Best of the History Guy: Pirates!

[Music] 325 years ago today on june 7 1692 at 11 43 a.m an earthquake struck the island of jamaica and its capital city of port royal the bustling port town was nearly destroyed but port royal was a pirate city and by some descriptions the most wicked and sinful city in the world and the irony of a city like that being destroyed by the hand of god was not lost on the people of the time and so the 1692 jamaica earthquake offers us a unique opportunity to talk not just about the history of jamaica and port royal but it offers a unique opportunity in modern archaeology and for the history guy it offers an excuse to talk about pirates r but let's start out trying to understand the real pirates of the caribbean because of the wealth of the spanish colonies in the americas the caribbean which was known as the spanish maine was a particularly rich place for people who made their living raiding merchant ships on the high seas but most of them weren't really pirates they were privateers the great powers of the day the british the french and the spanish were frequently at war or at least at odds and so the governments would issue things called letters of mark the letter of mark is permission from a government to raid enemy ships at sea so privateers are actually in essence mercenaries who are acting as private soldiers and who are paid with the value of the booty that they collect and that is the value of the ships and the cargo and the passengers and crews either for ransom or as slaves is how they got their pet now these are different than pirates pirates do the same thing they raid ships on the high c for the value of what they can collect but they do so without the protection of a letter of mark and so they are more vulnerable to the law now the line between the two is actually pretty thin and the privateer might exceed the authority of their letter of mark by say raiding a ship from the wrong country or making a land raid and so most of the people who made their living doing this sort of thing were at sometimes pirates and it's sometimes privateers in the course of their life in the caribbean there's a unique term called buccaneer and that actually originally referred to landless hunters on the island of hispaniola who would hunt wild pigs and wild cattle and then they would usually dry that into what in french is called vien buccaneer or roughly beef jerky and so the people who did that those men were called buccaneers and the spanish didn't like them for a number of reasons not the least of which was that they provide supply to the corsairs that were raiding the spanish ships and so the spanish chased them off the island of hispaniola and many of them ended up becoming pirates themselves and eventually the term which was anglicized to become buccaneer was used to refer to all of the various pirates corsairs privateers that operated in the caribbean although they were pirates they were not uncivilized the pirates of the caribbean had formed together a loose organization that was called the brethren of the coast this was a syndicate of captains who both freeburners and privateers had organized together in order to regulate economic activities largely to prevent conflict among the various pirate groups in the early part of the 17th century the caribbean pirates largely operated off the island of tortuga which is a small island off the coast of hispaniola or modern-day haiti but in 1655 a british fleet captured the spanish island of jamaica and the british governor knowing that the spanish wanted to take jamaica back invited the brethren of the coast to use the new capital of british jamaica the port city of port royal as their home port now the british got a ready-made forest to defend jamaica from the spanish and the pirates got a safe deep water port with easy access to the rich shipping routes of the spanish maine the deal worked out better than they could ever imagine not only did successful buccaneer captains like henry morgan who was the most famous and feared buccaneer of the 17th century bring in lots and lots of wealth from the spanish ships that they had raided but the spanish were so disrupted that they were unable to meet the spanish colonies need for manufactured goods and so the spanish colonists were forced to buy their manufactured goods from the british merchants in jamaica ironically many of those goods having been taken from spanish ships by pirates this system which was called forced trade made port royal one of the wealthiest cities of the day it was a bustling trading town there was so much money gold and silver which had been taken by the pirates that the amount of running cash in port royal relative to the population was greater than the same amount in london in the day and it was such an important trade city the largest city in the caribbean that port royal was more important to trade than boston was but it was a pirate city and as a pirate utopia it was filled with cutthroats and thieves who had lots of money and so became a well-known center of debauchery variously described as the sodom of the west and the wickedest city in the christian world it was so debauched that the city of port royal had one public drinking house per 10 residents it had lots of prostitutes and brothels because a prostitute in port royal can make more money than almost any other place on earth and it was so known for public drunkenness that even the pirates favorite pets parents developed a taste for wine and were frequently drunk and the city was built on shaky foundations literally port royal is at the end of a sand bar it's built on sand not land and if there wasn't enough room to build they would frequently just dump sand on the water and build buildings on top of that and because they had money sometimes those were heavy stone buildings that were literally built on foundations of sand the earthquake struck at 11 43 am on june the 7th 1692. it came in three great shocks the largest of which was estimated to be about 7.5 on the richter scale the ground beneath the city liquefied a process called liquefaction and the entire port city seemed to roll down towards the ocean in a period of just two minutes two-thirds of the city of port royal went below sea level the scene rolled in great waves so great fissures and when people fell in those fissures would then close and crush the people and of course many of the stone buildings also collapsed and crushed more people and then the city was hit by the tsunami which put nearly 90 percent of the city below water and capsized more than 20 ships in the harbor of the city's population of approximately 6 500 about 2 000 died in the initial earthquake and tsunami and afterwards deprived of shelter and clean water nearly 3 000 died of disease in the aftermath port royal tried to rebuild but then it was struck by a series of disasters in 1805 a fire burned most of the city to the ground and several hurricanes of the early part