Page 46 - The British Big Four

n 1684 the Spanish burned the settle- when they invaded and destroyed Charles other famous Bahamian pirates, Mary Read
and Anne Bonney. It is said they dressed
I ments on New Providence and Eleuthera, Town on the island of New Providence. The like men, fought like devils and were unsur-
after which they were largely abandoned. city was quickly rebuilt and named Nassau. passed in bravery. The Bahamas prospered
until the onset of the American Revolution-
New Providence was settled a second time W hen, at the Treaty of Riswick, in 1697, ary War, when both England and America
in 1686 by colonists from Jamaica. The con- comparative peace was restored took everything they could from the Baha-
flict existing between England and Spain mas to fight each other

afforded adventurers, chiefly English and among the European nations, England with- T o put an end to the ‘Pirates’ republic’
and restore orderly government, Britain
French, an excuse to make them a vantage drew her protection of the buccaneers, and made the Bahamas a crown colony in 1718
under the royal governorship of Woodes
ground from which to make depredations some returned to more peaceful avocations Rogers. The first Royal Governor, a former
pirate named Woodes Rogers, brought law
on Spanish shipping to and from the New (thus Morgan, a chief among them, retired and order to The Bahamas in 1718 when he
expelled the buccaneers who had used the
World, and the natural formation of the Ba- to Jamaica, and subsequently was appoint- islands as hideouts. He offered pardons to
all pirates who agreed to cease their opera-
hamas furnished them an excellent hiding ed governor of that island), while many oth- tions except for Blackbeard, Charles Vane,
and eight other swashbucklers. Blackbeard
place. During the seventeenth century the ers raised the black flag of piracy against all and Vane escaped, but Blackbeard was later
killed in June 1718 off the coast of Virginia.
islands were the rendezvous of the famous nations, and made the Bahamas a by-word

buccaneers. for lawlessness and crime.

I In 1684 Spanish corsair Juan de Alcon In 1703 a joint Franco-Spanish expedition
raided the capital, Charles Town (later re- briefly occupied the Bahamian capital dur-

named Nassau). By the mid 1660’s the area ing the War of the Spanish Succession. By

was periodically besieged by pirates such as 1700, Nassau was actually ruled by pirates,

Edward Teach (also known as Blackbeard), who chased off most of the law-abiding

Henry Morgan, and Calico Jack Rackham. citizens. Edward Teach, the notorious Black-

For nearly half a century these pirates, also beard, commandeered Fort Nassau as his

known as buccaneers, raided Spanish gal- residence and spent his time infuriating the

leys and the Spaniard’s fury erupted in 1695 British Royal Navy. This is not to slight two