Charles Vane

Charles Vane (c.1680 – March 29, 1721) was one of the notorious pirate captains of the New Providence Pirate Republic, an alliance of pirates that for a time dominated the waters of the Caribbean. His piratical gains in today's currency would exceed £1.5 million. Like most pirates of note, Vane was vicious and cruel, showed little respect for the pirate code and cheated his crew on multiple occasions, and killed hostages after promising mercy.
Nothing is known of Vane's early life, but he began his pirate career serving under Captain Henry Jennings. At the end of July 1715, a Spanish treasure ship was wrecked by a hurricane off Florida, and as the survivors attempted to salvage the cargo, Jennings raided the wreck site, making off with some £87,000 in gold and silver.
Vane was not long a captain of his own when Woodes Rogers and his fleet descended on the Caribbean to put an end to piracy. Outnumbered and out-gunned, the majority of the pirates in New Providence, including Captain Jennings, surrendered and accepted the promised royal pardon for their crimes. Vane had other ideas, and in July 1718, as the Royal Navy's Men O' War descended on New Providence to negotiate a surrender, Vane and a crew of like-minded buccaneers who refused the pardon, filled a recently captured French vessel with gunpowder and set it alight, on course for the incoming royal Men O' War. In the confusion, Vane and his crew made their escape on a sloop called the Lark, alongside Blackbeard and his Queen Anne's Revenge, proudly flying piratical colours and firing on the English ships as they fled.
Two days later, Vane captured a Barbadian sloop, and fitted it with 25 hands, commanded by one Mr Yeats. The next day, Vane captured another sloop called the John and Elizabeth laden with pieces of eight. Now armed with three ships and considerable loot, Vane and his men retired to a small uncharted island which they claimed as a base.
From there Vane began several months of successful roving, trading up to a larger sloop called the Ranger, and became one of the most dangerous pirates of the day, collecting a number more ships to add to his fleet. However he neither respected nor trusted his consort Mr Yeats. Vane had hoped to prevent his underling from taking the pardon by fitting his crew with a significant number of ex slaves, for whom the pardon would mean re-enslavement. However, one evening Yeats and his crew made a break for it, and made sail away from Vane's hideout. Vane gave chase in his own ship and fired on them, but to no avail. Yeats and his crew accepted the pardon, the black pirates were returned as slaves to the owner from whom they had originally escaped.

An early 18th Century engraving of Vane

After a time of searching for Yeats, Vane retreated to the Cape Fear river in North Carolina to clean his ships. The governor of South Carolina ordered one Colonel Rhet to take two well armed sloops up to the Cape Fear river in search of pirates. However, upon beginning his voyage, Rhet met with a ship that had been plundered by Vane not long since, one sailor aboard informed the colonel that he thought he had heard one of the pirates say they should clean ships in one of the southern rivers. So Rhet altered his course southward in search of Vane, thereby missing him.Vane meanwhile had met with Blackbeard on Ocracoke Island (where the latter would meet his end later that year) and tried to convince him to join a mounted attack to retake Nassau from the English. Blackbeard refused, having too much to lose.

Deposed

Lacking the firepower to take Nassau alone, Vane returned to roving, and in November 1718, came upon a French Man O' War. Vane felt the ship was too dangerous to attack, and wished to avoid engaging her. However Vane's quartermaster, Jack Rackham, felt the French ship was laden and slow, and would prove easy to take. Vane and his first mate, Robert Deal, along with fifteen or so others, were outnumbered by Rackham and the rest of the crew, however the pirate code allowed a captain to make all decisions regarding fighting, chasing, or being chased, and so the French ship was left unmolested. However, the next day Vane was obliged to stand to a vote, and Rackham called out Vane as a coward, and usurped him as captain of his Ranger. Vane, and all those who had voted with him, were put aboard one of the smaller of the pirate company's ships, with sufficient supplies and ammunition.
Undeterred, Vane continued roving, within three days taking a sloop off Jamaica, and making his loyal mate Robert Deal captain of her. On the 16th of December 1718, Vane and Deal took a third ship, the Pearl, and carried her to a small island called Bonacca, where they made their hideout. In February 1719, Vane's ship was hit by a tornado and he was wrecked on an uninhabited island near Honduras. Most of his men drowned, but Vane himself survived, living on fish for several weeks. Deal's ship survived, and continued to rove for a short time, until Deal and his crew were taken by one of Rogers' Men O' War.
Eventually a ship pulled into the island Vane was castaway upon. The ship's master, one Captain Holford,  was a former pirate and acquaintance of Vane's, however Holford refused to rescue Vane, saying he did not trust him, fearing he would lead his own men against him. So Holford left Vane stranded, and claimed that he would return in one month, and if he found Vane still upon the island he would take him prisoner to Jamaica to be hanged. Fortunately for Vane, he found rescue on a second passing ship some time later, claiming to be another man. However, Vane's luck ended when the ship he was aboard met with Holford's ship, and in coming aboard, Holford happened to cast his eye down into the hold and recognised Vane, and outed him to his new captain. Vane was then arrested, taken to Jamaica and imprisoned. He was hanged on the 29th of March, 1721. 

