WEBVTT - The Flying Gang 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.240 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.200 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. 0:00:14.320 --> 0:00:17.599 Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. If you're watching this on Netflix, 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.880 it looks a little different from how it typically looks 0:00:21.000 --> 0:00:24.439 because we are recording from the studio at Bahamar and 0:00:24.760 --> 0:00:28.319 Nasau in the Bahamas. I thought, since we were in 0:00:28.360 --> 0:00:31.320 the Bahamas, it might be nice to record something that 0:00:31.480 --> 0:00:34.760 was specific to where we are, and that of course 0:00:34.840 --> 0:00:38.440 led me to pirates because for a period during its history, 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:43.199 Nasau was a notorious hotbed of pirate activity. It is 0:00:43.360 --> 0:00:48.520 coincidental that the Assassin's Creed franchise has literally just put 0:00:48.560 --> 0:00:53.560 out a remaster of the game that is set both 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:56.280 here and during all the things that we were talking about, 0:00:56.320 --> 0:01:00.920 because we're going to be talking about Nasa as a 0:01:00.960 --> 0:01:06.200 pirate republic, particularly home to a maritime criminal network known 0:01:06.200 --> 0:01:09.160 as the Flying Gang. And to start with a little 0:01:09.160 --> 0:01:13.640 bit of background, today, there are about thirty inhabited islands 0:01:13.720 --> 0:01:16.399 in the Bahamas, which has a total of about seven 0:01:16.520 --> 0:01:20.720 hundred islands and more than two thousand keys. Prior to 0:01:20.760 --> 0:01:23.800 the arrival of Europeans in the late fifteenth century. This 0:01:24.000 --> 0:01:27.080 archipelago was home to the Arawakan speaking people known as 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.800 the Lukayo or Lucayan people. This name comes from their 0:01:31.840 --> 0:01:35.759 own name for themselves, which is Luku Kairie, meaning island people. 0:01:36.600 --> 0:01:40.680 They may have shared common ancestry with the Tainos who 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:43.560 lived in other parts of the Caribbean, and they're sometimes 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:47.600 called the Lucayan Tainos. They probably made their way to 0:01:47.600 --> 0:01:49.880 the Bahamas from other parts of the Caribbean by the 0:01:49.960 --> 0:01:53.280 year eight hundred, and in the late fifteenth century their 0:01:53.320 --> 0:01:57.640 population totaled about forty thousand people. According to a twenty 0:01:57.680 --> 0:02:02.280 fourteen paper titled Naming the Bahamas Islands History and Folk 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:08.160 Etymology by Wolfgang p Arns, the name Bahama is Lucayan. 0:02:08.720 --> 0:02:12.600 It comes from their name for Grand Bahama Island that 0:02:12.720 --> 0:02:17.400 was Bahama, meaning large upper middle land. New Providence Island, 0:02:17.440 --> 0:02:20.800 which is where Nasau is located, was called Nimma or 0:02:20.800 --> 0:02:25.600 a middle water. This paper references sixteenth and seventeenth century maps, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:29.040 a lot of which include Lucayan names for all of 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.880 these islands and almost no Spanish ones, and that also 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.800 referenced a lot of earlier scholarship into history and linguistics 0:02:37.400 --> 0:02:40.480 The first Europeans to arrive in the Bahamas were part 0:02:40.520 --> 0:02:45.280 of Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the Americas. They made 0:02:45.360 --> 0:02:49.520 landfall on Guanahani, known in English as San Salvador Island 0:02:49.720 --> 0:02:54.120 in fourteen ninety two. Columbus and his crew captured and 0:02:54.320 --> 0:02:57.160 enslaved some of the people they encountered in the Bahamas, 0:02:57.560 --> 0:03:00.480 and other Europeans who arrived later in the fifteenth and 0:03:00.600 --> 0:03:05.839 sixteenth centuries did the same. Lucayans also died of diseases 0:03:05.880 --> 0:03:08.760 that were introduced by the Europeans and as the result 0:03:08.840 --> 0:03:11.200 of violence, as well as while they were doing the 0:03:11.240 --> 0:03:14.680 work that they were forced to do while enslaved. That 0:03:14.840 --> 0:03:18.520 included diving for pearls off the coast of Venezuela and 0:03:18.800 --> 0:03:22.800 working in silver mines. Over the course of this enslavement 0:03:22.919 --> 0:03:27.040 and genocide in the sixteenth century, the Lucayan people ceased 0:03:27.040 --> 0:03:30.920 to exist as a distinct cultural group. When Wamponcee de 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:34.400 Lyon arrived in the area in fifteen thirteen, he said 0:03:34.440 --> 0:03:38.760 he encountered only one person in the northern Bahama Islands. 