The Archives

Timeline

The age on one line

Every event record in the Archives that carries a date is placed here, 33 of them between 1671 and 1726. A short bar means the record gives a day or a span of days; a longer one, a month or a season; a hollow one means the date is only approximate. Each event is drawn in the colour of the Collection that tells it. Choose a strand, or a person, place or theme, to see only the events that touch it.

By decade

1670s

  1. Morgan's Sack of Panama (1671) The wider world The buccaneer expedition commissioned by Sir Thomas Modyford at Jamaica in July 1670 and directed at Panama by a vote of thirty-seven captains on 2 December 1670, which stormed the castle of San Lorenzo at the Chagres, crossed the isthmus with about 1,200 men, beat a Spanish army on the savanna on 18 January 1671 old style, that is 28 January 1671 new style, and took, plundered and burned the city of Nuestra Senora de la Asuncion de Panama, after which the Treaty of Madrid and Modyford's disgrace closed Jamaica's era of legal commissions against Spain and both Modyford and Henry Morgan were brought home under arrest. Henry Morgan, Ile a Vache, Jamaica, Panama, Port Royal, Providence Island (Providencia), Tortuga, Pirate Pardons

1680s

  1. The Voyage of the Batchelor's Delight (1683 to 1691) The wider world The long South Sea buccaneering cruise of the company that sailed from Accomack in Virginia on 23 August 1683 under John Cook, took a European ship on the Guinea coast that autumn and renamed her the Batchelor's Delight, rounded Cape Horn under Edward Davis in 1684, raided the Pacific coasts of Spanish America until 1687, and returned by Cape Horn to Philadelphia in May 1688, the affair ending in a Virginia gaol and in a Whitehall order in council of 10 March 1692. Jamaica, Panama, Philadelphia, Port Royal, The Red Sea, Batchelor's Delight, Charts, Maps and Route Knowledge, Crew Voting and Councils, Pirate Pardons, Quartermasters and Divided Authority