Captain Martel

Ahoy mateys! This week I am writing about a rather unknown pirate captain, John Martel of Jamaica, but nevertheless had gains in excess of $1.5 million US in a present value adjustment. Like most carribbean pirates, Martel started out as a privateer in a war against the Spanish, but at the conclusion of the war, turned to piracy.
At the start of his pirate career, Martel commanded a pirate sloop of eight guns and 80 men, and his first recorded act of piracy was in September 1716, when he attacked the galley Berkley, robbing a Captain Saunders of £1000 in cash, and afterwards raided another sloop by the name of King Solomon, from which he took an indeterminate but valuable amount of money, provisions and goods.

Martel's flag

Martel eventually captured a galley called the John and Martha from a Captain Wilson, and took the ship as an upgrade. The new ship had 20 guns, as opposed to Martel's original eight, and had cargo of logwood and sugar that Martel carried to market. Martel marooned most of the original crew of the John and Martha but detained a few to bolster his crew. Martel now had a galley of 22 guns, 100 men, and left 25 hands aboard his old sloop. Thus armed, Martel began a lucrative pirate career, plundering ships across the Caribbean and the east coast of America, including fellow pirate vessels, taking everything from gold dust, to slaves, to ivory.
By 1717, Martel had a small flotilla comprised of two ships with 20 guns, a sloop of eight, a sloop of four and one sloop unarmed. He made a base for himself on the tiny island of St. Croix, and mounted guns at the mouth of the inlet as defence. Martel was known for his cruelty even by his own men, who reported that he killed the entire crew of a merchant vessel he captured for no reason.

Captain Hume

Martel's eventual downfall would come in the form of Captain Hume of Barbados, commander of the HMS Scarborough, who was hunting two pirate sloops that molested the colonies. The Scarborough was fitted with 30 guns and 140 men, but battle and illness had thinned Hume's ranks to just 80, and was therefore in an ill state to go to sea, however Hume left his sick men behind and recruited more from the other islands, taking on soldiers from Antigua, Nevis, and St. Christopher's. Hume set out in search of the sloops, but to no avail, and returned to Barbados. By chance, that night a boat had anchored there from St. Croix, and Hume received information about a pirate ship of 22 or 24 guns with other vessels in tow going into the Northwest part of the island.
The Scarborough weighed immediately, and by next morning of the 17th of January 1717, came in sight of Martel and his crew. The larger ship was unable to continue due to the shallow water of the inlet and the fact that it was guarded by an armed sloop. So Hume exchanged fire with the coast for several hours. Eventually he came to anchor alongside the reef, and at about 4 in the afternoon, managed to sink the sloop that had been guarding the inlet. For three more days the Scarborough laid siege to the island, until Martel made a break for it, but his ship ran aground and Hume quickly caught up to him. In a panic, Martel and his crew abandoned ship, and set her alight with 20 slaves burned alive in the hold. 19 of Martel's crew escaped on a second sloop, but Martel and the rest took to the woods of the island, and were never seen again, presumably dying of starvation on the island.

Blackbeard

Ahoy mateys! This week I am writing about probably the most famous buccaneer of all time, Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard.

Born in Bristol around 1680, little is known of Blackbeard's early life. Born and raised in a thriving harbour town, he was no doubt brought up with a strong maritime culture. It is known that he could read and write, giving rise to the possibility he was from a wealthy family. During Queen Anne's War, Teach joined a privateer ship bound for Jamaica. He received distinction "for his uncommon boldness and personal courage" but was never raised to any command. In the latter end of 1716, Teach turned to piracy, captaining a sloop owned by fellow pirate Benjamin Hornigold (more on him later).

