John Cook (died 1684) was an English buccaneer, privateer, and pirate.
John Cook (died 1684) was an English buccaneer, privateer, and pirate.
In 1679, when he was still a merchant captain, Cook abandoned his ship on the island of Bonaire to escape the Spanish. [1] He then joined the assembly of buccaneers serving under Bartholomew Sharpe. The fleet separated in 1681 after disagreements between Captains Sharpe, John Coxon, and John Watling; Cook led a group electing to leave the South Seas and return to the West Indies. [2] Among the sailors joining him were surgeon Lionel Wafer and navigator William Dampier. [3]
Cooke then sailed with the crew of William Wright and Jan Willems (aka "Yankey"), serving as quartermaster until granted command of a ship they had taken. Unfortunately, the French authorities of Santo Domingo confiscated the ship for piracy because he had failed to obtain a privateering commission. [4]
In 1682 Cook and a few men (including Edward Davis) joined the French captain Jean Tristan, whose boat he stole and sailed to the west coast of Santo Domingo. [4] While back in the Caribbean Cook and other buccaneers were protected by Adolph Esmit, Danish Governor of St. Thomas. [1] With his new ship Cook captured two others, one of which became his personal ship which he renamed Revenge after returning to Virginia to refit and sell their captured prizes. [4]
Leaving Virginia in 1683 with a crew of 70 (with Davis, Dampier, Wafer, and now Ambrose Cowley as well), Cook sailed to the Guinea coast off western Africa. [3] With more than 70 men under his command he arranged a ruse, pretending to lead a wayward merchant vessel to capture a large Danish ship which he kept and renamed Batchelor's or Bachelor's Delight. He took his new ship to the South Sea via the Strait of Magellan in 1684. That January they recorded sighting a "phantom island" which Cowley named Pepys Island. [4]
Cook joined then with English buccaneer John Eaton in March, visiting the Galapagos Islands where Dampier made many observations of flora and fauna. Cook soon took ill and died aboard Bachelor's Delight in the Gulf of Nicoya near Cabo Blanco, Costa Rica in July 1684. The crew then unanimously elected Edward Davis as new leader of the expedition. [4]
Buccaneers were a kind of privateer or free sailors particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 1688, during a time when governments in the Caribbean area were not strong enough to suppress them.
William Dampier was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnavigate the world three times. He has also been described as Australia's first natural historian, as well as one of the most important British explorers of the period between Sir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook ; he "bridged those two eras" with a mix of piratical derring-do of the former and scientific inquiry of the latter. His expeditions were among the first to identify and name a number of plants, animals, foods, and cooking techniques for a European audience, being among the first English writers to use words such as avocado, barbecue, and chopsticks. In describing the preparation of avocados, he was the first European to describe the making of guacamole, named the breadfruit plant, and made frequent documentation of the taste of numerous foods foreign to the European palate at the time, such as flamingo and manatee.
William Wright was an English privateer in French service and later buccaneer who raided Spanish towns in the late 17th century.
This timeline of the history of piracy in the 1680s is a chronological list of key events involving pirates between 1680 and 1689.
Bartholomew Sharp was an English buccaneer and privateer. His career of piracy lasted seven years (1675–1682). In the Caribbean he took several ships, and raided the Gulf of Honduras and Portobelo. He took command of an expedition into the Pacific and spent months raiding settlements on the Pacific Coast of South America including La Serena which he torched in 1680. His flagship, taken at Panama, was the Trinity.
John Evans was a Welsh pirate who had a short but successful career in the Caribbean.
Cornelius Essex was a buccaneer and privateer best known for sacking Spanish Puerto Bello as part of a larger contingent of pirates.
William Knight was a 17th-century English buccaneer and pirate known for joining privateering expeditions against Spanish colonies in Central and South America.
Edward Davis or Davies was an English buccaneer active in the Caribbean during the 1680s and would lead successful raids against Leon and Panama in 1685, the latter considered one of the last major buccaneer raids against a Spanish stronghold. Much of his career was later recorded by writer William Dampier in A New Voyage Round the World (1697).
James Gilliam, or James Kelly was an English pirate and buccaneer active off the coasts of Spanish South and Central America and later in the Indian Ocean. He sailed under several different pirate captains but is best remembered for his brief association with William Kidd.
Captain John Coxon, sometimes referred to as John Coxen, was a late-seventeenth-century buccaneer who terrorized the Spanish Main. Coxon was one of the most famous of the Brethren of the Coast, a loose consortium of pirates and privateers. Coxon lived during the Buccaneering Age of Piracy.
Josiah Raynor (1665–1743) was a pirate active in the Red Sea. As a pirate he captained the Batchelor’s Delight, which had been on a lengthy South Seas buccaneering voyage before Raynor's tenure.
Jean Hamlin was a French pirate active in the Caribbean and off the coast of Africa. He was often associated with St. Thomas's pirate-friendly Governor Adolph Esmit.
Jean Fantin was a French pirate active in the Caribbean and off the coast of Africa. He is best known for having his ship stolen by William Kidd and Robert Culliford.
Jean Charpin was a French pirate and buccaneer active in the Caribbean and off the coast of Africa. He is best known for sailing alongside Jean-Baptiste du Casse as well as for his Articles, or “Pirate Code.”
Edmund Cooke was a merchant captain, buccaneer, and pirate. He is best known for sailing against the Spanish alongside Bartholomew Sharp, John Coxon, Basil Ringrose, Lionel Wafer, and other famous buccaneers. Cooke's flag was red-and-yellow striped and featured a hand holding a sword.
John Read was an English buccaneer, privateer, and pirate active from South America to the East Indies to the Indian Ocean.
John Eaton was an English buccaneer and pirate active off the coasts of Spanish Central and South America. He circumnavigated the world before returning to England.
Duncan Mackintosh was a pirate who cruised the East Indies, the Indian Ocean, and the coast of Africa.
Robert Allison was a buccaneer, privateer, and pirate best known for assaulting Spanish Puerto Bello as part of a large flotilla of rovers.
