681, then acting governor Morgan had fallen out of favor with the British king, who was intent on weakening the semi-autonomous Jamaican Council, and was replaced by long-time political rival Thomas Lynch. He gained considerable weight and a reputation for rowdy drunkenness.
Retirement
In 1683, Morgan was suspended from the Jamaican Council by the machinations of Governor Lynch. Also during this time, an account of Morgan's disreputable exploits was published by Alexandre Exquemelin, who once had been his confidante, probably as a barber-surgeon, in a Dutch volume entitled De Americaensche Zee-Roovers (History of the Bouccaneers of America). Morgan took steps to discredit the book and successfully brought a libel suit against the book's publisher, securing a retraction and damages of two hundred English pounds (Campbell, 2003). The book nonetheless contributed much to Morgan's ill-reputed fame as a bloodthirsty pirate over time.
When Thomas Lynch died in 1684, his friend Christopher Monck was appointed to the governorship and arranged the dismissal of Morgan's suspension from the Jamaican Council in 1688. Morgan's health had steadily declined since 1681. He was diagnosed with "dropsie", but may have contracted tuberculosis in London, and died August 25, 1688. It is also possible that he may have had liver failure due to his heavy drinking. He is buried in Palisadoes cemetery, which sank beneath the sea after the 1692 earthquake. [1]
Morgan had lived in an opportune time for pirates. He was successfully able to use the conflicts between England and her enemies both to support England and to enrich himself and his crews. With his death, the pirates that would follow would also use this same ploy, but with less successful results. He also was one of the few pirates who was able to retire from his piracy, having had great success, and with little legal retribution.
Edward Low
Captain Edward 'Ned' Low (also Lowe or Loe) was a notorious pirate during the latter days of the Golden Age of Piracy, in the early 18th century. A thief and a scoundrel from a young age, he was born into poverty in Westminster, London in around 1690 and moved to Boston, Massachusetts as a young man. Following the death of his wife during childbirth in late 1719, he became a pirate two years later, operating off the coasts of New England, the Azores, and in the Caribbean.
He captained a number of ships, usually maintaining a small fleet of three or four. Low and his pirate crews captured at least a hundred ships during his short career, burning most of them.[1] Although he was only active for three years, Low remains notorious as one of the most vicious pirates of the age, with a reputation for violently torturing his victims before killing them.[2] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality".[3] The New York Times called him a torturer, whose methods would have "done credit to the ingenuity of the Spanish Inquisition in its darkest days".[4] The circumstances of Low's death, in around 1724, have been the subject of much speculation.
According to Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates, Edward Low was born in Westminster, London, England, in the late 17th century.[5] He was unable to read or write, and "ran wild in the streets of his native parish". A brother was hanged at Tyburn for "thievery".[6]
As a young man, he was a pickpocket and gambler, playing games of chance with the footmen of the nearby House of Commons.[5] Even at a young age, he was of a "quarrelsome nature", always ready to cheat.[7]
Life in Boston
As he grew older, Low tired of pick pocketing and thievery, and turned to burglary. Eventually, he left England, and traveled alone to the New World in around 1710. He spent three to four years in various locations, before settling in Boston, Massachusetts.[6] In Boston, he married Eliza Marble on August 12, 1714 at the First Church of Boston.[8] They had a son, who died when he was an infant, and a daughter named Elizabeth, born in the winter of 1719.[6]
Eliza died in labor, leaving Low with his daughter.[5] The loss of his wife had a profound affect on Low—in his later bloodthirsty career, he would often express regret for the daughter he left behind, and refused to pressgang married men into joining his crews.[6] He would also allow women to return to port safely.[9] At first working honestly as a rigger, in early 1722 he joined a gang of twelve men on a sloop headed for Honduras, where they planned to collect a shipment of logs for resale in Boston.[5][7]
Low was employed as a patron, supervising the loading and carrying of the logs. He came back aboard hungry one day, but was told by the captain he would have to wait to eat, and that he and his men would have to be satisfied with a ration of rum. At this, Low "took up a loaded musket and fired at the captain but missed him, [and] shot another poor fellow through the throat".[10] Following this failed mutiny, Low and his friends were forced to leave the boat. A day later, Low led the twelve man gang—which included Francis Farrington Spriggs—in taking over a small sloop off the coast of Rhode Island. Killing one man during the theft, Low and his crew turned pirate determined "to go in her, make a black Flag and declare War against all the World."[5][4]
Lieutenant
Low was an immediate success as a pirate. Using his newly captured ship, he lay in wait for ships on the well-known shipping route between Boston and New York. A few days afterwards, he and his crew seized a sloop out of Rhode Island, and plundered it. His crew cut the rigging away to prevent the sloop returning too quickly to port to raise the alarm.[7] He then captured a number of unarmed merchantmen near Port Rosemary.[11]
| “ | Of all the pyratical crews that were ever heard of, none of the English name came up to this, in barbarity. Their mirth and their anger had much the same effect, for both were usually gratified with the cries and groans of their prisoners; so that they almost as often murdered a man from the excess of good humour, as out of passion and resentment; and the unfortunate could never be assured of safety from them, for danger lurked in their very smiles | ” |
