The End of Piracy: Pirates hanged in Boston 300 years ago

 

Today marks the 300^th anniversary of the execution of the Whydah pirates in Boston, Massachusetts, marched from their Boston jail to the gallows and hanged for their crimes of piracy.

No less a person than Puritan minister Cotton Mather recorded the day of the execution in his diary:

 “15. G. D. There is good this Day to be done, on a very solemn Occasion. Six Pirates were this Day executed. I took a long and sad walk with them, from the Prison, to the Place of Execution. I successively bestowed the best Instructions I could, upon each of them. Arriving to the Tree of Death, I pray’d with them, and with the vast Assembly of Spectators, as pertinently and as profitably as I could.”

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Not much is known about young Samuel Bellamy, also known as Black Bellamy, the captain of the Whydah. Bellamy and his crew captured the three hundred ton merchant slaver Whydah as it left Jamaica on route to London in late February or early March of 1717. The ship originally had 18 guns but the crew mounted an additional ten, making it a formidable sight for any vessel to which it gave chase. According to one of the pirates, John Brown, they had about 20,000 pounds in gold and silver aboard the Whydah from “a-pyrating.” Bellamy brought his fleet to the outer shores of Cape Cod, legend says, to see a beautiful young lady by the name of Maria Hallett, whom he fell in love with on the dunes of Eastham the year before. If Maria truly did exist, we do not have a historical record; but it is more likely that the pirates came north to trade their plunder (desirable illicit goods) with eager merchants in Newport, Connecticut, New York, and Boston.

The Whydah sank off the shore of Cape Cod the night of April 26^th, 1717. When the storm rose up that caught the Whydah off the coast of the Cape, the ship was driven onto the shoals and it soon became apparent the Whydah would not survive. Thirty foot waves destroyed the ship and drowned almost all of the pirates and their prisoners. The next morning inhabitants of the nearby towns discovered on the beach the gruesome sight – countless gnarled bodies washed ashore by the tides along with wreckage from the ship – which would haunt them for years. At least 102 bodies washed up on shore.

This was the fate of Captain Bellamy and his pirate crew, except for seven survivors who were arrested and sent to Boston for trial. One of the seven, Thomas Davis, was found innocent and released, then disappears from record. The other six men were found guilty of piracy through trial: John Brown, Simon Van Vorst, Hendrick Quintor, Thomas Baker, Peter Hoof and John Shuan.

 

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Cotton Mather went often to visit, study, instruct and ultimately try to provide salvation for the pirates in their Boston jail. It seems the good minister was thoroughly intrigued by these ‘sinners’, and to our great benefit, for without his writings about the fates of the Whydah pirates we would have little record.

After the execution, Mather wrote Instructions to the living, from the condition of the dead : A brief relation of remarkables in the shipwreck of above one hundred pirates, who were cast away in the ship Whido, on the coast of New-England, April 26. 1717. And in the death of six, who after a fair trial at Boston, were convicted & condemned, Octob. 22. And executed, Novemb. 15. 1717. With some account of the discourse had with them on the way to their execution. And a sermon preached on their occasion. [Boston, Printed by John Allen, for Nicholas Boone, at the sign of the Bible in Cornhill. 1717]

 

Thanks to this pamphlet – available here in the collection of the Massachusetts Historical Society – we have the conversations and words of the pirates themselves. Mather published his Instructions to the living, from the condition of the dead… a mere month after the execution, perhaps to appease the great curiosity the pirates had caused, while also using the event as an opportunity to teach his flock. Mather again revisited the subject in his sermon “Warnings to Them that Make Haste to be Rich” on 8 December 1717.

So why did Cotton Mather go to meet with these pirates and why did he put so much thought into their state? He was, for all intents and purposes, interviewing dead men tried, and as Mather clearly stated, “after a fair trial,” convicted and sentenced to death. So here he writes “What may be offere’d, is, A Recollection of Several Passages, which occurred in discourse with the prisoners, while they walked from the prison to the Place of Execution.”

 

Oh my, can you imagine walking to your execution, your last moments on this earth, while Cotton Mather asks you questions? Perhaps Mather saw this as an opportunity for himself; after all there was nothing more wretched in all the world than a pirate and if he, the great moral ballast of the colonies, could save their souls, well, there would certainly be Puritan brownie points to be earned!

Mather ends his account with “Behold, Reader, the End of Piracy!”

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Most Bostonians today would be surprised to learn that a few hundred years ago Boston was known as a “Port Where Pirates Hang.” Even more surprising is how we got that reputation because, indeed, we hanged pirates, and yes, they were an actual problem! So the next time you watch Pirates of the Caribbean or celebrate “Talk like a Pirate Day,” think no further than the streets of Boston!

 

For more on Cotton Mather materials here at the MHS, start with this online collection guide for the Cotton Mather papers view our collection guide, then consider Visiting the Library!

