Pirates
Henry Avery
Henry Avery (also known as John, Long Ben and Captain Bridgeman) was born in England in the mid-1600s and made Madagascar his home port. He attacked some British and Danish ships, but his most famous raid was against the returning pilgrim fleet which made an annual trip from the Indian port Surat to Mocha and then finally to Mecca. Avery soon separated from the rest of the pirate ships and sailed to the West Indies to retire from the pirate life. Eventually six of his crew were caught and sentenced to death in October 1696 but Avery himself was never captured.
Information is from: http://www.piratesrefuge.com/pirates.shtml
Stede Bonnet
The “Gentleman Pirate,” Bonnet was the most unlikely pirate of all as he was a retired English Army Major who made his fortune in Bridgetown, Barbados on his Sugar plantation. He began calling himself Captain Thomas and his personality changed and he became a ruthless pirate who tortured his prisoners. He is said to be the only pirate during this period to make a victim walk the plank. He turned into a successful, but merciless pirate and continued to scour the seas and captured at least twelve ships before returning to North Carolina to overhaul and clean the hull of his ship. Unfortunately for him, he let the crew of a small shallop they’d captured for timber and parts go free and these sailor told of his whereabouts. He was hanged at White Point on 10 December 1718 and his body was left for four days as a warning to anyone considering piracy as a career. http://www.piratesrefuge.com/pirates.shtml
- Calico Jack
He was known as Calico Jack because of his calico sailcloth clothing. Rackham still wanted out and with a few supporters finally arrived at New Providence where the Governor gave them their pardon. There they sold their plunder and lived well. This was where Rackham met Anne Bonny and enticed her away from her husband. He offered to buy her, but her husband would make no deal. The Governor came to hear of their affair and ordered it to stop, so they plotted to run away together. He and Anne Bonny and eight associates stole a Bermuda sloop known to be the fastest in the Caribbean and returned to piracy. He had dropped off Anne Bonny to bear his child and then she returned to sea with him. Rackham’s command and authority had weakened due to his bouts of drinking and Anne Bonny and Mary Read had taken real control. And with this change of circumstances, they no longer had to hide under the pretence of masculinity. Rackham plundered the West Indies until one day when he came across a canoe of fellow English men at Negril Point. While entertaining them on board, his ship was subjected to a hail of cannon fire and boarded by a pirate hunter. Most of the crew were below decks in a drunken stupor and in a fight dominated by the lady pirates, Rackam was captured and his ship was towed to Port Royal, Jamaica. Anne Bonny was so sickened by this act of cowardice, that when Calico Jack was to be hanged she scorned him saying, “If you had fought like a man you would not need to die like a dog.” Rackham was hanged at Gallows Point, Port Royal on 18 November 1720. http://www.piratesrefuge.com/pirates.shtml
Henry Morgan
Henry Morgan, Welsh buccaneer, was the most famous of the adventurers who plundered Spain’s Caribbean colonies during the late 17th century. Operating with the unofficial support of the English government, he undermined Spanish authority in the West Indies. Selected commander of the buccaneers in 1668, Morgan quickly captured Puerto Príncipe (now Camagüey), Cuba, and–in an extraordinarily daring move–stormed and sacked the well-fortified city of Portobello on the Isthmus of Panama. In 1669 he made a successful raid on wealthy Spanish settlements around Lake Maracaibo on the coast of Venezuela. Finally, in August 1670 Morgan, with 36 ships and nearly 2,000 buccaneers, set out to capture Panamá, one of the chief cities of Spain’s American empire. Crossing the Isthmus of Panama, he defeated a large Spanish force (Jan. 18, 1671) and entered the city, which burned to the ground while his men were looting it. On the return journey he deserted his followers and absconded with most of the booty. Because Morgan’s raid on Panamá had taken place after the conclusion of a peace between England and Spain, he was arrested and transported to London (April 1672). Nevertheless, relations with Spain quickly deteriorated, and in 1674 King Charles II knighted Morgan and sent him out again as deputy governor of Jamaica, where he lived as a wealthy and respected planter until his death. http://www.rochedalss.eq.edu.au/pirates/pirate2.htm
Edward Low
After making several voyages with his brother, Low left England and went to Boston from where he embarked on a vessel bound for the Gulf of Honduras. In 1724, when he was in the Caribbean, a quarrel arose between him and his crew, probably over a captured French sloop. Low took revenge by murdering his next in command while he slept. This was said to have sparked a mutiny which reports say he lost and he and some of his followers were set adrift without provisions. They were rescued by a French ship from Martinique but were hanged when their identities were learned. Low had a reputation for committing horrible cruelties on his victims and even his own men described him as a maniac and brute. His fleet ravaged not only New England, Cape Breton, Newfoundland and the Antilles, but also as far as the coasts of Guinea. http://www.piratesrefuge.com/pirates.shtml
Mary Read
Born in London, England, she was an illegitimate child and to receive money that was given for a son’s upbringing, her mother dressed Mary as a boy. She served as a footboy to a wealthy French woman, spent time as a cabin boy on a man-o-war and in the Horse Regiment during the War of Spanish Succession where she met and married a soldier and opened a tavern. Unfortunately he died of fever and his death led her back to the life she knew and once more pretending to be a man, she went to sea on a Dutch merchantman bound for the West Indies which was taken by Jack Rackham and so she joined his crew on the Curlew. She caught Anne Bonny’s eye and when the disguise of this “male recruit” was revealed to her, the two became friends. Because of Rackham’s jealousy over what he saw as competition for Anne’s attention, Mary’s gender was also revealed to him. In October 1720 the Curlew was attacked by one of Governor Woodes Rogers’ pirate-hunter sloops. Read and Bonny and one other pirate attempted to fight off the attackers while the rest of the crew cowered below deck. To try to scare them into action, Read fired her pistols down the hatch, killing one man and wounding others. Even then the men, including their husbands, wouldn’t fight and eventually the whole crew was taken prisoner. Read was found guilty of piracy and sentenced to hang, but as she and Bonny were pregnant, they were given a delay of execution until their babies had been born. Bonny was granted a reprieve, but Read died in prison from high fever soon after the trial. http://www.piratesrefuge.com/pirates.shtml
Anne Bonny
Black Beard
