Samuel Bellamy

Samuel Bellamy was an English-born pirate who commanded the Whydah Gally, a captured slave ship, making him briefly one of the wealthiest pirates of the era. He is reputed to have reduced corporal punishment aboard his ship and expressed populist views on class and law. He and most of his crew died when the Whydah wrecked off Cape Cod in a storm in April 1717; the wreck was located and excavated in 1984.