The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down

by Colin Woodard

  ***

  As he looked over his new prize, Blackbeard knew he had finally found a proper flagship. La Concorde was as big, fast, and powerful as Bellamy's now infamous Whydah, maybe more so. With such a vessel, Blackbeard knew his men could cause more havoc than the rest of the old Flying Gang put together. All the French slaver needed was a little refitting and a change of name.

  The pirates took La Concorde to Bequia, a hilly, forested island with a large protected anchorage located nine miles southeast of St. Vincent. Blackbeard knew they were unlikely to be bothered there, for unlike most of the surrounding islands, St. Vincent and Bequia were not controlled by Europeans, but by the mixed-race descendents of Carib Indians and the African survivors of the 1635 wreck of two slave ships.* These people, the Garifuna, had tenaciously defended their land from the Europeans, but their naval operations were limited to a handful of Carib-style war canoes. Even if they did show up in force, they were likely as not to be pleased with the pirates for stopping a slave ship from reaching its destination.

  The hundreds of slaves in La Concorde's hold had little reason to celebrate, however. While Blackbeard had several crewmen of African descent, they had probably been born in the West Indies, men familiar with European customs, language, and technology. Most Africans Blackbeard's men encountered "straight off the boat" appear to have been treated as cargo, creatures from an alien culture who were ineligible to join the pirates' ranks. The vast majority of the 455 slaves chained in La Concorde's hold were turned over to Captain Dosset, whose men guarded them on the shore of Bequia. Blackbeard kept sixty-one slaves aboard La Concorde, probably for use as laborers, although a few may have been inducted into his company. On this point, sadly, the historical record has little to say.

  The pirates forced ten of Dosset's crewmen, and their choice illustrates their company's needs: the chief surgeon and his deputy, a pilot, both gunsmiths; the master carpenter and his deputy, an expert in the art of caulking hulls; a cook; and one seaman with unspecified skills. In addition, four of Dosset's men begged the pirates to let them join, including the coxswain and both of his cabin boys. The boys, fifteen-year-old Louis Arot and slightly older Julien Joseph Moisant, were the worst-paid members of the slaver's crew, receiving a paltry five and eight livres (£0.2 and £0.35) a month respectively. Young Arot may have had reason to dislike Dosset and his officers, as he went out of his way to cause them harm, informing the pirates that they had a secret stash of gold dust hidden somewhere on the ship or their persons. Blackbeard's men interrogated Dosset and his officers, threatening to cut their throats if they failed to turn over the gold. The Frenchmen complied, and were rewarded with the pirates' small, forty-ton sloop; the pirates were keeping La Concorde for themselves. The pirates also gave them "two or three tons of beans" to prevent the slaves from starving. Dosset dubbed this sloop the Mauvaise Recontre, the "Bad Encounter," and used it to transport his crew and slaves back to Martinique, a task that took two separate voyages.

  Blackbeard oversaw the transfer of his personal effects from the Revenge to La Concorde, along with cannon and supplies from the forty-ton sloop, and much of the pirate company. Stede Bonnet had recovered from his battle wounds and, despite his inexperience, was allowed to resume command of the Revenge and a crew of at least fifty men. From eyewitness accounts a few days later, we know that La Concorde now carried twenty-two guns and 150 men, indicating that at least some of the Africans retained by the pirates had been inducted into the crew. The pirates also gave La Concorde a new name: Queen Anne's Revenge. The choice of names suggests Jacobite political leanings among Blackbeard's crew, evoking the name of the last Stuart monarch and promising vengeance in her name against King George and his Hanoverian line.

  Now in command of a powerful warship, Blackbeard was ready to make his mark. He was, by now, aware of the relatively weak state of the European colonies in the Lesser Antillies, which Sam Bellamy's men would have attested to on the basis of their raids the year before. He proposed to the company that they sweep the 1,400-mile island chain from end to end, raiding ships and harbors alike until they reached the Windward Passage, where they might snare a Spanish galleon carrying the payroll to Cuba. This strategy agreed upon, the Revenge and Queen Anne's Revenge sailed out of the harbor to the south, a course set for Grenada, the first island in the chain. When they reached the French island, they would backtrack their way to St. Vincent and continue north, hopping from island to island and stripping them of valuables as if they were walking through a row of fruit trees.

