The Flying Gang

Summary

Stuff You Missed in History Class

Episode: The Flying Gang

Hosts: Tracy B. Wilson & Holly Fry

Release Date: July 27, 2026

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Overview:

In this vibrant, in-depth episode, Tracy B. Wilson and Holly Fry take listeners to Nassau, Bahamas—both physically (as they record from the Bahamas!) and historically—exploring the era when it was a notorious pirate republic and center of maritime crime. Focusing on the “Flying Gang,” a loosely knit network of pirates who ruled the Caribbean in the early 18th century, they unpack the real history behind mythic figures like Blackbeard, Anne Bonny, and Calico Jack, examine the political and economic forces that created a pirate haven, and detail the subsequent crackdown on piracy that ended the so-called "Golden Age."

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

I. Origins and Early History of the Bahamas ([02:45]–[06:33])

• Lucayan People: The Bahamas were originally inhabited by the Lucayan (Arawakan-speaking) people, whose name for themselves, “Luku Kairi,” means “island people.”
• European Colonization: The arrival of Columbus in 1492 led to enslavement, disease, and violence that wiped out the Lucayan population.
• Naming and Etymology:
  • Bahama is a Lucayan word, likely meaning "large upper middle land."
  • New Providence (site of Nassau) was called “Nima,” or "Middle Water."
  • Quote: “This archipelago was home to the Arawakan speaking people known as the Lucayo...” – Holly Fry ([03:37])

II. Colonial Competition and Seeds of Piracy ([06:33]–[12:35])

• Imperial Rivalries: Spain, Britain, France, and the Dutch Republic fought over Caribbean territories, issuing charters and appointing governors (e.g., Robert Heath in 1629).
• Privateering: Rather than regular navy action, nations issued letters of marque, commissioning privateers (legal pirates) to attack enemy shipping.
• Transition to Piracy:
  • When wars ended, privateers lost legal backing and many became pirates.
  • Disenfranchised ex-navy and merchant sailors joined, especially given the poor pay and conditions in legitimate maritime jobs.
  • Pirates operated under “compacts”—written shipboard codes governing shares and discipline, which often proved more equitable than navies.
  • Quote: “Pirate ships of this era did typically function under a written compact…” – Holly Fry ([10:31]); “This was wildly different from the way things worked on most other vessels…” – Tracy B. Wilson ([11:14])

III. The Rise of Nassau’s Pirate Republic ([16:37]–[22:30])

• Post-War Power Vacuum: Nassau was essentially abandoned and ungoverned after repeated attacks (1703, 1706). Pirates quickly moved in, drawn by the shallow harbor perfect for fast pirate ships but not naval warships.
• Key Figures:
  • Henry Every’s legendary raid on the Mughal fleet ([17:28])
  • Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings—a mix of privateering and piracy; sometimes rivals, sometimes adversaries ([20:56])
• The Flying Gang:
  • A loosely organized alliance of pirate crews centered on Nassau, becoming the era’s most formidable threat to Atlantic trade.
  • Quote: “The Flying Gang was not really a formalized group with… hierarchy. It was more like a loose confederation of ships and crews that were all working under generally similar ideals.” – Tracy B. Wilson ([22:30])
• Diversity of Pirates: Crews comprised Britons, Americans, other Europeans, South Asians, and many Black men—some escaped from enslavement.

IV. Shipwrecks, Salvage, and Escalation ([23:19]–[26:12])

• 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet Disaster:
  • A hurricane wrecked 10 treasure-laden ships, prompting a pirate and salvager rush.
  • Pirate attacks intensified as nations wrangled over salvage rights.
• Escalation of Pirate Networks:
  • The Flying Gang grew even larger after these events.
  • Governor Archibald Hamilton’s attempts to control privateering backfired, leading to more piracy.

