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Notorious 17th Century Pirates
17th century pirates, along with their dates of birth and death (if known), the years they were active, and the regions where they were active: Pirate Name Date of Birth Date of Death Years Active Region Henry Morgan 1635 1688 1660-1670s Caribbean William Kidd 1645 1701 1690s-1700s Caribbean and Indian Ocean Blackbeard 1680 1718 1716-1718…
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Mary Read
Mary Read and fellow female pirate Anne Bonny have captivated the public imagination for three centuries, but much of what has been written about them is false. Most accounts can be traced back to a flawed description of their lives in The General History of the Pyrates (1724) which holds that they both had disguised…
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Calico Jack Rackham
John Rackham was one of the rank-and-file pirates based in the Bahamas and, at the time of Woodes Rogers‘ arrival there, was serving in the crew of Charles Vane, leader of the die-hard pirate faction. He had a penchant for wearing clothes made from bright Indian Calico cloth, which lead his fellow pirates to dub…
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Olivier La Buse
Olivier La Buse — also known as Louis Labous, La Bouse, La Bouche, La Buze, and Olivier Levasseur — was the leading French captain of the pirate republic in the Bahamas, and one of the most successful pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy. He is often said to have been born in Calais, although…
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Henry Jennings
Henry Jennings was one of the early members of the pirate republic in the Bahamas, and the leader of one of the two major pirate factions there. Apparently motivated by a desire to restore the Stuarts to the British throne, Jennings was one of the more violent and merciless pirates, with far fewer reservations about…
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Benjamin Hornigold
Benjamin Hornigold was the founder of the pirate republic in the Bahamas and a mentor to both Blackbeard and Sam Bellamy. A leader of one of the largest pirate factions at Nassau, he ultimately switched sides, becoming a leading pirate hunter and a trusted lieutenant of the pirate’s arch nemesis, Woodes Rogers. As revealed in…
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Stede Bonnet
Like Paulsgrave Williams, Stede Bonnet was an unlikely pirate. The scion of an influential family of Barbados sugar planters, Bonnet had a wife, children, and estate on that island. A landlubber, he didn’t know how to operate a ship. And yet, in April 1717, Bonnet left Barbados under cover of darkness in the Revenge, an…
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Anne Bonny
Anne Bonny and fellow female pirate Mary Read have captivated the public imagination for three centuries, but much of what has been written about them is false. Most accounts can be traced back to a flawed account of their lives in The General History of the Pyrates (1724) which holds that they both had disguised…
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Paulsgrave Williams
Paulsgrave Williams, who rose to become one of the most infamous pirate captains, was an unlikely candidate to join this maritime revolt: a middle-aged silversmith from a wealthy family, with a wife and two young children. His father was a wealthy merchant and Rhode Island’s attorney general; his mother was descended from the Plantagenet kings…
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Samuel Bellamy
Samuel Bellamy, the self-styled Robin Hood of the Seas, is believed to have been born in the late winter of 1689 in the English hamlet of Hittisleigh, Devon. A sailor, he showed up in New England after the end of the War of Spanish Succession (1702-1712) and, according to legend, made his way to Eastham,…
Welcome to the Republic Of Pirates