  This first leg of the journey, which lasted but two days, was of mixed success. Despite, or possibly because of the presence of their French pilot, the pirates managed to run one of their vessels aground on Grenada. They were able to get her off whatever reef she had struck, and while it didn't suffer any serious damage, the pirates did find it necessary to abandon a number of the slaves. (Dosset was later able to re-cover them, in part because he had branded them with La Concorde's initials.) But they also made their first capture: a large brigantine, a seaworthy, two-masted vessel, armed with ten guns. No account of the capture of this vessel survives, so there is no way of knowing where she came from or what was onboard, but the pirates kept her as a third member of their fleet. Presumably a few of her crew were forced into service and the remainder released on one of the ship's boats or put ashore on St. Lucia. In any event, the pirates acquired this brigantine between the time they left Captain Dosset on Bequia and when they encountered their next quarry a day or so later, in the deepwater passage north of St. Vincent.

  This was the Great Allen of Boston, a very large merchant ship en route from Barbados to Jamaica. Blackbeard, still furious with Massachusetts authorities, allowed the crew to rough up the Great Allen's captain, Christopher Taylor, to get him to reveal the whereabouts of his valuables. The shackled captain either refused to tell or denied there were any riches, apart from whatever they had found in the Great Allen's hold. The pirates didn't believe him, and whipped him soundly. Whether he confessed or not, the pirates ended up with a cup of such exquisite value and workmanship that future captives would remember it above all the riches they saw aboard Blackbeard's ships. Taylor then had to watch as the pirates burned his huge ship to the waterline. The next day, Taylor and his crew were put aboard a boat and were rowed to a sparsely inhabited shore on Martinique.

  It would take three months for word of the attack to reach the Great Allen's homeport of Boston. By then, the fate of Bellamy's crewmen had already been sealed.

  ***

  Blackbeard's men confirmed they had little to fear from French authorities in that part of the Caribbean. Martinique, a sugar colony with a population of 9,400 whites and over 29,000 slaves, was the center of France's West Indies empire, but it had no naval protection of any kind. Blackbeard would have been dissuaded from attacking the harbor itself by the presence of Fort Royal, her thick walls and heavy guns providing ample protection. However Guadeloupe, Martinique's sister colony, seventy-five miles to the north, was not so strongly fortified, a fact the pirates would have learned when interrogating Dosset and his crew. It was there that Blackbeard would make the first of many brash incursions into the very capitals of Europe's American colonies.

  We know only a few details of the attack on Guadeloupe town, which likely took place on the night of November 28,1717. The pirates sailed straight into the harbor, guns blazing, before the ships at anchor could get underway. They seized control of a large French ship that had just finished taking on a cargo of sugar, raising her sails and hacking away her anchor lines to make a quick escape. Then, in the most outrageous move made by a Caribbean pirate to date, they set the town ablaze, probably by firing red-hot cannonballs into its rows of neat wooden homes. As they sailed out of the port, a growing plume of smoke rose behind them. By the time the island's residents were able to get the conflagration under control, half of Guadeloupe town lay in ashes.

  The morning of the twenty-ninth found the pirates sailing
north on a light wind with their big French sugar ship, creeping into the forty-mile wide passage that separated French Guadeloupe from the neighboring English islands of Montserrat, Antigua, and Nevis. A large merchant vessel appeared bearing English colors. Before they had an opportunity to attack, however, several of the ship's men were seen climbing into their longboat. To the pirates' surprise, instead of trying to escape, the boat began rowing straight up to the nearest of their three vessels, Stede Bonnet's Revenge. Bonnet luffed his sails, allowing the boat to come alongside. He looked over the rail and was greeted by a man who introduced himself as Thomas Knight, an officer of the Montserrat Merchant. Knight's commanding officer, Bonnet soon learned, had mistaken the Revenge and Queen Anne's Revenge for a pair of English slavers arriving from Africa and had sent him over to inquire if they were carrying letters bound for Montserrat or the British Leeward Islands. Bonnet, who must have looked the part of an aristocratic slave trader, introduced himself as Captain Edwards and told Knight he was bound from Barbados to Jamaica. He said they did indeed have something for them, and insisted they come on board. At this point in the conversation, Knight finally noticed the death's head flag hanging from the Revenge's stern. Trying to conceal his discomfort, Knight politely declined. Bonnet then changed his tone, ordering Knight and his boat crew to come aboard, else he would sink them right then and there. The hapless men did as they were told, scampering onto the deck amid a crowd of armed men. Knight later recalled that "when we went on board, the first words they said to us were that we were welcome aboard the pirates," meaning their vessel.

