Benjamin Hornigold

Benjamin Hornigold was reportedly born in the English county of Norfolk in 1680. Based on his probable place of birth, it is assumed that he initially served abroad ships at either King's Lynn or Great Yarmouth.

According to some sources, Benjamin Hornigold served as a privateer out of Jamaica during the War of Spanish Succession. After the war ended in 1713, all English letters of marquee granted to privateers became invalid, leaving many seamen like him out of work, who eventually turned to piracy.

The first sloop he sailed was named 'Happy Return', which was owned by Jonathan Darvell. Hornigold, who was unhappy about his shares of profit, later bought a boat from an Eleutheran with two of his accomplices.

With their new vessel, they were able to capture two Cuban vessels with an approximate combined value of 46,000 pieces of eight, (old Spanish Peso de Ocho silver coin). The gang sailed in large canoes alongside the coast of Cuba and in the Florida Straits, preying on Spanish merchant vessels, as well as plantations off the coast.

In November 1715, he arrived to New Providence in Augustine Golding's sloop 'Mary', which was equipped with six guns, and eight patteraroes, and a breech-loading swivel gun, with one hundred and forty crew members. The following month, he captured a powerful sloop-of-war with better capacity, named it 'Benjamin, and returned 'Mary' to Golding back in Jamaica.

He was one of the first pirates to establish a base in Nassau, the capital of New Providence, which had been utterly destroyed during the war and later became a pirate haven. However, he reportedly still considered himself a privateer, and, probably out of patriotism, never attacked British ships and only targeted enemy vessels.

Benjamin Hornigold died in 1719, somewhere between the Bahamas and Mexico, when his ship was wrecked in a Hurricane.

He is considered to be one of the most influential pirates operating in the Caribbean during the 1710s and at one time had five vessels with a combined crew of around 350 pirates. He reportedly shaped the careers of over 3200 pirates who either sailed with him at some point as part of his fleet or trained under him, including Edward ‘Blackbeard’ Teach, Sam Bellamy and Stede Bonnet.

As a pirate hunter, he contributed greatly to Woodes Rogers' attempt at driving away pirates from the Bahamas. He helped capture many pirates and their crewmen, most notable of whom were Nicholas Woodall and John Auger.