CAPTAIN EDWARD TEACH, COMMONLY CALLED “BLACK BEARD”
From a rare engraving in the Harry Elkins Widener Collection, Harvard College Library
After a time the pirate colonies at Madagascar diminished in importance and most of the men abandoned the sea and lived at ease on their plantations. In 1716, one of the pirate settlements was visited by an Englishman, Robert Drury,[176] who wrote as follows:—
“One of these men was a Dutchman, named John Pro, who spoke good English. He was dressed in a short coat with broad, plate buttons, and other things agreeable, but without shoes or stockings. In his sash stuck a brace of pistols, and he had one in his right hand. The other man was dressed in an English manner, with two pistols in his sash and one in his hand, like his companion.... John Pro lived in a very handsome manner. His house was furnished with pewter dishes, &c., a standing bed with curtains, and other things of that nature except chairs, but a chest or two served for that purpose well enough. He had one house on purpose for his cook-room and cook-slave’s lodging, storehouse and summer-house; all these were enclosed in a palisade, as the great men’s houses are in this country, for he was rich, and had many castles and slaves. His wealth had come principally while cruizing among the Moors, from whom his ship had several times taken great riches, and used to carry it to St. Mary’s. But their ship growing old and crazy, they being also vastly rich, they removed to Madagascar, made one Thomas Collins, a carpenter, their Governor, and built a small fort, defending it with their ship’s guns. They had now lived without pirating for nine years.”
In the summer of 1719 there were about twenty white pirates living permanently on the island of St. Mary’s. Others continued to sail out from the harbor but the vigilance of the English Admiralty and the strength and watchfulness of the ships of the East India Company served to discourage freebooting in those parts and in 1721 when France granted an amnesty a number of them surrendered and became colonists on the island of Bourbon. The last of the pirates on St. Mary’s were routed out by men-of-war during the winter of 1722-23. Others lived and died on the mainland of Madagascar and left behind them numerous descendants, for in 1768 the Abbe Rochon visited that part of the island north of St. Mary’s and observed many whites and half-breeds living about the Bay of Antongil who claimed descent from the pirates formerly settled there.
FOOTNOTES
[169] Voyages and Travels of Capt. Nathaniel Uring, London, 1726.
[170] Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, pp. 260, 262.
[171] “It was at the island of St. Thomas that the famous Captain Avery, or some of his companions, disposed of the greatest part of the rich goods taken in a ship belonging to the Mogul, about forty years ago, when the magazines on the Island were so excessively crowded with rich Indian goods that they were not entirely emptied in twenty years after, though they generally sold them at low prices; and it was by this accident that pieces of Arabian gold, which were properly speaking Pagodas, were long current in the West Indies under the name of Sequins, for they knew not what to call them, at the rate of about six shillings. And nutmegs, cloves, sinnimon and mace were likewise bought very cheap for many years after.”—John Harris, Collection of Voyages, London, 1739.
[172] Some of Avery’s pirate crew were afterwards taken in England and brought to trial on Oct. 19, 1696, but acquitted for lack of sufficient evidence.
[173] Calendar of State Papers, America and West Indies, 1696-1697, p. 636.