by Liz Mechem
BLACK SAM BELLAMY
Samuel Bellamy was an English merchant seaman when he fell in love with a young Massachusetts woman named Maria Hallet. Hoping to bolster his fortunes and win Maria’s hand, Bellamy started a new career as a treasure hunter, searching for profitable shipwrecks. He and his friend Palgrave Williams soon traveled south to Florida to cash in on the bounty of the wrecked 1715 treasure fleet. In the Caribbean, Bellamy fell in with English pirate Benjamin Hornigold, who trained him in the ways of the outlaw.
By 1717, Bellamy was known as the “Robin Hood of the Seas.” He had captured some 50 boats and traveled in a small flotilla of two ships. In February of that year, he spied the Whydah in the Antilles and gave chase. Three days later, he won her from Captain Lawrence Prince, an experienced slave trader, after a perfunctory exchange of hostilities. Bellamy gave Prince his former ship, the Sultana, and the 330-ton (300 metric tons) Whydah became Black Sam’s flagship.
But Black Sam captained her for only a few short months. Some historians believe that Bellamy was ready to cash out—to return to his ladylove a rich man, marry her, and settle down to raise a family. Whatever his intentions, Bellamy guided the Whydah north up the East Coast, and on April 26 ran into a fierce nor’easter off the coast of Wellfleet, Massachusetts. The Whydah ran aground, stern first, and then was tossed back into deep water, where she broke asunder. Only two men survived. Black Sam and the rest of his 180-man crew went down with the Whydah.
The Whydah’s survivors claimed that she was loaded with some four tons of treasure at the time of her sinking, from gold dust, jewels, and costly merchandise to the stockin-trade of the pirate: Spanish pieces of eight. The wreck of the Whydah—and her bounty of treasure—lay underwater until 1984, when salvor Barry Clifford, using maps drawn up at the time of the shipwreck as his starting point, discovered them.
The Whydah, like the ship pictured above, fired cannons broadside. Pirates
such as Black Sam Bellamy chose their ships carefully. Ideally, a captured ship would increase the pirate’s speed, firepower, or both.
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
The Whydah was named for the West African port Ouidah (pronounced “wee-dah”), which was a hub of the transatlantic slave trade.
LITTLE JOHN KING
AMONG BELLAMY’S CREW was a young boy named John King, who had joined the pirates willingly. Aged between 9 and 11, John is the youngest known pirate. His remains were positively identified after Barry Clifford discovered the Whydah. King’s leg bone, still clad in a silk stocking, was near a small, buckled black shoe.
The remains of the littlest pirate: a silk, stocking, a buckled shoe, and a fibula
The Queen Anne’s Revenge
BLACKBEARD’S FLAGSHIP
Mayhem aboard the Adventure. Blackbeard’s last battle, fought against Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy, rid the world of the mighty pirate, but generated his enduring and apocryphal legacy: that an impressive cache of treasure lay somewhere well hidden, the location lost forever to a stroke of Maynard’s sword.
FLOTSAM & JETSAM
Blackbeard struck terror into his victims by wearing lit cannon fuses in his hair as he stormed a ship.
Every pirate has his day. For Blackbeard (c. 1680–1718), one of the most notorious brigands of the Golden Age of Piracy, his ship had her day first. Her master followed a few months later. The Queen Anne’s Revenge, as Blackbeard dubbed his flagship, was lost on the shoals off North Carolina’s Beaufort Inlet, then known as Topsail Inlet, in 1718.
At the time of the shipwreck, Blackbeard controlled a combined crew of some 300 men, operating on at least four ships. Of these, the Queen Anne’s Revenge was the apple of his eye. Built in 1710, in England, and christened the Concord, the future pirate ship first served a stint in the grim transatlantic slave trade. One year after her launch, the French captured the Concord, modified her to hold even more cargo, renamed her La Concorde, and put her to work on the triangular trade route from Europe to Africa to the Caribbean. In 1717, La Concorde sailed on her third and final slave-trading voyage, when a flotilla of pirates, led by Blackbeard and Benjamin Hornigold, waylaid her in the Grenadines.
QUEEN ANNE’S PIRATES
The band of pirates—some 150-strong—easily overpowered La Concorde; the French ship gave up after two volleys from the pirates. Blackbeard, whose relation with the elder Hornigold was something between protégé and partner, assumed command of the 200-ton (180 metric tons) ship. Renaming her the Queen Anne’s Revenge, he fitted her out as a 40-gun terror of the seas.
