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The Real Pirates of the Caribbean

Khalid Elhassan January 7, 2020 32 min

11. Joining Piracy’s Big Names

Early in his piratical career, Black Sam Bellamy fell in with captain Benjamin Hornigold and his first mate Blackbeard of the Marianne. In 1716, Hornigold’s refusal to attack English ships led his crew to vote him out as captain, and kick him and Blackbeard off the ship. Bellamy, who had none of Hornigold’s compunctions about preying on English vessels, was elected captain in his stead.

Black Sam’s biggest haul was the Whydah Gally, which he overtook on its maiden voyage after a three day chase, and captured it with a rich haul of gold, ivory, indigo, and other high value goods. Upgrading the Whydah Gally with extra cannon and turning it into his flagship, Bellamy then fell upon the shipping lanes to the Carolinas and New England, and feasted.

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.