Career

Despite his infamy, Blackbeard's pirate career was very short lived, spanning only two years. As Teach was beginning his pirate career, Captain Woodes Rogers was setting out for the Caribbean to rid the waters of piracy forever. In the spring of 1717, Blackbeard and Hornigold sailed from New Providence, a pirate haven established by Captain Jennings some years earlier, to the American mainland. On their way, Teach and Hornigold seized a shallop from Havana carrying 120 barrels of flour, a sloop from Bermuda carrying 100 barrels of wine, and a ship bound for South Carolina from which they got "plunder of considerable value". That September, Teach and Hornigold encountered hapless would-be pirate Stede Bonnet, a landowner and military officer from a wealthy family who had turned to piracy earlier that year. Bonnet's crew of about 70 were reportedly dissatisfied with his command, so with Bonnet's permission, Teach took control of his ship Revenge. The pirates' flotilla now consisted of three ships; Revenge, Teach's old sloop and Hornigold's Ranger. By October, another vessel had been captured and added to the small fleet.

In November, they took a French merchant slave vessel  named La Concorde near Saint Vincent, and with Hornigold's permission, Teach took and named himself captain. Teach sailed to Bequia to allow the ship's former crew and whatever slaves declined to join Teach to disembark. In an surprising act of candour, Teach donated his old sloop to the crew he had just robbed, which they renamed Mauvais Rencontre (Bad Meeting) and sailed for Martinique. Teach mounted 40 guns on his new ship, and renamed her Queen Ann's Revenge, possibly after Bonnet's sloop. Shortly after, Hornigold returned to Providence to accept Rogers' pardon.
From there Teach began to cut a bloody swathe across the Caribbean, seizing dozens of vessels in the months to follow, sinking and burning many more, and invited several captains to join his fleet, including one David Herriot, captain of the Adventure, which Teach sent the famous Israel Hands (who appears in a fictionalised form in Robert Louis Stephenson's Treasure Island) to man for the piratical account.
In April, the fleet lay siege to Charleston, in South Carolina. Taking several ships hostage, Blackbeard demanded ransom of a chest of medicines from the Governor, threatening to burn the ships and send the governor the heads of those he had taken prisoner. Humiliated, but unable to refuse the demand, the Governor sent aboard a chest of medicines worth approximately £400. Blackbeard released the hostages, but not before relieving them of their provisions and around £1500 in gold and silver.

Blackbeard's own flag, a skeleton spearing a heart while toasting the Devil

After plundering Charleston, Blackbeard and his men were wanted. They learned of the royal pardon, and wished to take it but were wary. The pardon stipulated it only applied to crimes committed before January 5th, and so risked hanging for their actions at Charleston. Most authorities could waive this condition, but Blackbeard was still wary. In a cunning move, he sent Stede Bonnet to accept the pardon first to see if he would be granted it, and at the same time cheated his former comrade out of all of his loot and provisions. On the pretence of running into an inlet to clean his ship, Blackbeard ran his ship aground. Feigning distress, Blackbeard ordered Bonnet's sloop to come to his rescue, but in answering the call, Blackbeard's man Israel Hands ran Bonnet's ship aground also and both were stuck. This done, Teach and Hands seized the other sloop with forty hands, abandoned the Revenge and marooned the sloop's crew on a small desert island. Bonnet, having received his pardon, set out for revenge against Teach, and rescued his marooned crew after two days. He was unable to find Blackbeard, and returned to piracy. He was caught in September 1718, and he and all but four of his crew were hanged in Charleston.
Satisfied that the offer could be trusted, Blackbeard went to North Carolina to see Governor Charles Eden and accept the pardon. Blackbeard bribed the Governor, for not only was he allowed to keep his Queen Ann's Revenge, it being listed as a prize taken from the Spanish, but Teach continued pirating and returned to Eden repeatedly with prizes in exchange for absolvement.

Final Battle

In the autumn of 1718, Blackbeard threw a party at Ocracoke Island, just off the coast of North Carolina, which was attended by many infamous pirate captains of the day. The party waged on for several days, and news of it spread to the neighbouring governors. Two ships were deployed to capture the pirates, the Jane and the Ranger, commanded by a Lieutenant Robert Maynard, that engaged Blackbeard and his men on November 21st. Taken unawares in the midst of their celebration, Blackbeard and nineteen men climbed about the Adventure, and gave battle to Maynard. Blackbeard fired a devastating broadside, which killed around a third of Maynard's men in a single volley. Around 20 were killed on the Jane, and nine on the Ranger.

