Samuel Bellamy
Samuel Bellamy (a.k.a. Black Sam)
You are a devilish conscience rascal! I am a free prince, and I have as much authority to make war on the whole world as he who has a hundred sail of ships at sea and an army of 100,000 men in the field; and this my conscience tells me! But there is no arguing with such snivelling puppies, who allow superiors to kick them about deck at pleasure. - Captain Bellamy
Samuel Bellamy joined the Royal Navy in his youth, serving in several battles. According to lore, in 1715, Samuel traveled to Cape Cod and had an affair with a local beauty, Goody Hallett: the "Witch of Wellfleet". They had a child together, but the baby died.
He left Cape Cod with a few men to search for a lost treasure fleet in 1716. The treasure hunters apparently met with little success, as they soon turned to piracy in the crew of pirate captain Benjamin Hornigold, who commanded the Marianne with his first mate, the soon to become famous Edward Teach (Blackbeard).
In the summer of 1716, the crew became irritated by Hornigold's unwillingness to attack ships of England, his home country. By a majority vote of the crew, Hornigold was deposed as captain of the Marianne and left the vessel with his loyal followers, including Teach. The remaining 90-man crew then elected Bellamy as captain.
Bellamy had a reputation for being generous and merciful. His capture of the famous galleon the Whydah made one of the first documentation of a history of pirates. However, his success was short-lived. The Whydah was swept up in a violent nor'easter storm off Cape Cod at midnight, on April 26, 1717, and was driven onto the sandbar shoals in 16 feet of water some 500 feet from the coast of what is now Wellfleet, Massachusetts. At 15 minutes past midnight, the masts snapped and drew the heavily loaded ship into 30 feet of water where she capsized and quickly sank, taking Bellamy and all but two of the Whydah's 145-man crew with her.
Nine survivors of the wreck were prosecuted for piracy in Boston and seven were hung. Two were set free.
Vessels
- Postillion
- Sloop Marianne
- Pinque Mary Anne
- Sultana Galley
- Whydah Galley - At the time of capture it was built in England in 1715 as a state-of-the-art, 300-ton, 102-foot-long (31 m) English slave ship with 18 guns, and with speeds of up to 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph), the Whydah was on its maiden voyage in 1716 and had just finished the second (Africa to Caribbean) leg of the Atlantic slave trade, loaded with a fortune in gold, indigo, Jesuit's bark, ivory and other precious trade goods from the sale of 312 slaves
- Anne
- Fisher
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