Blackbeard was born Edward Thatch, or Teach, probably in England. He turned to piracy after a stint as a privateer—essentially a state-sanctioned pirate—during the War of Spanish Succession (1701–14). Blackbeard quickly gained a reputation for ferocity and ruthlessness, though the rumors seem to outweigh documented bloodshed. A towering man, Blackbeard had the swagger, swords, and eponymous facial hair to back up the vilest rumors. With the aid of the Queen Anne’s Revenge, Blackbeard took his brazenness a step further. Historians estimate that Blackbeard captured or pillaged up to 50 ships during his career.
In late May 1718, the Queen Anne’s Revenge and three smaller ships sailed up to the harbor of Charleston, South Carolina. They stayed for a week, seizing ships, goods, and even hostages as they wished. The blockade continued until Blackbeard received a chest of medicine in exchange for a hostage. From Charleston, his flotilla then sailed north. Shortly thereafter, the Queen Anne’s Revenge ran aground. Some say Blackbeard wrecked his flagship deliberately to thin the ranks of his crew. Fewer men meant more loot for each.
REDISCOVERED
In 1996, Interstal, Inc., a private Florida company that researches and excavates shipwrecks, discovered the wreck of the Queen Anne’s Revenge in the shallow Atlantic waters offshore from Fort Macon State Park, North Carolina. The excavation of the Queen Anne’s wreck site is still ongoing. Recovered artifacts include firearms and ammunition, jewelry, gold, tableware, cuff links, and even leg irons used for discipline.
Blackbeard escaped on the sloop Adventure but met his end on November 22, 1718. In Ocracoke Inlet on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, Blackbeard engaged in battle with Lieutenant Robert Maynard of the Royal Navy, who had a commission to hunt down the brigand. In close, bloody combat, Maynard’s sword lopped off Blackbeard’s head, which he had displayed in victory, hanging from the naval ship’s bowsprit.
The bowsprit, decorated here with Blackbeard’s head, extends from the bow and is used to attach the forestay, which prevents the foremast from bending.
PIRATES!
T he popular image of a pirate as a swashbuckling, plundering outlaw loyal only to his Jolly Roger flag isn’t entirely off the historical mark. But it refers to only one type of pirate—those who plied their trade during the so-called Golden Age of Piracy of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. Pirates operated all over the world long before this golden age, and they are still operating today. In fact, some experts fear that there has been an increase in piracy in the early years of the twenty-first century, as evidenced by the capture of the Saudi oil tanker Sirius Star by Somali pirates in 2008.
A classic image of a pirate captain from Howard Pyle’s Book of Pirates
A vessel captured by U.S. Navy ships for suspected piracy in the Indian Ocean, 2006. Piracy is an increasingly vexing issue in the waters between the Red Sea and Indian Ocean, off the Somali coast, and in the Strait of Malacca. More than 50,000 commercial ships use these busy waters every year.
From the earliest history of maritime trade, ships have been vulnerable to criminal attack. Pirates flourished in the Mediterranean and Aegean Seas as early as the fourteenth century BCE. Scandinavian Vikings of the eighth to the tenth centuries were notorious pirates and raiders. In the nineteenth century, coastal India and the Persian Gulf were frequent targets for pirates after the spoils of the British and Dutch East India Companies. Pirates also patrolled the north coast of Africa, known as the
Barbary Coast, waylaying Mediterranean vessels. Throughout history, pirates have captured not just loot, but also humans to sell into slavery.
As long as precious cargoes are shipped between ports, there will be brigands who hunt the seas. Maritime regulations and strict application of the law can only do so much to abate the lure of easy spoils, be they gold, oil, or human.
THE GOLDEN AGE OF PIRACY
Driven by the European colonial shipping trade with the New World, the Golden Age of Piracy flourished from about 1680 to 1730. Treasure ships regularly left the Caribbean for Europe—especially Spain—and pirates were poised to take their share. The pirates’ aim was to capture the ship, not to sink it. The fate of those aboard often depended on the pirate captain’s whim. Pirates might let the vanquished go free or join their crew, but murder was a distinct option. The captured captain had to rely on his crewmen’s favor: a fair captain would survive, while a harsh one might not.
