Every one of us must know what piracy is and who pirates are thanks to the famous movie series (Pirates of the Caribbean) and its main character, the pirate (Jack Sparrow) and his interesting adventures in the oceans and seas, and his many raids on British and Spanish royal ships, but piracy is, in fact, more than that. Much, and real pirates will make you forget about Jack Sparrow in moments, but their personalities and their great tendency to be violent will fill your heart in fear.
Piracy developed from a phenomenon known as “private piracy” in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, which was, in essence, a license granted by the prevailing governments at the time for the benefit of ship owners, allowing them to carry out attacks and raids on the ships of hostile countries.
The services of these “authorized pirates” licensed by the government were used to attack and capture every merchant ship belonging to an enemy country, and this practice, of course, required obtaining a license issued by either the king, the ruler, or less high officials, and in return for issuing a letter of authorization or The mandate, the body that issued it would receive a percentage of the spoils obtained during the sea raid.
This phenomenon helped in the emergence of several iconic figures in the world of raids and naval battles at the time, such as (Francis Drake), (Henry Morgan), and (William Kidd), and famous personalities did not emerge in this field such as (Blackbeard) and (Anne Bonny). , and (Bartholomew Roberts) only during the eighteenth century.
The source of the stereotypical image of the pirate as that man with a wooden leg, blindfold, and a loyal parrot was the golden era of piracy that stretched from the beginning of the seventeenth century to the middle of the seventeenth century. However, every experienced pirate who was active during this period was not that unique and charming character, who loves adventures with her distinctive accent and elegant way of speaking as shown in movies, but the real pirate from the golden age of piracy was a violent and desperate thief who thinks of nothing but murder.
Piracy turned from a legal act authorized by the government to a criminal act out of the law during the mid-eighteenth century, and the penalty for its practice was death, and the pace of its practice decreased slightly after it was considered a criminal act, and then reappeared strongly in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries when it ruled The British Royal Navy once and for all.
The accused of piracy, as soon as they were arrested, were executed by hanging, and then their bodies were hung inside cage-like tools known as “slander cages”, which in their shape mimic the shape of the human body, and were specially designed to keep the members of the body cohesive after the rotting and decomposition of the corpse over time.
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The purpose of this tool was to punish criminals from pirates even after their death, and to warn the rest as well from even thinking about committing the same crime and urging them to obey the orders of the system. The chains and pieces of steel dangling from the cage made terrifying noises when the wind moved them, really goosebumps.
Over time, the pirate's hanging corpse would rot and eventually decompose into just a frightening skeleton, and this libel penalty was harsh and strict that piracy was high treason, and that pirates were not considered members of society after practicing it.
Read with us, dear reader, until you get to know 22 pirates whose names were so frightening to everyone who knew them at the time:
1. (Francois Lolonois):
François Colony was a French pirate attacking and raided Spanish ships and cities during the sixties of the seventeenth century. In one of the fights, he was cut to pieces and his body was roasted over a fire, and eventually eaten by a tribe of cannibals in the Bay of Darian.
2. (Bartholomew Roberts):
Bartholomew Roberts was a young and handsome pirate who had a good taste
in dress and choice of clothes. That he hated the life of pleasure and
extravagance, and he forbade gambling and taking women on board his
ships, as well as excessive drinking of alcohol.
He died during a
bitter battle with HMS Swallow.
3. (Henry Morgan):
Henry Morgan was working under the governor of Jamaica, Sir Thomas Medford, and had attacked a large number of Spanish ships and cities, which made him extremely wealthy, in addition to his title of "Knight" and his appointment as Lieutenant Governor of the Province of Jamaica.
He eventually died of complications and health complications caused by his excessive alcohol consumption.
4. (Edward England):
(Edward Segar) was born in Ireland around 1685, and it was he who called himself (Edward England), and he was rumored to be an educated man who received a prestigious education, and served as a pirate commissioner during what was known as the “War of the Spanish Succession.”
Then he turned to the profession of piracy after being captured by a pirate ship and forced to join its crew. He later died of a serious illness in 1721.
5. (Ann Bonnie):
Anne Bonnie was an Irish woman and the wife of a humble pirate known as James Bonnie. Her marriage to him was unhappy, so she left with another pirate known as Calico Jack, leaving her husband behind.
The two fell in love with a pirate woman who was one of Anne's friends, known as Mary, and eventually, these three lovebirds were arrested by the English forces, Bonnie then managed to avoid the death sentence by claiming that she was pregnant, and she was confined to her solitary cell to the last days of her life.
6. (Benjamin Hornigold):
Benjamin Hornigold was a pirate who raided and attacked merchant ships loaded with goods. His deputy at the time was one of the most famous pirates, Edward Teach, who would later be known as Blackbeard. In the last years of his life, Hornigold transformed from a pirate to a pirate hunter. He died in a shipwreck, the wreckage of which was never found.
7. (Blackbeard):
Edward Teach was born and served the British Kingdom as a pirate commissioner raiding enemy ships, quickly turning to piracy by the end of Queen Anne's War.
His brutality and extreme violence attracted the attention of (Alexander Spotswood), the governor of the state of (Virginia), and after locating this famous pirate, (Spotswood) set up a trap and entrap him, and after torturing him he cut off his head and hung him on the bow of his ship.