  For the next few hours, Knight and his men were kept in a state of terror and confusion. First, Bonnet's men invited them to a meal. Knight declined. The pirates extended the invitation a second time, this time adding that if it was refused "they would do [them] mischief." During this compulsory meal, Bonnet and his crew interrogated their guests, gathering intelligence about the British Leeward Islands. How big was Montserrat's fort at Kinsale? How many guns protected the island's principal harbor, Plymouth, and how strong were the ships anchored there? Knight told them what he knew: Kinsale's sixty-year-old fort had four guns, but there were another seven guarding the entrance to Plymouth. No other ships were armed with anything greater than personal firearms. Then he begged the pirates to release him and his men, or at least put them ashore on Guadeloupe or Montserrat, as the captain of their ship had by now figured out the situation and fled the scene. Bonnet's men refused, saying the captives "must go and speak with the Man-of-War"—the Queen Anne's Revenge—before they would be discharged.

  As the day wore on, Bonnet caught up to the Queen Anne's Revenge and the French sugar ship. He came alongside Blackbeard's flagship, close enough to yell a question to his commodore: What should he do with the men they had captured? The word came back to send the captives over in a boat. Knight and his men rowed to the powerful man-of-war, which looked to them to have been built with Dutch lines, fast and agile. As they grew near, someone aboard the great pirate ship hailed them through a speaking trumpet. The message was the same as before: "Welcome aboard the Pirate."

  Once on the deck of Queen Anne's Revenge, Knight's party was invited to yet another meal. This time they did not refuse. The pirates bragged about their conquests but concealed their commanders' names, calling Bonnet "Edwards" and claiming Blackbeard's name to be "Kentish." Blackbeard did not join them, however, and the captives soon learned that he was ill, probably from a disease carried from Africa in his ex-slave ship. The captain would speak to them later. In the meantime, they were put to work as temporary laborers aboard the ship.

  The pirates sailed through the night, leaving Montserrat unmolested in favor of Nevis, the second most important island in Britain's Leeward Islands colony, a volcanic peak soaring 3,200 feet out of the shimmering ocean. They reached Nevis at daybreak and Blackbeard ordered a course for the main anchorage on the island's western shore.

  A few hours later, the pirate squadron reached Nevis Harbor, but Blackbeard was so ill he could barely leave his quarters. William Howard, his quartermaster, inspected the vessels anchored against the sugarcane-fringed shores. There were a variety of merchant vessels for the taking—sloops, sailing canoes, and a few large brigantines or ships—but there was also a large frigate, which Howard took to be the warship assigned to the Leeward Islands, the sixth-rate HMS Seaford. The pirates reacted with excitement, not fear. The consensus was that they should pounce on the frigate where she lay, storm her decks, cut her anchor line, and before authorities ashore could react, sail her out to sea. Howard proposed this bold plan to Blackbeard, but the pirate felt too weak to take part in the risky attack and talked the company out of it. There would be other opportunities, he told them, once they were more familiar with their ship and her capabilities; instead they should concentrate on easy targets. His argument won out, and Howard ordered the flotilla to sail for Antigua, the capital of the British Leeward Islands, which they hoped was without naval protection.

  The pirates sailed under English colors, doing their best to appear to be simple merchant vessels going about their business. En route to Antigua, their three vessels sailed among a pair of unsuspecting merchant ships. Perhaps not wishing to arouse a general alarm, the pirates did not attack. Instead, they sent Bonnet a bit ahead of the other ships in the Revenge to gather more information. As the day progressed, a merchant sloop happened to pass alongside her. Bonnet or one of his officers hailed it, claiming they were from Barbados. A man aboard the sloop responded that he was Richard Joy, captain and owner of the New Division, on her way from St. Christopher to Antigua. The pirates said he must come aboard their vessel, and promised to do him no harm."When I went on board they asked me to eat and drink, and enquired what vessels were along the shore," Joy later recalled. "[I] could not tell."