0:03:39.480 --> 0:03:42.040 It is likely that some people were able to flee 0:03:42.120 --> 0:03:44.800 to other parts of the Caribbean and to find homes 0:03:44.840 --> 0:03:49.680 with other indigenous communities. There are definitely people with Tino 0:03:49.880 --> 0:03:53.080 ancestry still living today, and in recent years there's been 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:57.280 a big resurgence in Tino identity in the Caribbean. There 0:03:57.320 --> 0:04:00.720 are also other Ariwuakan speaking peoples in other parts of 0:04:00.720 --> 0:04:05.080 the Caribbean and in South America today. Columbus of course 0:04:05.360 --> 0:04:08.840 claimed all of the islands he encountered for Spain, and 0:04:08.920 --> 0:04:13.360 in the seventeenth century other European powers, including Britain, France, 0:04:13.480 --> 0:04:16.360 and the Dutch Republics, started claiming parts of the Caribbean 0:04:16.400 --> 0:04:20.359 as well. In sixteen twenty nine, British King Charles the 0:04:20.440 --> 0:04:25.279 First granted territories in America to Robert Heath, including quote 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:29.599 Bahama and all other isles and islands lying southerly there 0:04:29.720 --> 0:04:34.279 or near upon the foresaid continent. Heath did not really 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:37.400 do much to try to settle or occupy the Bahamas, 0:04:37.800 --> 0:04:41.280 and for a few decades after this other British efforts 0:04:41.320 --> 0:04:45.920 to maybe establish some kind of settlement were largely unsuccessful. Then, 0:04:45.960 --> 0:04:50.239 in sixteen seventy the British established Charlestown on the island 0:04:50.240 --> 0:04:54.480 of New Providence. The Spanish raided Charlestown, and they burned 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:58.080 it down in sixteen eighty four. A little more than 0:04:58.080 --> 0:05:01.080 a decade later, in sixteen ninety five, the British rebuilt 0:05:01.080 --> 0:05:04.280 it and named it Nassau, after the House of Nasau, 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:08.040 which was a German aristocratic dynasty by that point. The 0:05:08.120 --> 0:05:10.920 King of England was William the Third, also known as 0:05:10.920 --> 0:05:14.120 William of Orange, who was descended from William the First, 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:19.440 also known as William the Silent or William of Nasau. Unsurprisingly, 0:05:19.640 --> 0:05:24.200 considering that we just talked about Spain burning down Charlestown, 0:05:24.760 --> 0:05:28.120 this whole period was full of ongoing fighting among the 0:05:28.160 --> 0:05:32.120 European powers that were trying to claim and exploit various 0:05:32.120 --> 0:05:36.400 Caribbean islands. They sent colonial officials and naval ships to 0:05:36.440 --> 0:05:40.360 the islands, and they issued letters of mark authorizing privateers 0:05:40.400 --> 0:05:43.600 to use their own ships to attack and capture enemies. 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:46.880 For the most part, privateers were not paid by the 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:50.800 government that authorized them to do this. Their income came 0:05:50.839 --> 0:05:54.000 from the ships and cargoes that they captured along the way. 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:58.960 So this was not just about claiming islands territory. It 0:05:59.000 --> 0:06:03.080 was interconnected with the European powers rivalries and their conflicts 0:06:03.080 --> 0:06:07.160 with one another. The number of privateers surged during the 0:06:07.279 --> 0:06:10.640 Nine Years War from sixteen eighty eight to sixteen ninety seven. 