Two pirates duel over a treasure, while their comrades watch. Legends of buried treasure—and the bloodshed that accompanied its recovery—are popular remnants of the Golden Age of Piracy, but, on the whole, are greatly exaggerated.
Despite the popular image of the pirate captain as a tyrant, pirates in fact operated democratically. Under a rigid pirate code, captains were elected, and all men aboard were entitled to an equal portion of the spoils. Offenses were met with any number of gruesome corporal punishments. Pirates sailed under no national flag, so their loyalty to their ship and comrades was serious business. These self-contained classless collectives attracted many who, for one reason or another, wished to escape more rigid societies.
The Jolly Roger, a white skull and crossbones or crossed swords on a black field, is only one of a dozen or more pirate flag designs. Other distinctive pirate designs feature skeletons, hearts, or hourglasses to signify “your time is up.”
PRIVATEERS
FROM THE SIXTEENTH CENTURY to the eighteenth century, many European colonial powers sanctioned privateering as a form of marine warfare. Privateers kept a portion of the spoils, while the remainder was turned over to the crown. Some privateers, such as William Kidd (c. 1645–1701), later became pirates. Privateering was internationally outlawed in 1856.
Kidd was not only executed for piracy, but his body was hung in a gibbet over the River Thames as a deterrent for other pirates.
HMS Bounty
MUTINY IN THE SOUTH PACIFIC
In January 1790, the HMS Bounty burned and sank off remote Pitcairn Island in the South Pacific, an event far less famous than her storied 1789 mutiny. Indeed, it was the mutineers themselves who sank their ship, hoping to elude the pursuing Royal Navy. Thus ended the career of the compact, 90-foot (27 m) collier, which had sailed under the command of one of the Royal Navy’s finest, William Bligh.
A replica of the Bounty. As a collier, she had been designed to carry coal in bulk.
A BOUNTY OF BREADFRUIT
Commanding Lieutenant Bligh was entrusted with an important, if bizarre, mission: procure a cargo of live breadfruit trees from the South Pacific islands. The British crown intended to establish large breadfruit plantations in the Caribbean in order to feed the increasing number of slaves at work in British holdings there. For the purposes of this botanical experiment, the Royal Navy purchased the small collier Bethia and rechristened her the Bounty.
The journey went poorly nearly from the start. The Bounty spent almost a month attempting to round Cape Horn, finally giving up and turning east to the Indian Ocean. After 10 months’ travel she attained Tahiti, to the vast relief of her officers and crew. It isn’t hard to imagine why a filthy pack of Jack Tars cooped up on a tiny ship for 10 months might enjoy the Edenic delights of Tahiti. This they did, with great gusto, for five months, living ashore to harvest and package the precious breadfruit plants. After several desertions, dozens of tattoos, numerous amorous encounters with Tahitian women, and at least one marriage, the men of the Bounty installed their cargo of 1,015 potted breadfruit plants, reboarded the ship, and weighed anchor for the Caribbean.
Commanding Lieutenant William Bligh
CHRISTIAN’S MEN
Only three weeks into the journey, mutiny overtook the Bounty. The charismatic lieutenant, Fletcher Christian, incited roughly half the crew to join him in mutiny. Lieutenant Bligh and 18 loyalists were placed in the ship’s longboat. Chartless, and with no more than a pocket watch and sextant for navigation, Bligh piloted the open boat more than 3,618 nautical miles (6,700 km) to safety in Timor. Along the way, he escaped cannibals, endured fierce storms, and navigated some of the world’s most treacherous waters.
A contemporary engraving shows Fletcher Christian and the mutineers turning Lt. Bligh, along with other officers and crew members, adrift from HMS Bounty.
The HMS Pandora, sent to capture the HMS Bounty mutineers, was wrecked on the Great Barrier Reef, killing 31 crewmen and 4 mutineers.
Fletcher Christian and the mutineers returned to Tahiti, but eventually took to the sea, hoping to find a more secure place to hide from the inevitable search by His Majesty’s Navy. Mutiny was a grave charge indeed. The remainder of the band tried several islands over nine months’ evasive sailing, only to be chased back to sea by fierce cannibalistic natives. Finally, they landed at Pitcairn Island. There in her bay, they burned and sank the Bounty. Several years of murder and mayhem plagued the islanders until there remained only two Englishmen and nine Tahitian women. The company restored some semblance of peace and became devout Christians. One of the men died of natural causes the next year, but after that, the Pitcairn Island band of mutiny survivors thrived, and their offspring live there to the present day.