Maynard hid his men in the hold, and as Blackbeard boarded the Jane, they burst from their hiding place and surprised the pirates. Blackbeard rallied his men and the two groups fought across the deck, which was already slick with blood from those killed or injured by the broadside. Maynard and Teach fired their flintlocks at each other, Blackbeard was hit but continued fighting. Teach drew his cutlass and managed to break Maynard's sword. Against superior numbers and discipline, the pirates were pushed back toward the bow, allowing the Jane '​s crew to surround Maynard and Teach, who was by then completely isolated. As Maynard drew back to fire once again, Teach moved in to attack him, but was slashed across the neck by one of Maynard's men.Badly wounded, he was then leapt upon and killed by several more of Maynard's crew. The remaining pirates quickly surrendered. Teach's corpse was thrown into the inlet while his head was suspended from the bowsprit of Maynard's sloop so the reward could be collected. Israel Hands, who had been ashore during the battle, survived and was taken to Virginia for trial. In exchange for pardon, he testified against the corrupt officials Teach had dealt with. It is said he died a beggar in London.

Personality

Blackbeard is best known for his unspeakable cruelty rather than his aptitude for piracy. It is for his visciousness he is remembered, for actions such as shooting one of his own men for snoring. Sources claim he was married no fewer than fourteen times, sometimes to girls as young as sixteen. On the first night of his marriage, it was custom for him to go ashore with five or six of his brutal companions, and force his new bride to prostitute herself to his companions one after another before his eyes. Blackbeard was given to such wickedness as if he aimed to make his men believe him the Devil himself. One day at sea, he told his men, "Come, let us make a Hell of our own, and see how long we can bear it." Accordingly he filled several pots with brimstone and other flammable materials, and down in the hold, set them alight. They sat there until they had almost suffocated, and at length his crewmen opened the hatches to breathe, he himself pleased he held out the longest.

In times of combat, teach wore a sling that held a brace pistols, and stuck lit matches under his hat, which framed his face, making his eyes appear more fierce and wild, and made him the very idea of hellish fury. The beard for which he is best remembered is said to have gone all the way up to his eyes, and he tied it in small tails with ribbons in the contemporary style of wigs.
Teach once shot Israel Hands in the knee, giving the reason that "If I do not now and then kill one of them, they will forget who I am." The night before he was killed, Blackbeard had sat up all night drinking with his men, and knowing the sloops coming for them, someone asked if his wife was aware of where his money was buried. Blackbeard replied that nobody but himself and the Devil knew where, and the longest liver should take it all.

South China Sea

Piracy has been rife in Asia since as early as the 9th Century. In particular, piracy has plagued the region of Southeast Asia and continues to do so to the present day. Despite increased efforts by the regional countries to reduce the problem, pirate attacks take place on an alarmingly regular basis in what are some of the world’s most travelled waterways. With its vast and complex coastlines, encompassing both the Indonesian and Philippine archipelagos - whose islands total over 20,000 in number - Southeast Asia has provided a fertile area for the growth of piracy. Targets are never in short supply. Approximately one-third of the world’s trade and half of the world’s oil passes through the Straits of Malacca - a waterway that continues to be of great strategic importance that has been described as one of the arteries of the regional economy.
Piracy in Southeast Asia took off in a big way in the late 14th Century. With the collapse of the Yuan Dynasty, the Mongol fleets that had patrolled the waters retreated, and pirates quickly took to the fore. Their strength and ferocity coincided with the impending trade growth of the maritime silk and spice routes in the South China sea. 
There were various native 'tribes' of pirates that vied for control of the waters around south east Asia throughout the 14th and 15th centuries. The Buginese sailors of South Sulawesi were infamous pirates who used to range as far west as Singapore and as far north as the Philippines in search of targets for piracy. The Orang laut pirates controlled shipping in the Straits of Malacca and the waters around Singapore, and the Malay and Sea Dayak pirates preyed on maritime shipping in the waters between Singapore and Hong Kong from their haven in Borneo. The Moro pirates of the southern Philippines harassed Spanish shipping and terrorized Christian Filipino settlements, and may have captured up to 2 million slaves in the first two centuries of Spanish rule after 1565.
During the 16th and 17th centuries, there was frequent European piracy against Mughal Indian merchants, especially those en route to Mecca for Hajj. Captain Every who I mentioned last week made history when he attacked the Grand Moghul's ship in 1696 with its enormous gold hoard, considered an act of piracy by the British court due to their alliance with the prince, however despite the high-handed nature of the theft they were found not guilty by a jury in England. They were later retried and convicted in absentia for the mutiny and theft of the ship that had started the crew on their pirate career. European attacks in Asian waters came to a head when the Portuguese attacked and captured the vessel Rahimi which belonged to Mariam Zamani, the Mughal queen, which led to the Mughal seizure of the Portuguese town Daman.

