Pirates and Privateers

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof . . . .

The First Amendment of the Constitution guarantees religious freedom for all people who live in the United States. Inclusion of this right stems from the fact that the countries from which our ancestors hailed lacked this freedom. Each country practiced a state religion and its citizens were expected to adhere to that faith and pay that church’s taxes. Initially, most of Europe was Roman Catholic. During the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, men like Jan Hus and Martin Luther objected to some Church practices, which led to the Protestant Reformation. Of course, some citizens preferred to practice faiths other than the state religion, but they often encountered persecution because of this.

Jan Hus in 1587 woodcut by Christoph Murer (left) and Martin Luther 1528 portrait by Lucas Cranach the Elder (right)
(Sources: Wikimedia Commons and Wikimedia Commons)

The intersecting of religion and piracy and/or privateering took place over many centuries. At times these men and women championed their faith; at other times they rejected all parts of the state, of which religion was one aspect. Pirates of the first quarter of the eighteenth century fell into this latter category. They rejected any convention of the state, including religion, because they saw it as a way for the state to control and/or oppress the majority of its citizens. When Samuel Bellamy and his crew captured Captain Beer’s sloop in 1717, Bellamy explained:

. . . there is no arguing with such sniveling Puppies, who allow Superiors to kick them about Deck at Pleasure; and pin their Faith upon a Pimp of a Parson; a Squab, who neither practices nor believes what he puts upon the chuckle-headed Fools he preaches to. (Defoe, 587)

Only when faced with their own deaths at the hangman’s noose did some of these rogues return to the fold, oftentimes through the ministry of clergymen who visited them in jail with the hope of extracting their confessions and to offer them redemption for their sins and solace during the final moments of their lives prior to and during their executions. Perhaps the best known of these ministers was the Reverend Cotton Mather, who counseled men like William Fly, John Phillips, and John Quelch. Another such gentleman was the Reverend Paul Lorrain, the Ordinary (prison chaplain) at Newgate Gaol.

Cottonus Matheris (Cotton Mather) engraved by Peter Pelham in 1728 (Source: The Met)
The Pirate's End by George Albert Williams in 1813 (Source: Dover's Pirates)
Old Newgate Prison (Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Christopher Scudamore, the cooper in John Quelch’s crew, was convicted of piracy in Boston in 1704. He “requested an extra three days to say his prayers and study the scriptures. At the gallows, he sang the first part of the 31st Psalm through by himself.” (Travers, 48)

But what of earlier time periods? The Vikings often raided monasteries, but the primary target was the rich plunder contained within the walls of these centers, rather than because their beliefs conflicted with those of the Church. Symeon of Durham witnessed one such raid.

They came to the church of Lindisfarne, laid everything waste with rievous plundering, trampled the holy places with polluted feet, dug up the altars and seized all the treasures of the holy church. They killed some of the brothers; some they took away with them in fetters; many they drove out, naked and loaded with insults; and some they drowned in the sea.

In medieval times, religion played a crucial role in the Crusades. These holy wars pitted European Christians against Muslims of the Ottoman Empire. Both sides employed corsairs to attack enemy shipping and raid coastal villages. The Barbary corsairs came from Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli, and Salé along the northern coast of Africa. Whenever Janissaries, the warriors on Barbary ships, boarded an enemy vessel, the khodja (purser) “read out verses from the Koran in a loud voice”. (Earle, 44) The corsairs’ Christian counterparts came from religious orders, most notably the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem (eventually known as the Knights of Malta) and the Knights of St. Stephen. Livorno (also known as Leghorn) was a haven for Christian corsairs who sailed under the Duke of Tuscany’s flag. Sometimes their raids crossed that gray line between privateering and piracy, and both sides attacked friendly ships rather than just those of their enemies. According to documents dated 6 June and 11 June 1607, in the Venetian Calendar of State Papers, the duke “receives, shelters and caresses the worst of the English men who are proclaimed pirates by the King.”

Viking, Knights of St John of Jerusalem, and Barbary Corsair

Aside from the religious element of these wars, trade and politics also played important roles. Both sides sought not only wealth but also slaves. Jewish merchants played key roles in brokering sales of the captured men, women, and cargoes the corsairs on either side plundered. Redemptionist orders of Catholic priests assisted in negotiations with the rulers of the Barbary States to repatriate these captured people to their homelands. Other captives “turned Turk” (converted from Christianity to Islam) to escape slavery and gain wealth and prestige through plundering. Following the defeat of the Ottoman navy at the Battle of Lepanto in 1571, both Christian and Muslim privateers eventually devolved into pirates. Corsairs of the Knights of Malta continued to plunder Mediterranean trade until Napoleon landed on the island in 1798. The Barbary corsairs continued to plunder vessels into the first half of the nineteenth century.

