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The Golden Age of Piracy’s Most Terrifying Pirates

Khalid Elhassan March 7, 2025 16 min

Piracy - A Tortuga buccaneer — A Tortuga buccaneer. Wikimedia

17. John Avery in the Indian Ocean

A proclamation by the Privy Council of Scotland offering a £500 for the capture of John Avery – a reward that went unclaimed. National Library of Scotland

After his first act of piracy, Avery sailed into the Indian Ocean and arrived in Madagascar in 1695. There, he had the Fancy refitted and modified for speed. Soon thereafter he seized a French ship, and convinced 40 of its sailors to join him. Eventually, with a crew of about 150 men, he sailed north towards the Red Sea, to intercept the Indian Mughal fleet as it returned from the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The Mughal fleet was the Indian Ocean’s greatest prize, and its capture promised to yield fabulous riches. Avery joined forces with five other pirate ships, and on September 7^th, 1695, they spotted their target, a 25-ship Mughal convoy.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.