Piracy has been around almost as long as boats have. Since ancient times,
pirates have been raiding ships, taking crews hostage, pillaging, and basically using the high
seas as their own personal playground. In the 16 and 1700s, piracy experienced a Golden Age.
Thousands of them roamed the waters around the world. Writers and historians began chronicling
their exploits and the fierce, independent, swashbuckling image of the pirate was born.
Stories were written, movies were made, legends were born. Welcome back to Nutty History. Today,
we’re setting sail and exploring some of history’s most famous pirates…and the mysteries surrounding
them. Ah, utopia. A free society, everyone living in harmony with each other and the natural world.
Waterfalls and birds chirping and sun shining and all that. Many have imagined it, none have
truly experienced it. When you think of utopia, piracy probably isn’t one of the first things
that comes to mind. But this is exactly what the pirate James Mission was set out to achieve.
Mission was born into a wealthy family in France, but he was one of many children and
had little hope of getting any inheritance. So he hit the seas to try and make a life for himself,
joining a privateering company on a ship named the Victoire. During his travels he
met up with a free-thinking Dominican priest named Caraccioli. Caraccioli was a radical for
his day and believed that organized religion was nothing more than a tool to control the masses.
He also believed that everyone was created equal and free and opposed enslavement and the pervasive
enslavement trade that gripped the world at the time. Mission was converted, and the two set out
to create their own utopia. Eventually, Mission became captain of the Victoire. He, Caraccioli and
their diverse crew pillaged their way around the horn of Africa to Madagascar, raiding enslavement
ships and freeing people along the way. They wound up founding their own society on an island called
Libertatia. It was a free, democratic society where everyone had equal say on all matters. The
soil was fertile, there was plenty to eat, life was good…until it wasn’t. Mission and his crew
were lost at sea in a storm, and Libertatia was lost with them. But did Libertatia actually exist?
No one has ever found the place. The story itself comes from a couple chapters in a book called “A
General History of the Robberies and Crimes of the Most Notorious Pirates.” It was written in 1726 by
a man named Captain Charles Johnson, though many believe this was a pseudonym used by Daniel Defoe,
the famed novelist who wrote Robinson Crusoe. Was it all just a story conjured up in the mind of a
great storyteller, or was it historical fact? We may never know. Olivier Levasseur, nicknamed
“La Buse” or “The Buzzard,” was one of the most prolific, ruthless pirates to ever sail the seas.
The Frenchman was born into a wealthy family and actually practiced as an architect before becoming
restless and hitting the ocean. He started off as a privateer for the French crown in the Caribbean,
but soon cut ties with his homeland and turned towards piracy. He eventually made his way to
the Indian Ocean where he met up with another notorious pirate named John Taylor. Together,
they wreaked mayhem on the ships navigating the islands off the coast of Africa. In one of
the biggest paydays in the history of piracy, La Buse and Taylor hijacked the Virgin of the Cape,
a mammoth Portuguese flagship that was loaded with gold, jewels, artwork, and other priceless
artifacts. Luckily for the pirates, the ship had been heavily damaged in a storm and the crew had
to throw their 72 cannons overboard. The pirates were able to take the ship pretty easily, and
theymade away with a reported 1 billion dollars’ worth of booty! La Buse was a rich man, and so
decided to retire. The King of France had actually offered him clemency…if he returned the treasure.
La Buse refused though, and was eventually caught and sentenced to capital punishment. At his public
demise, he addressed the onlookers gathered around the gallows. According to reports, he said “find
my treasure, the one who may understand it” and threw a cryptogram into the crowd. To this day,
no one has managed to decipher it. However, one man may have gotten pretty close.
In the mid-1900s, an Englishman named Reginald Cruise-Wilkins believed he had figured it out,
and began searching a cave on the island of Mahe in the Seychelles.
He wound up finding some old weapons and coins, but then died before he could decode the last
piece of the cryptogram. La Buse’s massive hoard of treasure still remains a mystery.
Henry Every has been called the “Arch Pirate” and the “King of Pirates.”
He’s probably the greatest pirate you’ve never heard of. In just two years, from 1693 to 1695,
he amassed huge piles of treasure and even threatened international relations between
England and the Mughal empire. Every started out in the British Royal Navy. Eventually, he moved
into the Atlantic enslavement trade, where he thrived in one of history’s most horrible markets.