 

Gertrude Codman Carter’s Diary, November 1917

Today we return to the 1917 diary of Gertrude Codman Carter. You may read the previous entries here:

Introduction | January | February | March | April | May

June | July | August | September | November | December

 

We are nearing the end of Gertrude’s year as a featured diarist at The Beehive. While the month of November 1917 began with “great fun” and a whirl of social activities, it ended under a dark cloud as the Carters found out that one of Sir Gilbert Carter’s sons from his previous marriage was killed on November 28th, 1917 when a German submarine torpedoed a boat, the Apapa, on which he was traveling as a passenger. “Today should have alas had a dark cloud had I known it for the war was to cast yet another shadow on our lives,” writes Gertrude as she gathers her thoughts and fills in her diary pages.

In December, I will be closing out this year of reading alongside Gertrude Codman Carter as she chronicled her life as an upper-class white woman in British colonial Barbados one hundred years ago. Stay tuned for a new diary read-along in January 2018!

 

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Nov. 1

Laddie took me out to Spion Kop to swim. Great fun & as always amusing. We went on to the Charles Sealys afterward & danced. [Illegible] haze of tobacco spoke & little Laurie John on the table as a center piece. “What use is water, when you’re dry - dry - dry -” An appalling but amusing ditty on the gramophone. And Nell Manning being pulled as she swam, by a boatman in a wherry.

 

Nov. 2

To Sweet Park to Help.

 

Nov. 3

Great Eastern fete. Huge success.

Lady Probyn gave a big dinner party & I gave a supper party.

 

Nov. 4

 

Nov. 5

To Park cleaning up.

To Charlie Hayes to sketch baby.

 

Nov. 6

Tea at St. Anne’s to meet the new Mrs Hancock.

 

Nov. 7

1. Help Society

Government House tennis tournament.

 

Nov. 22

Savannah Club meeting of [illegible].

 

Nov. 23

Burtons party to meet the Hancocks.

 

Nov. 24 [numbered but left blank]

 

[Nov. 25]

Chart of [illegible].

 

Nov. 26

To swim with L. at the Sealeys.

 

Today should have alas had a dark cloud had I known it for the war was to cast yet another shadow on our lives.

 

Nov. 29

[Illegible] all to tea with the [illegible] boat men. Most amusing.

 

Nov. 30

Church parade at St. Mary’s a depressing one.

 

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As always, if you are interested in viewing the diary or letters yourself, in our library, or have other questions about the collection please visit the library or contact a member of the library staff for further assistance.

 

 

"...a calm prophetic of, we knew not what." : Tornadoes in New England

Recently while in the stacks here at the MHS I happened upon a small collection of photographs that were in a folder labeled "Lawrence (Mass) tornado photographs, 1890." With only enough time to take a brief look, I made a mental note of the title so that I could find out more. 

I grew up in the Midwest - central Illinois, to be more precise - where the idea of a tornado popping-up is not an uncommon thought. In grade school, along with the normal fire drills we also participated in tornado drills; every first Tuesday morning a siren sounded, crescendoed to a wail for several minutes, then slowly subsided - the monthly test of the tornado siren; and we all learned about using roadside ditches and highway overpasses for cover if a twister appeared while traveling. I was never personally affected by a tornado during my years out in the middle, but there were numerous occasions when the white "W" on the TV screen would switch to yellow (from Watch to Warning), and then I and whomever else was in the house would head to the basement to wait for the storm to pass. As a college student in New Hampshire, my parents sent me photographs of the damage done by a tornado that cut a path across our town, even passing through the backyard of my childhood home. Thankfully, they already lived elsewhere, though only a half-mile down the road. 

Back to the present. After I spotted the photos of Lawrence, Mass. damaged by a tornado, I went to our online catalog, ABIGAIL, to see what else we hold that is similar. Below are a few samples of the texts and images I found for some specific events. 

 

Providence, Rhode Island - 1815

Although referred to as a tornado in the broadside below, the Great September Gale of 1815 seems to have been a hurricane that made landfall in New York and proceeded north through New England. Rhode Island seems to be the area that received the brunt of this storm, though the eye is said to have passed straight through central Massachusetts and into New Hampshire.¹

Oh wo, wo, desolation, lamentations, mourning and wo! Alas, alas!

What wrecks of ruins, what scenes of havoc and distress!

(Jenkins, J., "Description of the tornado, September 23, 1815 : dedicated to the inhabitants of the United States.")

 

Middlesex County, Massachusetts - 1851

Published in 1852, The Tornado of 1851, in Medford, West Cambridge and Waltham, Middlesex County, Mass. compiled anecdotal accounts to provide a picture of the course, speed, and power of this tornado. Also included are reports produced by various committees that estimated the cost of the damage. If you have ever been in an area where a tornado is imminent, then the description of this mid-19th-century event by Rev. Charles Brooks may seem familiar:

The state of the atmosphere from sunrise to the time of the tornado, on August 22d, was peculiar. Many spoke of a dead closeness, a remarkable want of elasticity in the air. Many complained of lassitude from this cause. Clouds gathered; and there were appearances of wind approaching; but it did not come. For an hour before the tornado, there was here almost a perfect calm; yet it was a calm prophetic of, we knew not what. An old sea-captain told his wife, at 4 o'clock, P.M., that "if he was at sea he should expect a waterspout." (p.5)

