Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain's North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne's War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet; but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.
Bartholomew Roberts, born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate and the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy taking over 400 prizes in his career. Roberts raided ships off the Americas and the West African coast between 1719 and 1722; he is also noted for creating his own Pirate Code, and adopting an early variant of the Skull and Crossbones flag.
Roberto Cofresí (Kupferschein) y Ramírez de Arellano Segarra, better known as El Pirata Cofresí, was a pirate from Puerto Rico. He was born into a noble family, but the political and economic difficulties faced by the island as a colony of the Spanish Empire during the Latin American wars of independence meant that his household was poor. Cofresí worked at sea from an early age which familiarized him with the region's geography, but it provided only a modest salary, and he eventually decided to abandon the sailor's life and became a pirate. He had previous links to land-based criminal activities, but the reason for Cofresí's change of vocation is unknown; historians speculate that he may have worked as a privateer aboard El Scipión, a ship owned by one of his cousins.
Oyster pirate is a name given to persons who engage in the poaching of oysters. It was a term that became popular on both the west and east coasts of the United States in the nineteenth century.
John Rackham, commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and in Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the calico clothing that he wore, while Jack is a nickname for "John".
Thomas Tew, also known as the Rhode Island Pirate, was a 17th-century English privateer-turned pirate. He embarked on two major pirate voyages and met a bloody death on the second, and he pioneered the route which became known as the Pirate Round. Many other infamous pirates followed in his path, including Henry Every and William Kidd.
Stede Bonnet was an early eighteenth-century Barbadian pirate, sometimes called "The Gentleman Pirate" because he was a moderately wealthy land-owner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. In 1709, he married Mary Allamby, and engaged in some level of militia service. Because of marital problems, and despite his lack of sailing experience, Bonnet decided he should turn to piracy in the summer of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, named it Revenge, and travelled with his paid crew along the Eastern Seaboard of what is now the United States, capturing other vessels and burning other Barbadian ships.
Edward "Ned" Low was a notorious pirate of English origin during the latter days of the Golden Age of Piracy, in the early 18th century. Low was born into poverty in Westminster, London and was a thief from an early age. He moved to Boston, Massachusetts as a young man. His wife died in childbirth in late 1719. Two years later, he became a pirate, operating off the coasts of New England and the Azores, and in the Caribbean.
John King was an 18th-century pirate. He joined the crew of Samuel "Black Sam" Bellamy while still a juvenile, and is the youngest known pirate on record.
Albert W. Hicks, also known as Elias W. Hicks, William Johnson, John Hicks, and Pirate Hicks, was a triple murderer, and one of the last people executed for piracy in the United States. Cultural historian Rich Cohen places him as the first New York City legendary gangster figure, a bridge between the piracy of old and rise of a new 'gangster nation'.
Charles Vane was an English pirate who operated in the Bahamas during the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Olivier Levasseur, was a French pirate, nicknamed La Buse or La Bouche in his early days for the speed and ruthlessness with which he always attacked his enemies as well as his ability to verbally attack his opponents. He is known for allegedly hiding one of the biggest treasures in pirate history, estimated at over £1 billion, and leaving a cryptogram behind with clues to its whereabouts.
Lee Tockar is a Canadian voice actor and visual artist who works for several studios in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He is also a writer of children's literature, a musician, sculptor, illustrator and collected painter. Tockar is best known for his work on My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Eugene "Bling Bling Boy" Hamilton in Johnny Test, George in George of the Jungle, Doktar Frogg on League of Super Evil, and the titular character of Yakkity Yak, as well as the evil Makuta Teridax in the Bionicle films. He also founded FanBuilt.com.
HMS Sword is a fictional experimental submarine of the British Royal Navy in Jules Verne's 1896 novel Facing the Flag.
Henry Jennings was an 18th-century English privateer from the colony of Bermuda, who served primarily during the War of the Spanish Succession and later served as leader of the pirate haven or "republic" of New Providence.
HMS Reindeer was a Royal Navy 18-gun Cruizer-class brig-sloop of the Royal Navy, built by Samuel & Daniel Brent at Rotherhithe and was launched in 1804. She was built of fir, which made for more rapid construction at the expense of durability. Reindeer fought in the Napoleonic Wars before succumbing in 1814 to the guns of USS Wasp during the War of 1812.
Hell on Frisco Bay is a 1956 American CinemaScope film noir crime film directed by Frank Tuttle and starring Alan Ladd, Edward G. Robinson and Joanne Dru. It was made for Ladd's own production company, Jaguar.
The Sinking of HMS Avon was a single ship action fought during the War of 1812, and took place on 1 September 1814. In the battle, the ship-rigged sloop of war USS Wasp forced the Cruizer-class brig-sloop HMS Avon to surrender. The Americans could not take possession of the prize as other British brig-sloops appeared and prepared to engage. Avon sank shortly after the battle.
The capture of the sloop Anne was the result of a naval campaign carried out by an alliance between the Spanish Empire forces in Puerto Rico, the Danish government in Saint Thomas and the United States Navy. The powers pursued Roberto Cofresí's pirate flotilla in March 1825 because of the economic losses suffered by the parties to the pirates, as well as diplomatic concerns caused by their use of the flags of Spain and Gran Colombia which menaced the fragile peace between the naval powers. Several of those involved had been attacked by the freebooters. Among the diplomatic concerns caused by Cofresí was a robbery carried out by several of his subordinates, the catalyst of an incident that threatened war between Spain and the United States known as "The Foxardo Affair", eventually leading to the resignation of his rival, pirate hunter David Porter.
Jack London's San Francisco Stories is an anthology of Jack London short stories set in the San Francisco Bay Area. The book was edited by Matthew Asprey. The preface is a reprint of Rodger Jacobs' 2003 essay Ghost Land, a personal meditation on Heinold's First and Last Chance Saloon in Oakland, CA. The anthology is published by Sydney Samizdat Press through Amazon.com's CreateSpace print on demand service.