of the 19th century left port royal abandoned except for a small british naval station the capital of jamaica was moved to spanish city and most of the trade that had been import royal was moved across the harbor to the city of kingston the symbolism of the sodom of the west being repeatedly destroyed by acts of god was not lost on religious leaders of the day and port royal was held up as the symbol of divine retribution and spurred a religious revival in jamaica that turned the population against the pirates the era of the buccaneer was ending anyway the british and spanish had signed a peace treaty and the pirates success was starting to threaten that treaty and economically the slave trade and sugar trade began to overcome piracy as the way to support jamaica and so jamaica started passing anti-piracy laws ironically many of the pirates of the early 18th century met their end in the former pirate utopia of port royal at the british naval station there and a place that was ghoulishly called gallows point but the earthquake and the process of liquefaction offers an unparalleled opportunity for modern archaeology the entire city of port royal sunk in just a couple of minutes and was buried in the sand leaving behind a pristine historical record usually archaeological sites are places that were occupied for a very long period of time and you have to dig through years of garbage to figure out what's what but port royal the city that sunk was preserved at a precise moment in time and some argue that it is the most important archaeological site in the western hemisphere it is our best record of life in the 17th century in fact the way that we know that the earthquake occurred at precisely 11 43 am is because of a pocket watch that was discovered in an archaeological dig of one of the ships in the harbor stopped at exactly 11 43 am a permanent record a remembrance of the very last moment of the golden age of piracy in the caribbean this week here in america we celebrate the holiday that we call thanksgiving and why we like to talk about a feast that was shared between 53 pilgrims and about 90 native americans after the pilgrims first harvest in 1621 as being the first thanksgiving of course the idea of harvest festivals goes back millennia and setting aside time to give thanks and to share was an integral part of native american culture long before europeans ever arrived in fact even the idea of europeans and native americans sharing a meal to give thanks long predates the pilgrims spanish explorers shared a feast and celebrated a thanksgiving mass with the timiquan people as early as 1565. and another important figure in the development of the holiday was one of the first european explorers to explore the territory that we now call canada martin frobisher probationer stumbled upon undiscovered parts of the new continent while he was searching for the fabled northwest passage and some historians argue that a meal that he shared with his crew on what would become canadian soil in 1578 is the mythical foundation of the canadian celebration of thanksgiving and like all tales we're telling probationers is a tale of adventure of heartbreak of piracy the curious tale of the life of martin frobisher is history that deserves to be remembered probationer was born in the 1530s in yorkshire england to a merchant his father died early and he was raised in the household of one of his mother's relatives sir john york another merchant furbasher joined the merchant crew of thomas windham as a cabin boy it was part of one of britain's first trips to western africa and the kingdom of benim there the merchants traded goods like english cloth to the warrior kings for pepper and gold unfortunately on the way back from the successful mission the crew was struck down by disease and most perished leaving only 40 survivors of original crew from three different ships frobisher was one of the fortunate few to survive the mission the portuguese were not pleased by the british incursions into what they saw as their trading territory a series of papal bowls called the bowls of donation issued by alexander vi in the late 1400s rather arbitrarily divided the non-european world into pieces for trade from the assigned nations with africa going to portugal later queen elizabeth the first would respond to portugal's protests about british trade in africa saying is amongst all princes and countries the use of intercourse of merchandise is the chief exercise of amenity and as the head of the church of england she didn't recognize the pope's authority anyway the english the portuguese and well pretty much everybody raided each other's ships on these merchant voyages and it created an atmosphere of ill will and distrust in the 1550s rubbisher joined a new merchant group and returned to benin records of this visit show dates when trades were made and at which locations but neglect to mention a significant event in phoebusher's life he was apparently used as a goodwill pledge between the merchants and the native peoples during trade but frodberg's crew left him behind rather than recovering him from sure was eventually handed over to the portuguese and held as a prisoner in a fortress in the gulf of guinea some time later he was returned to portugal and from there made his way back to england in the 1560s robertshire stood before the privy council and gave a deposition about his nine-month stint as a portuguese prisoner a decade before he said during his imprisonment the portuguese asked him to go collect supplies publisher said that he was required to make diverse journeys that dwelt a mile or two from said castle to get rituals as gults poultry and other for to supply their necessity for that they themselves durst not for peril of their lives do it it's not clear exactly how or when frobisher got back to england but historians assume that this was probably a formative experience he clearly would have felt devalued being abandoned by his fellow merchants and left in africa and moreover in the time that he was in prison they likely sold all the goods and split their shares without him so he didn't even get paid for his venture and his imprisonment but after returning it appears that he permanently left the household of his uncle sir john york and set out to earn his own fortune publisher married a wealthy widow isabel regat in 1559 and proceeded to spend her fortune apart from her theirs was a marriage of convenience not love though she had children from a previous marriage martin and isabel never had children together by 1560 freubisher was an active privateer and was rarely if ever home privateer was a curious profession skirting the legal and by radical boundaries at sea in the time before international law merchants who have been robbed at sea could apply to the court of admiralty for a letter of reprisal giving them a court appointed right to retrieve the value of the loss of their property from a countrymen of the person who had