Why Stede Bonnet Was The Gentleman Pirate

#pirates #piratehistory #stedebonnet

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Pirates! The enemy of all humanity.

These are the words used by law which showed the utter disdain towards those committing acts of piracy in the age of sail.

From the mid-17th to the early 18th centuries, pirates plagued the high seas, ranging from the Caribbean to the Indian Ocean. Capturing richly laden ships and plundering wealthy coastal towns, they took innumerable quantities of treasure for themselves.

At a time when legal employment offered little in return for a harsh life at sea, many experienced captains and sailors turned to piracy thinking that they had nothing left to lose but everything in the world to gain in the pursuit of adventure and riches.

Although many achieved little more than an untimely end at the hangman’s noose, a plucky few struck it rich and, in the process, forged legends for themselves.

But who were these daring and notorious sea robbers, who sailed the world’s oceans during the last great golden age of piracy?

This is the history of Stede Bonnet.

Stede Bonnet (1688 – 10 December 1718) was an early 18th-century English/Barbadian pirate, also known as the Gentleman Pirate for the reason that he was a moderately wealthy landowner before turning to a life of crime. Bonnet was born into a wealthy English family on the island of Barbados, and inherited the family estate after his father's death in 1694. Despite his lack of sailing experience, Bonnet decided he should turn to piracy in the winter of 1716 or spring of 1717. He bought a sailing vessel, the Revenge, and travelled with his paid crew along the Eastern Seaboard of what is now the United States, capturing other vessels and burning other Barbadian ships.

Bonnet set sail for Nassau in the Bahamas, to the haven for pirates known as the "Republic of Pirates", but he was seriously wounded en route during an encounter with a Spanish warship. After arriving in Nassau, Bonnet met Edward Teach, better known as the infamous pirate Blackbeard. Incapable of leading his crew, Bonnet temporarily ceded his ship's command to Blackbeard. Before separating in December 1717, Blackbeard and Bonnet plundered and captured merchant ships along the East Coast. After Bonnet failed to capture the Protestant Caesar, his crew abandoned him to join Blackbeard aboard the Queen Anne's Revenge. Bonnet stayed on Blackbeard's ship as a guest, and did not command a crew again until summer 1718, when he was pardoned by North Carolina governor Charles Eden and received clearance to undertake privateering against Spanish shipping interests. Bonnet was tempted to resume his piracy but did not want to lose his pardon, so he adopted the alias "Captain Thomas" and changed his ship's name to Royal James. He had returned to piracy by July 1718.

In August 1718, Bonnet anchored Royal James on an estuary of the Cape Fear River to careen and repair the ship. In late August and September, Colonel William Rhett, with the authorization of South Carolina's governor Robert Johnson, led a naval expedition against pirates on the river. Rhett's and Bonnet's men engaged in combat for hours, but the outnumbered pirates ultimately surrendered. Rhett arrested the pirates and brought them to Charles Town (now Charleston, South Carolina) in early October. Bonnet escaped on 24 October, but was soon recaptured on Sullivan's Island. On 10 November, Bonnet was brought to trial and charged with two acts of piracy. Judge Nicholas Trott sentenced him to death. Bonnet wrote to Governor Johnson to ask for clemency, but Johnson endorsed the judge's decision, and Bonnet was hanged in Charles Town on 10 December 1718.

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