historical
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Jean Lafitte
Jean Lafitte was a French privateer and smuggler who led a base of operations at Barataria Bay, Louisiana, and later Galveston Island, Texas, running privateers against Spanish shipping and smuggling goods (including enslaved people) into New Orleans. He and his associates aided American forces under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1815…
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Roberto Cofresí
Roberto Cofresí was a Puerto Rican pirate who raided merchant shipping in the Caribbean during the early 19th century, becoming a folk hero to some for allegedly sharing plunder with the poor. His raids on American and other vessels prompted a joint Spanish-American naval effort that captured him in 1825. He was tried in San…
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Rachel Wall
Rachel Wall is generally described as the first American-born woman to be tried for piracy. With her husband George Wall, she reportedly staged fake shipwrecks off the New England coast to lure and rob rescuers between 1781 and 1782. She was ultimately convicted and executed for a separate robbery charge in Boston in 1789.
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Anne Dieu-le-Veut
Anne Dieu-le-Veut was a French colonist in Saint-Domingue and Tortuga who, according to historical accounts, married two prominent buccaneers, Pierre Lelong and later Laurens de Graaf, and reportedly took part in their maritime activities. She is documented in colonial records as a strong-willed figure who challenged de Graaf to a duel before their marriage. Records…
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Benjamin Hornigold
Benjamin Hornigold was an English pirate based in Nassau, Bahamas, considered a mentor figure to Blackbeard and Samuel Bellamy, both of whom sailed under him early in their careers. He was notable for refusing to attack English shipping. He accepted the 1718 pardon and subsequently helped hunt former pirate colleagues, dying in a shipwreck the…
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Paulsgrave Williams
Paulsgrave Williams was a Rhode Island-born goldsmith who became a pirate, sailing as quartermaster and consort captain alongside Samuel Bellamy. After Bellamy’s ship Whydah wrecked in 1717, Williams continued limited piracy operations before returning periodically to Rhode Island. Detailed records of his later years and death have not survived.
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Edward England
Edward England was an Irish pirate active in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean, notable for showing relative leniency toward captured crews, which contrasted with the norms of the era. His crew, unhappy with his mercy toward Captain James Macrae after the capture of the Cassandra in 1720, mutinied and marooned him on Mauritius. He reportedly…
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Richard Worley
Richard Worley was an English pirate who began his brief career with a small open boat and a handful of men off New York in 1718, quickly escalating to larger captured vessels. His crew’s rampage up the American coast prompted a coordinated naval response from Virginia and South Carolina. He was killed in the resulting…
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Walter Kennedy
Walter Kennedy was an English pirate who served under Howell Davis and Bartholomew Roberts before absconding with a captured ship and its plunder. Largely illiterate and reportedly a poor navigator, his crew became lost and eventually mutinied against him. He was later recognized in London, arrested, tried, and hanged in 1721.
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John Phillips
John Phillips was an English pirate who escaped indentured servitude in Newfoundland to begin a short piracy career off the Atlantic coast of Canada and New England in 1723-1724. He drafted a set of pirate articles that survives as one of the more detailed examples of pirate ship governance. His career ended when several forcibly…