robbed them privateers were supposed to operate within these guidelines but once away from the shore things could get rather dicey plus if certain amounts of cargo made their way into the pockets of the port authorities so that they looked the other way while limits of the letters of reprisal became less important it's again unclear when or how frozer became a privateer but he was successful enough to purchase his own ship the married flower and continue his money making enterprises on her in 1569 probationer absconded with wine from an english merchant who wasn't going to let him get away with it the merchant tracked down his stolen goods and demanded them back from the new owner who didn't want to give them up but named frobisher as the man who had supplied the stolen goods frobisher was arrested the next time he came to port and held at the infamous marshall seat prison until he could pay a fine of 900 pounds which was a huge amount of money for that period of time the privy council wrote to the jailer we sinned upon you by this bearer martin frobisher against whom you know what grievous complaints have been made of diverse and sundry piracies by him committed but frobish or smuggling had made him some powerful friends in the court they petitioned queen elizabeth and frobasher was released without paying the fine however there was a price to be paid frobisher was expected to head an anti-privateering force in the name of the queen and stop smuggling and piracy where he could find it he had little success with this assignment but continued to serve in 1572 frebrisher helped supply the british while they quelled a rebellion in ireland and after that he either began quietly privateering again or once more took up the habit if he'd ever actually quit to begin with then his career took a curious turn historians aren't certain why but in 1574 rubbisher petitioned the privy council for money and supplies to attempt to locate the famed northwest passage a sea route that would allow british merchants to sail west from the atlantic to the pacific ocean the pirate it seems decided that he wanted to try his hand at becoming an explorer the crown declined to fund publishers expedition outright but two private merchant groups were game as a northwest passage offered enormous potential for trade and freubisher was an accomplished navigator publisher set sail in 1576 queen elizabeth herself showed her support by waving farewell to his expedition from greenwich palace on the thames he landed at labrador and sailed into the bay which was later named probisher bay because of stormy weather he turned aside from sailing further northward and landed on baffin island according to some historians members of provision's crew were kidnapped by the native people living on baffin island and he was unable to retrieve them on the first or subsequent missions one wonders if it brought back echoes of his own imprisonment in africa decades prior despite this setback probably sure obtained a large rock from baffin island that he gave to the merchant corporation when he returned to england as proof of the new lands he had discovered one of the merchants of the group had the rock analyzed and determined that it contained gold this energized everyone because now they weren't just talking about a trade passage to the other side of the world but also gold rich new lands for the claiming following this discovery quinn elizabeth helped fund two more publisher expeditions one in 1577 and another in 1578. he sealed back to baffin island and brought back tons more of the mineral discovered in the ground there unfortunately for frobisher the mineral turned out not to be gold but relatively worthless iron pyrite or fool's gold publishers dreams of a gold-covered future were over and no more expeditions were funded his tons of iron pyrite were used to pave roads in england it was during publishers 1578 trip that he supposedly held a thanksgiving service for the safe passage of his expedition thanksgiving services were held in europe and as mentioned earlier by native peoples in the americas prior to this time but frobisher's thanksgiving was one of the first european observances in north america it would be more than 40 years before the pilgrims would feast with the wampanoa at pilt at plymouth at frobisher's thanksgiving they didn't have a large meal or other trappings that have come to be associated with later thanksgiving traditions but they did give thanks for their lives with no prospects for another expedition the search for the northwest passage publishers secured a position commanding a ship and an expedition to put down a rebellion in ireland in 1580 and in 1585 was appointed vice admiral by queen elizabeth serving under sir francis drake reading spanish ports in the west indies he earned fame for his role in driving off the spanish armada sent to facilitate an invasion of britain in 1588 where he commanded one of the english fleet's four squadrons rubbisher commanded the triumph the largest ship in queen elizabeth's navy he attacked the san martin the flagship of the duke of bedina cedonia twice although he was unable to capture the ship at one point the triumph was surrounded by 30 ships of the armada off the isle of wight but rubbisher demonstrated exceptional skill in seamanship using the ship's boats to maneuver triumph where it could take advantage of the weather gauge upwind of the spanish and escape frobasher was knighted for valor and his role in defeating the spanish fleet it was a remarkable achievement for someone who started as a mere cabin boy and who had been abandoned in benin as if he were worthless that same year his first wife isabelle died alone in a poor house she probably hadn't seen her husband for years by 1590 a probisher had married another widow dorothy the daughter of the first baron of wentworth but domestic life didn't seem to be his taste as probably sure was off chasing spanish treasure ships commanding an expedition to blockade the spanish coast the following year in november 1594 fromisher's luck ran out leading a fleet during the siege of the fort crossin part of the french wars of religion and the anglo-spanish war rubbisher received a bullet wound to his leg the surgeon who removed the bullet failed to remove the cloth wadding and the wound became gangrenous proprietor died november 22 1549 at plymouth england martin frobisher was a complex historical personality a rogue at the time of walter raleigh and francis drake he was a pirate or a privateer depending upon your point of view as one of the first explorers to explore the northeast of north america and a daring soldier who helped to defeat the spanish armada ships of the royal navy have been named after them street names in canada and of course frobescher bay on baffin island pirates they're both the stuff of legend and of history they have been both romanticized and villainized they applied the world's ocean since almost as soon as