 

They, who, like us, were in it, and have seen its terrible ravages, need not be told that it exhibited a power in the elements never witnessed by the oldest inhabitant of this region. Houses strongly built were demolished, as if they had been made of paper. Oak and walnut and cedar trees, of the largest growth, were entirely uprooted, some of them snatched out of the ground and carried through long distances..." (p.12)

 

Lawrence, Massachusetts - 1890

The collection of photographs that prompted this blog post provide visual aid for the words of Charles Brooks. The images below show houses reduced to splinters, some with citizens viewing the damage. The last is a good illustration of the seeming randomness of a tornado, with a large crater in the foreground and yet, nearby in the background, houses standing intact. 

 

 

 

 

 

Worcester County, Massachusetts - 1953

More recently, a tornado swept through Worcester County, Mass. Following that event the Worcester Telegram and the Worcester Evening Gazette produced a special publication to detail the path of the storm, the damage done, and the efforts to clean up in the aftermath, called Tornado: a record in pictures of the catastrophe that struck Worcester and cetral Massachusetts, June 9, 1953

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"Sen. John F. Kennedy from Washington is shown debris in Shrewsbury by two teenage residents."

To find out what else the MHS holds about natural disasters you can search our online catalog, ABIGAIL. If you want to come in and view these items or any others you find in the catalog, take a look at our website to learn more about Visiting the Library. 

 

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¹ "Hurricanes: Science and Society : 1815- the September Gale," University of Rhode Island, accessed 3 November 2017, http://www.hurricanescience.org/history/storms/pre1900s/SeptemberGale/.

 

Fornication as Crime in 18th-Century Massachusetts

While the MHS is not home to a large collection of court records, I recently viewed two items we do hold relating to fornication in 18^th-century Massachusetts. These materials concern judicial proceedings that were separated by nearly sixty years, but provide interesting glimpses into the criminalization of sex in colonial Massachusetts. Through further investigation, I learned more about the ways the judicial system addressed sexuality during this period, including the significance of race and gender within the system.

 

A small collection of Barnstable County (Mass.) legal documents includes one “memorandum of presentments to the Court of General Sessions of the Peace.” This January 1702 document, which bears the signature of foreman Daniel Parker, notes two cases of unlicensed sale of liquor, one case of profaning the Sabbath, and two cases of fornication. The people accused of fornication are Sarah [Backer?] and [Mercy Chase,] both of whom were married at the time; each supposedly engaged in “fornication some time in 1702.”

 

A Grand Jury presentment, 1 January 1760, located in our Miscellaneous Bound Manuscripts collection, notes an accusation against Ann Frost, a Boston resident who supposedly engaged in fornication on 1 November 1758. The man involved was “to the jurors unknown.” Frost had a child out of wedlock, “against the peace of our said lord the king and the laws in that case provided.” This presentment bears the signature of foreman John Spooner and was created for a Court of General Sessions of the Peace for Suffolk County-ordered grand jury.

In Regulating Passion: Sexuality and Patriarchal Rule in Massachusetts, 1700-1830 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014), Kelly A. Ryan (a former Andrew W. Mellon fellow at the MHS) writes that, during the 18^th century, white women became the main targets of fornication charges in the Massachusetts judicial system, while punishment of men for fornication dwindled beginning in the mid-17^th century as sex outside of marriage came to be seen as a legal issue for women, not men (13-14, 21-23). Additionally, for much of the 17^th-century colonial period, “premarital sex” was the main cause of fornication charges; however, in the late 1600s and early 1700s, men increasingly ceased to face judicial consequences for premarital sex (22-23). Also beginning in the late 1600s and extending through the 18^th century, “nonmarital sex” became more common among fornication charges against women, as “the court and communities were especially concerned with remedying the problem of disorderly white women” (23-24). These charges were used to justify patriarchal control of white women; however, women accused of fornication did find ways to push back, including by resisting attempts of justices of the peace to elicit names of men involved (13-15, 30-32).

Engagement with the justice system for sex crimes did not look the same for men and women of color as it did for white people, though. According to Ryan, African Americans faced fornication charges in the 17^th century, but African Americans and Indians experienced increasingly fewer such prosecutions during the 18^th century (74-75, 77). This lack of prosecutions served to uphold white patriarchy by preventing white men from facing consequences for sexual contact with women who were enslaved while denying women of color agency and preventing African American men from being able to seek paternal rights (74, 78, 82). White women faced legal consequences for fornication with African American men, along with social disapproval for sex with Indian men; these actions were intended to enforce the notion that white women should be with white men (78-79, 82). Ultimately, according to Ryan, “[g]overnment prosecutions promoted white men’s sexual authority, partnerships between white women and white men, and the removal of paternal and sexual rights for men and women of color” (82).

 

Feel free to visit the MHS library if you would be interested in viewing materials in our collections. The library is open Monday through Saturday!