V. Notorious Pirates and the Decline ([25:28]–[36:12])

• Famous Names:
  • Blackbeard (Edward Teach/Thatch)
  • Charles Vane
  • Calico Jack (John Rackham)
  • Anne Bonny and Mary Read
  • Stede Bonnet (“the gentleman pirate”)
• Comparison to Madagascar: Nassau is described as “another Madagascar”– a fabled pirate haven—drawing legend and reality together ([26:12]).
• Quote: “Because of all of this pirate activity, people started describing Nassau as another Madagascar.” – Tracy B. Wilson ([26:12])

VI. The Crackdown and End of the “Golden Age” ([29:51]–[36:12])

• Royal Proclamation of 1717:
  • King George I offers blanket pardons to pirates willing to surrender and sets bounties (e.g., £100 for pirate capture, £200 for mutinies).
  • Quote: “King George I issued a proclamation offering to pardon acts of piracy, giving the pirates a deadline...” – Holly Fry ([30:22])
• Some Surrender, Others Persist:
  • Hundreds of pirates accept the pardon, but some return to piracy regardless.
  • Benjamin Hornigold becomes a pirate-hunter.
  • Charles Vane, a Jacobite and pirate, resists ferociously (using a fireship to escape Rogers, continues raiding, ultimately hanged).
• Arrival of Governor Woodes Rogers:
  • Rogers reforms Nassau, suppresses piracy, but struggles to make it profitable through other industries, eventually dies in Nassau after years of leadership ([35:36])
• End of an Era:
  • Most notable pirates are dead or imprisoned by 1721 (Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, Calico Jack, Samuel Bellamy, etc.).
  • Quote: “It is very tricky to put an exact end date on the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, but between all of the surrenders, hangings and shipwrecks...most of the pirates were either pardoned or dead by 1721.” – Holly Fry ([36:12])

VII. Long-Term Impact and Modern Bahamas ([36:57]–[38:29])

• Economic Aftermath:
  • The end of piracy slows commercial traffic and harms the Bahamian economy.
  • Legitimate commercial schemes by Rogers flounder; he ends up bankrupt.
• Longer Shadow:
  • British colonial rule persists until gradual steps to Bahamian independence, culminating in 1973.
  • Quote: “For centuries, Britain maintained a white minority rule over a predominantly black population, largely descended from enslaved people...” – Holly Fry ([37:56])

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Notable Quotes

• On Pirate Governance:
  “Pirate ships of this era did typically function under a written compact…”
  — Holly Fry ([10:31])

• On Nassau’s Pirate Era:
  “The Flying Gang was not really a formalized group with… hierarchy. It was more like a loose confederation of ships and crews that were all working under generally similar ideals.”
  — Tracy B. Wilson ([22:30])

• On Pirate Pardons:
  “King George I issued a proclamation offering to pardon acts of piracy, giving the pirates a deadline...”
  — Holly Fry ([30:22])

• On the End of the Golden Age:
  “It is very tricky to put an exact end date on the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, but between all of the surrenders, hangings and shipwrecks...most of the pirates were either pardoned or dead by 1721.”
  — Holly Fry ([36:12])

• On Post-Piracy Bahamas:
  “For centuries, Britain maintained a white minority rule over a predominantly black population, largely descended from enslaved people...”
  — Holly Fry ([37:56])

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Important Timestamps

• [02:45]: Start of main content – recording from Nassau, intro to pirates and the Flying Gang
• [03:37]: Lucayan people, naming of the islands
• [06:33]: Colonial rivalries, privateering, and the roots of organized piracy
• [10:31]: Pirate compacts and internal organization
• [16:37]: Nassau becomes a pirate hub; Sir Nicholas Trott and Henry Every
• [20:56]: Hornigold vs. Jennings, rise of the Flying Gang
• [23:19]: 1715 shipwrecks accelerate piracy
• [25:28]: Famous pirates linked to the Flying Gang, legendary tales
• [29:51]: Royal proclamations, pardons, and British crackdown
• [35:36]: Woodes Rogers, governance, and the collapse of pirate culture
• [36:57]: Rogers’ post-piracy career, long-term effects on Bahamas, path to independence

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Memorable & Fun Moments

• Tracy and Holly banter about being onsite in the Bahamas, noting the “timely” remaster of Assassin’s Creed: Black Flag ([02:44])
• Tracy’s enthusiasm for the phrase “like the dog to the vomit” when discussing pirates returning to their old ways ([31:46])
• Colorful anecdotes about Vane using a fireship to escape, and the surprising economic consequences after piracy’s end ([34:02], [36:57])
• Sincere appreciation for listener mail, with a cat photo shoutout ([38:35])

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Conclusion

Tracy and Holly expertly separate fact from pirate fiction, dissect Nassau’s unique role as a hotbed of piracy, and personalize the legendary figures behind the “Flying Gang.” The episode balances deep research, storytelling flair, and clear-eyed critique, offering crucial context on how piracy shaped not just the Bahamas but the Caribbean and the Atlantic world for centuries.

