- HENRY MORGAN
Sir Henry Morgan is a Welsh caper known as the leader of pirates in the Caribbean.
He ruled the Caribbean in the mid-17th century, targeting the Spanish colony of Panama. He is one of the few pirates who managed to retire and keep the loot.
It is known for its extremely daring and successful raids on Spanish cities in the region (Panama, Maracaibo and others), at a time when a peace treaty was in force between Spain and Britain.
In 1674, the British king Charles II gave him a knighthood, and the following year Morgan became vice-governor of Jamaica.
The rum brand is named after him.
2. BARTHOLOMEW ROBERTS
Bartholomew Roberts, born John Roberts, was a Welsh pirate and the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy taking over 400 prizes in his career. Roberts raided ships off the Americas and the West African coast between 1719 and 1722; he is also noted for creating his own Pirate Code, and adopting an early variant of the Skull and Crossbones flag. Roberts’ infamy and success saw him become known as The Great Pyrate and eventually as Black Bart and made him a popular subject for writers of both fiction and non-fiction.
3. THOMAS TEW
Thomas Tew was also known as the Rhode Island Pirate, was a 17th-century English privateer-turned-pirate. He embarked on two major pirate voyages and met a bloody death on the second, and he pioneered the route which became known as the Pirate Round. The course led from the western Atlantic, parallel to the Cape Route around the southern tip of Africa, stopping at Madagascar, then on to targets such as the coast of Yemen and India.
Many other infamous pirates followed in his path, including Henry Every and William Kidd.
4. HENRY EVERY
Henry Every, also known as Henry Avery, was an English pirate who operated in the Atlantic and Indian oceans in the mid-1690s. He probably used several aliases throughout his career, including Benjamin Bridgeman, and was known as Long Ben to his crewmen and associates.
5. EDWARD TEACH “BLACKBEARD”
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain’s North American colonies. Little is known about his early life, but he may have been a sailor on privateer ships during Queen Anne’s War before he settled on the Bahamian island of New Providence, a base for Captain Benjamin Hornigold. Hornigold placed him in command of a sloop that he had captured, and the two engaged in numerous acts of piracy.
6. CALICO JACK
John Rackham, commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and in Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the calico clothing that he wore, while Jack is a nickname for “John“. Rackham was active towards the end (1718–1720) of the “Golden Age of Piracy“. He is most remembered for having two female crew members: Mary Read and his lover, Anne Bonny.
7. WILLIAM KIDD
William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd, was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and had experience as a pirate. He was tried and executed in London in 1701 for murder and piracy. Kidd had captured a French ship, commanded by an English captain, as a prize. He had been commissioned by the Crown as a privateer for this expedition, but the political climate of England turned against him in this case. Some modern historians, for example Sir Cornelius Neale Dalton, deemed his piratical reputation unjust and said that he was acting as a privateer. Documents found in the early 20th century in London court papers supported Kidd’s account of his actions.