John Robb on Pirates!

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Pirates in the Caribbean: Nathaniel Butler

Nathaniel Butler was born in 1577, and rose from English Privateer to Governor of Bermuda in the 70 some years of his life.

He was appointed Governor of Bermuda in the 1619 until 1622 and while he built many of the buildings on Bermuda and captured many pirate ships, he's not famous enough to have warranted an image easily found on Google. An inauspicious end for a hard-working man.

In his early sailing career the Earl of Warwick was his patron, a powerful protestant, the Earl had Butler govern his pirate colony on Providence Island off of modern Rhode Island. He then captained privateering expeditions against Spain in the Caribbean and around South America.

In about April 1639, he assembled a mixed fleet of Dutch and English vessels. After looting several smaller towns, the raiders descended on Trujillo, the chief port of Honduras. Trujillo had repelled Sir Anthony Sherley in 1597, but Butler'' raiders took it by surprise and collected a ransom of 16,000 pounds. Butler apparently kept more than his fair share of the booty. Returning to Providence in September 1639, he sailed for England in great haste and secrecy.

Not much is known about his life after 1639, if indeed he survived past 1639.

Privateer, Corsair or Buccaneer?

Often when people talk about pirates, they'll use the following words interchangeably: Privateer, Corsair, Buccaneer, and Pirate. But in truth, they refer to different things. This primer should help clear up misconceptions.

Pirate: /ˈpaɪrət/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[pahy-ruht] noun

1.	a person who robs or commits illegal violence at sea or on the shores of the sea.

2.	a ship used by such persons.

3.	any plunderer, predator, etc.: confidence men, slumlords, and other pirates.

4.	a person who uses or reproduces the work or invention of another without authorization.

5.	Also called pirate stream. Geology. a stream that diverts into its own flow the headwaters of another stream, river, etc.

Pirate basically is the vague term that refers to all these sea-criminals. It's hard to mis-use, and applies to all sorts of people and activities.

Privateer: /ˌpraɪvəˈtɪər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[prahy-vuh-teer] noun
1. an armed ship that is privately owned and manned, commissioned by a government to fight or harass enemy ships.

All privateers are pirates, but not all pirates are privateers. Privateers carry letters of marque from a government, basically a get out of jail free card that can be cashed at their ports when that pirate raids ships belonging to their enemies. Many pirates collected several different country's letters of marque, but one man's legitimate businessman or patriotic hero, is another man's pirate and rogue, and when one's allegiances are constantly changing its a recipe for trouble. But on the high seas, trouble is a pirate's middle name.

Buccaneer: /ˌbʌkəˈnɪər/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[buhk-uh-neer]
1.any of the piratical adventurers who raided Spanish colonies and ships along the American coast in the second half of the 17th century.

When most people think of pirates, they're thinking of buccaneers. Pirates of the Caribbean who raided the Spanish Main, who elected their captains and made names for themselves in the new world. The romantic image of piracy grew out of these rogues, fiercely democratic, often cruel, swashbuckling and prone to burying treasure (ok, prone to spending treasure as soon as they could get to a port). Buccaneers are also called Freebooters, from the dutch term for the pirates that operated in the Caribbean during the period.

The word Buccaneer comes from the french boucanier, which referred to men who hunted and smoked meat alone in the wilderness. These men were common on Hispaniola and other islands where they were often picked up by ships, and traded their wares and fearsome skills at butchery.
Corsair: [kawr-sair] noun

1.	a fast ship used for piracy.

2.	a pirate, esp. formerly of the Barbary Coast.

Corsairs, also referred to as Barbary Corsairs came from North Africa and ranged as far afield as India and Ireland. They were subject to the sultanates of their home ports but often had a say in their own governance, even before Europe was toying with democracy. Check out this Bicameral Legislature. They often took slaves as part of their crews, but slaves got six months of the year off and often converted to Islam and rose to own their own ships. Upward mobility of this sort was unheard of in Europe and a huge number of single men without other prospects emigrated from Europe to convert to Islam and seek their fortunes.

Pirates in the Caribbean- Stede Bonnet

Stede Bonnet is often referred to as "The Gentleman Pirate" turned to piracy later in life. A wealthy landowner, he had some militia experience as a young man but mostly lived high on the hog in Barbados for years. Unfortunately, his career as a planter was marked by failures and at the age of 29 he put together a ship and a crew and set his sights on brigandage. Caribbean

"There is also or has been lately over on the [North American] Coast, a pirate sloop from Barbados commanded by one Major Bonnet, who has an Estate on that island," Candler wrote his superiors in London in the summer of 1717. "The sloop is his own. This advice I had from a letter from thence, that in April last [1717] he ran away out of Carlisle Bay in the night and had aboard 126 men and 6 guns... and ammunition enough."

-Captain Benjamin Candler of the HMS Winchelsea

His ship, The Revenge, plied the coasts around Barbados and along the Eastern American Seaboard until he was seriously injured on his way to Nassau. In Nassau he met Blackbeard, and most of his crew defected to join Blackbeard's crew aboard Queen Anne's Revenge. For a time while he was recovering, Bonnet joined Blackbeard aboard his ship as a guest.

The next summer he set out again, this time as a privateer commissioned by the Governor of North Carolina to plunder Spanish shipping. He adopted the alias "Captain Thomas" and changed his ship's name to the Royal James. While the ship was being careened on the Cape Fear River, a group of pirate hunters from South Carolina led by Captain William Rhett captured Bonnet and his crew after a battle of a few hours.

Bonnet was hanged for two counts of piracy on December 10, 1718 in Charleston.