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Episode Recommendation:
Ideal for fans of swashbuckling history, curious about the real pirates of the Caribbean, or anyone wanting to understand how economics, war, and governance collide on the high seas.

Transcript

[Tracy B. Wilson]

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[Holly Fry]

Welcome to Stuff youf Missed in History Class, a production of iHeartradio.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hello and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy B. Wilson.

[Holly Fry]

And I'm Holly Fry.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

If you're watching this on Netflix, it looks a little different from how it typically looks, because we are recording from the studio at Bahamar in Nassau in the Bahamas. I thought since we are in the Bahamas, it might be nice to record something that was specific to where we are. And that of course, led me to pirates, because for a period during its history, Nassau was a notorious hotbed of pirate activity. It is coincidental that the Assassin's Creed franchise has literally just put out a remaster of the game that is set both here and during all the things that we are talking about, because we're going to be talking about Nassau as a pirate republic, particularly home to a maritime criminal network known as the Flying Gang.

[Holly Fry]

And to start with a little bit of background, today There are about 30 inhabited islands in the Bahamas, which has a total of about 700 islands and more than 2,000 keys. Prior to the arrival of Europeans in the late 15th century, this archipelago was home to the Arawakan speaking people known as the Lucayo or Lucayan people. This name comes from their own name for themselves, which is Luku Kairi, meaning island people. They may have shared common ancestry with the Tainos who lived in other parts of the Caribbean, and they're sometimes called the Lucayan Tainos. They probably made their way to the Bahamas from other parts of the Caribbean. By the year 800, and in the late 15th century, their population totaled about 40,000 people.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

According to a 2014 paper titled Naming the Bahamas Islands, History and Folk Etymology by Wolfgang P. Ahrens, the name Bahama is Lucayan. It comes from their name for Grand Bahama island that was Bahama, meaning large upper middle land. New Providence island, which is where Nassau is located, was called Nima, or Middle Water. This paper references 16th and 17th century maps, a lot of which include Lucayan names for all of these islands and almost no Spanish ones. And that also referenced a lot of earlier scholarship into history and linguistics.

[Holly Fry]

The first Europeans to arrive in the Bahamas were part of Christopher Columbus's first expedition to the Americas. They made landfall on Guanahani, known in English as San Salvador Island. In 1492, Columbus and his crew captured and enslaved some of the people they encountered in the Bahamas. And other Europeans who arrived later in the 15th and 16th centuries did the same. Lucayans also died of diseases that were introduced by the Europeans and as the result of violence as well as while they were doing the work that they were forced to do while enslaved that included diving for pearls off the coast of Venezuela and working in silver mines.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Over the course of this enslavement and genocide in the 16th century, the Lucayan people ceased to exist as a distinct cultural group. When Juan Ponce de Leon arrived in the area in 1513, he said he encountered only one person in the northern Bahama Islands. It is likely that some people were able to flee to other parts of the Caribbean and to find homes with other indigenous communities. There are definitely people with Taino ancestry still living today. And in recent years, there's been a big resurgence in Taino identity in the Caribbean. There are also other Arawakan speaking peoples in other parts of the Caribbean and in South America today.