Andries van Eertvelt's 1640 oil painting of The Battle of Lepanto (1571)
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Priests were more often than not the victims of piracy, rather than pirates themselves. One exception was Eustace the Monk (also known as The Black Monk). As a Benedictine, he became Count Renault of Boulogne’s administrator. The count accused Eustace of some crime; he fled to Jersey, one of the Channel Islands, and was declared an outlaw. He became a privateer in the employ of King John of England in 1205 and sailed the English Channel, demanding protection money from ships and attacking those who opted not to pay. In 1212 when his men attacked English towns, he fell out of favor with the English king and changed sides, becoming a privateer for Philip II of France. Five years later, English forces captured Eustace off the coast of Sandwich and executed him.ee

Death of Eustace the Monk during the Battle of Eustace by Matthew Paris, 1217
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

Pope Alexander VI divided the New World between Spain and Portugal in the Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494. This didn’t sit well with other European countries, especially after Jean Fleury (or Florin), a French privateer, captured three Spanish vessels in 1523 laden with

chests filled with Aztec gold, sparkling jewelry, and religious statues; precious jewels, including an emerald the size of a man’s fist; even a live jaguar in a cage. In all, the plunder was valued at more than 800,000 gold ducats – the equivalent of a staggering 234 million dollars today. (Konstam, World, 66)

This “find” confirmed rumors of the riches of the New World, which enticed the English, Dutch, and French to stake their claims on lands in the Caribbean and North and South America. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, these interlopers sailed as privateers or pirates, depending on whether the countries for which they sailed were at war or not with Spain.
 
Raids on Spanish vessels and holdings in the Caribbean became particularly prevalent from 1568 to 1603. While the primary goal of these pirates and privateers remained financial gain with minimal effort, religious zealotry also played a vital role in the attacks. English Sea Dogs, Dutch Sea Beggars, and French Huguenots championed the Protestant faiths against Spain, defender of Catholicism. One of the best known of the Sea Dogs was Sir Francis Drake, Queen Elizabeth I’s “pirate.”

[He] would have learned that salvation is a matter of absolute faith in God, and that his actions should stem from his faith. He would also have learned to despise the Catholic Church, its grasping, materialistic ways made visible in the fine altars of its cathedrals and the rich vestments of its clergy even as it ignored the poverty and anguish of the common man. (Dudley, 17)

Born around 1540, he lived in a Protestant England ruled by Henry VIII (1509-1547) and Edward VI (1547-1553). When Mary I ascended the throne on the death of her brother, Catholicism became the true religion of England once again and Protestants paid the price. During her reign, she sent many “heretics” to fiery deaths, which earned her the nickname, Bloody Mary. Her younger sister, Elizabeth, returned England to the Protestant faith of her father, and Drake was one of many privateers who zealously protected “God, Queen, and Country.”
 
In 1573, he and his men captured a mule train laden with more than fifteen tons of silver from Peruvian mines. Lacking the means to carry this haul back to the ships, he buried all but a few chests of gold that held 50,000 pieces of eight (valued at $6,000,000 in 2012). Four years later, Drake set off on a journey that took him around the world. A primary objective for this voyage was to plunder Spanish treasure on land and at sea. He attacked Valparaiso (Chile) where his men “desecrated a little chapel, stealing what they gleefully thought of as the superstitious paraphernalia it was decorated with.” (Coote, 147) His biggest prize was the Nuestra de la Concepción, an unarmed treasure galleon, which he captured in 1579.  She carried

coin chests filled with silver, gold bars, and over 26 tons of silver ingots. The total haul was estimated at 400,000 pieces-of-eight – the equivalent of $53 million today. At the time it represented about half of England’s annual income . . . (Konstam, World, 80)

While a hero in his own country, Drake was anything but to his victims. They considered him a “heretic and pirate,” and the Spaniards made no distinction between piracy and privateering.  In 1579, one of his men horrified their Spanish captives when he smashed a crucifix on a their ship before sending it into the ocean. While at Guatalco, he forced his prisoners, including a priest, to participate in a Protestant service. Eight years later, Thomas Cavendish desecrated the town’s church.

