Pirates ran riot in the North Atlantic and Indian Ocean in The Golden Age of Piracy, circa 1650s to 1720s. The era is subdivided into three phases. The Buccaneering Period, circa 1650 to 1680, was dominated by Anglo-French pirates who preyed mostly on Spanish settlements and shipping in the Caribbean. Then came the Pirate Round in the 1690s, which saw a spike in Indian Ocean and Red Sea attacks. Finally came the Post-Spanish-Succession period, from 1715 to 1726, dominated by English privateers and sailors who found themselves unemployed at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, and turned to piracy. They fell with a will upon shipping in the Caribbean, North American eastern seaboard, and African coasts. Below are nineteen fascinating but lesser known facts about some of the Golden Age of Piracy’s scariest pirates.
19. History’s Luckiest Pirate?
John Avery (circa 1655 – disappeared 1699), also known as Henry Every, Long Ben, and Captain Bridgeman, was one of history’s luckiest pirates. Not only did he successfully pull off one of the most lucrative heists in the history of piracy, Avery was one of the few major pirates not killed in battle or arrested and executed. Instead, he reportedly managed to escape clean, and retire with his loot. Daniel Defoe modeled the hero of his 1720 novel, Life, Adventures, and Pyracies, of the Famous Captain Singleton, after Avery. His life also inspired a popular play, The Successful Pyrate, about a fortunate outlaw of the sea who manages to retire after one year of piracy, and lives the rest of his life under an assumed name as a wealthy man.