0:06:11.040 --> 0:06:13.840 That was between France and the Grand Alliance, and the 0:06:13.880 --> 0:06:17.760 members of the Grand Alliance included England. The North American 0:06:17.839 --> 0:06:20.120 component of the Nine Years War was known as King 0:06:20.200 --> 0:06:24.359 William's War. The War of the Spanish Succession started a 0:06:24.400 --> 0:06:27.000 couple of years after the Nine Years War ended, and 0:06:27.040 --> 0:06:31.279 that continued until seventeen fourteen. That war was between the 0:06:31.279 --> 0:06:34.799 Spanish Habsburgs and the Spanish Bourbons and all of their 0:06:34.880 --> 0:06:38.880 various allies. The War of the Spanish Succession also had 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.360 its own American component, and that was known as Queen 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:45.880 Anne's War. These wars and the hostilities among all these 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:48.919 nations were interconnected with the rise in piracy in the 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:54.600 Caribbean in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In theory, privateers 0:06:54.640 --> 0:06:57.520 only attacked the ships that their letters of mark authorized 0:06:57.560 --> 0:07:00.840 them to attack, generally the enemies of whoever it was 0:07:00.880 --> 0:07:04.080 that issued the letter. But that could mean passing up 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.960 some of the most lucrative ships, so some privateers turned 0:07:08.000 --> 0:07:10.600 to piracy because they could just make more money that way. 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:15.160 When wars ended or when letters of mark expired, privateers 0:07:15.200 --> 0:07:18.080 were left without a legitimate source of income, and that 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:22.560 also led some to become pirates. Other pirates had previously 0:07:22.600 --> 0:07:27.200 served in navies. When European powers scaled back their navies 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:30.680 after wars were over, these sailors were similarly left without 0:07:30.680 --> 0:07:35.200 a job. Navies, especially the British Royal Navy, also were 0:07:35.280 --> 0:07:41.360 notorious for very low pay, including long delayed payments, ruling hours, 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:46.120 terrible working conditions, and an intense culture of discipline. There 0:07:46.840 --> 0:07:51.400 could sometimes be severe punishments like being flogged associated with 0:07:52.240 --> 0:07:54.800 this discipline, so a lot of out of work sailors. 0:07:54.840 --> 0:07:56.560 Once they were put out of a job, they did 0:07:56.600 --> 0:07:59.080 not really want to go back to that life, even 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:03.080 if a job became available. Pirate ships, on the other hand, 0:08:03.120 --> 0:08:06.200 were seen as an option that was both fairer and 0:08:06.320 --> 0:08:11.200 more lucrative. Sometimes this is depicted in an overly romanticized way, 0:08:11.320 --> 0:08:15.240 with pirate crews having this almost communal spirit and dividing 0:08:15.240 --> 0:08:17.880 their loot equally, and a lot of this comes from 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.240 fictional depictions of pirates and a perception of them kind 0:08:21.240 --> 0:08:24.560 of as folk heroes. But pirate ships of this era 0:08:24.920 --> 0:08:28.800 did typically function under a written compact, which was created 0:08:29.080 --> 0:08:31.760 when a captain was assembling a crew, or at the 0:08:31.760 --> 0:08:34.839 start of a voyage, or if a new captain was 0:08:34.920 --> 0:08:39.600 taking over. This compact outlined how plunder would be distributed, 0:08:40.080 --> 0:08:42.840 what all the rules were, and how discipline would be 0:08:42.920 --> 0:08:47.439 carried out. In most of the surviving compacts, everyone got 0:08:47.480 --> 0:08:50.160 a share of the plunder, with officers getting a little 0:08:50.200 --> 0:08:52.720 bit more. So the captain might get a share and 0:08:52.760 --> 0:08:56.600 a half or two shares, while lower ranking officers usually 0:08:56.840 --> 0:08:58.320 got more like a share and a half or a 0:08:58.360 --> 0:09:01.800 share in a quarter. This was wildly different from the 0:09:01.840 --> 0:09:05.319 way things worked on most other vessels, where the captains 0:09:05.320 --> 0:09:08.640 and the officers got hundreds or even thousands of times 0:09:08.679 --> 0:09:12.840 more than the ordinary sailors did. On many pirate ships, 0:09:12.960 --> 0:09:17.319 disputes were settled and punishments were determined by voting. If 0:09:17.320 --> 0:09:20.160 someone stole something from another member of the crew, or 0:09:20.280 --> 0:09:24.200 was cowardly during a fight, or broke a relatively minor rule, 0:09:24.640 --> 0:09:27.560 their punishment might be whatever the majority of the crew 0:09:27.679 --> 0:09:31.200 thought was appropriate. That did not mean that everything went 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.400 smoothly or that everybody was satisfied with life or ships 0:09:34.400 --> 0:09:39.079 all the time. These ships could still be incredibly violent places. Again, 0:09:39.160 --> 0:09:44.000 these were criminal enterprises. Captains and officers could still be 0:09:44.120 --> 0:09:48.319 unreasonable or cruel. Ships could still run aground, or run 0:09:48.360 --> 0:09:52.160 out of provisions, or get into all kinds of misfortune. 