In April 1576, John Oxenham set out on a trading voyage, but by February of the following year, he had turned to piracy. In September, he and his men attacked the Pearl Islands off the coast of Panama. According to Spanish reports, there was “a furious outbreak of iconoclastic violence, with the destruction of images and crucifixes, and the public assault and humiliation of a friar, who was forced to wear a chamber pot on his head.” A later report cited the “castration of two Franciscan friars.” (Appleby, 133) This and other incidents, whether actual or rumor, led Spaniards to take drastic measures after capturing pirates. They eventually captured and executed Oxenham in Lima in November 1580.
 
Many of the French buccaneers were Huguenots, Protestants who were persecuted in their homeland and had fled to the Caribbean. Since Spain was the defender of the Catholic Church, the religion that had persecuted them, these men waged private wars against their enemy. One city these pirates sacked was Nombre de Dios in 1537. Four years later, they looted Margarita pearl farms. François le Clerc (also known as Jambe de Bois or Peg Leg) attacked villages along the coasts of Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. In 1554, he sacked Santiago de Cuba. One of his captains, Jacques de Sores, remained in the Caribbean after le Clerc returned to France. Sores laid siege to Havana in July 1555, eventually capturing it, plundering the houses and desecrating churches, then torching the city. When he captured a ship off the Canary Islands in 1570, he tossed forty Jesuits overboard, whether they were alive or dead. He also jettisoned any holy images, bibles, and relics he found about the Portuguese vessel.

Jacques de Sores and his men looting Havana
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)

 
In the early decades of the next century, Diego the Mulatto sailed with Cornelius Corneliszoon Jol (also known as Piede Palo or Wooden Leg) and Pierre le Grand. In 1637, Diego captured Thomas Gage, a Catholic priest from England, on his way to Havana. Since Diego’s mother resided there, he invited Gage to dinner and asked him “to remember him to her, and how that for her sake he had used well and courteously in what he did.” He also recited a Spanish proverb: Hoy por me, mañana for ti – Today for me, tomorrow for you. (Little, How, 81)

Jean le Vasseur, who oversaw Tortuga, a haven for the buccaneers, was a French Protestant with a great hatred for all things Catholic. When Spaniards fell into his hands, they “were likely to find themselves subjected to an Inquisition-like torture in one of his dungeons or cages (one of which he called ‘Purgatory’).” (Lane, 100) Although his primary motives for such treatment involved financial gain, perhaps religion played a small role in why he subjected these prisoners to such vile treatment.

In contrast, when Bertrand d’Ogeron became governor of Tortgua in 1665, he arranged for two priests to accompany a boatload of French maidens from France because he wanted the buccaneers to settle down. When the women came ashore, each buccaneer introduced himself and selected a willing woman. The priests then sanctified their union.

Laurens Prins, a Dutch corsair who sailed the Caribbean and South Sea, was more akin to le Vasseur in his treatment of Catholic clerics. In 1670, he attacked Granada prior to joining Henry Morgan on his voyage to sack Panama. After seizing control of Granada, Prins demanded a ransom of 70,000 pesos. “[H]e made havoc and a thousand destructions, sending the head of a priest in a basket and saying that he would deal with the rest of the prisoners in the same way,” according to a Spanish account. (Earle, 151)

The buccaneers often used Petit Goave as a safe haven. The first church was built there in 1670. In 1685, two Capuchin monks ministered to the Catholic residents. Few firsthand accounts, written either by the buccaneers themselves or their contemporaries, rarely mention how English buccaneers worshipped, but Basil Ringrose cited two instances in his journal. A comrade of William Dampier and Lionel Wafer, he wrote on 9 January 1681:

This day was the first Sunday that ever we kept by command and common consent since the loss and death of our valiant commander, Captain Sawkins. This generous-spirited man threw the dice overboard, finding them in use on the said day. (Esquemeling, 398)

Although French and English buccaneers formed alliances against Spanish towns and villages in the New World, religious differences sometimes caused problems. On one such expedition, Raveneau de Lussan, a flibustier and chronicler, noted that although the English pirates might observe the Sabbath and sing Psalms, they had

absolutely no scruples, when entering churches, against knocking down crucifixes with their sabres, firing guns and pistols, and breaking and mutilating the images of saints with their arms, scoffing at the veneration in which Frenchmen hold them. (Little, Buccaneer’s, 108)