1690s

  1. Henry Every and the Ganj-i-Sawai (1695) Henry Every The taking of two ships out of the homeward Mocha fleet in 1695 by Henry Every's company and its consorts, the second of them the Great Mogul's own Gunsway, the days of violence aboard her, and the London trial of 1696 at which the jury acquitted on that very charge. The East India Company, The Mughal Imperial Administration, Henry Every, Thomas Tew, Execution Dock, Surat, The Red Sea, Amity, Charts, Maps and Route Knowledge, Religion and Providence at Sea, Violence and Coercion
  2. The Kidd Privateering Venture Formed (1695) Captain Kidd The private syndicate constituted by the Articles of Agreement of 10 October 1695 between the Earl of Bellomont of the one part and Robert Livingston and William Kidd of the other, which fitted out the Adventure Galley, procured a letter of marque and a pirate-hunting commission, and sent Kidd to sea in the spring of 1696. The New York Merchant Networks, William Kidd, Boston, New York, Adventure Galley
  3. Kidd Departs England (1696) Captain Kidd The manning and departure of the Adventure Galley in 1696: out of the Thames under a letter of marque and a pirate-hunting commission, part of the company pressed for the fleet at the Nore, the Atlantic crossing, and the re-manning at New York on no purchase no pay terms before sailing for the Indian Ocean in September. William Kidd, Madagascar, New York, Adventure Galley, Pirate Articles, Quartermasters and Divided Authority
  4. Trials of Every's Crew Henry Every Admiralty sessions at the Old Bailey in 1696: the crew were acquitted on the Ganj-i-Sawai indictment at the first sitting, then convicted on the Charles the Second mutiny; five were hanged and one reprieved. Newgate, the Marshalsea and Admiralty Execution, The East India Company, Henry Every, Execution Dock, Surat, The Old Bailey, Mutiny and Desertion, Trials, Evidence and Defence Rights
  5. The Treaty of Ryswick (1697) The wider world The cluster of bilateral peace treaties concluded at the royal palace at Ryswick in Holland between 20 September and 30 October 1697 under Swedish mediation, which ended the Nine Years War, declared null and void every letter of marque, reprisal and counter-marque then outstanding between the signatories, and fixed the dated windows beyond which a captured prize was no longer lawful and a commissioned cruiser still at sea became, in law, a robber. Henry Every, William Kidd, Cartagena, Ile Sainte-Marie (Nosy Boraha), Madagascar, New York, Tortuga, Naval Impressment, Pirate Pardons, Privateering and Letters of Marque
  6. The Killing of William Moore (1697) Captain Kidd On 30 October 1697, on the high seas near the coast of Malabar, Captain William Kidd struck William Moore, gunner of the Adventure Galley, on the head with an iron-bound bucket; Moore died the next day, and the killing became the first of six indictments and the first of four trials at the Admiralty Sessions at the Old Bailey on 8 May 1701, producing the murder conviction on which, with the piracy convictions, he was sentenced to death on 9 May 1701. Henry Every, Robert Culliford, William Kidd, Boston, Execution Dock, Madagascar, The Old Bailey, Adventure Galley, Quedagh Merchant, Pirate Pardons
  7. The Capture of the Quedagh Merchant (1698) Captain Kidd The taking of the Surat freighter Quedagh Merchant by William Kidd on 30 January 1698, about ten leagues from Cochin on the Malabar coast, under a French pass that became the central count of the indictment on which he was hanged in 1701. The French East India Company, Henry Every, Robert Culliford, William Kidd, Anguilla, Antigua, Boston, Madagascar, Adventure Galley, Quedagh Merchant, Crew Voting and Councils, Pirate Pardons
  8. Kidd and Culliford at Madagascar (1698) Captain Kidd Captain William Kidd lay in the harbour of Ile Sainte-Marie off Madagascar from about 1 April to November 1698, in company for the earlier part of that stay with the pirate Robert Culliford in the Mocha frigate, which sailed about 15 June; he lost the bulk of his crew to Culliford, saw the Adventure Galley end there, and sailed months later in the prize he called the Adventure Prize with a skeleton company; whatever passed between the two captains became the Crown's proof of piratical intention at the Old Bailey in May 1701. Robert Culliford, William Kidd, Boston, Ile Sainte-Marie (Nosy Boraha), Madagascar, The Cape of Good Hope, Adventure Galley, Quedagh Merchant, Pirate Articles, Pirate Pardons
  9. Kidd Arrested at Boston (1699) Captain Kidd The negotiated surrender and arrest of Captain William Kidd at Boston in June and July 1699: brought in through the lawyer James Emott and the postmaster Duncan Campbell on the Earl of Bellomont's promise of a kind reception and the King's pardon, examined before the Governor and Council on 3 July, seized by a constable on Thursday 6 July, ironed and committed to the Stone Prison on 17 July, and stripped of the deposit left with John Gardiner, whose recovery produced the signed inventory of 25 July 1699 and the paper, including the two French passes, on which he was afterwards tried. William Kidd, Boston, Gardiners Island, New York, Quedagh Merchant, Pirate Pardons

1700s

  1. Trial of William Kidd Captain Kidd Murder and piracy proceedings at an Admiralty sessions held at the Old Bailey, 8 and 9 May 1701. Newgate, the Marshalsea and Admiralty Execution, The Colonial Vice-Admiralty Courts, The French East India Company, William Moore, Anguilla, Execution Dock, The Old Bailey, Quedagh Merchant, Prize Law and Condemnation, The Admiralty Courts, Trials, Evidence and Defence Rights
  2. The Execution of William Kidd (1701) Captain Kidd On Friday 23 May 1701, condemned at the Admiralty Sessions at the Old Bailey on 8 and 9 May on six indictments for murder and piracy, Captain William Kidd was carried from Newgate behind the Admiralty silver oar and hanged at Execution Dock, Wapping, below the low water mark, the first rope breaking so that he had to be tied up a second time; his body was afterwards tarred and hung in chains on the Thames, and his forfeited effects were given by Queen Anne to Greenwich Hospital in 1705. The High Court of Admiralty, The London Merchant Networks, Robert Culliford, William Kidd, Execution Dock, Gardiners Island, New York, The Old Bailey, Quedagh Merchant, Death: Battle, Disease and the Gallows, Pirate Pardons
  3. The War of the Spanish Succession Begins (1700 to 1702) The wider world The dynastic and commercial war over the inheritance of the Spanish monarchy, opening with the death of Carlos II at Madrid on 1 November 1700 and the allied declarations of May 1702, and reaching the English plantations between June and July 1702, where at Jamaica the proclamation reopened lawful privateering within a day. Edward Thache (Blackbeard), Woodes Rogers, Antigua, Barbados, Bermuda, Boston, Cartagena, Havana, Jamaica, Nassau / New Providence, Port Royal