0:09:52.200 --> 0:09:55.840 Some ships codes outlined punishments that could still be severe, 0:09:56.000 --> 0:10:00.040 including death or being marooned on an island somewhere. But 0:10:00.080 --> 0:10:02.800 for the most part, for a lot of people, life 0:10:02.840 --> 0:10:06.480 as a pirates still seemed better than the alternatives. Laps, 0:10:06.559 --> 0:10:10.679 privateering contracts, and out of work navymen can't really account 0:10:10.800 --> 0:10:13.640 for all of the pirates in this era. There were 0:10:13.679 --> 0:10:17.679 also pirates who had previously been merchant seamen, who often 0:10:17.720 --> 0:10:21.560 faced similar conditions to those on navy ships, but the 0:10:21.640 --> 0:10:25.160 large majority of pirates had been one of the three. 0:10:25.320 --> 0:10:28.640 Roughly a third were British and roughly a quarter were American, 0:10:29.040 --> 0:10:31.520 and there were also pirates from all over Europe and 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:35.560 South Asia sailing in the Caribbean and the Atlantic. It's 0:10:35.720 --> 0:10:38.200 likely that between a quarter and a third of the 0:10:38.240 --> 0:10:41.400 sailors on a typical pirate crew were black, many of 0:10:41.440 --> 0:10:45.920 whom had liberated themselves from enslavement. There were also pirates 0:10:45.960 --> 0:10:49.679 who had enslaved people on their crew, or included slaves 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:53.079 as part of the loot to be distributed. We will 0:10:53.120 --> 0:10:56.120 get to the rise in piracy around Nasau. After a 0:10:56.240 --> 0:11:09.840 sponsor break around the time that Britain rebuilt Nassau in 0:11:09.920 --> 0:11:13.400 sixteen ninety five, Sir Nicholas Trott was named governor of 0:11:13.480 --> 0:11:16.840 the Bahamas. Nasau was the capital, but there were really 0:11:16.880 --> 0:11:19.480 not many people there, and Trot did not have a 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.720 lot of support in defending Nassau. This was during the 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:25.760 Nine Years' War, and he was naturally concerned about the 0:11:25.800 --> 0:11:29.679 possibility of a French attack on Nassau. So when an 0:11:29.880 --> 0:11:33.880 arm ship arrived at port in March of sixteen ninety six, 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:38.200 with a captain calling himself Henry Bridgeman and offering Trot 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:41.000 a bribe to kind of look the other way, Trot 0:11:41.040 --> 0:11:44.560 thought this ship's presence might work as a deterrent. In 0:11:44.600 --> 0:11:48.360 addition to its armaments, the ship's crew doubled the number 0:11:48.400 --> 0:11:52.160 of men in Nassau. Trot also thought it was possible 0:11:52.280 --> 0:11:55.160 that if he denied entry to this ship, it might 0:11:55.280 --> 0:11:59.199 leave and join the French side. That captain was really 0:11:59.360 --> 0:12:03.600 pirate hen who we've covered on the show before. Six 0:12:03.640 --> 0:12:06.600 months before this, he and other pirates had pulled off 0:12:06.600 --> 0:12:10.560 what's been described as the most profitable pirate raid in history. 0:12:11.480 --> 0:12:15.600 That was on a Mughal Empire fleet whose passengers included 0:12:15.640 --> 0:12:19.360 members of the emperor's family who were returning from the Hajj. 0:12:20.160 --> 0:12:23.320 This was a massive international incident, and there was intense 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.800 pressure on British authorities to find every and bring him 0:12:26.840 --> 0:12:32.200 to justice. Eventually, someone told Trot whoevery really was, and 0:12:32.320 --> 0:12:36.079 Every fled before he could be captured. By that point, 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.760 most of Every's crew had divided their spoils among themselves 0:12:39.760 --> 0:12:44.080 and scattered. Trot was dismissed as governor later that year. 0:12:44.960 --> 0:12:48.280 The War of the Spanish Succession started about five years 0:12:48.320 --> 0:12:51.800 after this, and in seventeen oh three, a combined Spanish 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:56.400 and French fleet attacked the Bahamas. They