In contrast, after de Lussan and his fellow flibustiers captured Granada, they marched to the cathedral and celebrated with a Te Deum. They also preferred to ask “God ardently for victory and silver” before any plundering endeavor. (Little, Buccaneer’s, 108)

Jean-Baptiste Labat, a Dominican priest who went to the Caribbean to replace one of the missionaries who had died during an epidemic, arrived in Martinique in 1694. In March of that year, he presided over mass at the behest of a flibustier captain and crew in the harbor of Saint-Pierre. He claimed that rather than desecrating Catholic relics, they “fired salvoes at appropriate points during his ceremony and a portion of their booty was donated to the Church.” (Marley, 672)
 
While Catholic buccaneers might treat those who had taken holy vows kindly, Ringrose wrote of one instance when his fellow English buccaneers did not.

That day we cried out all our pillage, and found that it amounted to 3,276 pieces-of-eight, which was accordingly divided by shares amongst us. We also punished a friar, who was chaplain to the bark aforementioned, and shot him upon the deck, casting him overboard before he was dead. (Esquemeling, 360)

Ringrose didn’t agree with this type of cruelty, but his opinion wasn’t strong enough to sway his comrades.

Alexandre Exquemelin, a pirate surgeon who wrote The Buccaneers of America, “reported that rovers prayed before eating – filibusters recited the Canticle of Zachariah, the Magnificat, and the Miserere, while the ‘pretended reformers’ (Huguenots, or most of the English and Dutch) read a chapter from the Bible and recited Psalms.” Such practices pertained only to the 1660s, because later periods of buccaneering make no mention of “formal religious practice.” (Little, Buccaneer’s, 108)

In the final decade of the seventeenth century, some pirates forsook the Caribbean and headed for the Indian Ocean to plunder ships carrying Muslims on their annual pilgrimage to Mecca. Darby Mullins was one of the few men who remained loyal to William Kidd and hanged with him in 1701. When he confessed to Ordinary Lorrain, prior to his death, this Irishman revealed “that he didn’t know that it was unlawful to plunder the ships of Moslems.” (Zacks, 386) Philip Gosse, a pirate historian, paraphrased Mullins’ words more succinctly:

. . . he went to New York, where he met Captain Kidd, and was, according to his own story, persuaded to engage in piracy, it being urged that the robbing only of infidels, the enemies of Christianity, was an act, not only unlawful, but one highly meritorious. (Gosse, 229)

When these ships returned to India, they carried vast amounts of silk, jewels, silver and gold. The greatest haul came in 1695 when Henry Every and his men captured Gang-i-Sawai, whose plundered treasure has been valued in excess of $1,000,000.

Captain Avery takes the Great Moghul's Ship by unknown artist
Close-up of Woodes Rogers in William Hogarth's painting of the governor and his family
(Sources: Dover's Pirates and Wikimedia Commons)

In 1709, Woodes Rogers sailed around the world on a privateering cruise. After rounding Cape Horn, he put in at Juan Fernandez Island where he found Alexander Selkirk. The privateer from William Dampier’s expedition had been marooned on the island for four and a half years. In his journal Rogers wrote:

[he] employ’d himself in reading, singing Psalms, and praying; so that he said he was a better Christian while in this Solitude than ever he was before, or than, he was afraid, he should ever be again. (Rogers, 72)

Years later, while attempting to persuade the pirates of New Providence to accept the king’s pardon and retire from plundering, Rogers included literature from the Society of the Promotion of Christian Knowledge as part of his arsenal. It probably wasn’t a particularly successful technique, but knowing the pirates easily outnumbered him, he could ill afford not to try any means necessary to achieve his goal.

Darby Mullins wasn’t the only one who thought there was nothing wrong with attacking non-Christian ships. In 1719, Turner Stevens, a gunner aboard George Shelvocke’s privateer Speedwell, suggested they sail for the Red Sea, rather than Spanish waters, because “there could be no harm in robbing the Mahometans, whereas the Spaniards were good Christians, whom it was a sin to injure.” (Shelvocke, 34) Shelvocke, however, heeded his letter of marque and attacked Spanish towns and vessels. Oftentimes when pirates failed to receive their ransoms, they torched the towns without caring what burned. When Shelvocke captured Payta in 1720, he didn’t want to burn the churches, but he did order his men to set fire to several houses in the town.

