10 Horrifying Facts about Pirates 10. Blackbeard’s Reign of Terror Born sometime around 1680, Blackbeard’s
real name was probably Edward Teach. He became among the most notorious pirates
to have ever terrorized the Caribbean and the American East Coast. Initially serving under another pirate who
later retired, Blackbeard became captain in 1717, and commandeered a French merchant vessel
which he renamed Queen Anne's Revenge. He fitted it with 40 cannons, made it his
flag ship, and together with three other smaller vessels (sloops) under his command, Teach
plagued the West Indies and the Atlantic coast. His best weapon of all was fear. He made himself appear ferocious; like a psychopath
addicted to violence. He always had at least six loaded pistols,
a cutlass and a musket with him, and wore a big feathered tricorn on his head. He sported a huge black beard in which he
would tie hemp and light it during battle. The governor of Virginia eventually put a
bounty on his head and on November 21, 1718 a small group of men ambushed him and nineteen
others within an inlet on Ocracoke Island, in North Carolina. Following a fierce battle the following day,
Blackbeard was dead. Blackbeard’s reign of terror lasted a little
over 2 years, even though he was among the most feared pirates of the 18th century. 9. The Privateers and Buccaneers At first glance, the words pirate, privateer
and buccaneer seem to mean the same thing. And while this is true to a certain extent,
there certainly are some differences. For instance, privateering made use of private
ships for attacking foreign vessels under the approval of a country’s government. In a sense, piracy in the Caribbean started
off as privateering under the British government. As early as the 16th century, many private
English ships carried letters of marque, entitling them to attack, loot, sink or capture ships
belonging to all enemy nations; especially Spain. They would then give part of the spoils to
the government, while the rest, they would keep it for themselves. The most famous privateer was Francis Drake. In 1567 he made one of the first English slaving
voyages, bringing African people to the New World, and was the first Englishman to circumnavigate
the world. In 1577, under secret orders from Queen Elisabeth
herself, Drake went around South America, plundering Spanish ports on the undefended
Pacific coast. Buccaneers on the other hand were mostly felons,
many of them facing capital charges. They were former sailors who’ve jumped ship
or servants who ran away from their contracts working the sugar plantations on the many
Caribbean islands. Whenever there was a ship close by, a handful
of buccaneers would jump into a small rowing vessel and board the unaware ship. 8. Pirate Weapons Buccaneers made good use of the Buccaneer
Musket. It was a large and heavy gun, measuring almost
6 feet in length. They used it initially for hunting boar on
the islands, but also to shoot the helmsman off an enemy deck some 300 yards away. Pirates also made use of the Blunderbuss. It was loaded with a handful of pistol balls
and when it was fired it created absolute devastation over a broad area of decks. It had a massive recoil and it had to be fired
from the hip, otherwise the Blunderbuss would break the shoulder. Grenades were also used extensively by pirates. Basically a spherical-cast hollow iron ball
about 5 inches in diameter, loaded with 5 ounces of gunpowder, the grenade had a wooden
fuse sealed with wax. Once lit, it took about 6 seconds to explode. Pirates and buccaneers would throw these onboard
an enemy vessel just before boarding it, creating utter chaos and devastation. However, all of these firearms were one-shot
weapons, so the backbone of any boarding action was the cutlass. Used for both thrusting and slashing, the
cutlass was short so it wouldn’t become a hindrance on a crowded deck. 7. Hooks for Hands and Wooden Legs When thinking about a pirate, it’s almost
impossible not to imagine him without either an eye-patch, a hook for a hand, or a wooden
stump. The reason for why so many had missing limbs
has more to do with infection than the many wounds they were subjected to. For instance, musket balls had the nasty habit
of taking a piece of fabric with them when passing through its victim. And while doctors may have been able to take
out the ball, the piece of cloth most likely stayed behind. This in turn caused the wound to fester, and
many were subject to gangrene. With no anesthetics or antiseptics, they were
aware that if the limb was not amputated it would “mortify”, as they called it, and
they would die in severe pain. So, the only effective method available was
to amputate. 6. Captain Charles Vane – Years Active: 1716-1720 Pirate life was brutally violent and extremely
short. A good example was Charles Vane, a notorious
pirate, contemporary and friend to the infamous Blackbeard. His pirating days began in 1716 and in 1718
became captain himself. He was renowned for his violence and ill temper,
being hated even by his own crewmen. He is one of the few pirates who didn’t
accept the King’s pardon, and in a mere four years since his “career” began, he
would be hanged. After a mutiny aboard his ship, he was left
behind on a small sloop together with a few loyal comrades. In a hurricane, he would miraculously survive,
being washed ashore a small fishing island. However, the man who found him there recognized
him and brought him to justice. Before his death however, in April 1718, Vane
and his men came upon a sloop somewhere in the Bahamas and attacked it. They violently beaten up the crew, stole everything
onboard, and chose one man, Nathaniel Catling, to be hanged. He remained suspended until everyone believed
him dead, and the pirates brought him down. He somehow survived, but seeing this, one
of the pirates hacked him across the collarbone with his cutlass. Vane and the other pirates then set the ship