humans went to sea and they still plagued the world's oceans today but piracy is not a normal crime throughout history piracy has been less an act of petty thievery and more an active economic warfare engaged by the world's great powers and no group of pirates in history have been more successful at that economic warfare than the barbary pirates rising in the 16th century as the ottoman empire came to dominate the north african ports of algeria tripoli and tuni the barbary pirates were the scourge of europe they captured thousands of ships rated as far north as iceland and in a 300 year period took more than one and a quarter million people into slavery and among the barbary pirates one name rises above the rest the greatest pirate in history the pirate who changed europe hay redden barbarossa the pirate king the history of conflict between christ and europe and the muslim world dates back to the early muslim conquests in the 7th century a.d in the century following the death of the prophet muhammad muslim conquest had created a caliphate that spanned nearly 5 million square miles from the borders of china to the iberian peninsula it was the largest empire in history to that time three times larger than the roman empire at its height this created a conflict with christian europe that spanned centuries the so-called reconquista the effort by the armies of christendom to retake the iberian peninsula for example took 780 years between 1096 and 1272 christian europe engaged in nine major crusades to the holy land in brutal wars of religion that cost millions of lives but the nature of the conflict changed during the 14th century with the rise of the new and powerful turkish ottoman empire which became a transcontinental empire with their conquest of the balkans in the 1350s and defeated the byzantine empire the last vestige of rome under sultan mammod the conqueror in 1453 the ottoman empire reached its apex in the 16th century under the great sultan suleiman the magnificent facilitated by his great admiral hay redden barbarossa born in 1478 and originally named kisser the future admiral was a product of the ottoman wars born on a turkish-occupied greek island his father was an ottoman knight of albanian descent who had been granted land after helping to conquer the island in 1462. his father became a successful maker of pottery and bought a merchant fleet to go sell his wares and all four of his sons had become semen engaging in international trade and later piracy privateering against the christian knights of saint john then operating out of their stronghold on the isle of roads this was a period where privateers state-sanctioned pirates were commonly used as a form of economic warfare on both sides in fact piracy in the time was largely conducted using galleys which were frequently rowed by slaves that had been captured in pirate raids the family were first victims of pirates themselves one brother was killed and the oldest brother oreck was captured when privateers of the knights of saint john capture their father's merchant vessel of course all good stories begin with being captured by pirates eventually kisser helped orik escape and the two became privateers themselves eventually becoming some of the most successful pirates of their era under the patronage of an ottoman prince from 1503 to 1516 they raided across the mediterranean capturing dozens of ships from as far away as england in true pirate form oreck lost an arm and replaced it with a silver prosthetic earning the name goomus coal or silver arm in turkish but it was another name that would become much more famous while helping to evacuate muslim refugees orc became called by the name baba auric which means father orrick but in europe where the brothers already had a great reputation as pirates that was misunderstood to be barbarossa italian for red beard as all three brothers had red beards the name stuck their fortunes took another turn in 1516. the emir of algiers asked for their help in expelling spain which was encroaching on his kingdom the brothers defeated not just the spanish but the emir whom they felt had conspired with spain an orc was proclaimed the sultan of algiers the pirate brothers had become kings when orrick was killed fighting the spanish in 1517 kisser took over his title and his name barbarossa to protect his new territory he sought the support of the ottoman empire and algiers became an ottoman province conflict with spain continued until 1529 but algeria would become an ottoman state and the main base of the barbary pirates until the french conquest of algeria 300 years later kiser offered his vast pirate fleet to the service of the new ottoman emperor suleiman the magnificent who gave kisser the honorary name hayriden meaning best of islam the pirate king continued to be the scourge of europe and used algiers as a base in his conflict with spain in 1533 he changed the world when he was sent as an emissary to king francis the first of france famously giving the king a present of a live african lion which became known as the lion of barbarossa the embassy would lead three years later to an alliance between christian france and the islamic ottoman empire commonly called in europe the unholy alliance the alliance based on shared opposition to the habsburg empire would become one of the longest lasting and most influential alliances of europe and would endure for two and a half centuries now allied with france hayred and barbarossa became such a thorn in the side of the habsburg empire that the holy roman emperor himself charles v tried to bribe hayward and to switch sides hayridin responded by beheading the agent who carried the offer as hay redden and his fleets helped to capture the islands of the mediterranean from european kingdoms and as suleiman besieged vienna itself the pope paul iii put together a holy league combining the fleets of the papacy spain the habsburgs the republic of venice and the knights of malta under the command of the famous genoese admiral andrea doria hey redden led the ottoman fleet against the holy league fleet in the aegean sea near the great town of prevezza on september 28th 1538. despite being outnumbered more than two to one hayrad and outmaneuvered andrea doria's fleet leveraging his more mobile galleys he defeated the alliance sinking 10 ships and capturing 36 more without the loss of a single ottoman ship the victory was decisive hay ridden captured most of the remaining mediterranean islands under european control in the next year and the republic of venice was forced to sue for peace because of pravezza the ottoman fleets would militarily dominate the mediterranean for the next 30 years barbarossa would continue to be the scourge of the mediterranean defeating european fleets raiding and capturing european cities and strongholds he retired in 1545 to write his memoirs and died peacefully in 1546 he is entombed in a tomb in istanbul next to the istanbul naval museum the