A chronicle of rogues, raiders, and the ships they sailed.
From the buccaneers of Tortuga to the Republic of Pirates at Nassau, the Golden Age was a brief and bloody flowering of seafaring outlaws who terrorized the trade lanes of the Atlantic and Caribbean. This is their compendium.
Featured Entries
Selections of note
Edward Teach
Blackbeard
The most theatrical pirate of his age, whose smoldering beard and blockade of Charleston made him a legend before a Royal Navy boarding party ended him at Ocracoke.
Anne Bonny
She-Pirate of the Caribbean
An Irish-born woman who left her husband for Calico Jack Rackham, fought on the deck of his sloop in trousers and pistols, and vanished from the record after her capture in 1720.
Bartholomew Roberts
Black Bart
The most successful pirate of the Golden Age — a teetotal Welshman in damask waistcoats who took over four hundred prizes in three years before a Royal Navy broadside ended him off Cape Lopez.
Queen Anne's Revenge
Blackbeard's flagship
A French slave ship captured off Saint Vincent, refitted with forty guns, and run aground in Beaufort Inlet a year later — likely on purpose.
Battle of Ocracoke Inlet
The end of Blackbeard
A Royal Navy lieutenant and twenty-odd men in two unarmed sloops ran Edward Teach to ground in the shallows of the Outer Banks. He died on deck after twenty cuts and five musket balls.
Nassau
Republic of Pirates
From 1706 to 1718, the capital of the Bahamas was effectively under pirate self-rule — a free port where Blackbeard, Vane, Hornigold, and Bellamy laid in stores between cruises.
Sections of the Compendium
The Full Index
All entries
Edward Teach
Blackbeard
The most theatrical pirate of his age, whose smoldering beard and blockade of Charleston made him a legend before a Royal Navy boarding party ended him at Ocracoke.
Anne Bonny
She-Pirate of the Caribbean
An Irish-born woman who left her husband for Calico Jack Rackham, fought on the deck of his sloop in trousers and pistols, and vanished from the record after her capture in 1720.
Mary Read
The Soldier Who Turned Pirate
Raised disguised as a boy, she served as a foot soldier in Flanders before going to sea, falling in with Calico Jack's crew, and standing beside Anne Bonny when the navy came.
John Rackham
Calico Jack
A pirate of moderate success and considerable wardrobe, whose chief contribution to history was the company he kept — Anne Bonny, Mary Read, and the Jolly Roger that bore his name.
Bartholomew Roberts
Black Bart
The most successful pirate of the Golden Age — a teetotal Welshman in damask waistcoats who took over four hundred prizes in three years before a Royal Navy broadside ended him off Cape Lopez.
Henry Morgan
Privateer of Panama
The Welsh buccaneer who sacked Portobelo, burned Panama City, and was rewarded for it with a knighthood and the lieutenant-governorship of Jamaica.
Queen Anne's Revenge
Blackbeard's flagship
A French slave ship captured off Saint Vincent, refitted with forty guns, and run aground in Beaufort Inlet a year later — likely on purpose.
Whydah Gally
Black Sam Bellamy's prize
A slaver captured in February 1717 and lost to a storm off Cape Cod two months later. In 1984 she became the first fully authenticated pirate shipwreck ever recovered.
Battle of Ocracoke Inlet
The end of Blackbeard
A Royal Navy lieutenant and twenty-odd men in two unarmed sloops ran Edward Teach to ground in the shallows of the Outer Banks. He died on deck after twenty cuts and five musket balls.
Nassau
Republic of Pirates
From 1706 to 1718, the capital of the Bahamas was effectively under pirate self-rule — a free port where Blackbeard, Vane, Hornigold, and Bellamy laid in stores between cruises.
Port Royal
The wickedest city on earth
A buccaneer boomtown on a sandspit at the entrance to Kingston harbor — until the 1692 earthquake dropped two-thirds of it into the sea.
Tortuga
The buccaneers' island
A small turtle-shaped island north of Hispaniola whose rocky harbor and stubborn French-Dutch-English garrison made it the cradle of Caribbean piracy.