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The Real Pirates of the Caribbean

Khalid Elhassan January 7, 2020 32 min

20. Piracy’s Greatest Heist

Henry Avery entering the quarters of the Mughal Emperor’s daughters, who was captured along with the Ganj-i-Sawai. Wikimedia

Capturing £60,000 from Mughal ship only whetted the appetite of Henry Avery and his crew. Soon as they secured that bit of loot, they resumed their chase of the Mughal fleet, and caught up with its flagship, the Ganj-i-Sawai – a formidable vessel, sporting 62 guns and carrying 500 musket men.

After an hours-long ferocious fight, during which the Mughal captain panicked and fled to hide below decks among concubines, the Pirates prevailed. After securing the vessel, Avery and his crew went on a days-long orgy of rape and torture. The loot from the Ganj-i-Sawai came to about £600,000 pounds in gold, silver, precious metals and goods. It was the largest single haul ever scored by a pirate.

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.