ottoman empire would continue to be one of the world's most powerful navies clear until the 19th century they were the third largest navy in the world as late as 1875. barbarossa's kingdom algeria endured long enough to fight two wars with the united states in 1801 and again in 1815 before finally being conquered by the french in 1847 but it was in the 16th century under the great ruler suleiman the magnificent that the ottoman empire would be at the height of its power and much of that success was due to his great admiral at one time commanding more than 200 ships and feared throughout christendom hay redden barbarossa the dread pirate redbeard was without pier the greatest pirate in history the goal of every pirate might have been to capture enough treasure to live the rest of their life in comfort but for real pirates that really happened they were much more likely to find death than fortunately for no other reason than if they did manage to capture a large booty then that made them a target for other pirates and for the law but one pirate managed to successfully capture what might have been one of the largest pirate treasures in history and then simply disappeared if there's anything better than a story involving pirates it's a story where the legend lives on and for no other reason than that his fate is lost history henry every the arch pirate deserves to be remembered little is definitely known about every origins though he used a large number of aliases such as benjamin bridgman called long ben or john avery researchers generally believe he was born henry every in devon england in 1659. one of his crewmates would later say that he was aged about 40 years in 1696 and that his mother lived near plymouth in devon the life and adventures of john avery written by a dutchman who claimed to have been captured by the pirate says that his father was a royal navy captain although the story is considered by the dictionary of national biography to be fiction was scarcely a substratum of fact henry every was the name he used when he first joined the royal navy probably was interested in the sea from a young age and stories abound about his possible early exploits it was said that he served in the british navy during the bombardment of algiers in 1671 and served in the caribbean sea although no records substantiate these stories the first certain record comes from march 1689 at the outbreak of the nine years war between france and the grand alliance including great britain and the holy roman empire every was then serving as a midshipmen aboard hms rupert his record suggests that he regularly consigned his pay to his family including a wife back in devon later that year rupert was involved in the capture of a large french convoy and every was promoted to a master's mate he was likely also involved in the disastrous battle of beachy head which briefly gave the french control over the english channel it was discharged in august 1689. likely looking for fast money he next entered the atlantic slave trade officially the royal african company held a monopoly over the english slave trade and it was illegal to sell slaves without a license though dangerous it could be lucrative in 1693 an agent of the royal african company mentioned every in a journal while on the guinea coast writing i have nowhere upon the coast met the locals so shy is here which makes me fancy that they had tricks played upon them by such blades as long ben alias every in 1693 every joined ambitious finger put together by london-based investors to invigorate the english economy four warships were assembled the seventh sun dove james and charles ii meant to sail to the spanish west indies and raid french trade the pay was promised to be good guaranteed monthly wages were to be paid every six months every was made first mate aboard the charles the expedition quickly floundered the captain of the flagship died before they left england a two-week journey from london to corona spain somehow stretched to five months and the ships got stuck at crania waiting paperwork they remained stranded for months and the sailors went unpaid the captains refused to pay the crew as it likely would have meant immediate desertion the sailors seemed to have grown concerned at this point that they had actually been sold into slavery by the spanish and were being held captive when the fleet finally prepared to leave the crew again demanded their pay when they refused to begin planning their mutiny every was an enthusiastic supporter going up and down from ship to ship and persuading men to come on board with him it was a natural choice as the leader of a mutiny he had a lot of sailing experience was of low social rank which encouraged others to believe that he was trustworthy on monday may 7th 1694 the conspirators made their move they rushed aboard the charles ii at around at 9pm capturing the crew and its bedridden captain without bloodshed one account says a longboat from the james came alongside to join and ask is the drunken bose in a board they agreed upon password the captain of the change is said to have called out that the men were deserting in every answer that he knew that perfectly well james opened fired on charles ii and every was forced to beat a hasty retreat into the open ocean once safe every gave the non-conspirators an opportunity to join them if you have a mind to make one of us we will receive you if not here's a boat and you shall be set on shore allegedly he even offered the captured captain his position back if he was willing to turn pirate the captain refused and he and several others were sent ashore every was unanimously elected captain and convinced the crew to sail to the indian ocean to try their hands at piracy he renamed the ship fancy and they set sail for the cape good hope they robbed their first ships at cape verde taking provisions and supplies from three english merchant men and accepting new crew members the crew now numbered about 94. on the african coast they cut away some of the ship's superstructure which promised to make it one of the fastest ships in the ocean they captured two danish privateers next taking on ivory and gold they reached the indian ocean in 1695 taking on supplies at madagascar and capturing another ship his crew grew to nearly 150 men every wrote a letter to english ship captains claiming falsely that he had never as yet wronged any english or dutch nor ever intended to and told english captains to send him a particular signal to avoid being attacked whatever his true intentions the letter does seem to have kept the fancy from being pursued the east india company's ships were the greatest threat in the indian ocean every and his crew sailed to the red sea where they plan to wait for an indian fleet they knew would be passing by soon the fleet was easily one of the richest prices in asia and possibly the world it was the fleet of the grand mughal emperor of india origzeb returning from its annual pilgrimage