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—Philip Ashton on his time with Low's crew.[12] |
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Heading south, he began operating in the waters of the Grand Caymans, with a short period as lieutenant to the established pirate George Lowther, who captained the Happy Delivery.[1][11] The Happy Delivery was a 100 ton Rhode Island sloop with eight cannon and ten swivel guns. It was "destroyed by Indians" (given the location, these were almost certainly Taíno, inhabitants of the Greater Antilles, which included the Caymans), and Lowther and his crew transferred to a sloop named the Ranger. Lowther's crew was constantly being increased by desperate sailors willing to join him.[13] Acquiring a taste for cruelty, Low taught Spriggs a torture technique which involved tying a victim's hands with rope between their fingers and setting them alight, burning their flesh down to the bones.[10]
Following a number of successful raids, Lowther eventually captained a large 6-gun brigantine (named Rebecca) on 28 May 1722.[5] He gave it to Low to captain. With a crew of 44, Low amicably dissolved his partnership with Lowther.[11]
Pirate captain
In one notable raid in June 1722, he attacked thirteen New England fishing vessels sheltering at anchor in Port Roseway (Shelburne, Nova Scotia). Although outnumbered, Low hoisted his Jolly Roger flag and declared that no quarter would be given if any resisted. The fleet submitted and Low's men robbed each vessel. Low chose the largest, an 80–ton schooner which he renamed The Fancy and armed with 10 guns, to become his flagship.[1]
He sank the other ships of the fleet, and abandoned the Rebecca. The Boston News Letter of 9 July 1722 published a list of those captured by Low.[12] A number of the fishermen were forced to join Low, including Philip Ashton who escaped in May 1723 on Roatán Island in the Bay Islands of Honduras, and who wrote a detailed account of life aboard Low's pirate ship.[1][14] Before Ashton's escape, he had been beaten, whipped, kept in chains, and threatened with death many times, as he refused to sign Low's articles and become a pirate.[15]
Low's tactics consisted primarily of hoisting false colors and approaching an unsuspecting vessel.[10] Off the coast of St John's, Newfoundland, Low mistook a fully-armed man of war for a fishing boat, and barely escaped.[14] He moved on to Conception Bay, capturing a number of boats around the Grand Banks southeast of Newfoundland before crossing the Atlantic to the Azores. There, he captured a French (or Portuguese – sources differ) pink, a narrow-sterned former man of war which Low rearmed and refitted as his new flagship, naming it the Rose Pink.[16] He also captured an English vessel with two Portuguese passengers aboard. Low had his crew hoist them up and drop them back down from the yard arm several times, until they died.[4] He moved on to the Canaries, Cape Verde and then back across to the coast of Brazil, where he was driven back by foul weather.[14]
| “ | Captain Loe, with the usual Compliments, welcomed me on board, and told me, He was very sorry for my Loss, and that it was not his Desire to meet with any of his Country-men, but rather with Foreigners, excepting some few that he wanted to chastise for their Roguishness, as he call'd it. | ” |
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—Captain George Roberts on a meeting with Low.[17] |
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Low abandoned his plans for plundering the rich shipping trade off the coast of Brazil, and moved on to the Caribbean. A mate on the British ship King Sagamore, George Roberts, recounted a meeting with Low aboard the "Pink". Roberts' ship was captured by Low's fleet, of which he was now styling himself "Commodore".[16]
Capsizing of the Rose Pink
Forty leagues (around 120 nautical miles or 220 km) to the east of Surinam, Low and his fleet of two ships (the Rose Pink and the Fancy, captained by a young Charles Harris) weighed anchor to remove growth such as seaweed and barnacles from the outside of the boats, in a process known as careening, necessary because no dry dock was available to pirates. Still relatively inexperienced, Low ordered too many men to the outside of the boat to work on the buildup, and the Rose Pink tipped over too far. The portholes had been left open, and the vessel took on too much water and sank, with the death of two men. The Pink had been carrying most of the provisions, and Low—now captaining a schooner—and his crew were forced to strictly ration their fresh water to half a pint (around 275 ml) per man, per day.[18]
Failing to reach their initial destination of Tobago due to light winds and strong currents, Low's depleted fleet made it to Grenada, a French-owned island. Hiding most of his men belowdecks, he was permitted to send men ashore for water. The following day, a French sloop was sent out to investigate, but was captured when Low's men came out from hiding. With Low in command of the captured sloop (renamed the Ranger), he gave the schooner (named the Squirrel) to his quartermaster, Spriggs, who renamed it the Delight before sailing away in the middle of the night with a small crew following a disagreement with Low over the disciplining of one of Spriggs' crew.[19]
Early 1723
The new fleet captured many more sloops, including one Low kept, naming it the Fortune. During a trial on 10 July 1723 for a number of Low's crew, a sailor on board the Fortune named John Welland recalled Low stripped his boat, including gold to the value of £150, then beat him and cut off his ear with a cutlass.[21]
Following this, Low's fleet captured a Portuguese ship called the Nostra Signoria de Victoria on 25 January 1723. The Victoria's Portuguese captain allowed a bag containing approximately 11,000 gold moidores (worth at the time around £15,000) to fall into the sea rather than see it captured.[18] One of Low's most particularly noted episodes of cruelty occurred then; in his rage, he slashed off the Portuguese captain's lips with a cutlass, broiled them, and forced the victim to eat them while still hot.[7][18] He then murdered the remaining crew.[1] Low's own men described him as "a maniac and a brute".[15]
