Captain Kidd
There was little in the background or life of the Scotsman William Kidd, better known to history as Captain Kidd (circa 1645 – 1701), to indicate that he would end up swinging from the gallows, executed as one of the era’s most notorious pirates. He had been one of New York City’s leading citizens, a friend of at least three of the colony’s governors, and among other civic activities, he had played a prominent role in building the city’s now historic Trinity Church.
Kidd’s first seafaring command was as a privateer, commissioned in 1689 by the governor of Nevis to fight off French ships, and granted letters of marque authorizing him to prey on French vessels for the duration of hostilities between Britain and France. Later, he was issued additional letters of marque by the governors of New York and the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
In 1695, Kidd’s mission was expanded and presented with a letter of marque signed by King William III, he was given a roving commission to attack pirates in the Indian Ocean. The voyage started inauspiciously: sailing out of London in a newly equipped ship, the 34 gun and 150 man crew Adventure Galley, Kidd offended a Royal Navy captain by failing to salute his warship in the Thames, so he retaliated by stopping the Adventure Galley and seizing half of its crew to press them into the Royal Navy.
Crossing the Atlantic short-handed, Kidd made it to New York, where he replenished his crew with what out-of-work seafarers he could find. Most them turned out to be hardened criminals and former pirates. Sailing into the Indian Ocean, a third of Kidd’s crew died of cholera by the time they reached the Comoros islands, and he was unable to find the pirates he had been sent to hunt down.
The enterprise seemed a failure, and the crew, getting antsy, urged him to attack some passing vessels in order to make the voyage worth their time. When Kidd declined, his men threatened mutiny. Under pressure – and also to recoup his investment – he gave in and reluctantly started attacking ships not covered by his privateering letters. By 1698, he had abandoned reluctance and any pretense of privateering and turned full pirate. That year, he sealed his fate when he attacked a British East India Company ship. The powerful company exerted its influence in London, and Kidd was declared a pirate.
Unbenknownst to him, by the time he returned to the American Colonies, Kidd’s public image had been transformed into that of an infamous pirate, and attitudes towards piracy had changed from the wink, wink, nudge, nudge, which prevailed when he began his voyage. Now, crackdown was in the air, and the authorities were eager to make an example of somebody.
Kidd was arrested soon as he arrived in Boston, and sent in chains across the Atlantic for prosecution in London. There, word of his previous connections with government elites caused a scandal, and the powerful supporters whom he had expected to defend him abandoned him in droves. He was swiftly tried and convicted, and on May 23, 1701, was hanged, after which his body was left to rot in a cage on the Thames for all to see.