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.
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.
The era of piracy in the Caribbean began in the 1500s and phased out in the 1830s after the navies of the nations of Western Europe and North America with colonies in the Caribbean began hunting and prosecuting pirates. The period during which pirates were most successful was from the 1660s to the 1730s. Piracy flourished in the Caribbean because of the existence of pirate seaports such as Port Royal in Jamaica, Tortuga in Haiti, and Nassau in the Bahamas. Piracy in the Caribbean was part of a larger historical phenomenon of piracy, as it existed close to major trade and exploration routes in almost all the five oceans.
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".
Mary Read, was an English pirate about whom there is very little factual documentation. She and Anne Bonny were among the few female pirates during the "Golden Age of Piracy".
Benjamin Hornigold (1680–1719) was an English pirate who operated during the tail end of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Stede Bonnet was a Barbadian-born pirate and military officer, known as the Gentleman Pirate because he was a moderately wealthy landowner 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. Despite his lack of sailing experience, Bonnet decided he should turn to piracy in the spring of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, the 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.
The Golden Age of Piracy is a common designation for the period between the 1650s and the 1730s, when maritime piracy was a significant factor in the histories of the North Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
Charles Vane was an English pirate who operated in the Bahamas during the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Henry Jennings was an English privateer-turned-pirate. Jennings' first recorded act of piracy took place in early 1716 when, with three vessels and 150–300 men, Jennings' fleet ambushed the Spanish salvage camp from the 1715 Treasure Fleet. After the Florida raid, Jennings and his crew also linked up with Benjamin Hornigold's "three sets of pirates" from New Providence Island.
See also 1717 in piracy, 1719 in piracy, and Timeline of piracy.
See also 1719 in piracy, 1721 in piracy and Timeline of piracy.
The capture of John "Calico Jack" Rackham was a single-ship action fought between English pirate Calico Jack and British privateer Jonathan Barnet. The battle was fought in the vicinity of Negril, Jamaica and ended with the capture of Rackham and his crew.
The Atlantic World refers to the period between European colonisation of the Americas (1492-) and the early nineteenth century. Piracy became prevalent in this era because of the difficulty of policing this vast area, the limited state control over many parts of the coast and the competition between different European powers. The best known pirates of this era are the Golden Age pirates (c.1650-1730) who roamed the seas off the coast of North America, Africa and the Caribbean.
The Republic of Pirates was the base and stronghold of a loose confederacy run by privateers-turned-pirates in Nassau on New Providence island in the Bahamas during the Golden Age of Piracy for about twelve years from 1706 until 1718. While it was not a republic in a formal sense, it was governed by an informal pirate code, which dictated that the crews of the Republic would vote on the leadership of their ships and treat other pirate crews with civility. The term comes from Colin Woodard's book of the same name.
HMS Pearl was a 42-gun fifth-rate of the Royal Navy. Her crew was involved in the hunt and death of Blackbeard in 1718.
The Flying Gang was an 18th-century group of pirates who established themselves in Nassau, New Providence in the Bahamas after the destruction of Port Royal in Jamaica. The gang consisted of the most notorious and cunning pirates of the time, and they terrorized and pillaged the Caribbean until the Royal Navy and infighting brought them to justice. They achieved great fame and wealth by raiding salvagers attempting to recover gold from the sunken Spanish treasure fleet. They established their own codes and governed themselves independent from any of the colonial powers of the time. Nassau was deemed the Republic of Pirates as it attracted many former privateers looking for work to its shores. The Governor of Bermuda stated that there were over 1,000 pirates in Nassau at that time and that they outnumbered the mere hundred inhabitants in the town.
Jean Bonadvis was a French pirate active in the Caribbean. He is best known for his involvement with Benjamin Hornigold and "Calico Jack" Rackham.
Robert Deal was a pirate active in the Caribbean. He is best known for his association with Charles Vane.
Jonathan Barnet was an English privateer in the Caribbean, best known for capturing pirates Calico Jack, Anne Bonny, and Mary Read. The Assembly of the Colony of Jamaica gave him a financial reward, and a large estate in the parish of St James worked by African slaves.
