Generally speaking, history works like this: winners win and write the books, while losers lose and get dunked on in text books until someone like Howard Zinn writes a book about how the winners lied.<\/p>\n
But pirates, even though they always lost, buck the pattern.<\/p>\n
The thing about pirates is, by and large, they didn\u2019t even pretend to be the good guys, yet we still lionize them with our fascination. Sure, sometimes they claimed political cause for their acts of rebellion, but really it was about the cash, rum, and violence. We even create sanitized fictional pirate characters so that we don\u2019t need to justify the sh*tty behavior of the pirates who actually existed. Meanwhile, the captains who hunted them are remembered as stuffy, imperial killjoys.<\/p>\n
Why? Is it the ships? The good guys had ships, too. The rebel spirit? They were rebels without causes, mostly. I think we have an attraction to deviant behavior, so long as it\u2019s distant enough from our own lives to be \u201cfun\u201d and not tragic.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t say for sure about piracy in general, but when it comes to the Whydah<\/i><\/strong>, my interest is clear: It\u2019s the only discovered, fully authenticated pirate wreck surviving from the Golden Age of Piracy (around 1650 to 1730); and it was discovered just off Cape Cod, where I grew up.<\/p>\n So, this sh*t being personal, I decided to cobble together a brief history of the Whydah Galley<\/i>, its two lives, and its death.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Before the Whydah<\/i> ever hoisted its proverbial Jolly Roger, it was something far worse.<\/p>\n The Whydah<\/i> was commissioned in 1715 in London. She was meant to be a cargo ship, and she would soon house the most dangerous cargo of all: man.<\/p>\n I\u2019m trying to lighten this up a bit, but the ugly fact remains: the Whydah<\/i> was built to run the Atlantic Triangular Trade between Europe, the Americas, and Africa. The most notorious leg of that trip was the transport of enslaved Africans from their homes to the Americas.<\/p>\n So, when the Whydah<\/i> set her sails and left London in 1716, she hung left past Portugal and pointed her bow toward Africa.<\/p>\n Her captain was Lawrence Prince\u2014an experienced slave trader and, dare I say, sh*tty person who sold people for money. Prince didn\u2019t own the Whydah<\/i> outright. She was essentially a business, owned by a number of businessmen, and Prince likely owned a share of the ship.<\/p>\n But let\u2019s not hold all of that against the Whydah<\/i> itself: she was a tool, destined to help bad men earn blood money. Guilt by association aside, she was a good ship. Her design was state-of-the-art, with a sleek hull that made her fast, but also maneuverable. She also had a literal boatload of guns in her arsenal\u2014enough to protect her human cargo from warships and, theoretically, from pirates.<\/p>\n So the Whydah<\/i>, all kitted out and ready to do some evil sh*t, sailed her way down the coast of Western Africa, nabbing captives along the way, until she reached the slave port, Ouidah, which\u2014whoa! Same name, kinda! Actually, Ouidah was just an alternate spelling of \u201cWhydah,\u201d so they were totally the same name.<\/p>\n See, when a captain owns their ship, they name it something creative or personal. The Whydah<\/i>, however, was more of an investment mutually owned by a group of slave traders, and I don\u2019t think they were particularly sentimental. They named her after the port she was heading to, and kicked her on her way.<\/p>\n After Captain Price and his crew were finished with kidnapping folks and buying war prisoners in Africa, they took the Middle Passage to the Caribbean. The ship was overcrowded to maximize profits, with around 367 captives in the hold. She was a transatlantic cattle car for the better part of the 12-week journey\u2014a cramped, suffocating pit of disease and misery.<\/p>\n When the Whydah<\/i> finally reached Jamaica, she had 312 surviving captives to sell at the slave markets. There, her human cargo was swapped out for piles of ill-gained (but legal) profit.<\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n At this point in her young life, the Whydah <\/i>had already done the worst sh*t I can think of, so things could only get better.<\/p>\n And they did get slightly better. After leaving Jamaica, Captain Price began the journey back to England, by way of the Bahamas. As a rule of thumb, it\u2019s usually a good idea to go to the Bahamas. It\u2019s a good place to drink four to six daiquiris before dinner.