A famous story describes Low burning a French cook alive, saying he was a "greasy fellow who would fry well", and another tells he once killed 53 Spanish captives with his cutlass.[7] Some historians, including David Cordingly, believe this was deliberately done to cultivate a ferocious image.[22] Historian Edward Leslie described Low as a psychopath with a history filled with "mutilations, disemboweling, decapitations, and slaughter".[12] Low, like other pirates of the time, would try and intimidate his victims into surrendering, by threatening to kill or torture them. The crew of the ship being robbed would hinder the officers from defending the ship, so afraid were they of reprisals.[23] One failed torture session led to one of Low's crew members accidentally cutting him in the mouth. Botched surgery left Low scarred.[5]
A snow called the Unity was added to the fleet, and used as a tender (a cargo ship), but was abandoned during an encounter with a man of war called the Mermaid.[1] As Low's success increased in the Caribbean, so did his notoriety. Eventually, a bounty was placed on his head, and Low set out for the Azores, again teaming up again with Charles Harris. As they terrorized the Azores, the pressure increased from the authorities, who by now had taken special notice of Edward Low, despite the hordes of pirates in operation at the time.[7]
Defeat and death
Low, Harris and their ships left the Azores for the Carolinas. On 10 June 1723, they suffered a resounding defeat in a battle with HMS Greyhound, a heavily-armed man of war.[11] The Greyhound had been dispatched under the command of Peter Solgard to hunt down Low and his fleet. Low fled in the Fancy with a skeleton crew and £150,000 on board[9] and headed back to the Azores, leaving Harris and the Ranger behind.[7] Twenty-five of the crew of the Ranger, including the ship's doctor, were tried between 10 July and 12 July, with Solgard giving evidence and recounting the battle.[21] The men were hanged for felony, piracy and robbery, near Newport, Rhode Island, on 19 July 1723.[1][11] Harris was returned to England and hanged at Wapping.[24] When Solgard returned to New York, he was presented with the freedom of the city and a gold snuffbox for his part in bringing some of Low's crew to justice.[9]
Low, still captaining the Fancy, sailed north. He captured a whaling vessel 80 miles (130 km) out at sea, and in a foul mood following the encounter with the Greyhound and the loss of his right hand man, Harris, tortured the captain before shooting him through the head. He set the whaler's crew adrift with no provisions, intending them to starve to death (they were lucky, and reached Nantucket after a difficult journey).[4] Remaining off the coast of North America, a fishing boat was taken off Block Island. Low decapitated the ship's master, and sent the crew ashore. When he captured two more fishing boats near Rhode Island, his actions became so savage his crew refused to carry out his orders to torture the fishermen.[4]
Heading south again, Low captured a 22-gun French ship and a large Virginian merchant vessel, the Merry Christmas, in late June 1723. Following the defeat by the Greyhound, Low became "peculiarly cruel" to his English victims.[9] His fleet of three ships rejoined forces with George Lowther in July. In late 1723, Low and Lowther's fleet captured the Delight off the coast of Guinea, mounting fourteen guns on her, with command being given to Spriggs. Two days later, Spriggs and Lowther both abandoned Low, leaving him the Merry Christmas, by now mounted with 34 guns, as his sole ship.[5]
There are conflicting reports on the circumstances of Edward Low's death. Charles Johnson—considered to be Daniel Defoe writing under a pseudonym[25]—stated in his A General History of the Pyrates, at odds with other sources, that Edward Low and the Fancy were last sighted near the Canaries and Guinea. They were never heard of again, and it was believed that his ship sank in a storm, with the loss of all hands.[5] The National Maritime Museum in London states that he was never caught, ending his days in Brazil.[2]
The Pirates Own Book and Ossian agree that Low was sent adrift without provisions by the crew of the Merry Christmas, in a mutiny brought about by Low's murdering of a sleeping subordinate following an argument.[13] Low was rescued by a French ship; when the French authorities learned of his identity he was brought to trial, and was hanged in Martinique, in 1724.[7]
Flags
Initially, Low used the same flag as Edward Teach ("Blackbeard"). Later, he used his own flag, which became notorious—a red skeletal figure on a black background.[26] He first flew his own flag in late July 1723.[5]
Low also used a green silk flag with a yellow figure of a man blowing a trumpet; this Green Trumpeter was hoisted on the mizzen peak to call his fleet's captains to meetings aboard the flagship.[1]
Articles
Low had a set of articles, forming a code of conduct.[21] The articles listed below are attributed by the Boston News-Letter to Low. The first eight of these articles are essentially identical to those attributed to Lowther by Defoe.[5]
It is probable that both reports are correct and that Low and Lowther shared the same articles, with Low's two extra articles being an ordinance, or amendment, adopted after the two crews separated.
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I. The Captain is to have two full Shares; the [Quarter] Master is to have one Share and one Half; The Doctor, Mate, Gunner and Boatswain, one Share and one Quarter. II. He that shall be found guilty of taking up any Unlawful Weapon on Board the Privateer or any other prize by us taken, so as to Strike or Abuse one another in any regard, shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall see fit.
III. He that shall be found Guilty of Cowardice in the time of Engagements, shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall think fit.
IV. If any Gold, Jewels, Silver, &c. be found on Board of any Prize or Prizes to the value of a Piece of Eight, & the finder do not deliver it to the Quarter Master in the space of 24 hours he shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall think fit.