[Holly Fry]

Columbus, of course, claimed all of the islands he encountered for Spain. And in the 17th century, other European powers, including Britain, France and the Dutch Republic, started claiming parts of the Caribbean as well. In 1629, British King Charles I granted territories in America to Robert Heath, including, quote, Bahama and all other isles and islands lying southerly, there or near, upon the foresaid continent.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Heath did not really do much to try to settle or occupy the Bahamas. And for a few decades after this, other British efforts to maybe establish some kind of settlement were largely unsuccessful. Then, in 1670, the British established Charlestown on the island of New Providence. The Spanish raided Charlestown and they burned it down in 1684. A little more than a decade later, in 1695, the British rebuilt it and named it Nassau, after the House of Nassau, which was a German aristocratic dynasty by that point. The King of England was William iii, also known as William of Orange, who was descended from William I, also known as William the Silent or William of Nassau.

[Holly Fry]

Unsurprisingly, considering that we just talked about Spain burning down Charlestown. This whole period was full of ongoing fighting among the European powers that were trying to claim and exploit various Caribbean islands. They sent colonial officials and naval ships to the islands, and they issued letters of marque authorizing privateers to use their own ships to attack and capture enemies. For the most part, privateers were not paid by the government that authorized them to do this. Their income came from the ships and cargoes that they captured along the way.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So this was not just about claiming island territory. It was interconnected with the European powers, rivalries, and their conflicts with one another. The number of privateers surged during the Nine Years War from 1688 to 1697. That was between France and the grand alliance. And the members of the grand alliance included England. The North American component of the Nine Years War was known as King William's War. The War of the Spanish Succession started a couple of years after the Nine Years War ended, and that continued until 1714. That war was between the Spanish Habsburgs and the Spanish Bourbons and all of their various allies. The War of the Spanish Succession also had its own American component, and that was known as Queen Anne's War.

[Holly Fry]

These wars and the hostilities among all these nations were interconnected with the rise in piracy in the Caribbean in the 17th and 18th centuries. In theory, privateers only attacked the ships that their letters of marque authorized them to attack, generally the enemies of whoever it was that issued the letter. But that could mean passing up some of the most lucrative ships. So some privateers turned to piracy because they could just make more money that way. When wars ended or when letters of marque expired, privateers were left without a legitimate source of income, and that also led some to become pirates.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Other pirates had previously served in navies. When European powers scaled back their navies after wars were over, these sailors were similarly left without a job. Navies, especially the British Royal Navy, also were notorious for very low pay, including long delayed payments, grueling hours, terrible working conditions, and an intense culture of discipline. There could sometimes be severe punishments, like being flogged, associated with these, this discipline. So a lot of out of work sailors, once they were put out of a job, they did not really want to go back to that life, even if a job became available.

[Holly Fry]

Pirate ships, on the other hand, were seen as an option that was both fairer and more lucrative. Sometimes this is depicted in an overly romanticized way, with pirate crews having this almost communal spirit and dividing their loot equally. And a lot of this comes from fictional depictions of pirates and a perception of them kind of as folk heroes. But pirate ships of this era did typically function under a written compact, which was created by when a captain was assembling a crew or at the start of a voyage, or if a new captain was taking over. This compact outlined how plunder would be distributed, what all the rules were, and how discipline would be carried out.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In most of the surviving compacts, everyone got a share of the plunder, with officers getting a little bit more. So the captain might get a share and a half or two shares, while lower ranking officers usually got more like a share and a half or a share and a quarter. This was wildly different from the way things worked on most other vessels, where the captains and the officers got hundreds or even thousands of times more than the ordinary sailors did.

[Holly Fry]

On many pirate ships, disputes were settled and punishments were determined by voting if someone stole something from another member of the crew, or was cowardly during a fight, or broke a relatively minor rule. Their punishment might be whatever the majority of the crew thought was appropriate.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

That did not mean that everything went smoothly or that everybody was satisfied with life aboard ships all the time. These ships could still be incredibly violent places. Again, these were criminal enterprises. Captains and officers could still be unreasonable or cruel. Ships could still run aground or run out of provisions or get into all kinds of misfortune. Some ships codes outlined punishments that could still be severe, including death or being marooned on an island somewhere. But for the most part, for a lot of people, life as a pirate still seemed better than the alternatives.