1710s

  1. The Treaty of Utrecht (1713) The wider world The cluster of bilateral peace and commerce treaties signed in the Dutch Republic on 11 April 1713 New Style, which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, transferred a belt of French North America to Great Britain, required the fortifications of Dunkirk to be razed, and assigned the Asiento slave contract to the British South Sea Company. The South Sea Company, Barbados, Jamaica, Madagascar, Nassau / New Providence, The Bahamas, Naval Impressment, Pirate Pardons, Privateering and Letters of Marque, Prize Law and Condemnation, The Slave-Trade Nexus
  2. The Wreck of the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet The Republic of Pirates A hurricane destroyed the combined Spanish New Spain and Tierra Firme treasure convoys on the east coast of Florida before dawn on 31 July 1715 new style, seven days out of Havana, with counts of the dead running from over 600 to about 1,500; the fortified Spanish salvage camp at Palmar de Ays that followed was raided in the winter of 1715 to 1716 by sloops commissioned at Jamaica by Lord Archibald Hamilton, whose recall was ordered on 17 May 1716, and the displaced wreckers who would not give the plunder back are one of the parallel drivers of the post-Utrecht piracy surge in the Bahamas. Havana, Jamaica, Nassau / New Providence, Port Royal, The Bahamas, Hurricanes and Wrecking, Privateering and Letters of Marque, Shipworm and Environmental Damage
  3. Hornigold Voted Out (1716) The Republic of Pirates The removal of Benjamin Hornigold from command of his New Providence pirate company by a majority of his men and the choosing of Samuel Bellamy in his room, an episode undated in any contemporary document and placed by the surviving evidence in the summer or early autumn of 1716. Benjamin Hornigold, Edward Thache (Blackbeard), Woodes Rogers, Boston, Nassau / New Providence, Captain Election and Removal, Crew Voting and Councils, Mutiny and Desertion
  4. The Wreck of the Whydah Gally (1717) Bellamy and the Whydah A pirate ship of twenty-six guns under Bellamy took a ship bound for New England from the Madeiras off Cape Cod in the last week of April 1717 and put her own hull ashore on the same coast, a hundred and twenty men aboard her by the Bermuda report and two of them saved. Private Shipyards and Victuallers, The London Merchant Networks, Samuel Bellamy, Whydah (Ouidah), Whydah Gally, Hurricanes and Wrecking
  5. The Act of Grace, the King's Pardon (1717 to 1718) The End of the Golden Age The royal proclamation for the suppressing of pirates, issued in the name of King George I on 5 September 1717, which offered a full pardon to any pirate who surrendered by 5 September 1718 to a Principal Secretary of State or to a colonial governor, set bounties on those who did not, and was enforced above all at Nassau in 1718 before a second proclamation of December 1718 extended the deadline to 1 July 1719 and widened the covered period forward to piracies committed before a man had notice of it. The Colonial Governor, The Privy Council and the Secretaries of State, The Royal Navy, Edward Thache (Blackbeard), John Rackham, Woodes Rogers, Bermuda, Charles Town (Charleston), Jamaica, Nassau / New Providence, The Bahamas, Naval Suppression and Its Tactics, Pirate Pardons, The End of the Golden Age
  6. Blackbeard's Blockade of Charles Town (1718) Blackbeard For roughly a week in late May 1718 a pirate flotilla under Blackbeard closed the sea approaches to Charles Town, South Carolina, and is reported to have released its hostages and left once the colony supplied a chest of medicines. Edward Thache (Blackbeard), Stede Bonnet, Beaufort Inlet (Topsail Inlet), Charles Town (Charleston), Ocracoke Inlet, Queen Anne's Revenge, Revenge, later Royal James, Disease and Shipboard Medicine
