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Stealing, violence, and escaping nagging wives. Things the most famous pirates had to do to amass large fortunes. This is a list of the most notorious privateers/pirates in history.
Blackbeard, real name Edward Teach, was an infamous English pirate who terrorized shipping lanes along the American eastern seaboard from 1716 to 1718. He was best known for weaving slow-burning fuses into his thick black beard during battles to create a demonic appearance shrouded in smoke. This psychological tactic proved so effective that he rarely needed to harm captives to secure their surrender.
Irish-born pirate Anne Bonny defied 18th-century gender roles by becoming one of history’s most notorious female pirates. She fought fiercely alongside her lover, Calico Jack Rackham, and fellow female pirate, Mary Read. When captured in 1720, she escaped execution by declaring pregnancy—reportedly telling the condemned Rackham, “If you had fought like a man, you wouldn’t be hanged like a dog.”
Bartholomew Roberts, or Black Bart, was the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Pirates. He captured over 400 ships during his brief career from 1719-1722. Known for enforcing a strict code of conduct aboard his vessels that prohibited gambling and required lights out by 8 PM. He died when a grapeshot struck his throat during a naval battle with HMS Swallow off the coast of Africa (no pun intended).
Sir Henry Morgan was the ruthless Welsh privateer who sacked Panama City in 1671 and later became Lieutenant Governor of Jamaica. He walked a thin line between piracy and state-sanctioned warfare, amassing enough wealth to own three sugarcane plantations worked by 131 enslaved people.
Scottish privateer William Kidd, whose legitimate commission to hunt pirates ironically led to his own hanging for piracy in 1701. His death sparked centuries of treasure hunts when the legend of his buried fortune inspired Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island.
Calico Jack Rackham was a flamboyant 18th-century pirate who designed the iconic skull-and-crossbones flag. He commanded a crew that famously included female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read before his capture in 1720.
Henry Every, known as Long Ben, achieved the unthinkable when he captured the treasure-laden Mughal ship Ganj-i-Sawai in 1695—securing a fortune worth approximately £600,000 (equivalent to $400 million today). He mysteriously disappeared with his wealth—the only major pirate captain to successfully retire with his plunder.
Samuel Bellamy, better known as the charismatic Black Sam, captured over 50 ships during his brief 16-month pirate career. He commanded the treasure-laden Whydah Gally before it sank in a violent storm off Cape Cod in 1717. Sinking with his crew along with five tons of treasure worth approximately $120 million in today’s currency—a fortune later discovered in 1984.
François l'Olonnais was a brutal French buccaneer who terrorized the Spanish Caribbean in the 1660s. He once cut open a Spanish prisoner’s chest and ate his heart raw in front of other captives to instill terror. Later dying violently at the hands of indigenous Kuna tribesmen who tore him to pieces.
Ching Shih was a former Chinese prostitute who became the most successful pirate in history. She commanded over 1,500 ships and 80,000 men in the South China Sea during the early 19th century. She was known for her strict code of conduct, which included beheading anyone who disobeyed her orders or raped female captives.
Stede Bonnet was a wealthy Barbadian plantation owner who abandoned his comfortable life and family to become the “Gentleman Pirate” in 1717. He became a pirate to escape his nagging wife. He allied briefly with Blackbeard before being captured and hanged in Charleston.
Edward Low was a ruthless 18th-century pirate who terrorized the Atlantic Ocean between 1721-1724. Low was known for torturing captives with extraordinary cruelty—once forcing a Portuguese captain to eat his own sliced-off ears with salt and pepper.
During the Golden Age of Piracy (1650-1730), Mary Read disguised herself as a man to serve in both the British military and aboard pirate ships, including Calico Jack Rackham’s crew alongside Anne Bonny. She avoided execution after her 1720 capture by “pleading the belly” (claiming pregnancy), though she died in prison in April 1721.
English pirate Charles Vane, known for his brutality and refusal of the King’s pardon, met his end in 1721 when—after being shipwrecked on an uninhabited island and betrayed by a passing captain who recognized him—he was tried in Jamaica and hanged. His body was later displayed in a gibbet as a warning to other pirates.
French pirate and privateer Jean Lafitte operated a vast smuggling network in the Gulf of Mexico and provided crucial support to American forces during the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. He later established his own pirate kingdom on Galveston Island, where he continued his piracy until he was forced out by the U.S. Navy in 1821.
Thomas Tew was an English privateer who pioneered the lucrative “Pirate Round” route to the Indian Ocean in the 1690s. Tew met a grisly end when his abdomen was torn open by a cannon shot while attacking the treasure-laden Mughal ship Fateh Mohammed in 1695. His wealth from previous ventures allowed each crewman to receive £1,200 (over $300,000 today) from a single raid.
Grace O’Malley, the formidable 16th-century Irish pirate queen and chieftain who commanded ships along Ireland’s coast. She once negotiated directly with Queen Elizabeth I for her family’s freedom. She later gave birth aboard her ship during a trading expedition and, one day later, led her crew in fighting off Turkish pirates who had attacked her vessel.
Founded the “Republic of Pirates” in Nassau. Mentored Blackbeard before accepting a pardon to become a pirate hunter.
Benjamin Hornigold, the English pirate who mentored Blackbeard and founded Nassau’s pirate republic in the early 1700s—later accepted a royal pardon and hunted his former colleagues. During his pirating days, he once captured a ship solely to steal the crew’s hats after his men lost theirs while drunk.
Welsh pirate captain Howell Davis, active from 1718-1719, tricked wealthy merchants by posing as a pirate hunter before revealing his true identity and seizing their ships. But his career ended abruptly when he was ambushed and killed during an elaborate scheme to kidnap the Portuguese governor of Príncipe Island.
Olivier Levasseur was a French pirate known as La Buse (The Buzzard). He met his end at the gallows in 1730 but left behind a cryptic necklace containing a 17-letter cipher that supposedly leads to his unrecovered treasure worth an estimated $160 million, somewhere near the Seychelles Islands.
Zheng Yi was a Chinese pirate who commanded a fleet of several hundred ships in the South China Sea before his death in 1807, after which his wife Ching Shih inherited his power. She transformed his modest operation into history’s largest pirate armada with over 1,500 vessels.
Emanuel Wynn was a French pirate operating in the Caribbean during the early 18th century. He was the first to fly the iconic “skull and crossbones” Jolly Roger, which featured an hourglass beneath the skull to symbolize the fleeting nature of life before death.
Christopher Condent was a resourceful pirate active in the Indian Ocean during the early 18th century. He captured numerous prizes and retired to France with a large fortune after a daring career that saw him commandeer over 12 Portuguese and Spanish vessels.
William Fly, a short-lived but defiant pirate who sailed the Atlantic in the early 18th century, was publicly executed in Boston in 1726 after criticizing ship captains' abusive practices. Fly’s final act of rebellion included giving a speech condemning maritime tyranny before being hanged.
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