[Holly Fry]

Lapsed privateering contracts and out of work Navy men can't really account for all of the pirates in this era. There were also pirates who had previously been merchant seamen who often faced similar conditions to those on Navy ships. But the large majority of pirates had been one of the three. Roughly a third were British and roughly a quarter were American. And there were also pirates from all over Europe and South Asia sailing in the Caribbean and the Atlantic. It's likely that between a quarter and a third of the sailors on a typical pirate crew were black, many of whom had liberated themselves from enslavement. There were also pirates who had enslaved people on their crew or included slaves as part of the loot to be distributed.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

We will get to the rise in piracy around Nassau after a sponsor break.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

Around the time that Britain rebuilt Nassau in 1695, Sir Nicholas Trott was named governor of the Bahamas. Nassau was the capital, but there were really not many people there and Trott did not have a lot of support in defending Nassau. This was during the Nine Years War, and he was naturally concerned about the possibility of a French attack on Nassau. So when an armed ship arrived at port in March of 1696 with a captain calling himself Henry Bridgman and offering Trott a bribe to kind of look the other way, Trott thought this ship's presence might work as a deterrent. In addition to its armaments, the ship's crew doubled the number of men in Nassau. Trot also thought it was possible that if he denied entry to this ship, it might leave and join the French side.

[Holly Fry]

That captain was really Pirate Henry Every who we've covered on the show before. Six months before this, he and other pirates had pulled off what's been described as the most profitable pirate raid in history. That was on a Mughal Empire fleet whose passengers included members of the Emperor's family who were Returning from the Hajj. This was a massive international incident, and there was intense pressure on British authorities to find Every and bring him to justice. Eventually, someone told Trot who Every really was, and Every fled before he could be captured. By that point, most of Every's crew had divided their spoils among themselves and scattered. Trot was dismissed as governor later that year.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The War of the Spanish Succession started about five years after this, and in 1703, a combined Spanish and French fleet attacked the Bahamas. They raided Nassau. They spiked all the cannons in the fort, and they took about 80 people prisoner. That included acting governor Ellis Lightfoot, who some sources call Ellis Lightwood. They also took British soldiers and enslaved Africans captive. Lightfoot and some of the other captives were later ransomed, but a lot of people were killed during this raid. When the next appointed governor, Edward birch, arrived in 1704, he found Nassau almost completely destroyed and virtually deserted. And he described the few remaining survivors as not even having a shift to cover their nakedness. Burch quickly went back to England.

[Holly Fry]

After he left, no one replaced him in Nassau for years. A second Spanish raid in 1706 scattered the few people who had made their way back to Nassau. For all practical purposes, the Bahamas were ungoverned, with maybe 500 British subjects scattered around the islands and fending for themselves.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

England's part in the War of the Spanish succession ended in 1713 with the treaty of Utrecht. This was one of a whole series of treaties that ended this war, and there was a bunch of other stuff going on in the treaty. Among other things, it ultimately led to the expulsion of the Acadians from Nova Scotia, which we've covered on the show before. The part that is most relevant to this episode is that it ended England's part in the war, and consequently, it ended England's need for so many privateers. This is often cited as a big factor in the spike in pirate activity in the Caribbean in the 18th century, as all of those former private privateers, or not all of them, but a number of them, decided to turn to piracy, and that was one part of it.

[Holly Fry]

But by the time the war ended, Nassau was already full of pirates. They had started moving in as soon as the British abandoned it. Privateers hired by other governments had moved in as well, including ones hired by the British colonial government of Jamaica. The big draw was Nassau's harbor. It was too shallow for the kinds of large warships that the colonial powers were using, but it was great for the smaller, faster ships that pirates and privateers preferred. This was also true of Other harbors and bays in the Bahamas. There is a persistent but incorrect idea that the name Bahamas comes from the Spanish, thanks to Christopher Columbus calling the area Baha Mar, or shallow sea.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Two of the pirates who were working out of Nassau in the 17 teens were Benjamin Hornigold and Henry Jennings. Sometimes people make it sound like the two of them teamed up to spawn an entire world of piracy in the Caribbean all by themselves. But they were more rivals than friends. They sort of shifted between privateering and piracy at different times, and at more than one point, one of them managed to capture one of the other's prizes. It's also likely that there were at least a thousand pirates operating in the Bahamas by the time each of them turned to piracy. So this was not an ecosystem that they just created. At the same time, most of the pirate captains operating out of Nassau were connected to one or the other of them. Most of the Caribbean pirates who were not connected to them were connected to George Lowther or Edward Lowe, who largely operated out of the Bay of Honduras on the coasts of Guatemala and Belize.