. . . the governor was determined not to ransom the town, and did not care what became of it, provided the churches were not burnt. Though I never had any intention to destroy any place devoted to divine worship, I answered that I should have no regard to the churches, or anything else, when I set the town on fire. . . . This seemed to make a great impression, and he promised to return in three hours with the money. (Shelvocke, 92)

Whereas English pirates of the previous century observed the Sabbath and sang Psalms, not so the pirates who followed Howell Davis. Captain William Snelgrave made their acquaintance in 1718 when they took his ship off Sierra Leone.

The execrable oaths and blasphemies I heard among the ship’s company, shocked me to such a degree, that in Hell its self I thought there could not be worse; for though many seafaring men are given to swearing and taking God’s name in vain, yet I could not have imagined human nature could ever so far degenerate, as to talk in the manner those abandoned Wretches did. (Konstam and Rickman, 36)

Nor were some pirates inclined to treat priests as the French corsairs of Martinique had done several decades earlier. Edward Low, not known for his kind treatment of prisoners (especially those audacious enough to fight back), reserved a special punishment for two friars taken in 1722 when he captured the galley Wright.

. . . because at first they shewed Inclinations to defend themselves and what they had, the Pyrates cut and mangled them in a barbarous Manner; particularly some Portuguese Passengers, two of which being Friers, they triced up at each Arm of the Fore-Yard, but let them down again before they were quite dead, and this they repeated several Times out of Sport. (Defoe, 324)

In June of that year, Philip Ashton became another captive of Ned Low’s. In his memoir of his time with the pirates, he frequently attributed the saving of his life to God’s intervention. He also noted that “every thing that had the least face of Religion and Virtue was entirely banished.” (Rediker, Between, 176)

What of pirates in other parts of the world? Jean-Baptiste Tavernier, a French traveler, recounted a tale involving Malabaris, pirates who preyed in Indian waters. They were Muslims with little tolerance for Christians.

I have seen a Barefoot Carmelite Father who had been captured by these pirates. In order to obtain his ransom speedily, they tortured him to such an extent that his right arm became half as short as the other, and it was the same with one leg. (Little, Pirate, 240)

Unlike their western counterparts, Chinese pirates never became enmeshed in religious conflicts. They prayed to dieties, called Joss, before sailing. Zhang Bao, who was Zheng Yi Sao’s lover and husband after the death of his adopted father, had a temple constructed aboard his flagship. He and his men gathered before each venture and burned incense and sought signs that each would succeed. They frequently visited temples whenever they were ashore and donated to the priests who tended the temples.

The pirates frequently stopped at the Hui-chou’s temple, made famous because its deity was noted for miracles. Legend says several pirates decided to take the idol with them, but were unable to remove it from the pedestal upon which it sat. At least not until Zhang Bao touched it. Once he did, they had no problem transporting it to their junks.

Chinese war junks in 1857
(Source: Dover's Nautical Illustrations)

Although the gods frequently indicated Zhang Bao’s plans would succeed, every once in awhile, they did not. On one occasion, his junk anchored near four guardhouses made out of mud where he waited for two days. One the third, the forts defending the town fired on him, but he never returned fire because the Joss indicated he would fail in this endeavor. At another time in 1809, he lost 300 men in an attack. So he consulted the Joss, which recommended he retreat. The day after Zhang Bao ceased the attack, strong winds permitted his men to break through the blockade and sail away.

In 1858, Fanny Loviot published an account of her capture by and time with Chinese pirates near Hong Kong. In this book she described their evening prayer ceremony.

Every junk . . . is furnished with an altar. On this altar they burn small wax-lights, and offer up oblations of meat and drink. They pray every night at the same hour, and begin with a hideous overture played upon gongs, cymbals, and drums covered with serpent skins.
 
First of all, I saw a young Chinese come forward with two swords, which he stuck upright in the very centre of the deck. Beside these he then placed some saucers, a vase filled with liquid, and a bundle of spills, made of yellow paper, and intended for burning. A lighted lantern was next suspended to one of the masts, and the chief fell upon his knees before the shrine.  After chanting for some time, he took up the vase and rank; and next proceeded, with many gesticulations, to chink a lot of coins and medals together in his hands. The paper spills were then lighted and carried round and round the swords, as if to consecrate them. These ceremonies completed, the captain rose from his knees, came down to the after-part of the junk, waved the burning papers to and fro, and threw them solemnly into the sea. The gongs and drums were now played more loudly, and the chief seemed to pray more earnestly than ever; but as soon as the last paper was dropped, and the last spark extinguished, the music ceased, the prayer came to an end, and the service was over. Altogether it had taken quite twenty minutes . . . . (Loviot, 110-111)