raided Nassau. They 0:12:56.480 --> 0:12:58.719 spiked all the cannons in the fort, and they took 0:12:58.760 --> 0:13:04.160 about eighty people prison That included acting Governor Ellis Lightfoot, 0:13:04.200 --> 0:13:08.600 who some sources call Ellis Lightwood. They also took British 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.960 soldiers and enslaved Africans captive. Lightfoot and some of the 0:13:13.000 --> 0:13:16.200 other captives were later ransomed, but a lot of people 0:13:16.280 --> 0:13:20.160 were killed during this raid. When the next appointed governor, 0:13:20.360 --> 0:13:24.120 Edward Burch, arrived in seventeen oh four, he found Nassau 0:13:24.400 --> 0:13:29.360 almost completely destroyed and virtually deserted, and he described the 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:32.880 few remaining survivors as not even having a shift to 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:38.319 cover their nakedness. Birch quickly went back to England. After 0:13:38.360 --> 0:13:41.840 he left, no one replaced him in Nassau for years. 0:13:42.440 --> 0:13:45.480 A second Spanish raid in seventeen oh six scattered the 0:13:45.520 --> 0:13:48.160 few people who had made their way back to Nasau. 0:13:48.840 --> 0:13:52.440 For all practical purposes, the Bahamas were ungoverned, with maybe 0:13:52.520 --> 0:13:56.679 five hundred British subjects scattered around the islands and fending 0:13:56.720 --> 0:14:00.360 for themselves. England's part in the War of the Spanish 0:14:00.400 --> 0:14:03.840 Succession ended in seventeen thirteen with the Treaty of Utrecht. 0:14:04.400 --> 0:14:06.680 This was one of a whole series of treaties that 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:09.720 ended this war, and there was a bunch of other 0:14:09.800 --> 0:14:12.840 stuff going on in the treaty. Among other things, it 0:14:12.960 --> 0:14:16.840 ultimately led to the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia, 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.080 which we've covered on the show before. The part that 0:14:20.200 --> 0:14:22.960 is most relevant to this episode is that it ended 0:14:23.000 --> 0:14:26.600 England's part in the war, and consequently it ended England's 0:14:26.640 --> 0:14:30.160 need for so many privateers. This is often cited as 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:32.840 a big factor in the spike in pirate activity in 0:14:32.880 --> 0:14:35.320 the Caribbean in the eighteenth century. As all of those 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.720 former privateers are not all of them, but a number 0:14:37.720 --> 0:14:41.000 of them decided to turn to piracy, and that was 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:43.840 one part of it. But by the time the war ended, 0:14:44.280 --> 0:14:48.000 Nassau was already full of pirates. They had started moving 0:14:48.040 --> 0:14:52.200 in as soon as the British abandoned it. Privateers hired 0:14:52.200 --> 0:14:55.080 by other governments had moved in as well, including ones 0:14:55.360 --> 0:14:59.160 hired by the British colonial government of Jamaica. The big 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.200 draw Nasau's harbor. It was too shallow for the kinds 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.440 of large warships that the colonial powers were using, but 0:15:06.520 --> 0:15:09.720 it was great for the smaller, faster ships that pirates 0:15:09.920 --> 0:15:13.920 and privateers preferred. This was also true of other harbors 0:15:13.920 --> 0:15:16.680 and bays in the Bahamas. There is a persistent but 0:15:16.880 --> 0:15:20.640 incorrect idea that the name Bahamas comes from the Spanish, 0:15:20.880 --> 0:15:25.360 thanks to Christopher Columbus calling the area Bahamar or shallow sea. 0:15:26.320 --> 0:15:28.680 Two of the pirates who were working out of Nasau 0:15:28.760 --> 0:15:33.160 in the seventeen teens were Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings. 0:15:33.880 --> 0:15:36.080 Sometimes people make it sound like the two of them 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:39.520 teamed up to spawn an entire world of piracy in 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:43.280 the Caribbean all by themselves, but they were more rivals 0:15:43.320 --> 0:15:47.240 than friends. They sort of shifted between privateering and piracy 0:15:47.320 --> 0:15:51.200 at different times, and at more than one point one 0:15:51.200 --> 0:15:54.560 of them managed to capture one of the other's prizes. 