In about 1698, a young woman found herself in jail for stealing, pregnant with her married employer’s illegitimate child and no husband to support her.
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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.
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.
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.
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.