to mecca every joins forces with five other pirate captains at the edge of the red sea thomas ii was captain of the amity and already famed for an enormous holly had raided in the area the year before the other ships were the portsmouth adventure the dolphin the pearl and susanna every was elected admiral of the fleet a convoy of twenty-five indian ships were soon spotted including the ganjai sawai meaning exceeding treasure a dao with eighty gods along with its escort fateh muhammad the mughal fleet subpassed them in the nigh but the pirates gave chase the dolphin proved too slow and was burned with crew joining every aboard the fancy the first ship they caught was the fatah muhammad two and the amity reached it first but early in the fighting two was killed reportedly by canon shot when fancy reached the ship the muhammad surrendered quickly the pirates now sailed after the gangai sawai the amity abandoned only three ships close on the dao the ship commanded by muhammad ibrahim had nearly twice as many guns as the fancy with 46 guns and had 400 musket armed guards along with 600 other passengers what promised to be a fearsome fight was even in every opening broadside which took out the dow's main mast every ship drew alongside but the pirates were held back by withering musket fire then one of the indian cannons exploded killing many and sending the demoralized musketeers below deck the ship was also now a fire everest crew clamored aboard and the pearl took heart to join them the portsmouth adventure never engaged the ensuing fight took several hours and contemporary indian historians are critical of ibrahim's leadership one account claims that he armed the slave girls to fight the pirates while another says that christians are not bold in the use of the sword and there were so many weapons on board the royal vessel that if the captain had made any resistance they must have been defeated what is certain is that the pirates were still severely outnumbered ibrahim would later defend himself claiming that many of the enemy were sent to hell the exact number of pirate casualties are uncertain every may have only lost several men or more than a hundred indian historian coffee khan reports that after the ship was captured the pirates subjected the survivors to severe brutality torturing men who had hidden treasure aboard and driving some of the women to suicide while the tales were sometimes dismissed as sensationalism captured members of the crew would later corroborate the horror one wrote later that the inhuman treatment and merciless tortures inflicted on the poor indians and their women still afflicted his soul the governor of bombay also reported on the horrors also writing that a relative the emperor was abused very much later reports also claimed that every found something more pleasing than jules aboard considered to be the emperor's daughter or granddaughter although there's no evidence that either was actually aboard however testimony from one of the crew captured suggests every never went aboard the treasure ship the ship held an enormous amount of treasure including half a million gold and silver pieces the most reliable sources from the time say that the pearl shares were confiscated by everest crew after an exchange of coins that had been clipped parts of them shaved off to decrease the coin's value they gave the pearl a token prize and parted company each crew member received about a thousand british pounds of treasure with a value of roughly ninety three thousand two hundred twenty eight thousand pounds today more than most sailors made in a lifetime the exact value of the treasure isn't known contemporary estimates range from about three hundred thousand pounds to six hundred thousand based on the estimates of the east india company and the mughal insurance claim both of which had reasons to under or overestimate the value the modern value could be as much as 90 million pounds the take is possibly the greatest ever captured by pirates though other raids may have been greater the crew knew they were now a target many left the ship on the island of bourbon and every purchased some 90 slaves on the island to run the ship and to be traded for currency as they fled thus avoiding the use of their indian treasure they sailed for the bahamas the raid had enormous geopolitical consequences the east india company was recovering from a war in india and the attack threatened its very existence the crimes are considered unforgivable violations of the muslim pilgrimage in india and english subjects were arrested all over the country emperor arungzeb closed english factories and nearly ordered an attack on bombay the east india company agreed to pay reparations while parliament declared every of the pirates enemies of the human race a 500-pound bounty was put on every's head and a global manhunt began every crew of 113 men bribed governor nicholas trott of providence in the bahamas who may also see the ship as a benefit to defense with the threat of the french in the still ongoing nine years war every handed the ship over to the governor fancy was destroyed possibly on trot's orders she had been trying to rid himself of evidence eventually trot who must have known beforehand who the pirate was was forced to put a warrant out for every arrest but he tipped off the crew first and 113 men vanished his last words to his crew were a series of conflicting stories over where he planned to go every was never certainly seen again one british author claims that every return to england where he died in poverty after being cheated out of his wealth although there's no supporting evidence and no one ever collected on his bounty which would have represented more money than most men could make in a lifetime in 1781 a customs collector had a meeting with a descendant of every who claimed that every died in poverty in distress and was buried a popper yet another unlikely claim was that he lived as the king of a pirate utopia in madagascar none of the sightings in the following decade or sources of his fate have ever been firmly proven most of every crew sheltered in the american colonies where it was easy to bribe local governors seven were tried in colonial america but none convicted a number of ancient coins from the famed raid have been recovered in the united states in england 24 were eventually rounded up and six convicted five of those were executed henry every became a legend among pirates he was called the arch pirate and the king of pirates and fictional and semi-biographical accounts abounded one of the most influential was the life and adventures of captain john avery which was published anonymously in 1709 but he was made characters in plays he was the league character in daniel defoe's 1720 novel the king of pirates a ballad that was purportedly written by him was published and in in that legend it transformed him from this man who was purportedly tortured women to sort of a robin hood a