London to Ouidah to Jamaica
Sir Humphrey Morice, MP and London’s foremost slave merchant, commissioned her. 367 people were loaded in West Africa. 312 were sold in Kingston. Fifty-five died on the crossing.
1715 – 1717 – 1984
One ship, three lives.
Before she was a pirate legend she was a slaver, named for the West African port of Ouidah. The gold in her hold was the proceeds of that voyage. The chart that found her was a salvage map. None of that is a footnote.
Bellamy takes her in three days
Late February 1717, in the Windward Passage. A 300-mile chase. Captain Prince surrendered; Bellamy let him sail away. For ten weeks she was the richest pirate ship of the Golden Age.
A nor’easter off Wellfleet
April 26, 1717. 144 of 146 drowned. Cyprian Southack marked the spot that May. Barry Clifford read the same chart in 1984. The wreck is still under that beach.
Explore
How we tell it.
People, evidence, and the maps that hold the story together. Every claim on these pages is marked Solid, Contested, or Mythologized.
The voyage
The full arc — from a Devon village to a Boston gallows — and a timeline you can trust in pieces.
Open the story →The wreck & fleet
Four ships in one storm. Two survived. Geography and luck decided who lived.
The night she broke →Maps & flythrough
Southack’s 1717 chart, a 19-stop globe tour, and why a flat map cannot tell this honestly.
Across the Atlantic →People
Bellamy, the boy John King, the pilot John Julian, the six who hanged, the two who didn’t.
Meet the crew →Artifacts
The bell, the coins, a child’s shoe — more than 200,000 objects from under the sand.
What came up →Why piracy
Push and pull in 1717: unpaid wages and a vote. The hard parts held at the same time.
The question →A new map
The voyage, drawn again.
A spatial telling of the Whydah is coming — the triangle, the chase, the lee shore, the chart that found her. Until then the flythrough and the maps already here will take you over the same water.
Also here
The rest of the ship.
Student projects from the Showcase, the unit as it was taught, and two games that still run in the browser.