UNDER THE WATERS OF BOUNTY BAY
IN JANUARY 1957, photographer, writer, and polymath Luis Marden discovered the remains of the Bounty while diving in the eponymous Bounty Bay off Pitcairn Island on assignment for National Geographic magazine. To the present day, her ballast stones can still be seen from the surface of the gin-clear water.
SS Tonquin
FROM TRAPPING TO TERROR
In the early nineteenth century, the Pacific Northwest of the United States was still a great and terrifying wilderness for white explorers, trappers, and settlers. Navigation of locales like the Columbia River was made difficult by the paucity of maps and the hostility of various native peoples.
The captain and crew of the SS Tonquin sought beaver and otter pelts for John Jacob Astor’s Pacific Fur Company. A fur transaction gone bad incited the natives and left nearly the entirety of the Tonquin’s crew dead. After luring numerous Indians onboard ship, the only remaining crewman lit the ship’s gunpowder stores, destroying the ship, himself, and the raiders come to pillage.
A CAPTAIN’S FATAL ERROR
The 290-ton (260 metric tons), three-masted bark Tonquin sailed out of New York Harbor in spring 1810. Bound for the Pacific Northwest in search of animal pelts, she first had to round the treacherous Cape Horn on the tip of South America. During the arduous journey, Captain Jonathan Thorne proved himself a difficult and demanding taskmaster. While not so unusual for a sea captain of the day, Thorne’s threatening and bullying behavior would prove more problematic when he directed his barbs at native peoples.
A bark, or barque, has at least three masts and square sails on all but the aftermost mast.
Arriving at the mouth of the Columbia River, Thorne sent three successive boats to try to find the channel for the Tonquin to clear an infamous bar shoal. Each boat lost (only two men were eventually recovered) increased the bitterness of the sailors. The Tonquin was finally able to make her way upstream, and her crew spent more than two months building a fort and outbuildings, which would later become the town of Astoria—named for the sponsor of the expedition, John Jacob Astor.
Having unloaded most of her cargo at Astoria by June 1811, the Tonquin then proceeded north to Clayoquot Sound, in the area around present-day Vancouver, in search of native trappers who would trade for pelts. The crew o
f the Tonquin found them in a Nuu-chah-nulth village, but tensions rose as natives and explorers failed to come to terms. Hotheaded Captain Thorne angrily threw a load of furs in the face of the village chief before ordering him off the ship—a fatal insult, as it turned out. The chief returned with a band of men and attacked the traders. The wild melee left only five crewmen alive onboard the Tonquin. Four of them attempted to escape in a canoe, only to be slaughtered ashore.
The sole remaining crewman, clerk James Lewis, hid overnight as he hatched plans for revenge. At dawn, he called out to the Nuu-chah-nulth on the shore to come aboard. As a band of Indians swarmed onto the ship, the duplicitous sailor lit the fuse that he had been concealing. Four and a half tons (4 metric tons) of gunpowder in the ship’s stores exploded in a tremendous blast. This single blast destroyed the perpetrator, the Indians, and the Tonquin, leaving nothing but splinters floating on the waters of Clayoquot Sound.
CHRONICLE OF DECEIT
THE FATE OF THE TONQUIN would be unknown but for the sole survivor of the ship, one George Ramsey, also known as Lamazee. This son of a Chinook Indian mother and an English sailor managed to slip away during the height of the battle onboard and escape death by dint of his dark skin and ability to speak the native language.
The 125-foot (38 m)-tall Astoria Column chronicles the Lewis and Clark expedition of 1803–06 at the bottom, as well as other events in Astoria history.
Built in 1926, the concrete-and-steel Astoria Column, located in Astoria, Oregon, depicts the adventures of the Tonquin, including her ignoble end at the top.
North America’s largest rodent, the American beaver became such a favorite for the fur trade that it nearly went extinct by 1900. Its numbers have now recovered.
The Golden Venture
SMUGGLED HUMAN CARGO
A contemporary painting of the Golden Venture and the desperate immigrants’ final struggle to reach the shores of the United States. Weakened by their trials aboard ship, some unlucky souls never would.