V. He that is found Guilty of Gaming, or Defrauding one another to the value of a Royal of Plate, shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and the Majority of the Company shall think fit.
VI. He that shall have the Misfortune to loose a Limb in time of Engagement, shall have the Sum of Six hundred pieces of Eight, and remain aboard as long as he shall think fit.
VII. Good Quarters to be given when Craved.
VIII. He that sees a Sail first, shall have the best Pistol or Small Arm aboard of her.
IX. He that shall be guilty of Drunkenness in time of Engagement shall suffer what Punishment the Captain and Majority of the Company shall think fit.
X. No Snapping of Guns in the Hold.
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Influence
Edward Low is remembered as one of the most notorious and bloodthirsty pirates. His murderous and brutal acts, along with those of other pirates of the period such as Edward Teach, Bartholomew Roberts ("Black Bart"), and William Fly, led to a great increase in military presence to protect shipping lanes, and the effective end of the Golden Age of Piracy.[23]
By 1700, the European states had enough troops and ships at their disposal, following the end of a number of wars, to begin better protecting their important colonies in the West Indies and in the Americas, without relying on the aid of privateers. Pirates based in the Caribbean were chased from the seas by a new British Royal Navy squadron based at Port Royal, Jamaica and a smaller group of Spanish privateers, sailing from the Spanish Main, known as the Costa Garda (Coast Guard in English).[23]
Less is recorded of Low than of other equally prolific pirates such as Teach and Stede Bonnet. Howard Pyle, in an 1880 children's book on pirates, said: "No one stood higher in the trade than [Low], and no one mounted to more lofty altitudes of bloodthirsty and unscrupulous wickedness. 'Tis strange that so little has been written and sung of this man of might, for he was as worthy of story and of song as was Blackbeard."[27] Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, in his work The Green Flag, described Low as "savage and desperate", and a man of "amazing and grotesque brutality".[3] The New York Times said "Low and his crew became the terror of the Atlantic, and his depredations were committed on every part of the ocean, from the coast of Brazil to the Grand Banks of Newfoundland".[4]
A postage stamp featuring Low was commissioned by the Cayman Islands in 1975,[28] and in 1994 the government of Antigua and Barbuda featured Edward Low and his brigantine, Rebecca, on a legal tender one-hundred-dollar bill made of gold leaf.[29] Ned Low is one of the pirates featured on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland in California. Low's flag has achieved infamy. A duplicate of it was used for the flag of the fictional pirate, Sao Feng, in the Pirates of the Caribbean films.
Some of Low's haunts, such as the waters around the Isles of Shoals off New Hampshire and Isle Haute in Nova Scotia, are still being combed by treasure hunters looking for artifacts in the ships he sank.
Blackbeard (Edward Teach)
Edward
Teach (c.
1680[1]
–
November 22,
1718),
better known as Blackbeard, was a notorious
English
pirate
in the
Caribbean Sea and western
Atlantic during the early 18th century, a period referred to as
the
Golden Age of Piracy. His best known vessel was the
Queen Anne's Revenge, which is believed to have run aground
near Beaufort Inlet,
North Carolina in 1718.[2]
Blackbeard often fought, or simply showed himself, wearing a big feathered tricorn, and having multiple swords, knives, and pistols at his disposal. It was reported in the General History of the Pirates that he had hemp and lighted matches woven into his enormous black beard during battle. Accounts of people who saw him fighting say that they thought he "looked like the devil" with his fearsome face and the smoke cloud around his head. This image, which he cultivated, has made him the premier image of the seafaring pirate.
Early life
Blackbeard's real name is Edward Teach. Nevertheless, he is referred to in some documents as Edward Thatch or even Edward Drummond. He is thought to have been born in Bristol, but some writers claim London, Philadelphia, or Jamaica as his home.[1] Teach went to sea at an early age. He served on an English ship in the War of the Spanish Succession, privateering in the Spanish West Indies and along the Spanish Main. After Britain withdrew from the war in 1713, Teach, like many other privateers, turned to piracy. He was also known to be a childhood cousin, friend, or sweetheart of the fearless Arabella Drummond.
Blackbeard the Pirate
According to Charles Johnson, Blackbeard fought a running duel with the British thirty-gun man-of-war HMS Scarborough, which added to his notoriety. However, historian David Cordingly has noted that the Scarborough's log has no mention of any such battle.
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Blackbeard would plunder merchant ships, forcing them to allow his crew to board their ship. The pirates would seize all of the valuables, food, liquor, and weapons. Ironically, despite his ferocious reputation, there are no verified accounts of him actually killing anyone. He generally prevailed by fear alone.
However, colorful legends and vivid contemporary newspaper portrayals had him committing acts of cruelty and terror. One tale claims he shot his own first mate, saying "if he didn’t shoot one or two [crewmen] now and then, they’d forget who he was." Another legend is that having had too much to drink, he said to his crew, "Come, let us make a hell of our own, and try how long we can bear it." Going into the ship's hold, they closed the hatches, filled several pots with brimstone and set it on fire. Soon the men were coughing and gasping for air from the sulphurous fumes. All except Blackbeard scrambled out for fresh air. When Blackbeard emerged, he snarled, "Damn ye, ye yellow ___ ___ ___! I'm a better man than all ye milksops put together!"[3]
Teach had headquarters in both the Bahamas and the Carolinas. He lived on the island of Nassau where he was named the magistrate of the "Privateers Republic". Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina received booty from Teach in return for unofficial protection and gave him an official pardon. He left Nassau to avoid meeting with Royal Governor Woodes Rogers, unlike the majority of the pirate inhabitants who welcomed the governor and accepted the royal pardons he brought.