0:15:55.440 --> 0:15:58.080 It's also likely that there were at least a thousand 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.000 pirates operating in the Bahamas by the time each of 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.880 them turned to piracy, so this was not an ecosystem 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:07.720 that they just created. At the same time, most of 0:16:07.760 --> 0:16:11.520 the pirate captains operating out of Nassau were connected to 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:14.440 what are the other of them? Most of the Caribbean 0:16:14.480 --> 0:16:17.520 pirates who were not connected to them were connected to 0:16:17.760 --> 0:16:21.600 George Lother or Edward Lowe, who largely operated out of 0:16:21.600 --> 0:16:25.880 the Bay of Honduras on the coasts of Guatemala and Belize. 0:16:26.000 --> 0:16:29.480 The pirates connected to Horneguld and Jennings became known as 0:16:29.520 --> 0:16:33.640 the Flying Gang, and Nassau was nicknamed the Republic of Pirates. 0:16:34.320 --> 0:16:37.040 The Flying Gang was the largest group of pirates in 0:16:37.080 --> 0:16:40.280 the early decades of the eighteenth century and the biggest 0:16:40.360 --> 0:16:44.160 threat to maritime trade between the Americas and Europe and Africa. 0:16:45.040 --> 0:16:49.040 Pirates associated with the Flying Gang also terrorized local people 0:16:49.120 --> 0:16:52.320 living in the Bahamas, including the few British subjects who 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:56.000 were still living in and around Nasau, and they attacked 0:16:56.000 --> 0:17:00.560 coastal settlements all across the Caribbean and the Americas. The 0:17:00.600 --> 0:17:04.119 Flying Gang was not really a formalized group with like 0:17:04.200 --> 0:17:08.199 a clear hierarchy and organizational structure. It was more like 0:17:08.240 --> 0:17:11.400 a loose confederation of ships and crews that were all 0:17:11.480 --> 0:17:17.240 working under generally similar ideals. This confederation grew and expanded 0:17:17.320 --> 0:17:20.919 over the course of its activities, so newly established pirate 0:17:21.040 --> 0:17:24.120 crews often started with a couple of men who had 0:17:24.119 --> 0:17:27.119 served together somewhere on the same ship and kept in 0:17:27.160 --> 0:17:30.160 touch and got a ship of their own. If one 0:17:30.320 --> 0:17:33.920 pirate ship captured another vessel, they would either kill its 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:37.399 crew or put them ashore and then take over that ship, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:42.639 sort of splitting the two ships with two crews, bringing 0:17:42.640 --> 0:17:45.840 on the second one and keeping any of the captured 0:17:45.880 --> 0:17:50.000 crew that maybe did want to become pirates. Pirate activity 0:17:50.080 --> 0:17:52.960 also surged after a Spanish fleet was caught in a 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:56.919 hurricane in seventeen fifteen and driven onto reefs off the 0:17:56.920 --> 0:18:00.960 coast of Florida. These ships were traveling together along with 0:18:01.000 --> 0:18:03.600 a French frigate. Due to fears about all of the 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:07.639 pirate activity in the area, ten ships, most of them 0:18:07.720 --> 0:18:11.200 laden with silver and gold and other valuable cargo, were 0:18:11.280 --> 0:18:15.760 run aground, capsized, or sunk, with only the French frigate surviving. 0:18:16.520 --> 0:18:20.680 It's likely that at least fifteen hundred sailors died of drowning, injury, 0:18:20.800 --> 0:18:25.800 or dehydration after managing to get ashore. Salvagers rushed to 0:18:25.920 --> 0:18:29.480 this area from all over the Caribbean and eastern North America. 0:18:29.520 --> 0:18:33.280 It was a massive series of shipwrecks in shallow water. 0:18:33.640 --> 0:18:37.640 It was easy pickens for salvagers, and pirates moved into 0:18:37.680 --> 0:18:41.120 salvage from the rexes well and to try to attack 0:18:41.200 --> 0:18:45.680 and plunder the other salvage ships. Of course, Spain really 0:18:45.720 --> 0:18:48.040 objected to all of this, since the rex and their 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:52.320 cargo were all considered Spanish property, and Spain demanded that 0:18:52.480 --> 0:18:57.840 other nations that had sent the salvage crews withdraw. Governor 0:18:57.960 --> 0:19:02.240 Archibald Hamilton of Jamaica commit Henry Jennings and John Wills 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:07.480 as privateers. Their commission was ostensibly to attack pirates, but 0:19:08.000 --> 0:19:12.680 Hamilton encouraged them to