Woodes Rogers Ends the Pirate Republic
Woodes Rogers arrived at Nassau in July 1718 as the first royal governor of the Bahamas, carrying the king's pardon and orders to end the pirate republic there. New Providence had been effectively ungoverned since a Spanish and French raid destroyed the settlement in 1703. Its harbour was shallow enough to keep out warships and deep enough for sloops, it sat beside the Florida Straits through which the treasure fleets passed, and by 1717 something over a thousand pirates used it as a base — a self-governing community with its own conventions, sometimes called the Republic of Pirates. Rogers was a Bristol privateer who had circumnavigated the world between 1708 and 1711, taken a Manila galleon, and rescued Alexander Selkirk from Juan Fernández — the marooned sailor who became Robinson Crusoe. He came with two royal navy escorts and the Act of Grace, which pardoned any pirate who surrendered by a set date for acts committed before January 1718. Charles Vane refused, set a captured ship on fire and sailed it at the incoming squadron, and escaped in the confusion. Most of the rest accepted. Benjamin Hornigold and others took the pardon and were promptly employed as pirate hunters, which was Rogers' most effective single measure. He hanged eight men who took the pardon and returned to piracy, in front of the crowd that had just been pardoned. He spent his own fortune on the fortifications, went to debtors' prison in England, and was reappointed in 1728. The colony's motto became Piracy expelled, commerce restored.
- Year: 1718 CE
- Category: Political