Blockade of Charleston
Blackbeard's chief claim to fame is his blockade of Charleston, South Carolina. In approximately late May of 1718, Blackbeard entered the mouth of Charleston harbor with the Queen Anne's Revenge and three lighter vessels. He plundered five merchant freighters attempting to enter or leave the port. No other vessels could transit the harbor for fear of encountering the pirate squadron.
Aboard one of the ships that Blackbeard captured in the harbor mouth was a group of prominent Charleston citizens, including Samuel Wragg. Blackbeard held these hostages for ransom, making an unusual demand: a chest of medicines. He sent a deputation ashore to negotiate this ransom. Due partly to his envoys' preference for carousing rather than bargaining, the ransom took some days to be delivered, and Blackbeard evidently came close to murdering his prisoners. Eventually, the medicines were turned over, and Blackbeard released the hostages, sans all their clothing but otherwise unharmed. Blackbeard's whole squadron then escaped northward.
Shortly afterward, Blackbeard ran two of his vessels aground at Topsail Inlet (now Beaufort Inlet), including the Queen Anne's Revenge. He has been accused by many, including his own crew, of doing this deliberately in order to downsize his crew and increase his own share of the treasure. Deliberate or not, he stripped three of the ships of all treasure, beached or marooned most of his crew, and went to Bath, North Carolina, where he finally accepted a pardon under the royal Act of Grace. He then went off to Ocracoke Inlet in the last of his four vessels, the sloop Adventure, to enjoy his loot.
Death
Having accepted a pardon, Teach had apparently retired from piracy. However, Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia became concerned that the notorious freebooter lived nearby. Spotswood decided to eliminate Blackbeard, even though he lived outside of Spotswood's jurisdiction.
Blackbeard operated in coastal waters; it was difficult for ships of the line to engage him in battle. As such, two smaller hired sloops were therefore put under the command of Lieutenant Robert Maynard, with instructions from Spotswood to hunt down and destroy Blackbeard, offering a reward of £100, and smaller sums for the lesser crew members. Maynard sailed from James River on November 11, 1718, in command of thirty men from HMS Pearl, and twenty-five men and a midshipman of HMS Lyme, and in command of the hired sloops, the Ranger and Jane (temporarily commissioned as His Majesty's Ships to avoid accusations of piracy themselves). Maynard found the pirates anchored in a North Carolina inlet on the inner side of Ocracoke Island, on the evening of November 21. Maynard and his men decided to wait until the following morning because the tide would be more favorable. Blackbeard's Adventure had a crew of only nineteen, "Thirteen white and six Negroes", as reported to the Admiralty. A small boat was sent ahead at daybreak, was fired upon, and quickly retreated. Blackbeard's superior knowledge of the inlet was of much help, although he and his crew had been drinking in his cabin the night prior. Throughout the night Blackbeard waited for Maynard to make his move. Blackbeard cut his anchor cable and quickly attempted to move towards a narrow channel. Maynard made chase; however his sloops ran aground, and there was a shouted exchange between captains. Maynard's account says, "At our first salutation, he drank Damnation to me and my Men, whom he stil'd Cowardly Puppies, saying, He would neither give nor take Quarter", although many different versions of the dialogue exist. Eventually, Maynard's sloops were able to float freely again, and he began to row towards Blackbeard, since the wind was not strong enough at the time for setting sail. When they came upon Blackbeard's Adventure, they were hit with a devastating broadside attack. Midshipman Hyde, captain of the smaller HMS Jane, was killed along with six other men. Ten men were also wounded in the surprise attack. The sloop fell astern and was little help in the following action. Maynard continued his pursuit in HMS Ranger, managing to blast the Adventure's rigging, forcing it ashore. Maynard ordered many of his crew into the holds and readied to be boarded. As his ship approached, Blackbeard saw the mostly empty decks, assumed it was safe to board, and did so with ten men.
Maynard's men emerged, and the battle began. The most complete account of the following events comes from the Boston News-Letter:[4]
| “ | Maynard and Teach themselves begun the fight with their swords, Maynard making a thrust, the point of his sword against Teach's cartridge box, and bent it to the hilt. Teach broke the guard of it, and wounded Maynard's fingers but did not disable him, whereupon he jumped back and threw away his sword and fired his pistol which wounded Teach. Demelt struck in between them with his sword and cut Teach's face pretty much; in the interim both companies engaged in Maynard's sloop. Later during the battle, while Teach was loading his pistol he finally died from blood loss. Maynard then cut off his head and hung it from his bow. | ” |
Despite the best efforts of the pirates (including a desperate plan to blow up the Adventure), Teach was killed, and the battle ended. Teach was reportedly shot five times and stabbed more than twenty times before he died and was decapitated. Legends about his death immediately sprang up, including the oft-repeated claim that Teach's headless body, after being thrown overboard, swam between 2 and 7 times around the Adventure before sinking. Teach's head was placed as a trophy on the bowsprit of the ship (it was also required by Maynard to claim his prize when he returned home). After the sheer terror of the battle with the pirates, and the wounds that the crew received, Maynard still only acquired his meager prize of £100 from Spotswood. Later, Teach's head hung from a pike in Bath.