The Red Flag Fleet

During the Qing period, Chinese pirate fleets exploded in size, with immense repercussions on the Chinese economy. The pirates preyed voraciously on China's junk trade, which prospered in Fujian and Guangdong and was a vital artery of Chinese commerce. Pirate fleets exercised hegemony over villages on the coast, collecting revenue by exacting tribute and running extortion rackets. Pirate empires flourished, and fleets grew immensely in size, rivalling the Chinese Imperial fleet. In 1802, the menacing Zheng Yi who admiraled the Red Flag Fleet, inherited the fleet of his cousin, captain Zheng Qi, whose death provided Zheng Yi with considerably more influence in the world of piracy. 

Four Chinese Pirates, hanged in Hong Kong in 1863

The military might of Zheng Yi's fleet alone was sufficient to combat the Qing navy. When he died in 1807, his wife Ching Shih, a Canton whore, quickly manoeuvred towards taking over her late husband's empire, and successfully assumed control. The fleet continued to grow and prosper under her rule, and she eventually commanding as many as 40,000 men and grew powerful enough to resist even the British Empire. Once she held the fleet’s leadership position, Ching Shih started the task of uniting the fleet by issuing a code of laws.The code was very strict and strictly enforced.

First, anyone giving their own orders (ones that did not come down from Ching Shih) or disobeying those of a superior were beheaded on the spot.
Second, no one was to steal from the public fund or any villagers that supplied the pirates.
Third, all goods taken as booty had to be presented for group inspection. The booty was registered by a purser and then distributed by the fleet leader. The original seizer received twenty percent and the rest was placed into the public fund.
Fourth, actual money was turned over to the squadron leader, who only gave a small amount back to the seizer, so the rest could be used to purchase supplies for unsuccessful ships. The punishment for a first-time offense of withholding booty was severe whipping of the back. Large amounts of withheld treasure or subsequent offences carried the death penalty. 
Pirates that raped female captives were put to death, but if pirates had consensual sex with captives, the pirate was beheaded and the woman he was with had cannonballs attached to her legs and was chucked off the side of the boat. In 1806 a British officer reported on the terrible fate of those who resisted Ching Shih's pirates; the pirates nailed an enemy's feet to the deck and then beat him senseless. Contemporary reports from the British admiralty called her "The Terror of South China". Under Ching Shih's reign, the Red Flag Fleet ruled the South China Sea. However, a combination of famine, Qing naval opposition, pressure from the British Empire and internal rifts crippled piracy in China around the 1820s, and it has never again reached the same status. Ching Shih retired with her entire loot, one of very few pirates of such prominence to successfully do so, and opened a gambling house in Canton. She died in 1844, aged 69.

Thanks for reading folks, see you next week for more pirate facts! - Captain

Madagascar

Piracy around Africa has always been (and to some extent, still is) rife. Largely a site for slave trading, between 1680 and 1725 Madagascar was a bona fide pirate stronghold. This was not as long-lived as the piracy of the West Indies, but it was far more lucrative, not to mention barbarous. While the pirates of the West Indies were concentrating on looting coastal towns and raiding bulky Spanish treasure ships, others looked to the glittering riches of the East for their plunder, and the small, awkwardly defended two-masted grabs and gallivats of the Mogul and Arab fleets. While piracy continued in these waters throughout the 17th century, it was not until the last decade that the English government became concerned. Lord Bellomont, who was then governor of New York and New England, wrote to the Lords of the Admiralty in 1699:

"The vast riches of the Red Sea and Madagascar are such a lure to seamen that almost no withholding them from turning pirates."

