Republic of Pirates

The Republic of Pirates was an alliance of seafaring raiders that operated out of the port city of Nassau in the Bahamas from 1706 to 1718. After years of turmoil created by political rivalries in Europe, a power vacuum developed in the British Caribbean colony. The region had long been home to pirates who attacked and plundered ships carrying the wealth of the New World back to Europe. In 1706, a group of pirates established themselves in Nassau and used the city as a base of operations, setting up an informal government bound by a loose set of rules. For more than a decade, the pirates of Nassau plundered the Caribbean almost at will, causing severe disruption in the region’s trade and shipping. The British government could no longer tolerate the pirate activity and ordered the new governor of the Bahamas to retake Nassau. The governor enticed some pirates to surrender with a pardon and hunted down others who would not comply. By 1718, the city was back in British control and Republic of Pirates was brought to an end.

Background

Piracy likely dates back thousands of years to the earliest seafaring civilizations. The term “pirate” has its origins in the Greek work peiratēs, which means “one who attacks.” It later evolved into the Latin pirata, or “sea robber,” from which the modern usage originated.

The years between 1690 and 1720 are often romanticized as the “golden age of piracy,” a period when seafaring robbery reached epidemic proportions. This “golden age” was a byproduct of political rivalries between Europe’s great powers and their race to establish colonies in the so-called “New World” of the Americas and nearby islands.

With the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492, the Spanish were the first Europeans to claim colonial holdings in the Caribbean. Columbus had intended to reach southeastern Asia to establish new trade routes with China and India, but instead found a whole continent in the way. This New World was not a bustling center of trade as was southeastern Asia, but it provided many valuable commodities, chiefly gold, which could be shipped back to Spain.

Over the course of the sixteenth century, Spain conquered much of the Caribbean, South America, and the southern reaches of North America, mainly in search of gold. By the 1560s, Spanish explorers had shipped about one hundred tons of gold back home, doubling the amount of the precious metal in Europe. By the late sixteenth century, Spain had become so proficient at mining that Spanish ships carried about four tons of gold home each year.

Great Britain and France began establishing their own colonies in the New World in the early seventeenth century. Initially, these colonies were along the eastern seaboard of North America, but by the 1630s and 1640s, they both began claiming land in the Caribbean. Great Britain, France, and Spain were economic and political rivals that engaged in numerous wars and confrontations over the course of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.

During times of war, each nation hired sea captains known as privateers to harass and rob ships and settlements from the other nations. Privateers were officially held to contracts that allowed them to attack specific targets, although some exceeded their authority and plundered what they wished. When a war ended or a privateer’s contract expired, the captain and his sailors were often left with nothing to do. Some turned to piracy.

Overview

In 1670, the British established a colony on New Providence Island in the Bahamas. Its capital, Charles Town, was used as a port for privateers attacking Spanish ships. Charles Town was attacked and burned to the ground by the Spanish in 1684, but was rebuilt and put under the control of British governor Nicholas Trott in 1695. Trott renamed the port city Nassau after the German House of Nassau, part of the royal linage of Britain’s King William III. At the time, the British were at war with France and Trott did not have the manpower to defend Nassau in case of an attack. In 1696, pirate Henry Avery and his ship, The Fancy, sailed into the port at Nassau. Avery offered Trott a substantial bribe that included his ship if Trott would allow Avery to unload The Fancy with no questions asked. Trott likely suspected Avery was a pirate and his ship’s goods were stolen, but Avery’s men nearly doubled Nassau’s population and his ship could act as a deterrent against a French attack.

Avery later fled Nassau to escape pursuit by the British government, leaving the city’s defenses weakened. After a series of attacks by both the Spanish and French, the British colonists abandoned the city. In 1706, a group of British privateers took advantage of the situation and moved into Nassau. The city’s harbor offered them a perfect haven from which to stage their operations. It was too shallow for the large, heavy warships used by Europe’s navies but was perfect for the light, fast ships preferred by the privateers and pirates.

