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Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Pirates have existed since ancient times, they threatened the trading routes of ancient Greece and seized cargoes of grain and olive oil from Roman ships. Sometimes honest sailors left their ships because life on them was so miserable and they couldn’t bear it. These seamen often turned to piracy in order to survive. Others were in search of riches, like gold, silver, and jewelry. Some simply wanted to have adventures. Some pirates were so successful they became feared around the world and made millions of dollars by today’s standards. In this article, we have the list of the Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History.
1. Blackbeard
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain’s North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne’s War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.
2. Anne Bonny
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain’s North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne’s War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold, whose crew Teach joined around 1716. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy. Their numbers were boosted by the addition to their fleet of two more ships, one of which was commanded by Stede Bonnet, but Hornigold retired from piracy toward the end of 1717, taking two vessels with him.
3. William Kidd
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish privateer. Conflicting accounts exist regarding his early life, but he was likely born in Dundee and later settled in New York City. By 1690, Kidd had become a highly successful privateer, commissioned to protect English interests in North America and the West Indies.
In 1695, Kidd received a royal commission from the Earl of Bellomont, the governor of New York, Massachusetts Bay, and New Hampshire, to hunt down pirates and enemy French ships in the Indian Ocean. He received a letter of marque and set sail on a new ship, Adventure Galley, the following year. On his voyage, he failed to find many targets, lost much of his crew, and faced threats of mutiny. In 1698, Kidd captured his greatest prize, the 400-ton Quedagh Merchant, a ship hired by Armenian merchants and captained by an Englishman. The political climate in England had turned against him, however, and he was denounced as a pirate. Bellomont engineered Kidd’s arrest upon his return to Boston and sent him to stand trial in London. He was found guilty and hanged in 1701.
Kidd was romanticized after his death and his exploits became a popular subject of pirate-themed works of fiction. The belief that he had left buried treasure contributed significantly to his legend, which inspired numerous treasure hunts in the following centuries.
4. Henry Morgan
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Perhaps the best-known pirate of the buccaneering era, Henry Morgan once purportedly ordered his men to lock the inhabitants of Puerto PrÃncipe, Cuba, inside a church so that they could plunder the town unhindered. He then moved on to capture Porto Bello, Panama, in part by creating a human shield out of priests, women, and the mayor. Over the next few years, other brutal raids followed against two towns in Venezuela and Panama City.
Though Morgan was briefly arrested in 1672, he ended up serving as acting governor of Jamaica in 1678 and again from 1680 to 1682. Ironically, the Jamaican legislature passed an anti-piracy law during his administration, and Morgan even assisted in pirate prosecution.
5. Francis Drake
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Sir Henry Morgan, (born 1635, Llanrhymney, Glamorgan [now in Cardiff], Wales died August 25, 1688, probably Lawrencefield, Jamaica), was a Welsh buccaneer, most famous of the adventurers who plundered Spain’s Caribbean colonies during the late 17th century. Operating with the unofficial support of the English government, he undermined Spanish authority in the West Indies.
Morgan’s origins and early career are obscure. He was probably a member of the expedition that in 1655 seized Jamaica from the Spanish and converted it into an English colony. He may have participated in an expedition against Cuba in 1662; and, during the second Anglo-Dutch War (1665–67), he was second in command of the buccaneers operating against Dutch colonies in the Caribbean.
6. Bartholomew Roberts
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Bartholomew Roberts, born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate who was, measured by vessels captured, the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy. During his piratical career, he took over 470 prize ships. Roberts raided ships off the Americas and the West African coast between 1719 and 1722; he is also noted for creating his own Pirate Code and adopting an early variant of the Skull and Crossbones flag.
Roberts’s infamy and success saw him become known as The Great Pyrate and eventually as Black Bart and made him a popular subject for writers of both fiction and non-fiction. To this day, Roberts continues to feature in popular culture and has inspired fictional characters (such as the Dread Pirate Roberts).