on fire and left. However Nathaniel Catling not only survived
a hanging and a slash to the neck, but also escaped to describe the events in an official
deposition. 5. Edward Low – Years Active: 1721 – 1724 Edward Low got his notoriety as being a psychopath
first, and a pirate second. He made his fleet in Nova Scotia where he
managed to capture 13 fishing vessels, and then he moved south, to the more lucrative
Caribbean. As his pirating career went on, his infamy
grew. A few surviving victims recalled his brutal
nature where he often chained, mutilated, burned, and even forced some of his captives
to eat the heart of their captain. In one particular incident, Governor John
Hart describes as Low was attacking a ship from Portugal bound for Brazil. As they were being boarded, the captain of
the Portuguese vessel dropped a bag of gold into the ocean to keep the pirates from taking
it. Seeing this, “Low cut off the said Master's
lips and broiled them before his face, and afterwards murdered the whole crew being thirty-two
persons." Due to his increasing violent nature, both
against his victims and his own men, in 1724 the crew mutinied and left him marooned on
an island. 4. Henry Morgan, King of the Buccaneers – Years
Active: 1655-1682 Henry Morgan is one of the successful few
who managed to live to the prestigious age of 53, and die of tuberculosis, not by hanging
or decapitation. And he did so by staying somewhere in the
gray area and not going full on “black”, as many other privateers or buccaneers did
back then. Throughout his life he acquired a reputation
as a remarkable leader and a fearsome conqueror. For his many victories for the English crown
against the Spanish, Morgan was honored by the King and promoted as deputy governor of
Jamaica. Nevertheless, a pirate is still a pirate even
if he’s made governor. The booty Morgan collected as a pirate had
made him a very rich and highly influential man. In the city of Maracaibo, he and his buccaneers
tortured many citizens in order to find the hidden valuables. In Porto Bello he burned the private parts
of his women prisoners and even roasted a woman alive on a stove, in order to get the
information he so desperately desired. 3. Montbars the Exterminator – Years Active:
1668 – 1670’s A French buccaneer, Daniel Montbars was born
in a wealthy family, he was well educated and raised as a gentleman. He developed a deep hatred for the Spaniards
after learning of their savage treatments of the indigenous people in the New World,
and would become a fierce enemy of the Spanish Empire throughout his career. In 1667 he left France for the West Indies
together with his uncle, where they served in the Royal French Navy. Their vessel was later sunk by the Spanish
and his uncle perished. Montbars then moved to Tortuga and joined
the buccaneers, where he became captain. He distinguished himself during an attack
against a Spanish galleon where: “his only pleasure seemed to be to contemplate, not
the treasures of the vessel, but the number of dead and dying Spaniards.” He attacked and set ablaze many Spanish strongholds
and settlements across the Caribbean, giving no quarter to his enemies. 2. Francois L'Ollonais – Years Active: 1660-1668 While on the subject of psychotic Frenchmen,
let’s take a look at Montbars’ predecessor, Francois L'Ollonais, another Spanish-hating
buccaneer. His real name however, was Jean-David Neu,
but also went by "Flail of the Spaniards". In 1660 he joined the buccaneers stationed
in Saint-Domingue and his reign of terror began. In 1663 he survived a shipwreck where all
of his crewmates died, and when the Spanish came to investigate, he covered himself with
his crewmates’ corpses and smeared himself with their blood as to appear dead. He then dressed himself as a Spaniard, released
some slaves and escaped on some small canoes. On his way to Tortuga he and his small crew
destroyed an entire Spanish ship and left only one man alive to tell the story. From Tortuga, L'Ollonais launched an attack
on Maracaibo and Gibraltar, hunted down the people trying to escape through the jungles,
then raped, tortured and murdered everyone. 1. Olivier Levasseur – Years Active: 1716-1724 Ok, let’s move out of the Caribbean for
this last one. Olivier Levasseur, aka La Buse (The Buzzard)
was a French privateer in service to the French crown during the War of the Spanish Succession
(1701–1714). After the war he was ordered to return home,
but instead joined a pirate company in 1716. The Buzzard decided to try his luck in the
Indian Ocean, of the Western coast of Africa. He and some other famous pirates like Edward
England or John Taylor raided and plundered ships and ports in the region. Taylor and Levasseur later marooned England
on the island of Mauritius on the account of him being too humane with his prisoners. In any case, the two pirates managed to accomplish
one of piracy’s greatest exploits. Without even firing a single cannon, they
captured the Portuguese great galleon Nossa Senhora do Cabo (Our Lady of the Cape). This ship was carrying the treasures of the
Patriarch of the East Indies, and the Viceroy of Portugal, who were both on board, on their
way home to Lisbon. Since the galleon went through a severe storm,
the crew had dumped all of its 72 cannons overboard, preventing the ship from capsizing. The booty was huge, consisting of many bars
of silver and gold, countless chests full of golden coins, jewels, pearls and other
valuables, as well as many religious artifacts. This treasure-trove made all the pirates rich
beyond their wildest dreams. In 1724 he sent an emissary to discuss an
amnesty on his behalf. But since the French government wanted a sizable
chunk of his loot (estimated at over £1 billion), he instead settled down in secret somewhere
on the Seychelles archipelago. Eventually he was captured and hanged in 1730.