  7. The Grounding of the Queen Anne's Revenge (1718) Blackbeard On or about 10 June 1718, days after lifting his blockade of Charles Town, Blackbeard's flagship Queen Anne's Revenge, formerly the French slave ship La Concorde, grounded on the bar at Topsail Inlet (now Beaufort Inlet), North Carolina, and was lost, the sloop Adventure grounding and being lost with her; Blackbeard stripped the wrecks, marooned part of his company on a sandbar, departed with a smaller sloop and a hand picked crew, and took the King's Pardon from Governor Charles Eden at Bath, and whether the grounding was contrived to break up the company remains disputed between David Herriot's deposition and Captain Ellis Brand's report to the Admiralty. Edward Thache (Blackbeard), Beaufort Inlet (Topsail Inlet), Charles Town (Charleston), Ocracoke Inlet, Queen Anne's Revenge, Navigation and Seamanship, Pirate Pardons
  8. Woodes Rogers Takes Nassau (1718) The Republic of Pirates The week in July 1718 when Woodes Rogers came into the road at Nassau as royal governor of the Bahamas, Charles Vane fired a captured French ship to drive off HMS Rose and got away to sea with about ninety men, and the fort was taken into the King's hands and put back into repair. The House of Commons, Charles Vane, Woodes Rogers, Nassau / New Providence, Careening and the Haven Economy, Naval Suppression and Its Tactics, Pirate Ports and Informal Economies
  9. The Trial and Hanging of Stede Bonnet (1718) Blackbeard The capture of Major Stede Bonnet by Colonel William Rhett's South Carolina expedition at the Cape Fear River on 26 to 27 September 1718, his escape and recapture at Charles Town, his trial for piracy before Judge Nicholas Trott in the provincial Court of Vice-Admiralty in November 1718, and his hanging at White Point on 10 December 1718, a month after about twenty-nine of his crew were hanged on the same ground. The Colonial Vice-Admiralty Courts, Edward Thache (Blackbeard), Stede Bonnet, Barbados, Charles Town (Charleston), Nassau / New Providence, Ocracoke Inlet, Revenge, later Royal James, Death: Battle, Disease and the Gallows, Pirate Pardons, Recruitment: Volunteers and Forced Men, The Admiralty Courts, The End of the Golden Age, Trials, Evidence and Defence Rights
  10. The Ocracoke Fight Blackbeard The action at Ocracoke Inlet, 22 November 1718 (old style; 3 December new style), in which Blackbeard was killed by a Royal Navy party under Lieutenant Robert Maynard, sent from Virginia by Governor Alexander Spotswood. Colonial Militias and Private Defence, Private Shipyards and Victuallers, The Board of Admiralty, The Colonial Governor, The Royal Navy, Edward Thache (Blackbeard), Beaufort Inlet (Topsail Inlet), Ocracoke Inlet, Philadelphia, Adventure (Blackbeard's sloop), Naval Suppression and Its Tactics, Weapons and Gunnery
  11. Roberts and the Bahia Treasure Fleet (1719) Roberts and the Pirate War The raid of 1719 in which Bartholomew Roberts, newly elected to command after the death of Howell Davis, brought his ship in among a Portuguese homeward fleet of about forty-two sail lying in the Bay of All Saints at Bahia, forced a captured master to point out the richest ship present, and carried off a forty-gun merchantman laden with sugar, skins, tobacco, about 40,000 moidores in gold and a diamond-set cross made for the King of Portugal. Bartholomew Roberts, Cape Lopez, HMS Swallow, Crew Voting and Councils, Plunder, Shares and Compensation