Legend
History has romanticized Blackbeard. Many popular contemporary engravings show him with the smoking lit ends of his pigtails or with lit cannon fuses in his hair and the pistols stuck in his bandoliers, and he has been the subject of books, movies, and documentaries. There is a Blackbeard Festival in Hampton, Virginia every year and the crew of the modern day British warship HMS Ranger commemorate his defeat at the annual Sussex University Royal Naval Unit Blackbeard Night mess dinner in November.
There is significant evidence supporting the claims that Teach was prone to burying treasure. In times as desperate and difficult as the American Revolution, it was common for the ignorant, credulous, and desperate to dig along these banks in search of hidden treasures; impostors found an ample basis in these rumors for schemes of delusion. A ship believed to have been Blackbeard's was discovered near Beaufort, North Carolina in 1996 and is now part of a major tourist attraction.
Stede Bonnet
Stede Bonnet (1688?—December 10, 1718)[1] was an early 18th century English pirate, sometimes called the "the gentleman pirate",[2] since he had lived as a moderately wealthy landowner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. In 1709, he married Mary Allamby and engaged in some level of militia service. Supposedly, Bonnet turned to piracy as a result of his marriage problems. In the summer of 1717, with no prior shipboard life, he decided to become a pirate. He bought a sailing vessel, named it Revenge, and traveled with his paid crew along the American eastern seaboard, capturing other vessels and burning down Barbadian ships.
He set sail for Nassau, but en route, he was seriously wounded in an encounter with a Spanish warship. Bonnet met the infamous pirate Blackbeard in Nassau. Incapacitated to lead his crew, he temporarily ceded his ship's command to Blackbeard. Before separating in December 1717, Blackbeard and Bonnet plundered and captured merchant ships along the East Coast. After Bonnet failed to capture the Protestant Caesar, his crew abandoned him to join Blackbeard on his ship, Queen Anne's Revenge. Bonnet stayed aboard as a guest on Blackbeard's ship and did not command a crew until summer 1718 after he was pardoned by North Carolina governor Charles Eden and received clearance to go privateering against Spanish shipping. Bonnet was tempted to resume his piracy, but did not want to lose his pardon, so he adopted an alias of "Captain Thomas" and changed his ship's name to Royal James. Bonnet eventually went back to his old piracy practices by July 1718.
In August 1718, Bonnet anchored the Royal James on an estuary of the Cape Fear River to repair and careen the ship. In late August-September, Colonel William Rhett, with the authorization of South Carolina governor Robert Johnson, led a naval expedition against pirates on the river. Rhett and Bonnet's men fought each other for hours, but the battle was ultimately decided when the crew of the Royal James raised a white flag in surrender. Rhett arrested the pirates and brought them to Charleston in early October. Bonnet escaped on October 24, but was recaptured on Sullivan's Island. On November 10, Bonnet was brought to trial and charged with two acts of piracy. Judge Nicholas Trott sentenced Bonnet to death. Bonnet wrote to Governor Johnson and asked for clemency, but Johnson stayed by the judge's decision. Bonnet was hanged in Charleston on December 10, 1718.
Pre-criminal life
Bonnet is believed to have been born in 1688, as he was christened in a parish on July 29, 1688.[3][4] His parents, Edward and Sarah Bonnet, owned an estate of over four hundred acres southeast of Bridgetown.[5] It was bequeathed to Bonnet on his father's death in 1694. It is not known where he received his education, but many who knew him described him as bookish, and the judge who sentenced him alluded to Bonnet's liberal education.[6][7] Bonnet married Mary Allamby in Bridgetown on November 21, 1709.[8] They had three sons — Allamby, Edward, and Stede — and a daughter, Mary. Allamby died before 1715, while the others survived to see their father abandon them for piracy.[9]
In A General History of the Pyrates, Charles Johnson wrote that Bonnet was driven to piracy by Mary's nagging and "[d]iscomforts he found in a married State."[10][11] Details of Bonnet's military service are unclear, but he held the rank of major in the Barbados militia. This was probably due to his land holdings, since deterring slave revolts was an important militia function. Bonnet's militia service coincided with the War of the Spanish Succession, but there is no record that he took part in the fighting.[3]
Early piratical career
Some time in the summer of 1717, Stede Bonnet decided to become a pirate, despite having no knowledge at all of shipboard life. He bought a sixty-ton sloop, which he named the Revenge and outfitted with ten guns. This was unusual, as most pirates seized their ships by mutiny or boarding, or else converted a privateer vessel to a piratical one. He enlisted a crew of more than seventy men. He relied on his quartermaster and officer for their knowledge of sailing, and as a result, he was not highly respected by his crew.[3] Even more unusual, Bonnet chose to gain his crew's allegiance by paying them wages, rather than follow the traditional pirate system in which crew were received only in shares of any plunder they took.[3][12]