[Holly Fry]

The pirates connected to Hornigold and Jennings became known as the Flying Gang, and Nassau was nicknamed the Republic of Pirates. The Flying Gang was the largest group of pirates in the early decades of the 18th century and the biggest threat to maritime trade between the Americas and Europe and Africa. Pirates associated with the Flying Gang also terrorized local people living in the Bahamas, including the few British subjects who were still living in and around Nassau, and they attacked coastal settlements all across the Caribbean and the Americas.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The Flying Gang was not really a formalized group with, like, a clear hierarchy and organizational structure. It was more like a loose confederation of ships and crews that were all working under generally similar ideals. This confederation grew and expanded over the course of its activities, so newly established pirate crews often started with a couple of men who had served together somewhere on the same ship and kept in touch and got a ship of their own. If one pirate ship captured another vessel, they would either kill its crew or put them ashore and then take over that ship, sort of splitting the two ships with two crews, bringing on the second one and keeping any of the captured crew that maybe did want to become pirates.

[Holly Fry]

Pirate activity also surged after a Spanish fleet was caught in a hurricane in 1715 and driven onto reefs off the coast of Florida. These ships were traveling together along with a French frigate. Due to fears about all of the pirate activity in the area. Ten ships, most of them laden with silver and gold and other valuable cargo, were run aground, capsized, or sunk, with only the French frigate surviving. It's likely that at least 1500 sailors died of drowning, injury or dehydration. After managing to get ashore, salvagers rushed

[Tracy B. Wilson]

to this area from all over the Caribbean and eastern North America. It was a massive series of shipwrecks. In shallow water, it was easy pickings for salvagers. And pirates moved in to salvage from the wrecks as well, and to try to attack and plunder the other salvage ships. Of course, Spain really objected to all of this, since the wrecks and their cargo were all considered Spanish property. And Spain demanded that other nations that had sent the salvage crews withdraw.

[Holly Fry]

Governor Archibald Hamilton of Jamaica commission Henry Jennings and John Wills as privateers. Their commission was ostensibly to attack pirates, but Hamilton encouraged them to salvage the Spanish wrecks. He had purchased shares from the ship, so he would be getting part of that salvage. What Jennings and Wills actually did was attack and plunder the storehouse where the Spanish were storing the cargo that they had managed to pull out of the wreckage.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Hamilton eventually ordered the ships that he had commissioned to return to Jamaica and he barred British subjects from the wreck site. This just led to more piracy, though, as ships that had previously been operating under at least his British authority just defied that order and kept doing it. And also attacking other Caribbean targets in retaliation for having been barred from the shipwrecks. Hamilton wound up being arrested for his role in all of this in October of 1716.

[Holly Fry]

Some of the most well known pirates of the 18th century were connected to the Flying Gang. One of Hornigold's officers was Edward Teach, or Thatch, also known very famously as Blackbeard. Another was Samuel Bellamy. Charles Vane had served under Henry Jennings and John Rackham, AKA Calico. Jack had served under Charles Vane. Anne, Bonnie and Mary Reed, who we have also covered on the show before, served on Jack Rackham's ship. And there was also Stede Bonnet, who we talked about in 2013, who was an outlier in terms of how people came into piracy. He was a wealthy planter who abandoned his wife and family to become a pirate and fell in with Blackbeard.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Because of all of this pirate activity, people started describing Nassau as another Madagascar. Madagascar was also a hotbed of pirate activity that started in about 1650. Madagascar was also home to the pirate utopia of Libertalia, although that might have been more legendary than real. We did an episode on that in 2018, and we are going to talk

[Holly Fry]

about how the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean ended after we pause for a sponsor break.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

Through the early 1700s and 17 teens, a lot of people were justifiably worried about piracy, from people living in the Caribbean and coastal areas of the mainland, to the captains of merchant vessels, to international governments whose economies and whose colonial efforts really depended on being able to traverse the oceans without being continually attacked and plundered. But for a while, British authorities in the Caribbean did not do very much to try to stop it.