1720s

  1. Roberts Sacks Trepassey (1720) Roberts and the Pirate War Bartholomew Roberts's raid on the Newfoundland migratory-fishery harbour of Trepassey in late June or early July 1720, on a day usually given as about 21 June, and the cruise on the Grand Banks that followed it. Bartholomew Roberts, Cape Lopez, Trepassey, HMS Swallow, Royal Fortune, Crew Voting and Councils
  2. The Capture of John Rackham (1720) The End of the Golden Age The taking of the pirate sloop William, commanded by John "Calico Jack" Rackham, off Negril Point in late October 1720 by Captain Jonathan Barnet, and the trials at St Jago de la Vega that condemned Rackham, hanged at Port Royal, and reprieved Anne Bonny and Mary Read. Colonial Militias and Private Defence, The Colonial Governor, Anne Bonny, John Rackham, Mary Read, Woodes Rogers, Jamaica, Nassau / New Providence, Port Royal, William, Alcohol, Food and Water at Sea, Pirate Pardons, The End of the Golden Age, Women at Sea
  3. The Trials of Rackham's Company The End of the Golden Age Vice-Admiralty proceedings at St Jago de la Vega that tried John Rackham's company (16 to 17 November 1720) and, separately, Mary Read and Anne Bonny (28 November 1720). The Colonial Governor, The Colonial Vice-Admiralty Courts, Anne Bonny, John Rackham, Mary Read, Havana, Jamaica, The Bahamas, William, Gender Disguise and Identity at Sea, The Admiralty Courts, Women at Sea
  4. Anstis Splits from Roberts (1721) Roberts and the Pirate War The night desertion of the brigantine Good Fortune under Thomas Anstis from Bartholomew Roberts's two-vessel squadron on 18 April 1721, made in the open Atlantic on the passage from the West Indies to Guinea and placed by the General History about 400 leagues from the coast of Africa; the date is corroborated independently of that printed narrative by the deserters' own round robin petition of 14 June 1722 to Sir Nicholas Lawes, Governor of Jamaica, which survives in the calendared colonial papers. Bartholomew Roberts, Antigua, Cape Lopez, Jamaica, Nassau / New Providence, HMS Swallow, Royal Fortune, Captain Election and Removal, Crew Voting and Councils, Mutiny and Desertion, Pirate Pardons
  5. The Battle of Cape Lopez (1722) Roberts and the Pirate War The single-ship naval action fought off Cape Lopez, on the coast of present-day Gabon, in which HMS Swallow under Captain Chaloner Ogle took Bartholomew Roberts's consort sloop Ranger on 5 February 1722 and then engaged his flagship Royal Fortune on 10 February 1722, killing Roberts early in the fight, by grapeshot to the throat on Johnson's account, capturing his company and carrying the survivors to Cape Coast Castle for trial; it is conventionally taken to mark the effective end of the Golden Age of Atlantic piracy. The Colonial Vice-Admiralty Courts, The Royal Navy, Bartholomew Roberts, Cape Coast Castle, Cape Lopez, Whydah (Ouidah), HMS Swallow, Ranger (Roberts's consort), Royal Fortune, Alcohol, Food and Water at Sea, Naval Suppression and Its Tactics, Race, Empire and Maritime Labour, The End of the Golden Age, Weapons and Gunnery
  6. The Cape Coast Trial and Executions, 1722 Roberts and the Pirate War The Vice-Admiralty court held at Cape Coast Castle (Cabo Corso) on the Guinea coast that tried the surviving crew taken from Roberts's ships. Of those brought before it, 74 were acquitted, 52 hanged, and 20 sentenced to seven years' servitude to the Royal African Company; 17 were referred to the Marshalsea in London. It was one of the largest mass executions of pirates of the Golden Age; the count of 52 hanged is Confirmed. Newgate, the Marshalsea and Admiralty Execution, The Board of Admiralty, The Colonial Vice-Admiralty Courts, The Royal African Company, The Royal Navy, Bartholomew Roberts, Antigua, Cape Coast Castle, Whydah (Ouidah), Ranger (Roberts's consort), Alcohol, Food and Water at Sea, Captain Election and Removal, Charts, Maps and Route Knowledge, Death: Battle, Disease and the Gallows, Disease and Shipboard Medicine, Hurricanes and Wrecking, Naval Impressment, Naval Suppression and Its Tactics, Navigation and Seamanship, Race, Empire and Maritime Labour, Recruitment: Volunteers and Forced Men, Religion and Providence at Sea, The Admiralty Courts, The End of the Golden Age, Trials, Evidence and Defence Rights, Weapons and Gunnery, Women at Sea
  7. The Final Anti-Piracy Campaigns (1726 to 1728) The End of the Golden Age The closing phase of the Atlantic anti-piracy suppression, running from roughly the spring of 1726 to the close of 1728, comprising the last colonial admiralty prosecution of a pirate company at Boston in July 1726, the disappearance of the residual captains, the making perpetual of the emergency piracy statute of 1721 in 1728, and the beginning of the legend trade. Bartholomew Roberts, Woodes Rogers, Boston, Jamaica, Nassau / New Providence, HMS Swallow, Mutiny and Desertion, Pirate Pardons, The End of the Golden Age
  8. The Mutiny and Execution of William Fly (1726) The End of the Golden Age The rising led by the boatswain William Fly aboard the Bristol snow Elizabeth on 27 May 1726, in which Captain John Green and the mate Thomas Jenkins were killed, the twenty-seven day cruise that followed under the renamed Fames Revenge, the retaking of the vessel by her forced men on 23 June, and the special Court of Admiralty at Boston on 4 and 5 July 1726 that acquitted twelve of sixteen prisoners and sent Fly, Samuel Cole and Henry Greenvill to the gallows on 12 July, Fly's body being hung in chains on Nick's Mate at the entrance of Boston harbour. Boston, Jamaica, Captain Election and Removal, Mutiny and Desertion, Navigation and Seamanship, The Admiralty Courts, The End of the Golden Age, Trials, Evidence and Defence Rights