WhydahStory

The Reference

The Pirate World

Bellamy and his crew were one node in a whole Atlantic network of pirates: the captains they sailed under, fought beside, or are remembered alongside, plus the 1724 engravings that fixed the popular image of the Golden Age. Note how many began as privateers: Hornigold's Flying Gang, the Nassau hub Bellamy came up through, was largely built from sailors who had raided legally for the Crown until the war ended in 1713, then kept raiding without the paperwork. (See the Why Piracy page for the privateer-vs-pirate line.)

The wider pirate world

Benjamin Hornigold
Pirate mentor · founded Flying Gang · d. ~1719 Solid
  • Former privateer; organized Nassau as a pirate haven ~1715
  • Mentored both Bellamy AND Blackbeard aboard the Marianne
  • Deposed summer 1716: his crew voted him out because he refused to attack English ships
  • Took the King's pardon from Governor Woodes Rogers in 1718 and switched sides. Became a pirate-hunter chasing his own former comrades. Late in 1719, hunting pirates across the West Indies, his ship was caught in a hurricane and wrecked on a reef; he drowned. A few of his men escaped in a canoe.
Pick Hornigold to see what happens when "principled" piracy hits its limit. He was Bellamy's mentor, and his crew voted him out for refusing to attack British ships. Pirate democracy in action.
Edward "Blackbeard" Teach
Bellamy's fellow Flying-Gang alumnus · c.1680–1718 Solid
  • Served under Hornigold alongside Bellamy
  • Captured La Concorde → renamed Queen Anne's Revenge, 40 guns, 300 crew
  • Blockaded Charleston 1718
  • Killed at Ocracoke NC, Nov 22, 1718, 19 months after Bellamy
  • Deliberately cultivated terrifying image (fuses in beard)
Pick Blackbeard for contrast with Bellamy. Same mentor, same era, but Blackbeard turned himself into pure theatrical menace, smoke trailing from his beard. Both were dead within twenty months.
Louis Lebous (Le Boose)
French co-captain · captain of the Postillion Solid
  • French pirate operating jointly with Hornigold and Bellamy in late 1716 (Davis deposition, Trials p. 318; Brown deposition)
  • His sloop Postillion + Bellamy's Sultana together captured the merchant ship St. Michael in December 1716, taking Welsh carpenter Thomas Davis as a forced man
  • Held captives at the island of Blanco; transferred them to Bellamy's ship in January 1717
  • Drops out of the record after early 1717
  • The key cast member missing from most popular accounts of Bellamy's career
Pick this captain to break the "lone Robin Hood pirate" framing. Bellamy's career was actually a joint operation across multiple ships and captains. Pirates worked in coalitions, not solo.

Other Golden Age figures: visual primary sources from 1724

Captain Charles Johnson's A General History of the Pyrates (London, 1724) printed engravings that set the visual template the public still pictures. Use them as visual primary sources alongside the documentary record: what's accurate, what's myth, what got embellished for the audience.

1724 Cole engraving of Anne Bonny and Mary Read brandishing weapons.
Anne Bonny & Mary Read (Cole, 1724). Sailed under Calico Jack Rackham 1720, three years after the Whydah. Both avoided execution by claiming pregnancy. Read died in prison; Bonny was eventually released. Useful for the perspective work in S16: how an outside writer with a book to sell shapes a pirate's image.
Engraving of Stede Bonnet hanging from the gallows.
Stede Bonnet. Hanged at Charleston, December 1718. Wealthy Barbados landowner who bought a 10-gun sloop he named the Revenge and took up piracy. Briefly sailed alongside Blackbeard. Counter-example to Bellamy: chose piracy from wealth and boredom, not from being trapped at the bottom of the merchant fleet.
1724 engraving of Bartholomew Roberts standing on shore.
Bartholomew Roberts ("Black Bart" or "Black Barty"). Active 1719-22, right after Bellamy. Took 400+ ships, the most successful pirate of the Golden Age by raw count. His 1721 Articles are the closest surviving analogue to the Whydah's own Articles, which were lost.
1724 engraving of Edward Teach (Blackbeard) heavily armed.
Edward "Blackbeard" Teach. Bellamy's fellow Hornigold-protege. Worked under the protection of Charles Eden, governor of North Carolina, until Virginia's Lt. Gov. Spotswood sent Lt. Maynard to hunt him. Killed at Ocracoke NC, November 1718, 19 months after Bellamy. The cultivated terror image (lit fuses in his beard) starts here.