[Holly Fry]

That changed in 1717. On September 5th of that year, King George I issued a proclamation offering to pardon acts of piracy, giving the pirates a deadline of the following September 5th to surrender themselves to officials in Britain, Ireland or the colonies. This proclamation also empowered British sea officers, governors, military commanders, and others to, quote, seize and take such of the pirates who shall refuse or neglect to surrender themselves. Accordingly, it offered a reward for any such person who discovered or seized any pirate who had not surrendered. The award was £100 for Commanders of ships or vessels, and then it went down incrementally to £20 for every private man.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

There was also a bounty for crews who turned on their captains, either delivering those captains to the authorities themselves or causing them to be delivered to the authorities so that they could be brought to justice and convicted. The reward for that was £200 for every such commander.

[Holly Fry]

As word of this proclamation spread, some pirates made their way to British governors or other authorities to surrender. When Captain Vincent Pierce of the HMS Phoenix arrived at New Providence island in February of 1718, more than 200 pirates surrendered to him.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Some of the pirates who accepted the King's pardon later returned to piracy. The book, A General History of the Pirates From Their First Rise and Settlement in the island of Providence to the Present Time, which was published in 1724, described men going back to piracy, quote, like the dog to the vomit, which is a turn of phrase that I really love. But others took the money that they had earned as pirates and started new lives in one of the many, many parts of territory that the British had claimed in the Caribbean and North America that were considered thinly settled at that point. Henry Jennings may have been one of those people. Although his fate after surrendering is somewhat unclear.

[Holly Fry]

Some of the former pirates turned pirate hunter after being pardoned. One of those was Benjamin Hornigold. He tried to bring in Charles Vane, but Vane's ship was too fast. Some of his other efforts were more successful, and on December 9, 1718, nine pirates Hornigold had captured were put on trial in Nassau. They all pleaded not guilty and one of them, named John Hupps, was given a reprieve to when he testified that he had only been a pirate because he was forced to, everyone else was found guilty and hanged.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Eventually, Hornigold had earned enough trust that he was tasked with voyaging to Mexico to try to establish a new trade route. But the ship that he was on wrecked in 1719 and Hornigold died, either drowned in the wreck or after managing to make it to an island.

[Holly Fry]

And of course there were some pirates who who refused to surrender. One of the most dramatic was Charles Vane, who accepted the King's pardon and then just turned pirate again. Vane was a Jacobite, a supporter of the Stuart claim to the British throne. In the 17 teens, he corresponded with Jacobites in Britain, proposing that he and his ships be put in service to James Francis Edward Stuart. The antagonism between England and Spain was also interconnected with the Jacobite movement, with Spain later backing a Jacobite uprising. That is another way that these greater international disputes were tangled up in the evolution of piracy.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

In 1718, when new colonial governor Woodes Rogers arrived in Nassau, there were British ships with him and they trapped Charles Vane and his ships in the harbor. So Vane filled one of his ships with gunpowder, set it on fire and pointed it at the awaiting British fleet. Vane managed to escape. As the British ships tried to evade the fireship that he had created, he left several ships loaded with cargo behind in the harbor. Other pirates, probably hoping that their own crimes would be overlooked, reported this illicit cargo which the British impounded. Vane continued attacking and harassing ships, including working with Blackbeard off the coast of North Carolina. He was eventually shipwrecked and captured in 1720 and then hanged in 1721.