Soon after, he joined the crew of a Spanish privateering ship named Charles II that was tasked
with combating pirates and French smugglers in the Caribbean. But while the ship was docked in Spain,
Every spearheaded a mutiny, renamed the ship Fancy, pulled up the Jolly Roger flag,
and began pirating his way towards the Indian Ocean. Then, in September of 1695,
he set his sights on a ship owned by the Mughal empire – a powerful nation in modern-day India.
The ship – named the Ganj-i-Sawai – was part of a convoy owned by Emperor Aurangzeb,
and it contained lots and lots of gold. The convoy was on its way back to India from Mecca,
and it was well-armed. Every’s pirate fleet eventually won the day. Both sides suffered heavy
casualties, but in the end Every and his men made out with almost 100 million in today’s dollars.
The heist caused a huge rift between England and the Mughal Empire. Emperor Aurangzeb began
imprisoning British traders in India. To appease the emperor, the British put a reward out for
Every, but in reality, the blood was already boiling between the two nations. The Mughal
empire would eventually fall, and the British would eventually colonize the Indian subcontinent.
Every disappeared without a trace. He was one of the few pirates who was never caught or confirmed
dead. Speculation swirls about where he ended up. Some say he went back to England in hiding,
others say he set up shop somewhere in the Caribbean. The fate of Every…and of his Mughal
treasure…remains unknown. Captain Kidd is one of the most celebrated and romanticized pirates
of all time, with one of the most sought-after treasures that may or may not actually exist. He
started out his career as a legitimate privateer for the English crown, and was fighting against
the French in the Caribbean and off the coast of North America. By 1690 he’d become quite wealthy,
with his own ship and he landed in New York City. Five years later he was sent to the waters of East
Africa by the English government to patrol the seas for pirates who were messing with
the British East India Company. It was there that Kidd apparently turned to piracy himself.
He made his way back to the Caribbean, where he commandeered an Armenian ship that was reported
to be carrying a ton of valuable stuff, though just what it was carrying remains a mystery.
Around this time he got into a fight with one of his crew who was mortally wounded. Kidd eventually
learned that he’d been denounced as a pirate, so he went back to New York City to plead his case.
Not a good move though. His defense fell on deaf ears, though. He was sent back to England in 1701
and received capital punishment for the death of his crewmate. Legend has it Kidd stashed a
huge treasure somewhere. Many people think it might be hiding on a small island off the
coast of Nova Scotia. In 1795, a man discovered a pit on Oak Island. After further excavation,
it turned out that there were layers and layers of planks spaced out every 10 feet below the surface.
There was also a mysterious stone with symbols carved into it hinting at an unimaginable treasure
that lay deeper down. Unfortunately, the hole collapsed and filled with water. Many have tried
to uncover the treasure over the years. So far seven have died and none have ever found it.
Kidd apparently said he had hidden his treasure “where none but Satan and myself can find it”.
Whether or not it lies deep down in the depths of Oak Island is still up for debate.
Around 1177 BC, the Bronze Age Collapse happened…and it might’ve been caused by
some of the world’s first pirates. Mystery swirls about what actually happened,
but historians agree that around this time, a vast, interconnected network of civilizations
in the Mediterranean suddenly collapsed, and no one really knows why. The Mycenaeans,
Egyptians, Hittites, Babylonians, and Minoans were all advanced civilizations with thriving cultures,
beautiful architecture, and economies based on oversea trade. But then it all fell apart. A dark
age lasted for centuries afterward. Some evidence suggests that there was a 300-year drought around
this time which led to famine, starvation, and massive loss of life. Without enough food, these
civilizations went to war, and slowly destroyed themselves. However, there are also accounts of
a mysterious sea faring people, known only as the “Sea Peoples”, who are written about and etched
into stellae that depict great battles around this time. It’s believed that the Sea Peoples were
responsible for much of the demise and destruction along the Mediterranean, as they would invade and
destroy prominent port cities, possibly taking advantage of these drought-weakened Empires.
Unfortunately, vague written accounts and unidentifiable carvings are all the evidence
we have that these powerful pirates ever existed. Have any more good pirate facts?
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