Although granted legal permissions to raid Spanish ships, the privateers in Nassau soon began attacking neutral merchant ships as well. Rich with plundered wealth, Nassau attracted more pirates who were joined by smugglers, prostitutes, and others. The city was loosely administered by a governor who used the “pirate code of conduct” as the basis for its laws. Pirate codes were typically agreed upon by a ship’s crew and provided a blueprint for the distribution of plundered goods, discipline, and compensation for injuries.

In 1701, Great Britain became embroiled in the War of the Spanish Succession, a fight for control of the Spanish throne. Britain agreed to pull out of the war in 1713, nullifying its contracts with hundreds of privateers to attack the Spanish. Suddenly, the Caribbean was awash in experienced and battle-hardened seamen who found themselves unemployed. Many of them sailed to Nassau and joined the growing pirate republic.

Among them were famous captains Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings, who arrived in Nassau in 1713. Although rivals, the two men formed an alliance and became co-governors of the republic. Their fame attracted even more ex-privateers to the island where they served as mentors to newer arrivals. One of those newcomers was a pirate named Edward Teach, who is better known as Blackbeard. The residents of Nassau later voted Blackbeard as their “magistrate,” giving him the power to enforce law and order in the republic. Other pirates who came to Nassau included “Black Sam” Bellamy, Stede Bonnet, Charles Vane, “Calico Jack” Rackham, and female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read.

The Nassau pirates called themselves the Flying Gang and controlled a small fleet of ships that began targeting Spanish vessels and settlements in the Caribbean. They also attacked coastal settlements from Florida to Central America. At one point, researchers estimated that more than one thousand pirates operated out of Nassau. Some reports claim the republic was reasonably well-run with the pirate code ensuring people were fairly rewarded on merit. However, modern historians tend to question that idea, seeing it as a romanticized view of a much harsher reality.

At first, Hornigold had been careful to limit the republic’s attacks to Spanish interests, but members of his crew began to demand they also target British ships. As a result, Hornigold’s crew rebelled and replaced him with “Black Sam” Bellamy.

The pirates’ actions in the region had long worried British authorities. The governor of British-held Bermuda had sent a warning to London that his colony of about one hundred citizens was outnumbered ten-to-one by the pirates. When the pirates also started attacking British ships, the nation could no longer ignore the problem.

In 1718, Britain’s King George I appointed Woodes Rogers as the royal governor of the Bahamas and issued a full pardon to any pirate who would voluntarily surrender by September. When Rogers arrived in Nassau, many pirates, including Hornigold and Jennings, accepted the offer of pardon. Captain Charles Vane famously refused and seized control of Nassau. When Rogers blockaded him inside the city’s harbor, Vane loaded a ship with gunpowder, set it on fire, and aimed it toward the British naval vessels. The British were able to take evasive action before the ship exploded, but Vane and his crew escaped in the chaos.

Included in the king’s terms of pardon were additional riches for anyone who agreed to track down the pirates who did not surrender. Hornigold enthusiastically embraced the offer and used his knowledge of the region and pirate tactics to hunt his former comrades, capturing ten by December 1718. Nine of those captured were executed in Nassau.

With the Bahamas back in British control, the Republic of Pirates came to an end. Blackbeard had left Nassau to raid the British colonies of Virginia and North Carolina. He was ambushed off the coast of North Carolina in November 1718 and killed. Charles Vane was ousted as captain by “Calico Jack” Rackham and set adrift. He was rescued by a passing ship but was soon recognized and was hanged in 1720. Rackham returned to Nassau to seek a pardon, but ran afoul of authorities when he began an affair with Anne Bonny, who was married to another sailor. Rackham and Bonny fled the colony on a ship, an act that nullified his pardon. He was arrested and hanged in 1720. Bonny was captured along with Rackham, but because she was pregnant, she was pardoned. Her fate remains unknown. Hornigold continued to work for Rogers until he died in a shipwreck in 1719.

Bibliography

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