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Pirates of the Spanish Main
The pirates of the Spanish Main lived and worked in a time
called the Golden Age of Piracy. This time began when Queen
Elizabeth of England made her best sailors privateers. She
gave them permission to plunder and loot in honor of the
country of England. Sir John Hawkins, Sir Walter Raleigh,
Sir Francis Drake, and Captain William Kidd were some of the
sailors that became privateers. This was a mistake because
they all discovered how easy it was to be a pirate and
became one. Later buccaneers from the West Indies began to
sail the waters of the Caribbean Sea and stole from any ship
that they found. These buccaneers and the Spanish navy were
not friends. In fact, the buccaneers hated the Spanish
because they destroyed pirate ships and towns and would
capture and kill any buccaneer that they caught. The
buccaneers formed a close group together called The Brethren
of the Coast. They vowed to fight to the last man standing
against the Spanish. They attacked the Spanish colony
settlements and merchants ships who were bringing supplies
from Spain.
Life Aboard a Pirate Ship
Captain:
A pirate became captain of a ship if he was elected by the
crew. The captain was only in command of the ship either
when attacking another ship or when another ship attacked
them. He worked as a regular crew member when the ship was
not in battle. If the captain would not attack other ships
and take booty, then he was removed as captain.
Quartermaster:
The quartermaster actually had more power than the captain
of the ship. He was also elected by the crew. The
quartermaster was responsible for dividing the loot evenly
between crewmembers, watching over prisoners until the crew
could decide what to do with them, and to punish pirates who
broke rules.
Pirate Crew:
All pirates sailed with the understanding that if they
didn't help attack ships and colonies, then they would
receive no pay. If they continued to refuse to attack they
would be put off of the ship in a foreign land. Most pirates
did not kill people because they were only interested in the
loot. Pirate crews followed a set of rules called the Code
of Conduct.
The most successful buccaneer was Sir Henry Morgan. He came
to the West Indies when he was very young and plundered the
Spanish settlements of Puerto del Principe, Puerto Bello,
and Maracaibo. In 1671 Morgan completely destroyed the city
of Panama and then took all of their valuable goods.
In 1701 the war of Spanish Succession began and the
buccaneers stopped capturing ships and went to war with
France and Britain against their enemy, the Spanish. When
the War of Spanish Succession was over the buccaneers had no
jobs, so they became pirates again. They began to attack
Spanish fleets of treasure ships that brought supplies from
Europe and treasure back home. In 1714 the buccaneers were
chasing a treasure fleet called The Plate Fleet off of the
tip of Florida when a hurricane hit. Most of the Plate
Fleet's treasure was saved and taken to shore, but a pirate
named Henry Jennings heard about the treasure and sailed
there and took it.
The buccaneers became so strong that the merchant ship
captains insisted that their countries put a stop to the
pirates. They did not offer much help, but did offer what is
called amnesty to all pirates if they would stop being
pirates. That means that they would be forgive of their
crimes without being punished. Most pirates just laughed and
dared the countries to come stop them. In 1717 British
Captain Woodes Rogers was sent to defeat the pirates. He
played a trick on the buccaneers by trapping them in their
harbor at New Providence. New Providence is in the Bahamas.
Over one thousand pirates were trapped there and a big
battle began. In the end Captain Woodes Rogers defeated the
pirates.
Jean Lafitte who lived off of the coast of Louisiana in a
sheltered Bay named Barataria Bay. He was often called a
gentleman pirate and walked around New Orleans without being
afraid of capture. He also had a pirate base on the Island
of Padre Island off of the coast of Texas.
In the early eighteen hundreds the Golden Age of Piracy was
over.
Jolly Roger
Blackbeard was the first pirate to call his flag the Jolly
Roger. One of his ships was called the Jolly Roger and he
named his flag after it. All other pirates began to call
their ship's flag the Jolly Roger. The Jolly Roger was
usually a scary sight. It was designed to scare any ship
that it was attacking into surrendering without a battle.
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