<\/p>\n But it didn\u2019t turn out so hot for Captain Larry Price, because Captain Sam \u201cBlack\u201d Bellamy was already there, all daiquiried up and itching for some nautical grand theft auto. Also, Bellamy was a pirate. I think that\u2019s pretty clear from the \u201cBlack\u201d Bellamy nickname\u2014earned by going au naturel<\/i>, wearing his real, black hair tied back with a black bow, rather than jumping on the powdered wig bandwagon.<\/p>\n He was a particularly successful pirate, too\u2014the wealthiest in history, according to some sources.<\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Bellamy must\u2019ve been fond of the cut of Price\u2019s jib, literally, because he chased that son of a b*tch for three days to capture the ship. Bellamy\u2019s pirate fleet caught up with the Whydah<\/i>, and Price let him have it.<\/p>\n To be clear, I\u2019m not using \u201clet him have it\u201d as a euphemism. Price literally let Bellamy have the ship. Captains and crews wouldn\u2019t usually put up much of a fight to keep a ship that\u2019s owned by some rich fellas back in London. It\u2019s kind of like when a bank robber gets a security guard to surrender by asking him if he\u2019s willing to die for his boss for $16 per hour. The answer, usually, is \u201cnope.\u201d<\/p>\n So Bellamy got his pirate paws on the Whydah<\/i>. He liked it better than his current lead ship, the Sultana<\/i>, so he transferred all his loot from the Sultana<\/i> to his new acquisition. Then, he took on some of the Whydah\u2019s<\/i> former crew, and set Price and the rest of his crew loose on the Sultana<\/i>. Honestly, it all seems like pretty decent behavior for a pirate. The dude even gave Price the Sultana<\/i> so he could go home. How many pirates catch you and give<\/i> you a ship?<\/p>\n Maybe Bellamy was just in a good mood because of his new prize. Slave ships were a real score for pirates\u2014they were typically fast and outfitted with good firepower, and the Whydah<\/i> was especially fast and violent.<\/p>\n That isn\u2019t to say she couldn\u2019t be more<\/i> fast and violent. Bellamy streamlined her by clearing off the top deck, losing the pilot\u2019s cabin, slave barricade, and anything else that made her too top heavy. Bellamy also gunned her up further. Alongside the 18 guns she was already sporting, he added another 10 guns, and secured another 12 guns in her cargo hold. Her slaving days were over\u2014the Whydah<\/i>\u2019s new game was all about chasing and intimidation.<\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n Suffice to say she was still being used for some relatively bad sh*t, but at least she was no longer an affront to human dignity.<\/p>\n Bellamy, with his flotilla and new flagship, Whydah<\/i>, eventually made his way from the Bahamas to New England, doing the pirate thing along the way. That is to say, he did what he did to Captain Price, only to other people: catching ships and stealing their cargo. By the time he reached New England, Bellamy\u2019s flotilla carried plunder from over 50 vessels.<\/p>\n And I\u2019m gonna give Black Bellamy a little credit here since, spoiler alert, he\u2019s about to die. Bellamy called himself the \u201cRobin Hood of the Sea,\u201d and his men fancied themselves \u201cRobin Hood\u2019s men.\u201d As far as pirates go, these guys were about as Disney-friendly a crew as you could find. No records exist of Bellamy ever killing a captive, and he was known to return ships and their cargo if he didn\u2019t need them.<\/p>\n Bellamy also ran his ship like a democracy: most of his crew were once slaves, or sailors forced into service, and each was given an equal vote when it came to making important decisions. He saw his piracy as a mission against his oppressors\u2014the wealthy merchants who lawfully forced and cheated poor young men into working at sea.<\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span><\/p>\n But, good or not, pirates live short lives, and Bellamy was already a ripe 28 years old in 1717.<\/p>\n Bellamy had a lady friend named Maria Hallet in Wellfleet, a village on the outer reaches of Cape Cod. While we don\u2019t know exactly what Bellamy\u2019s plan was, it appears he intended to cash in his pirate chips and get to wooing Ms. Hallet. Once he had loads of money, he thought, Maria\u2019s wealthy family might like him more.<\/p>\n Bellamy followed his heart (and maybe his wallet, or both), to Cape Cod. He arrived the evening of April 26, 1717, just as the Cape was hit by one of its worst ever nor\u2019easters.<\/p>\nThe First Life of the Whydah<\/em>: Slave Ship and the Triangle Trade<\/h3>\n
The Second Life of the Whydah: Piracy<\/h3>\n
The Death of the Whydah<\/em> (and Her Crew)<\/h3>\n