Bonnet's initial cruise took him to the coast of Virginia near the entrance of the Chesapeake Bay, where he captured and plundered four vessels, and burned the Barbadian ship Turbet to keep news of his crimes from his home island.[13] He then sailed north to New York, taking two more crafts and picking up naval supplies and releasing captives at Gardiners Island. By August 1717, Bonnet had returned to the Carolinas, where he attacked two more ships, a brigantine from Boston and a Barbadian sloop.[14] He stripped the brigantine, but brought the cargo-filled Barbadian sloop to an inlet off North Carolina to use for careening and repairing the Revenge.[13] After the Barbadian sloop's tackle was used to careen the Revenge, the ship was dismantled for timber, and the remains were then burned. In September 1717, Bonnet set course for Nassau, then an infamous pirate den on the island of New Providence in the Bahamas. En route, he encountered, fought and escaped from a Spanish man of war. The Revenge was badly damaged, Bonnet was seriously wounded and half the crew of the sloop was lost in the encounter. Putting in at Nassau, he replaced his casualties and refitted the Revenge, increasing the sloop's armament to twelve guns.[15]
Collaboration with Blackbeard
At Nassau, Bonnet first met Captain Benjamin Hornigold and Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, who later played a large role in the remainder of Bonnet's life. Disabled by his wounds, Bonnet temporarily ceded command of the Revenge to Blackbeard, but remained aboard as a guest of the more experienced pirate captain.[16] Blackbeard and Bonnet weighed anchor and sailed northward to Delaware Bay, where they plundered eleven ships. On September 29, 1717, the Revenge, captained by Blackbeard, plundered the sloop Betty, which had a cargo full of Madeira wine.[17] Captain Codd, whose merchant ship was taken on October 12, described Bonnet as walking the deck in his nightshirt, lacking any command and still unwell from his wounds. The Revenge later captured and looted the Spofford and Sea Nymph, which were leaving Philadelphia. On October 22, the Revenge stopped and robbed the Robert and Good Intent of their supplies.[18]
Blackbeard and Bonnet left Delaware Bay and returned back to the Caribbean in November, where they continued their piracy successfully. On November 17, a two-hundred-ton ship named the Concorde was attacked by two pirate craft nearly 100 miles away from the island of Martinique.[18] The lieutenant on board described the pirate vessels as one having 12 guns and 120 men and the other having eight guns and 30 men. The crew of the Concorde put up a fight, but surrendered after the pirates bombarded them with "two volleys of cannons and musketry."[19] Blackbeard's crew took the Concorde and sailed south into the Grenadines, where he renamed the ship Queen Anne's Revenge, possibly as an insult to King George I of Great Britain.[20] Some time after December 19, Bonnet and Blackbeard separated.[21] Bonnet now sailed into the western Caribbean. In March 1718, he encountered the 400-ton merchant vessel Protestant Caesar off Honduras. The ship escaped him, and his frustrated crew became restive.[22] When Bonnet encountered Blackbeard again shortly afterward, Bonnet's crew effectively deserted him to join Blackbeard, and Bonnet found himself again relieved of command and a guest aboard Blackbeard's ship, the Queen Anne's Revenge. Blackbeard put a henchman named Richards in command of the Revenge. Bonnet confided in a few loyal crew members that he was ready to give up his criminal life if he could exile himself in Spain or Portugal. Bonnet would not exercise command again until the summer of 1718.[23]
Under Captain Richards, the Revenge captured a Jamaican sloop, the Adventure, captained by David Herriot. Herriot joined the pirates, and Blackbeard now possessed three ships. Bonnet accompanied his host/captor to South Carolina, where Blackbeard's four vessels blockaded the port of Charleston in the late spring of 1718.[24] Blackbeard and Bonnet then fled north to Topsail Inlet, where Blackbeard's Queen Anne's Revenge ran aground and was lost.[25] Leaving the remaining three vessels at Topsail Inlet, Blackbeard and Bonnet went ashore and journeyed to Bath, then capital of North Carolina, where both accepted pardons from Governor Charles Eden under King George's Act of Grace, putatively on condition of their renouncing piracy forever.[24][26] While Blackbeard quietly returned to Topsail Inlet, Bonnet stayed in Bath to get a "clearance" to take the Revenge to Denmark's Caribbean colony of St. Thomas, where he planned to buy a letter of marque and go privateering against Spanish shipping. Eden granted Bonnet this clearance.[27]
Resumption of pirate command
Bonnet returned to Topsail Inlet to find that Blackbeard had beached the majority of their crew, robbed the Revenge and two of the other vessels of the squadron of most of their supplies, and then sailed away for parts unknown aboard the sloop Adventure, carrying all the loot with him. Bonnet now (probably late June or early July of 1718) resumed command of the Revenge. Few, if any, of his original crew from Barbados were still aboard. Bonnet reinforced the Revenge by rescuing a number of men whom Blackbeard had marooned on a sandbar in Topsail inlet.[28][29][30]
Shortly after Bonnet resumed command, a bumboat's crew told him that Blackbeard was moored in Ocracoke Inlet. Bonnet set sail at once to hunt down his treacherous ex-confederate, but could not find him. Bonnet never met Blackbeard again.[31] Although Bonnet apparently never discarded his hopes of reaching St. Thomas and getting his letter of marque, two pressing problems now tempted him back into piracy. First, Blackbeard had stolen the food and supplies he and his men needed to subsist (one pirate testified at his trial that no more than ten or eleven barrels remained aboard the Revenge).[32] Second, St. Thomas was now in the midst of the Atlantic hurricane season, which would last until autumn. However, returning to freebooting meant nullifying Bonnet's pardon. [33]