Many famous buccaneers operated out of Madagascar, not least the legendary William Kidd, who was a privateer turned pirate, put on trial and hanged in 1701. Kidd's turn to piracy was as a conclusion of the war with the Spanish, and as Defoe puts it in his history, 'Privateers in Time of War are a Nursery for Pyrates against a Peace.' Kidd's trial helped to stoke the myth of a flourishing pirate commonwealth in a tropical paradise with vast holdings of gold and jewels, which, for a pardon, pirates seemed willing to share with the depleting English Exchequer. Henry Every was one of the most successful pirates in history (more on him later) who managed to buy his pardon with a sum greater than the national debt.

A map of Madagascar, circa 1702-1707

Pirates around Madagascar plundered merchant ships in the Indian Ocean, the Red Sea, and the Persian Gulf. They deprived Europe-bound ships of their silks, cloth, spices, and jewels. Vessels captured going in the opposite direction (to India) lost their coin, gold, and silver. The pirates robbed the Indian cargo ships that traded between ports in the Indian Ocean as well as ships commissioned by the East India Companies of France, England, and the Netherlands. As late as 1721, British and colonial ships were still supplying these Madagascar pirates with stores and ammunition, in exchange for slaves which were sold in the West Indies.

The seas around Madagascar were treacherous, and many ships were wrecked on its shore. While there were English and French colonies on Madagascar at the time, the island is covered in jungle and three times the size of Great Britain, making it difficult for shipwrecked sailors to locate them. Added to this, was the peril of hostile natives. 

Robert Drury

Robert Drury was one unfortunate lad who, aged 14, was part of a slaver ship called the Degrave. The ship ran aground off the southern coast of Madagascar in 1701 and the crew were forced to abandon her, and were taken prisoner by the king of a native clan. The crew attempted escape but failed, and most were cut to pieces, except for Drury and a couple of other youths. Drury was a slave to the natives for 10 years, eventually becoming the king's royal butcher. During a war with a neighbouring kingdom, an emissary came to speak to the king who was Drury's master. The emissary also spoke privately to Drury, and told him if he managed to escape to the west coast, his people would help him onto the first British ship they saw. Drury did escape, and followed the Olinahy river to St Augustine bay on the west coast. There Drury found a community of stowaways and other European cast-offs living under the local clan, and eventually, through his new European friends, news would return to his father who asked a certain Captain Mackett to go to the coast to have him returned to England on his ship, the Masselage. Drury returned to England on September 9th, 1717. Upon his return, Drury published his journal, and gave one of the earliest exploratory accounts of southern Madagascar. He would return to Madagascar again to become a slave trader and pirate. 

Drury's description of the geography of southern Madagascar was held with some scrutiny. In Defoe's history, he writes: 

'It must be observed, that our speculative Mathematicians and Geographers, who are, no doubt, Men of the greatest Learning, seldom travel farther than their Closets for their Knowledge, &c. are therefore unqualify'd to give us a good Description of Countries: it is for this Reason that all our Maps and Atlasses are so monstrously faulty, for these Gentlemen are obliged to take their Accounts from the Reports of illiterate Men.'

Thanks for reading folks, see you next Wendesday for more pirate fact fun! - Captain

The Caribbean

Without a doubt the most famous area for piracy has been The Caribbean, and this week I cover the rise and fall of the Caribbean pirates.