7. Calico Jack
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
John Rackham, commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the calico clothing that he wore, while Jack is a nickname for “John”.
Rackham was active towards the end (1718–1720) of the “Golden Age of Piracy”. He is most remembered for having two female crew members: Mary Read and his lover, Anne Bonny.
Rackham deposed Charles Vane from his position as captain of the sloop Ranger, then cruised the Leeward Islands, Jamaica Channel, and Windward Passage. He accepted the King’s Pardon in 1719 and moved to New Providence, where he met Anne Bonny, who was married to James Bonny at the time. He returned to piracy in 1720 by stealing a British sloop and Anne joined him. Their new crew included Mary Read, who was disguised as a man at the time. After a short run, Rackham was captured by Jonathan Barnet, an English privateer, in 1720, put on trial by Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, and hanged in November of that year in Port Royal, Jamaica.
8. François l’Olonnais
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
François L’Olonnais, also known simply as L’Olonnais, or his given name Jean-David Nau, was a French pirate active during the 1660s. He arrived in the Caribbean as an indentured servant prior to his career as a pirate. One of his best-known acts is his attack on Maracaibo (present-day Venezuela) and capture of a Spanish treasure ship. He is said to have taken gemstones, 260,000 Spanish ducats, and other important cargo.
He was also known for his expedition to Honduras, during which he was ambushed by a large force of Spanish soldiers. He narrowly escaped this encounter but was captured by natives in modern-day Panama. A companion describes how these natives tore the pirate to pieces and tossed his limbs into a fire.
9. Zheng Yi Sao
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Zheng Yi Sao, also known as Ching Shih, was a Chinese pirate leader active in the South China Sea from 1801 to 1810.
Born Shi Yang in 1775 to humble origins, she married a pirate named Zheng Yi at age 26 in 1801. She was named Zheng Yi Sao by the people of Guangdong. After the death of her husband in 1807, she took control of his pirate confederation with the support of Zheng Yi’s adopted son Zhang Bao, with whom she entered into a relationship and later married. As the unofficial commander of the Guangdong Pirate Confederation, her fleet was composed of 400 junks and between 40,000 and 60,000 pirates in 1805. Her ships entered into conflict with several major powers, such as the East India Company, the Portuguese Empire, and Qing China.
In 1810, Zheng Yi Sao negotiated a surrender to the Qing authorities that allowed her and Zhang Bao to retain a substantial fleet and avoid prosecution. At the time of her surrender, she personally commanded 24 ships and over 1,400 pirates. She died in 1844 at the age of about 68, having lived a relatively peaceful and prosperous life since the end of her career in piracy. Zheng Yi Sao has been described as not only history’s most successful female pirate but one of the most successful pirates in history.
10. Charles Vane
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
Charles Vane was an English pirate who operated in the Bahamas during the end of the Golden Age of Piracy.
Vane was likely born in the Kingdom of England around 1680. One of his first pirate ventures was under the leadership of Henry Jennings, during Jennings’ attack on the salvage camp for the wrecked Spanish 1715 Treasure Fleet off the coast of Florida. By 1717, Vane was commanding his own vessels and was one of the leaders of the Republic of Pirates in Nassau. In 1718, Vane was captured but agreed to stop his criminal actions and declared his intention to accept a King’s Pardon; however, just months later he and his men, including Edward England and Jack Rackham, returned to piracy. Unlike some other notable pirate captains of the age like Benjamin Hornigold and Samuel Bellamy, Vane was known for his cruelty, often beating, torturing, and killing sailors from ships he captured. In February 1719, Vane was caught in a storm in the Bay Islands and was marooned on an uncharted island. Upon being discovered by a passing British ship, he was arrested and brought to Port Royal where he was eventually tried and hanged in March 1721.
Top 10 Most Famous Pirates In History
1. Blackbeard
2. Anne Bonny
3. William Kidd
4. Henry Morgan
5. Francis Drake
6. Bartholomew Roberts
7. Calico Jack
8. François l’Olonnais
9. Zheng Yi Sao
10. Charles Vane
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