[Holly Fry]

Woodes Rogers was another big part of the effort to put down piracy in the Caribbean. From 1708 to 1711, he had been on a round the world privateering expedition that also included slave trading and anti piracy efforts around Madagascar. On this voyage he encountered Alexander Selkirk, who had asked to be put ashore to off the coast of Chile after a disagreement with his captain. Selkirk was stranded there for four years and became the inspiration for Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. Rogers had earned about 14,000 pounds during this voyage and had written a book about it which is called A Cruising Voyage round the World and that came out in 1712.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

So Rogers wasn't just the governor, he essentially owned the Bahamas. He signed a lease on the Islands for 21 years. He was tasked with forming a government, rebuilding the fort of Nassau and getting the colony functioning and was suppressing piracy. And he carried a copy of that royal proclamation with him. By the time he arrived on July 25, 1718, a lot of the most notorious pirates had already accepted the king's pardon or maybe been killed, although the ones that had not and the ones that had returned to piracy were causing ongoing issues.

[Holly Fry]

It is very tricky to put an exact end date on the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, but between all of the surrenders, hangings and shipwrecks and the efforts of Woodes Rogers to regain control of Nassau and the rest of the Bahamas, most of the pirates were either pardoned or dead by 1721. That included Samuel Bellamy, who was killed in a shipwreck in 1717. Blackbeard, who was killed in a fight with the British Navy in 1718, Stede Bonnet, who was hanged in 1718, and Jack Rackham, who was hanged in 1720. And Bonnie and Mary Reed were both sent to prison rather than being hanged, and their fate after that is not clear.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

The end of the age of piracy had a huge economic impact on the Bahamas, and it might not be what you're expecting. Rogers had plans to start up a whaling industry and to reinvigorate the salt trade. But while piracy had been an active threat all over the Caribbean and all across the Atlantic, fewer pirate ships meant less maritime traffic overall. A lot of the time, pirates illicit goods had also been a lot cheaper than goods that were acquired and shipped in under legitimate means. Rogers had that 21 year lease on the Bahamas, but he wasn't able to make it profitable. He became exhausted and sick and eventually went back to England, where he wound up in a debtor's prison. But things were apparently even worse under his successor, and he was reinstalled as governor in 1729. He continued in that role until his death in Nassau on July 15, 1732.

[Holly Fry]

Of course, the Nassau and the Bahamas have a whole history after this point. For centuries, Britain maintained a white minority rule over a predominantly black population, largely descended from enslaved people who have been brought to the Caribbean. An independence movement evolved in the 20th century and the Bahamas was granted limited self government in 1955 and broader self government in 1964. The Commonwealth of the Bahamas was recognized as a sovereign state on July 10, 1973.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

And that so much piracy.

[Holly Fry]

Do you have so much listener mail?

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I do have listener mail. It is from Andrea. And Andrea's email was titled Perfect Timing. Andrea wrote, Dear Holly and Tracy, I just wanted to send my thanks for your incredibly thoughtful and thought provoking subjects. I just returned from a trip to Boston where we visited Bunker Hill. I did see the placard with the quote about the suffrage movement. I've planned trips with specific stops to previous podcast subjects, including this most recent trip. I was able to visit the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as well. I appreciated knowing about the unique collection and the art heist. This made history and art more relevant to me. I have a PhD in SYMHC and have enjoyed listening to you for long car rides and commutes. I would suggest George Eastman as a podcast topic. He was a fascinating person. Holly is nodding. For those of you who cannot see

[Holly Fry]

Short list, short list, short list.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, Holly, we should regroup about that because I might have some resources for you. Okay.

[Holly Fry]

Or if you're already on it, it's on your short list.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

I'm not on it. I just.

[Holly Fry]

Just as long as he happens.

[Tracy B. Wilson]

Yeah, I know of some potential things. I'm including pictures of my adopted cat, Uriel. She is quite the lady. She was adopted at age 12 when my brother moved overseas and could not take her with him. She's truly spoiled in our house. Thank you again for your delightful podcast. Sincerely, Andrea since we are not recording this from our laptops today, I do not have the pictures to describe, but I did look at them before we flew to the Bahamas and they are indeed adorable. So thank you so much Andrea for this email. If you would like to email us, we are@history podcastheartradio.com you can find our show notes, including links to all the resources that we used in this episode at our website, which is mistinhistory.com and you can subscribe to the show on the iHeartRadio app and anywhere else you like to get your podcasts. Stuff youf Missed in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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[Tracy B. Wilson]

This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.