salvage the Spanish wres he had 0:19:12.720 --> 0:19:15.320 purchased shares from the ships, so he would be getting 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:19.200 part of that salvage. What Jennings and Wills actually did 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.200 was attack and plunder the storehouse where the Spanish were 0:19:22.200 --> 0:19:25.080 storing the cargo that they had managed to pull out 0:19:25.119 --> 0:19:28.960 of the wreckage. Hamilton eventually ordered the ships that he 0:19:29.000 --> 0:19:32.760 had commissioned to return to Jamaica, and he barred British 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.800 subjects from the Rex site. This just led to more piracy, though, 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:40.440 as ships that had previously been operating under at least 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:44.440 his British authority just defied that order and kept doing 0:19:44.520 --> 0:19:49.520 it and also attacking other Caribbean targets in retaliation for 0:19:49.600 --> 0:19:52.880 having been barred from the shipwrecks. Hamilton wound up being 0:19:53.000 --> 0:19:55.879 arrested for his role in all of this in October 0:19:55.920 --> 0:19:59.760 of seventeen sixteen. Some of the most well known pirates 0:19:59.760 --> 0:20:02.840 of the eighteenth century were connected to the Flying Gang. 0:20:03.600 --> 0:20:07.840 One of Hornigold's officers was Edward Teach or Thatch, also 0:20:07.920 --> 0:20:12.919 known very famously as Blackbeard. Another was Samuel Bellamy. Charles 0:20:13.040 --> 0:20:16.640 Vaine had served under Henry Jennings and John Rackham aka 0:20:16.760 --> 0:20:21.240 Calico Jack, had served under Charles Vain and Bonnie and 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.000 Mary Reid, who we have also covered on the show before, 0:20:24.440 --> 0:20:28.200 served on Jack Rackham's ship. And there was also Steed Bonnet, 0:20:28.200 --> 0:20:31.000 who we talked about in twenty thirteen, who was an 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:35.080 outlier in terms of how people came into piracy. He 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.520 was a wealthy planter who abandoned his wife and family 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:42.840 to become a pirate and fell in with Blackbeard. Because 0:20:42.840 --> 0:20:46.400 of all of this pirate activity, people started describing Nasa 0:20:46.600 --> 0:20:51.680 as another Madagascar. Madagascar was also a hotbed of pirate 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:55.879 activity that started in about sixteen fifty. Madagascar was also 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.880 home to the pirate utopia of Libertalia, although that might 0:20:59.880 --> 0:21:03.080 have been more legendary than real. We did an episode 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:05.919 on that in twenty eighteen, and we are going to 0:21:05.920 --> 0:21:08.679 talk about how the golden Age of piracy in the 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:21.520 Caribbean ended after we paused for a sponsor break. Through 0:21:21.560 --> 0:21:25.119 the early seventeen hundreds and seventeen teens, a lot of 0:21:25.280 --> 0:21:29.919 people were justifiably worried about piracy, from people living in 0:21:29.960 --> 0:21:33.520 the Caribbean and coastal areas of the mainland, to the 0:21:33.600 --> 0:21:38.399 captains of merchant vessels, to international governments whose economies and 0:21:38.440 --> 0:21:42.280 whose colonial efforts really depended on being able to traverse 0:21:42.320 --> 0:21:46.440 the oceans without being continually attacked and plundered, but for 0:21:46.480 --> 0:21:49.639 a while British authorities in the Caribbean did not do 0:21:49.920 --> 0:21:53.080 very much to try to stop it. That changed in 0:21:53.119 --> 0:21:57.119 seventeen seventeen. On September fifth of that year, King George 0:21:57.160 --> 0:22:01.760 the First issued a proclamation offering to pardon acts of piracy, 0:22:02.280 --> 0:22:05.719 giving the pirates a deadline of the following September fifth 0:22:06.040 --> 0:22:10.720 to surrender themselves to officials in Britain, Ireland or the colonies. 