Member-only story
The Gentleman Pirate
Meet the man who became a pirate on a whim and ended up being a cohort to Blackbeard.
In the spring of 1717, Stede Bonnet sailed from Barbados with a brand new ship and fresh crew never to return. He had decided that he was going to try his hand at piracy. The pursuit of thievery on the high seas was not uncommon during this time period. However, how Stede Bonnet would pursue these goals was exceedingly unusual and continues to be a one of a kind feat to this day.
During this time, all of the classical pirates had backgrounds in sailing. They were all men of the sea. Whether they began as privateers who overstepped their mandates, or as disgruntled merchants tired of risking their wares, all of them were sailors. All of them save for Stede Bonnet. Mr. Bonnet had no known history of sailing and had never owned a ship until he purchased the one he intended to use as his pirate vessel. He was a planter by trade and a major on the island of Barbados. His contemporaries knew him as a wealthy and educated man with no criminal past and no knowledge of the sea. Yet, on that fateful day in 1717, he changed all of that forever.