After reading these examples, one soon comes to the conclusion that not all pirates forsook their beliefs in a higher power. Some were immoral. Others zealously championed their faiths. Still others strayed from a righteous path until faced with death. To depict all pirates as godless men contradicts reality. It is also inaccurate to say that regardless of the time period religion has little to do with piracy. Before these men (and women) go on the account, religion plays an important role in their daily lives. Just because they become pirates doesn’t negate its impact on them. William Fly, who stands trial for piracy in 1726, has several conversations with the Reverend Cotton Mather, who wishes for Fly to confess his sins. Mather wants Fly to forgive the man who betrays him and equates malice against someone as being as great a sin as lying. Fly indicates that to forgive will be wrong: “I won’t dy with a Lye in my mouth.” (Mather, 16) As Emily Collins points out in her senior thesis on religion and piracy in the eighteenth century, sometimes a pirate does believe but perhaps not according to the tenets of a particular religion:

Fly continued to illustrate his piety when he stated that he read The Converted Sinners book, about piety, before he was brought in and convicted . . . . At the same time he stated this, Fly was holding the Bible in his hands. Even though Fly never confessed to being a pirate or repented his sins before his final hour, it is quite apparent through his dialogue that he was a man who did have knowledge and respect of religion. (Collins, 8)

For additional information, please see:

Antony, Robert J. Pirates in the Age of Sail. W. W. Norton, 2007.
Appleby, John C. Under the Bloody Flag. The History Press, 2009.

Bromley, J. S. “Outlaws at Sea, 1660-1720: Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity among the Caribbean Freebooters” in Bandits at Sea edited by C. R. Pennell. New York University, 2001.

Collins, Emily E. Eyes on God and Gold: The Importance of Religion during the Golden Age of Caribbean Piracy. [unpublished thesis] University of North Carolina, 2004.
Coote, Stephen. Drake. Thomas Dunne, 2003.
Cordingly, David. Under the Black Flag. Random House, 1995.

Defoe, Daniel. A General History of the Pyrates. Dover, 1999.
Dudley, William G. Drake: For God, Queen, and Plunder. Brassey’s, 2003.

Earle, Peter. The Pirate Wars. Thomas Dunne, 2003.
Esquemeling, John. The Buccaneers of America. Rio Grande Press, 1992.

Gosse, Philip. The Pirates’ Who’s Who. Rio Grande Press, 1924.
Greene, Molly. Catholic Pirates and Greek Merchants. Princeton, 2010.

Kinkor, Kenneth J. “Black Men under the Black Flag” in Bandits at Sea edited by C. R. Pennell. New York University, 2001.
Konstam, Angus. Piracy: The Complete History. Osprey, 2008.
Konstam, Angus. The World Atlas of Pirates. Lyons Press, 2009.
Konstam, Angus, and David Rickman. Pirate: The Golden Age. Osprey, 2011.

Lane, Kris E. Pillaging the Empire. M. E. Sharpe, 1998.
Little, Benerson. The Buccaneer’s Realm. Potomac, 2007.
Little, Benerson. How History’s Greatest Pirates Pillaged, Plundered, and Got Away with It. Fair Winds Press, 2011.
Little, Benerson. Pirate Hunting. Potomac, 2010.
Loviot, Fanny. A Lady’s Captivity among Chinese Pirates. National Maritime Museum, 2008.

Magnus Magnusson. Vikings! E.P. Dutton, 1980.
Marley, David F. Pirates of the Americas. ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Mather, Cotton. The Vial Poured Out Upon the Sea . . . . Boston, 1726.
Murray, Dian H. Pirates of the South China Coast 1790-1810. Stanford, 1987.

Rediker, Marcus. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea. Cambridge, 1999.
Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations. Beacon Press, 2004.
Rogers, Woodes. A Cruising Voyage Round the World. Narrative Press, 2004.
Rose, Jamaica, and Captain Michael MacLeod. The Book of Pirates. Gibbs Smith, 2010.

Sanders, Richard. If a Pirate I Must Be . . . . Skyhorse, 2007.
Shelvocke, George. A Privateer’s Voyage Round the World. Seaforth, 2010.

Thomas, Graham A. Pirate Hunter. Pen & Sword, 2009.

Weiss, Gillian. Captives and Corsairs. Stanford, 2011.

Zacks, Richard. The Pirate Hunter. Hyperion, 2002.

 

Copyright © 2012 by Cindy Vallar

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