0:22:11.600 --> 0:22:16.879 This proclamation also empowered British sea officers, governors, military commanders, 0:22:16.880 --> 0:22:19.800 and others to quote seize and take such of the 0:22:19.840 --> 0:22:24.080 pirates who shall refuse or neglect to surrender themselves. Accordingly, 0:22:24.960 --> 0:22:28.000 it offered a reward for any such person who discovered 0:22:28.119 --> 0:22:31.600 or seized any pirate who had not surrendered. The award 0:22:31.720 --> 0:22:34.760 was one hundred pounds for commanders of ships or vessels, 0:22:35.040 --> 0:22:37.879 and then it went down incrementally to twenty pounds for 0:22:37.960 --> 0:22:41.760 every private man. There was also a bounty for crews 0:22:41.880 --> 0:22:46.280 who turned on their captains, either delivering those captains to 0:22:46.280 --> 0:22:49.520 the authorities themselves or causing them to be delivered to 0:22:49.520 --> 0:22:51.720 the authorities so that they could be brought to justice 0:22:51.840 --> 0:22:55.720 and convicted. The reward for that was two hundred pounds 0:22:55.760 --> 0:23:00.240 for every such commander. As word of this proclamation spread, 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:03.120 sub pirates made their way to British governors or other 0:23:03.160 --> 0:23:07.440 authorities to surrender. When Captain Vincent Pierce of the HMS 0:23:07.480 --> 0:23:11.880 Phoenix arrived at New Providence Island in February of seventeen eighteen, 0:23:12.400 --> 0:23:16.359 more than two hundred pirates surrendered to him. Some of 0:23:16.400 --> 0:23:20.760 the pirates who accepted the King's pardon later returned to piracy. 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:24.040 The book A General History of the Pirates from their 0:23:24.080 --> 0:23:26.919 First rise and Settlement in the Island of Providence to 0:23:26.960 --> 0:23:30.240 the present time, which was published in seventeen twenty four, 0:23:30.760 --> 0:23:34.200 described men going back to piracy quote like the dog 0:23:34.320 --> 0:23:36.679 to the vomit, which is a turn of phrase that 0:23:36.760 --> 0:23:40.000 I really love. But others took the money that they 0:23:40.000 --> 0:23:43.040 had earned as pirates and started new lives in one 0:23:43.040 --> 0:23:46.280 of the many, many parts of territory that the British 0:23:46.320 --> 0:23:49.320 had claimed in the Caribbean and North America that were 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.639 considered thinly settled at that point. Henry Jennings may have 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:56.800 been one of those people, although his fate after surrendering 0:23:56.880 --> 0:24:01.199 is somewhat unclear. Some of the former pirates turned pirate 0:24:01.320 --> 0:24:05.600 hunter after being pardoned. One of those was Benjamin Hornigold. 0:24:06.240 --> 0:24:09.200 He tried to bring in Charles Vain, but Vain's ship 0:24:09.520 --> 0:24:13.240 was too fast. Some of his other efforts were more successful, 0:24:13.280 --> 0:24:17.640 and on December ninth, seventeen eighteen, nine pirates Hornigold had 0:24:17.680 --> 0:24:22.040 captured were put on trial in Nassau. They all pleaded 0:24:22.080 --> 0:24:25.000 not guilty, and one of them, named John Hips, was 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.040 given a reprieve when he testified that he had only 0:24:28.080 --> 0:24:31.960 been a pirate because he was forced to. Everyone else 0:24:32.040 --> 0:24:36.840 was found guilty and hanged. Eventually, Hornigold had earned enough 0:24:36.880 --> 0:24:40.000 trust that he was tasked with voyaging to Mexico to 0:24:40.000 --> 0:24:42.800 try to establish a new trade route. But the ship 0:24:42.840 --> 0:24:46.160 that he was on wrecked in seventeen nineteen, and Hornigold died, 0:24:46.320 --> 0:24:49.360 either drowned in the wreck or after managing to make 0:24:49.359 --> 0:24:52.280 it to an island. And of course, there were some 0:24:52.440 --> 0:24:56.200 pirates who refused to surrender. One of the most dramatic 0:24:56.440 --> 0:24:59.440 was Charles Vain, who accepted the king's pardon and then 0:24:59.680 --> 0:25:03.520 just turned pirate again. Vain was a Jacobite, a supporter 0:25:03.640 --> 0:25:06.320 of the Stewart claim to the British throne in the 0:25:06.359 --> 0:25:10.879 seventeen teens, he corresponded with Jacobites in Britain, proposing that 0:25:11.000 --> 0:25:14.000 he and his ships be put in service to James 0:25:14.040 --> 0:25:18.719 Francis Edward Stewart. The antagonism between England and Spain was 0:25:18.760 --> 0:25:23.000 also interconnected with the Jacobite movement, with Spain later backing 0:25:23.040 --> 0:25:27.040 a Jacobite uprising. That is another way that these greater 0:25:27.200 --> 0:25:31.000 international disputes were tangled up in the evolution of piracy. 0:25:31.800 --> 0:25:35.800 In seventeen eighteen, when new colonial governor Woods Rogers arrived 0:25:35.840 --> 0:25:38.640 in Nassau, there were British ships with him and they 0:25:38.720 --> 0:25:42.239