noble pirate that went on to inspire some of those famous pirates of the golden age his escapades occurred during the childhoods of captains like blackbeard and black sam bellamy and calico jack his audacious raid his escaping justice despite the huge price on his head and one of the largest international manhunts in history it's one of those stories where fact is simply more interesting than fiction and his ultimate fate is an enduring mystery of history [Music] pirates are a common theme in popular culture much of what we know that we understand to be a pirate comes from robert stevenson's book treasure island or more accurately from british actor robert newton's portrayal of long john silver and the disney adaptation of robert lewis stevenson's book treasure island and also he performed in other pirate movies like blackbeard the pirate in 1952 and the idea of the pirate who hobbles around on a peg leg with a pirate on his shoulder saying ah and ahoy meaty largely comes from him your your understanding of a pirate might come from errol flynn or basil rathbone or bert lancaster or johnny depp but the discovery of a shipwreck off of massachusetts cape cod in 1984 tells us much about the life of some of the most successful pirates of the golden age and like many things in history the true story turns out to be better than fiction it's a story of of adventure of people who went on the high seas to find their fortune of lost love of a search for a great pirate treasure that included literally a map where x marks the spot the wreck of the wida galley is history that deserves to be remembered humphrey maurice was the very model of a success story in early 18th century england while he was born to wealth inheriting his father's mercantile business in 1689 at just the age of 18 he learned the merchant trade from his uncle and significantly grew his business becoming so successful that in 1716 he became a director of the bank of england he was also a political success becoming a member of parliament in 1713 where he was a tireless advocate of trade especially with africa in 1715 morris commissioned what was described as a spectacular merchant vessel the wida galley named after the west african port of wida 110 feet long the ship was a galley capable of propulsion by ore but was also fully masted with three mass it was a large and modern merchant vessel with a cargo capacity or what in the period was called tons berthen of 300 tons captained by a dutchman and former pirate named lawrence prince the widow galley was built for the triangular trade the wida galley would take manufactured goods including textiles and rum to the port of wida in the modern day country of benin there the goods would be traded for africans humphrey morris has since been described as the foremost london slave merchant of his time the wida galley could carry 500 captive africans who would then be taken on the so-called middle passage to be sold in the west indies where the ship would be loaded with raw materials especially sugar to be taken to europe more than a million people were taken into slavery in the triangular trade between 1701 and 1725 and the wida galley was one of the most modern ships of that trade in its time and as there was always a risk of running into pirates she was outfitted with 18 guns for her defense in the widow galley seemed destined to make humphrey maurice fabulously wealthy on its maiden voyage in 1717 the ship carried 312 african captives across the middle passage to jamaica and as a result had reported four and a half tons of gold and silver with which to acquire goods for the next leg of the triangular trade but the wida galley was not it turns out destined for the triangular trade in february 1717 the ship was navigating the windward passage between cuba and hispaniola when it came under attack by the dreaded pirate black sam bellamy born in england in 1689 bellamy had been a sailor in the royal navy what is difficult to separate fact from legend in his history it is generally agreed that he immigrated to cape cod massachusetts around 1715 where he fell in love with a local woman a beauty called the witch of well fleet exactly who she was is a matter of disagreement her name may or may not have been maria or mary hallett she may or may not have been married they may or may not have had an affair that resulted in a pregnancy but it seems whatever the story whether to earn the approval of her parents or to acquire the resources needed to steal her from her husband bellamy left in 1616 to earn his fortune accompanying a group of treasure hunters seeking a lost treasure on a spanish shipwreck according to legend at least he promised to return the captain of the greatest ship the world has ever seen and mary or maria waited for him the treasure hunting was it seems a bust because by the summer of 1716 bellamy had joined the crew of a notorious pirate benjamin hornigold and his first mate edward teach who would eventually become known as blackbeard hornigold was a successful captain but he was scrupulous about only attacking french and spanish ships apparently hoping to protect himself in case of capture by the english that scruple proved unpopular with the crew who mutinied voting to replace hornegold with a captain willing to rob anyone hornigold and teach went their separate ways and the crew elected bellamy captain of their ship a 10-gun sloop called the marianne described as tall strong well-mannered and tidy sam bellamy turned out to be a brilliant pirate he had a gift for strategy and out sailing his opponents so that they would give up without a fight thus preserving their vessels known for wearing a black coat from which he derived his moniker black sam for carrying four dueling pistols in his sash forbes magazine in 2008 rated sam bellamy as the highest earning pirate in history eventually bellamy and his crews would take more than 50 vessels in the caribbean and off the coast of america and that earned an astounding sum according to the magazine the 2008 equivalent of more than 120 million dollars in gold and silver by february 1717 when they encountered the wida bellamy had captured and outfitted a second vessel in addition to the marianne the 26 gun galley sultana after a three-day chase captain prince surrendered the widow without a fight many of the crew of the widow chose to join bellamy also known as a fair man who once was quoted as saying i scorned to do any one mischief when it is not to my advantage bellamy gave prince and the remaining crew of the widow of the sultana and 25 pounds silver in exchange for not putting up a fight he then made the widow his flagship adding another 10 guns to her deck making it an impressive ship of war life aboard the widow was strangely democratic a place where the crew were equal regardless of race with odd rules such as that if there were not enough hammocks for every man of the crew then no one was allowed to sleep in a hammock by april bellamy's