Piracy began in the Carribbean during the Anglo-Spanish War of the mid 17th Century, and privateers were enlisted by both sides to raid enemy ships and settlements. However at the conclusion of the war, with Spain and England technically at peace, a lot of privateers were put out of work, and either turned to piracy or were tempted by the French governors to lend their services to the French crown. Therefore, keeping English sailors in the Restoration inactive meant losing them to France, and so blind eyes were turned to various raids against the Spanish. One pirate captain who took advantage of this situation was Henry Morgan, who in 1668 launched several attacks on Spanish dominion without official condemnation. The English crown refused to condemn him, as he was helping to fill the pockets of many beached English adventurers throughout the West Indies, and averted the danger of them going over to France.
However in 1670, the Spanish officially recognised English dominion of Jamaica, and English ships were given free movement of the Caribbean. This led to a heavy decline in the number of illegal attacks, not just from the external politics of the European crowns, but also the domestic needs of the islanders. Sugar plantation owners, who had previously been accomplices in many illegal raids, now sought only peace and security, and feared reprisals for their part in the raids on neighbouring Spanish territories. Therefore, to distance themselves from the pirates with whom they had had dealings, they openly denounced these former watchmen of their coasts and violent defenders of English interests, and the pirates became personae non gratae in the West Indies. Another factor in the decision of the plantation owners to sever ties with the pirates may have been their continued disruption of the Spanish merchant vessels, who were now peaceful trading partners seeking English sugar.
Between pressure from the European crowns and being shunned by the plantations, piracy in the Carribbean declined and pirates shifted to easier areas of plunder. English and French buccaneers under the captains Coxon, Sharp and Cook discovered a convenient overland trail through the Isthmus to the South Pacific, and plundered enormous wealth from the undefended cities of the Pacific coast, and the English campaign in that area was the most famous and well documented voyage of the age. 
Piracy declined sharply in the new world in 1701, when the War of the Spanish Succession were declared, and the mobs of unemployed seamen found work in the naval and privateering services of their respective countries, and England offered a mass pardon for all pirates who agreed to participate in the war. During these years these enemies of all civilised people became privateering patriots, and piracy all but disappeared from the seas. When the Treaty of Utrecht was signed in 1713, the fleets were dispersed, and seamen were once again out of work. However, following this peace, the newly unemployed sailors found themselves bolstered by new armaments, larger Men-O'-War and changes in naval strategy, and these factors led to the greatest decade of pirate activity in modern history. With the peace between the European powers breeding much commerce and prosperity, the pirates of the Caribbean found easy plunder among the slow, poorly defended merchant vessels. In addition, the governors of the islands, through necessity as much as greed, continued to be casual over the commission and allegiance with captains of questionable character. Pirate ships remained largely unchallenged in the Caribbean, as naval captains were reluctant to attack well-armed and fiercely defended pirate vessels when there was no guarantee of capturing a treasure-laden prize that would justify the risk posed by attacking them.

The pirate fleets grew strong enough to rival the European powers, and pirate havens sprang up across the West Indies, a The most famous of the pirate havens was Nassau, a town that between 1703 and 1718, had no official governor and was not occupied by any European force, making in a main place for pirates operating in the area. The Governor of Bermuda stated that there were over 1000 pirates in Nassau and that they outnumbered the mere hundred inhabitants of the town. The pirates proclaimed Nassau a pirate republic, arguably the first modern democracy, and established themselves as "governors." By April 1718, Captain Woodes Rogers was dispatched from England with the sole purpose of ridding the Caribbean of pirates for good, and although general pardons were offered to pirates who peacefully surrendered, and bounties offered to those bringing them to justice, piracy continued to be so rife in the area that it all but paralysed trade in the West Indies. The English fleet eventually coaxed the pirates into submission, and with the symbolic death of the deadliest pirate of the day, Bartholomew Roberts, in 1722, the Golden Age of Piracy came to a close. Other examples of pirates that used Nassau as their base are Charles Vane, Thomas Barrow, Benjamin Hornigold, "Calico" Jack Rackham, Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and the infamous Blackbeard. I will write articles about all of them separately in following weeks.

Hope you enjoyed this week's instalment folks, come back next Wednesday for an article about Madagascan pirates - Captain

The Barbary Corsairs and Captain Ward

Ahoy mateys! I'm going to spend the next couple of instalments on a timeline of piracy. I will fill out a few of the wheres and whens before I move on to famous individuals, weapons and ships. This week, I talk about the earliest pirates of the Mediterranean.

When were the earliest pirates?

There have been pirates for as long as there have been boats. Certainly the Viking raiders that assailed Britain and France in the 9th Century would qualify as early pirates, and since a similar time pirate activity has been in operation around Africa and was near constant from then on, notably with the short-lived Emirate of Crete. Perhaps the first true buccaneers were the Barbary Corsairs, Muslim pirates who were primarily slave traders, who roved the Mediterranean from out of North Africa for over 800 years. However despite the great hostilities generated by the Crusades, Muslim pirate activity in the Mediterranean was always fairly low, at least until the 15th Century. With the growth of the Ottoman Empire, in 1487 came the privateer admiral Kemal Reis, who signalled the beginning of a true menace to European Christian shipping.