Hoping to preserve his pardon, Bonnet adopted the alias "Captain Thomas" and changed the Revenge's name to the Royal James.[34] The name Royal James that Bonnet conferred on his sloop was presumably a reference to the younger Prince James Stuart, and may suggest that Bonnet or his men had Jacobite sympathies. One of Bonnet's prisoners further reported witnessing Bonnet's men drinking to the health of the Old Pretender[35] and wishing to see him king of the English nation.[36]
Bonnet further tried to disguise his return to piracy by engaging in a pretense of trade with the next two vessels he robbed. Soon afterward, Bonnet quit the charade of trading and reverted to naked piracy. In the course of July 1718 he cruised north to Delaware Bay, pillaging another eleven vessels, and taking several prisoners, some of whom joined his pirate crew.[37] While Bonnet set loose most of his prizes after looting them, he retained control of the last two ships he captured: the sloops Francis and Fortune.[38] On August 1, 1718, the Royal James and the two captured sloops sailed southward from Delaware Bay.[33] The captured sloops lagged behind, and Bonnet threatened to sink them if they did not stay closer. During the passage, Bonnet and his crew divided their loot into shares of about £10 or £11 and distributed them amongst themselves.[39][40]
On the twelfth day out of Delaware Bay, Bonnet entered the estuary of the Cape Fear River and anchored near the mouth of a small waterway now known as Bonnet's Creek. The Royal James had begun to leak badly and was in need of careening. Shortly afterward, a small shallop entered the river and was captured. Bonnet had the shallop broken up to help repair the Royal James.[41][42][43] The work of careening was done, in whole or in part, by the prisoners Bonnet had captured, which included several black slaves. Bonnet threatened at least one man with marooning if he did not work the Royal James' pumps.[44] Bonnet remained in the Cape Fear River for the next 45 days. According to Bonnet's boatswain, Ignatius Pell, the pirates intended to wait out the hurricane season in this location.[33] Because it would have required little more than a week to careen a sloop like the Royal James,[45] this story is likely true.
Battle of Cape Fear River
By the end of August, news had reached Charleston that Bonnet's vessels were moored in the Cape Fear River. Robert Johnson, governor of South Carolina, authorized Colonel William Rhett to lead a naval expedition against the pirates, even though the Cape Fear River was in North Carolina's jurisdiction.[44] Bonnet initially mistook Rhett's squadron for merchantmen and sent three canoes to capture them.[46] Unfortunately for Rhett, his flagship Henry had run aground in the river mouth, enabling Bonnet's canoe crews to approach, recognize the heavily armed and manned sloops as hostile and return uninjured to warn Bonnet. The sun had set by the time the rising tide lifted the Henry off the river bottom.[47]
The 46 pirates were scattered among the three sloops. During the night, Bonnet brought all of them aboard the Royal James and planned to fight his way out to sea in the morning rather than risk the Cape Fear River's narrow channels in the dark. Bonnet also wrote a letter to Governor Johnson, threatening to burn all the ships in Charleston harbor. At daybreak, on September 27, 1718, Bonnet set sail toward Rhett's force, and all three sloops opened fire, initiating the Battle of Cape Fear River.[48] The two South Carolinian sloops split up in an effort to bracket the Royal James between them. Bonnet tried to avoid the trap by steering the Royal James close to the river's western shore, but ran aground in the process. Rhett's closing sloops also ran aground, leaving only the Henry in range of the Royal James.[49]
The battle was stalemated for the next five or six hours, with all the participants immobilized. Bonnet's men had the advantage that their deck was heeled away from their opponents, giving them cover, while the Henry's deck was tilted toward the pirates, thus exposing Rhett's men to punishing musket volleys. Bonnet's force suffered twelve casualties while killing ten and wounding fourteen of Rhett's 70-man crew.[47] Most of Bonnet's men fought enthusiastically, challenging their enemies to board and fight hand to hand, and tying a wiff knot in their flag as a mock signal to come aboard and render aid. Bonnet himself patrolled the deck with a pistol drawn, threatening to kill any pirate who faltered in the fight. Nevertheless, some of the prisoners who had been forced to join the pirate crew refused to fire on Rhett's men, and one narrowly escaped death at Bonnet's hands in the confusion of the engagement.[50][51][52]
The battle was ultimately decided by the rising of the tide, which lifted Rhett's sloops free while temporarily leaving the Royal James stranded.[52] Bonnet was left watching helplessly while the enemy vessels repaired their rigging and closed to board his paralyzed vessel. In a boarding action, Bonnet's men were outnumbered almost three to one, and his case was clearly hopeless. He ordered his gunner, George Ross, to blow up the Royal James' powder magazine. Ross apparently attempted this, but was overruled by the remainder of the crew, who raised a white flag in surrender. Rhett arrested the pirates, returning to Charleston with his prisoners on October 3.[53][54]
Escape, recapture, and execution
In Charleston, Bonnet was separated from the bulk of his crew and held for three weeks in the provost marshal's house along with his boatswain, Ignatius Pell, and his sailing master, David Herriott. On October 24, Bonnet and Herriott escaped, probably by colluding with local merchant Richard Tookerman. Governor Johnson at once placed a £700 bounty on Bonnet's head and dispatched search teams to track him down.[55] Bonnet and Herriott, accompanied by a slave and an Indian, obtained a boat and made for the north shore of Charleston Harbor, but foul winds and lack of supplies forced the four of them onto