fleet had grown to three ships with the sloop and galley joining the widow and the marianne on april 26th they captured another sloop carrying a load of wine but the fleet became separated in a dense fog the weather turned into a violent nor'easter possibly drunk from the wine they had captured bellamy and the crew of the widow's luck failed near midnight she was thrown against the sandbank off the coast of cape cod beaten by gale force winds she was dismasted capsized and torn to pieces by 30 to 40 foot waves only two of the 144 people aboard made it to shore alive 120 bodies wash up on shore among the dead was black sam bellamy true to his word he had come to cape cod the captain of a great ship only to drown with inside of the shore where his love the beautiful witch of wellfleet awaited his return in the aftermath nine of bellamy's crew were captured in addition to the two who managed to swim ashore from the wida seven from the sloop they had captured that night had survived after it too was wrecked in the storm they had safely made it inland but were apprehended at a tavern an official surmised that they were from the pirate ship's crew the remaining ships of his fleet survived the nine were tried as pirates six were convicted and hanged two were found to have been forced into piracy against their will and released and a sixteen-year-old south american of the mosquito people was sold into slavery he turned out to be an unruly slave and even he was eventually hanged in 1733 the governor of the province of massachusetts bay hired a cartographer to locate the wreck and recover the treasure while looters had taken what a value had washed ashore the wreck had broken up and heavy objects such as the cannons and what the survivor said were 180 50 pound sacks of treasure divvied up to be taken by the crew were thought to have been spread out and buried by sand in the storm but the cartographer cyprian southack made a map of the likely location of the rack a treasure map where x marks the spot in 1984 parts of the wreck of the widow were located by underwater archaeological explorer barry clifford despite many people's failed attempts to find the shipwreck clifford says that he relied heavily on southax 1717 map the wreck has proven to be a trove of information about life in the golden age of piracy and more than 200 thousand artifacts have been discovered below some twenty feet of water and twenty feet in sand in 1985 he and his crew recovered the ship's bell which has inscribed on it the words the wida galley 1716. that discovery makes the widow the first ever pirate shipwreck from the golden age to be positively identified and authenticated and the silver found a board an authenticated pirate treasure among the wreckage there appears to be as many as 60 cannon on board for more than the 28 guns that were mounted this indicates that the crew had collected cannons always prepared to outfit more ships also found was a leg bone of femur from a child between 8 and 11 years old that was likely the remains of a boy named john king who had joined the crew when the ship was captured in november 1716 said to be so insistent upon becoming a pirate that he threatened harm to his mother if he was not allowed to join the crew at the time of the wreck he was thought to be 11 years old something of a real-life jim hawkins from treasure island but with a more tragic end the boston globe reported last february that some more remains were found in a sand concretion along with a pistol and cufflinks and some speculated those may be the remains of black sam bellamy himself dna testing however found that the remains were not those of bellamy clifford continues to do underwater archaeology and recover artifacts from the wida and speculates there's much more still to find he has detailed a discovery in several books and selected artifacts can be viewed by the public at the wida pirate museum in west yarmouth massachusetts paul's grave williams who was bellamy's second in command and commander of this sloop marianne had missed the storm because he'd gone to rhode island to visit relatives when he heard about the fate of bellamy and the widow he sailed back to the bahamas and sold marianne and accepted a general pardon that had been offered by the british crown in 1717 also called the pirates pardon for any pirate who promised to give up piracy he fell eventually back into piracy however but retired and died of natural causes richard noland who commanded the third ship in their fleet the anne also sailed back to the caribbean and also accepted the pirates pardon but then he became a privateer for the spanish his final fate is unknown benjamin hornigold the pirate captain whom bellamy and his crew had deposed also accepted the pirates pardon and then spent the next 18 months working for the governor of the bahamas hunting pirates he died when his ship was wrecked in a storm in 1719. hornegold's first maid edward teach became known to the world as the pirate blackbeard he and hornegold separated after being displaced by bellamy and according to forbes magazine teach acquired the 2008 equivalent of some 12 and a half million dollars in treasure with his own crew teach also accepted the pirates pardon but slipped back into piracy and was killed in a fight with the british royal navy in 1718 lawrence prince the dutchman and previous pirate who had been commanding the widow when it was captured by bellamy went back to england and continued as a captain in the slave trade he made several other slave voyages but his ultimate fate is lost to history humphrey maurice the foremost slave merchant of his time eventually became governor of the bank of england but it turns out he was embezzling from the bank as well as a trust fund left to his daughters by their uncle he died suddenly in 1731 some think he took poison as his crimes were about to be exposed the wreck of the wida galley well represents the golden age of piracy a time when men and even a few women risked their lives to find their fortune on the high seas it is ironic that a ship that was built to take people into slavery was captured by men who were only seeking to be free in a time when the line between hero and villain was not so obvious and it is strangely ironic that the richest pirate of the golden age of piracy was taken by the sea within sight of his final port fiction could not have come up with a more poignant end to the story i hope you enjoyed this episode of the history guy short snippets have forgotten history between 10 and 15 minutes long and if you did enjoy please go ahead and click that thumbs up button if you have any questions or comments or suggestions for future episodes 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Channel: The History Guy: History Deserves to Be Remembered

Views: 390,834

Keywords: history, history guy, the history guy

Id: 0gECPXjRPUc

Length: 55min 56sec (3356 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 09 2022