A Barbary pirate, Pier Francesco Mola, 1650

The corsairs would continue to assail the Mediterranean (and sometimes as far afield as Ireland and Iceland) until the 19th Century. In the early 1600s, the Barbary pirates regularly attacked English sailing vessels, and local parishes would often have to hold fundraisers to pay the ransom for some local person or persons taken hostage, and England became familiar with captivity narratives.In the 1630s, England signed peace treaties with most of the Barbary powers, and prior to the American Revolution, this treaty extended to American vessels. Once the revolutionary war had been declared, it was open season on any American ships sailing the Mediterranean. However following the American victory of 1776, the following year the Sultan of Morocco formally recognised the USA as a sovereign nation and declared American ships were under his protection and could enjoy safe travel. This makes the Moroccan-American Treaty of Friendship the USA's oldest (non-broken) allegiance pact. However in 1784, Morocco became the first Barbary power to seize a US ship since the country achieved sovereignty. During the Napoleonic Wars, the corsairs ruthlessly attacked American merchant vessels, and forced the USA to pay tribute to allows its ships safe travel through Barbary territory. This threat was the direct cause of the formation of the United States Navy in 1794, which the US used to conduct two Barbary Wars in the first part of the 19th Century. The wars brought an end to the American practice of paying tribute to the pirate states and helped mark the beginning of the end of piracy in that region, which had been rampant in the days of Ottoman domination (16th–18th centuries). Within decades, European powers built ever more sophisticated and expensive ships which the Barbary pirates could not match in numbers or technology.

There were a pair of brothers who became prominent Barbary pirates in the 16th Century, Hayreddin Barbarossa and Oruç Reis. Confusingly, both of these pirates were known as Redbeard. Even more confusingly, neither one actually had a red beard. Hayreddin, the younger brother, inherited the title from Oruç who was killed in a battle with the Spanish in 1518. Oruç himself acquired the name quite accidentally, as he was known as Baba Oruç (Father Oruç) in North Africa when he transported large numbers of Moriscos refugees from Spain to North Africa. This became corrupted into Barbarossa, the Italian for red beard. Hayreddin, along with the other muslim corsairs, raided the islands of the Mediterranean as well as the Spanish main throughout the 16th Century taking thousands of prisoners and slaves.

Christian pirates joined the ranks of the Barbary corsairs in around the 14th Century. Many Europeans, most of them from Catalonia, began to rove the Mediterranean and attack the North African coastal cities such as Tunis, Oran and Algiers. The Europeans quickly took to the fore when they came onto the stage, having constructed the original frigates: Light, fast, manoeuvrable galleys designed to run down the corsair slave ships. Other measures included coastal lookouts to give warning for people to withdraw into fortified places and rally local forces to fight the corsairs. This latter goal was especially difficult to achieve as the corsairs had the advantage of surprise; the vulnerable European Mediterranean coasts were very long and easily accessible from the north African Barbary bases, and the corsairs were careful in planning their raids.

Jack Ward

Other than the Barbarossa brothers, perhaps the most prominent Barbary corsair was an Englishman. Captain Jack or John Ward, nicknamed Birdy, was once called "beyond doubt the greatest scoundrel that ever sailed from England" by the English ambassador to Venice. Ward was pressed into the Navy in the first years of the 17th Century, and became a privateer for Queen Elizabeth during her war with Spain. Ward and about 30 of his colleagues deserted, and stole a small barque from Portsmouth Harbour in 1603. Ward was elected captain of the new crew, one of the earliest examples of pirate democracy. From there Ward's crew captured successively bigger ships, eventually acquiring a 32-gun warship which he renamed The Gift, and attacked merchant seamen for the next two years. At the end of the war, Ward wrote to James I to ask for a pardon that he might return to England and retire, but the king refused and Ward and his crew settled in Tunis converted to Islam. Ward changed his name to Yusuf Reis, took a new wife while continuing to send money to his Christian wife in England. An English sailor who saw him in Tunis in 1608 described Ward as "very short with little hair, and that quite white, bald in front; swarthy face and beard. Speaks little and almost always swearing. Drunk from morn till night...The habits of a thorough salt. A fool and an idiot out of his trade." 

Ward was an immensely rich and successful pirate who had introduced heavily armed square-rigged ships to use instead of galleys, to the North African area, a major reason for the Barbary's future dominance of the Mediterranean. He died of plague in 1622, aged 70. A ballad was written about him, Captain Ward and The Rainbow. Ward is the likely inspiration for Captain Jack Sparrow.

Hope you enjoyed this week's update folks, pirate facts here every Wednesday. - Captain