This year marks the centennial of women’s suffrage, and we wanted to participate in DNCR’s She Changed the World Campaign by highlighting female pirates through the ages.
Topics Related to Golden Age
After the battle of Ocracoke in November 1718, only sixteen members of Blackbeard’s crew were rounded up and brought to Virginia to await trial. The men waited for three months for the seemingly inevitable guilty verdict of piracy and death sentence.
When we last visited the story of the gentleman pirate, Stede Bonnet had been convicted for his crimes of piracy. Bonnet had to wait an entire month until his scheduled hanging. During that time, the pirate lost his nerve and attempted to solicit pity from anyone who would listen.
Early November 1718 proved a busy time in the life of Stede Bonnet.
When we last visited Stede Bonnet, he was in a bad way, injure
On July 25, 1718,* Woodes Rogers arrived in the Bahamas as the islands’ first appointed Royal Governor. Piracy grew rampant in the untamed colony, and Rogers’ official mission was to stamp it out.
In March 1718, the HMS Phoenix arrived in New Providence carrying the King’s Pardon, and among the first to sign was none other than Blackbeard’s former commander Benjamin Hornigold.
In late September 1717, Stede Bonnet met Blackbeard. Benjamin Hornigold and his associates, including his protégé Blackbeard, spent the spring and summer of 1717 plundering ships throughout the Caribbean, headquartered at the pirate haven of New Providence.
The most prominent symbol for piracy in popular culture is a black flag decorated with the infamous skull and crossbones. This flag has been used within the mythos of pirates, both real and fictional, for over 300 years.
