Mark P. Donnelly - Pirates of Maryland: Plunder and High Adventure in the Chesapeake Bay

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P LUNDER AND
H IGH A DVENTURE
IN THE
C HESAPEAKE B AY

Mark P. Donnelly and Daniel Diehl

STACKPOLE
BOOKS

Copyright 2012 by Mark P. Donnelly and Daniel Diehl

Published by

STACKPOLE BOOKS

5067 Ritter Road

Mechanicsburg, PA 17055

www.stackpolebooks.com

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. All inquiries should be addressed to Stackpole Books.

Printed in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

FIRST EDITION

Cover design by Wendy Reynolds

Cover photo by Mark P. Donnelly

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Donnelly, Mark, 1967

Pirates of Maryland : plunder and high adventure in the Chesapeake Bay / Mark P. Donnelly and Daniel Diehl. 1st ed.

p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-0-8117-1041-1 (pbk.)

1. PiratesMarylandAtlantic CoastBiography. 2. PiratesChesapeake Bay (Md. and Va.)Biography. 3. PiratesChesapeake Bay (Md. and Va.)History. 4. MarylandHistoryColonial period, ca. 16001775. 5. Chesapeake Bay (Md. and Va.)History, Naval. 6. Atlantic Coast (Md.)History, Naval. I. Diehl, Daniel. II. Title.

F184.D66 2012

975.202dc23

2012021115

eBook ISBN: 978-0-8117-4886-5

T he history of piracy in North America is rich and diverse, but of the harbors on the Atlantic seaboard, the coastline of Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay saw more nefarious action than most. Why in Maryland? The main ports of trade in North America throughout the first half of the eighteenth century were New York, Boston, Norfolk, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. Many pirates spent their winters raiding the Caribbean and the Spanish Main, then turned north when the weather turned warmer to prey on ships sailing in to American ports from Europe. And it was in these American ports that the pirates were able to sell their stolen Spanish and Caribbean plunder.

We cannot hope to cover the entire history of piracy in Maryland and Chesapeake waters thoroughly in this slim volume, so we have selected representative stories that illustrate this diverse and often overlooked aspect of American history. But before we turn to the subject of piracy in Maryland, lets take a quick look at the general history of piracy in the Western Hemisphere.

No single nation, race, or nationality ever held a monopoly on piracy. Piracy has existed wherever the rewards of the crime have been worth the risk of punishment. It is not difficult to imagine that the earliest humans to put to sea in boats were soon followed by the first pirates. But it was the Europeans of the Atlantic seaboardthe French, Dutch, Spanish, Portuguese, and especially the Britishwho developed piracy into its most refined form in the late seventeenth and mid-eighteenth centuries.

From time to time, pirates found it profitable to offer their services to nations at war, and in this role they functioned more or less as legal naval auxiliaries under the general name of privateers. These privateers operated under officially issued letters of marque, which allowed them to attack any and all enemy shipping. The practice of privateering dates back to the thirteenth century, and it grew in frequency and popularity until it reached its zenith in the late seventeenth century. At this time, Britain and France were almost constantly at war with Spain. Privateers were commissioned to help break Spains stranglehold on vast swaths of territory and lucrative maritime trade in the Americas. The distinction between these sea wolves and the pirates was, often as not, nothing more than a matter of legal terminology.

From the Caribbean, these sea rovers spread through virtually every sea and ocean around the world like a virus. And they prospered. But pirate plunder was valuable only if it could find a ready market. And it was in North America that the most significant market could be found. During the golden age of piracy (roughly 16801730), pirates operated with the active support and cooperation of colonial governors, local officials, merchants, and the general populace of most of the North American colonies. In England, pirates were hunted down relentlessly. In American ports, however, they received protection, hospitality, ships, provisions, crews, counterfeit letters of marque, and most important, a place to sell their ill-gotten booty. Furthermore, by tacitly condoning piracy, the Americans struck a significant blow against British rule in a growing struggle that eventually culminated in the Revolutionary War. By engaging in commerce with pirates, the American colonies could acquire and trade foreign commodities and luxury goods without paying British taxes on their import or delivery.

The illicit complicity between the American colonies and the pirates was widespread by the 1690s. With few exceptions, colonial governors from New England to the Carolinas colluded with the pirates. Boston, New York, and Philadelphia became pirate depots. In fact, the Pennsylvania surveyor of customs reported that the pirates were so brazen in their activities as to have believed themselves almost beyond reproach:

They walk the streets with their pockets full of gold and are the constant companion of the [heads of] the Government. They threaten my life and those who were active in apprehending them; carry their profitable goods publicly in boats from one place to another for a market; threaten the lives of the Kings [tax] collectors and with force and arms rescue the goods from them. All these parts swarm with pirates, so that if some speedy and effectual course be not taken the trade of America will be ruined.

Piracy, for whatever reason a man might adopt it as a lifestyle, was hardly an upwardly mobile career choice. With the many risks a pirate faced, such as dying in battle, contracting one of the rampant diseases that accompanied long periods at sea, or ending up dangling on the end of a rope, the life expectancy of a man once he became a pirate was on average three to five years. So why would any person in his right mind choose such a way of life? The answers were probably as varied as the pirates themselves, but a distillation of the facts provides two explanations that may have accounted for the majority. First, some people simply seem destined for a life of crime and violence. Though the chances of adopting a criminal lifestyle are certainly greater for people from rough backgrounds, sometimes those who grew up with all the advantages still turn to crime. Second, injustices were rampant in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century society. Conditions in the western worlds navies were extremely harsh, and some men who had been pressed into service may have turned to piracy after serving under captains who doled out floggings too liberally. Even small infractions of the law could lead to lengthy stays in dungeon-like prisons with virtually no hope of social redemption. For the poor, who were most likely to suffer the injustices of this system, an escape to the sea and piracy might have been the only way out of a dead-end life. The rules that governed most pirate ships were far fairer than those that governed society at large in that era.