8. (Calico Jack):
Born under the name John Rakim and known by the nickname "Calico Jack" because of the calico clothes he wore, Calico was a pirate who became famous for two reasons: first, for his design of the famous pirate flag consisting of a human skull and crossbones, and secondly, because he had two pirate mistresses accompany him on his travels and make effective members of his crew; Mary Read and Ann Bonnie.
Calico Jack was eventually arrested, tried, convicted and hanged in 1720.
9. (Charles Gibbs):
(Charles Gibbs) was the nickname known to the American pirate (James Jeffers), and he was one of the last people who practiced piracy in the Caribbean waters in the nineteenth century, and he was among the last people tried for piracy and executed in the United States of America.
10. (Zhong Bo Tsai):
Zhong Bo Cai was none other than the son of a local fisherman who was kidnapped by a pair of famous pirates in China at the time, Cheng I and Cheng Shi, who adopted him and introduced him to a life of piracy and crime at sea.
Stories tell that when Zhang I died, Zhang Bo married his adoptive mother and eventually married her, and continued to take care of the family's looting business and terrorizing the seas.
Eventually, Zhongbo found a way to join the Qing dynasty government and became an influential official.
11. (Ching Shi):
Qin Zhi was a Chinese prostitute who worked on a floating brothel in Canton, China in 1775. Soon after, Chi met a wealthy and powerful pirate known as Zhang Yi whom she eventually married, and after his death she was given the reins of control. In his fleet of pirate ships, which was estimated to number eighty thousand ships, she became the most powerful and the first pirate leader in history.
12. (Edward Law):
In his youth, Lou was a thief, a gambler, and a petty criminal. He quickly turned to a life of piracy, as he and his men captured and plundered dozens of merchant ships on a number of beaches around the world. Lou was famous for his brutality, great cruelty and reckless dash, and it is believed that he was executed. Finally hanging.
13. (Heyr al-Din Barbarossa):
(Hayr al-Din Barbarossa) began his marine life as a pirate. With the help of his brothers, he raided many Christian coastal cities and booked many ships in the Mediterranean. He was so successful that he later became ruler of Algeria, and then rose to become admiral, commander of the Ottoman naval forces under the rule of Suleiman. legal.
14. (Mary Read):
Mary Read was a very close friend of the pirate (Anne Bonnie), who was mentioned in this article, and she was famous for dressing like a man, and she even succeeded in joining the British Army disguised as a man under the pseudonym (Mark Reed). .
She was eventually captured during the same battle that captured Bonnie and Calico Jack, and managed to avoid execution due to being pregnant, but later died in her cell of disease.
15. (Tota) Queen (Illyria):
Queen Tuta was one of the first queens to practice piracy, and she used piracy as a means to control the affairs of her kingdom, but she fell under the rule and control of the Roman Empire and no news was known about her after that.
16. (Samuel Bellamy):
Bellamy was born into a poor English family in 1689, joined the British Royal Navy when he was only 13 years old, and then adopted a life of piracy, having gathered an experienced crew and bought a few ships and headed for the open seas and oceans.
He was one of the most successful pirates, as he succeeded in capturing more than 50 ships in just a year, from 1716 to 1717, and he died in the same year in an accident when his ship was broken by a violent storm.
17. Sir Francis Drake:
(Francis Drake) participated in a number of English expeditions to Africa to bring in slaves, and was famous for the piracy that targeted Spanish ships and property.
Queen (Elizabeth II) sent him on a mission to South America in 1577, from which he returned across the Pacific Ocean and was the first Englishman to circumnavigate the planet. The Queen later gave him the title of "Knight".
18. (Sted Bonnett):
Steady Bonet was a retired British Army officer who owned a large sugar plantation in Barbados, and tired of his wife's constant grumblings, he deserted her, leaving behind his children, land, and wealth, bought a ship and led a life of piracy on the high seas.
His crew and the pirates under his control always described him as an incompetent captain, and his many adventures earned him the nickname “the polite pirate.” He was later arrested and executed.
19. (William Kidd):
Captain (William Kidd) was a naval captain during the seventeenth century, and in the year 1695, he was granted royal license by the British government to arrest any pirates who attacked the ships of the East India Company, but he turned into a pirate himself after that, and was executed in end of the day.
20. (Yermak Timofeevich):
(Yermak Timofeevich) was a member of a reconnaissance force sent by Russia to explore (Siberia) with the aim of annexing it.
21. (Uelda):
Many consider the character (Ulda) to be a legend, but she was the daughter of a Scandinavian king who lived in the fifth century AD, and when her father wanted to marry her, she refused and ran away from the palace and later became a pirate.
Then the King of Denmark sent a warship led by his son and heir, the Prince, to return (Uelda) to her father, and this prince had fought her so fiercely that she accepted the terms of surrender and returned with him, the two married later to become the King and Queen of Denmark.
22. (Henry Avery):
During his journey as an active pirate on the high seas, (Henry Avery) managed in a short period of no more than a few years to capture and plunder dozens of ships and achieve gains and spoils worth tens of millions of dollars, and he had achieved all this without being arrested or killed, as he continued His life normally until he died of old age.