  While Joy was consuming his meal, some of Bonnet's men climbed aboard the New Division, took control of the quarterdeck, and forced all its crew back aboard the Revenge. They continued to interrogate Joy, demanding to know what vessels were in St. Christopher harbor. At first the merchant pleaded ignorance, but when the pirates threatened to burn his sloop, he told them everything. There were two ships, one newly arrived from Liverpool with a cargo of English foodstuffs. The pirates were pleased at the news, but announced they would sink the New Division all the same. Joy approached Bonnet, begging him to let him have his vessel. "[I] told him it was all I had to support my family." Bonnet took pity on the man and told his crew to let him have his sloop, but not to release him until after nightfall. When the New Division finally parted from the pirates, Blackbeard's quartermaster, William Howard, allowed Thomas Knight and his men to leave with them. As their captives sailed off, the pirates drew their vessels together for a consultation, and, based on their new intelligence, resolved to attack St. Christopher rather than Antigua. The three vessels turned around again, heading northwest toward their new target.

  Blackbeard's flotilla arrived on December 1. The English settlers could not have been happy to see the three ships sailing into Sandy Point, black flags flying from the rigging. The settlers, who still hadn't recovered from a severe French attack during the war, were unable to keep up the island's defenses. The guns were rarely in working order, and powder, ammunition, and skilled gunners were in short supply, even at the island's principal fort on Brimstone Hill, overlooking the anchorage. The militia had presumably been called up to man what cannon they did have, but were unable to stop Blackbeard's men from seizing and plundering a number of trading sloops. (The Liverpool ship was nowhere to be seen.) In a symbolic show of contempt for the king's fort, Blackbeard had his men sail their big French sugar ship right under the fort's guns and set her on fire right at the foot of Brimstone Hill. The ship, still loaded with sugar, turned into an inferno, a great plume of acrid smoke drifting over the fort's stone battlements. As the Revenge and Queen Anne's Revenge pulled out of the harbor, the pirates also burned several trading sloops, leaving Sandy Point looking as
if the French had raided it anew.

  Blackbeard and Bonnet continued up the Leewards, their vessels laden with silver, gold dust, and sugar. Blackbeard had stolen another six cannon, and as they sailed for the Virgin Islands, his crew mounted them on gun carriages and rolled them into place behind the Queen Anne's Revenge's spare gun ports. Blackbeard's flagship now had twenty-eight two- and six-pound cannon, with room for another twelve. Blackbeard himself had recovered his health, and perhaps regretted not attacking what he took to be HMS Seaford back in Nevis.

  In truth, the Seaford had not been at Nevis. While Blackbeard and Bonnet were prowling Nevis and St. Christopher, the Seaford was sailing in the Virgin Islands, carrying Governor Walter Hamilton on a tour of his colony's far-flung possessions. The little frigate had just turned around to begin her return trip to Antigua, putting her on a collision course with Blackbeard and Bonnet.

  Governor Hamilton and the Seaford's captain, Jonathan Rose, were already concerned about their safety. The Seaford was the only warship assigned to the sprawling Leeward Islands colony, but she was one of the Navy's smallest frigates. The twenty-year-old vessel was just ninety-three feet long and 248 tons, with twenty-four guns and a crew of eighty-five;as usual, many of her men were incapacitated by one tropical disease or another. Governor Hamilton and Captain Rose were both aware she would be no match for a heavily armed pirate sloop and frigate, especially if they were boarded. Indeed, when Sam Bellamy passed through the colony the year before, they had been forced to cancel Governor Hamilton's tour of the Virgins. Finally they were making the tour, but had already suffered a brush with danger. Just a few days earlier, they had encountered a pirate ship "of about 26 guns and 250 men" off St. Thomas. The ship flew a "white ensign with a figure of a dead man spread in it" and, according to Captain Rose, was commanded by none other than Olivier La Buse. Despite being outgunned and outmanned, the Seaford chased after La Buse, but was unable to catch him, being out-sailed by him as well.