Everyone knows the word mutiny. We can't talk about life on the high seas without diving into the stories about sailors rebelling against their captains or the reasons behind those insurrections, and our intro today starts with one of the British Navy's most infamous captains and how the mutiny all began. A tropical fruits related to the fig that would be bread fruit. Discovered in seventeen sixty nine. It was a
cheap and nutritional food source. It grew well in tropical areas, and plantation owners in the Caribbean used the fruit to supplement enslaved workers diets. Fast forward to seven, when the British Crown sent the HMS Bounty to Tahiti to harvest saplings for transport to the West Indies. The journey wouldn't be difficult or long, requiring a crew of just forty
six including two botanists. On this trip, Captain William Blyth decided to take Fletcher Christian, the son of a family end and teach him how to be a good sailor. Captain and crew departed England on December and looked forward to an easy trip. Three months into the journey, though the weather forced them to take a longer route. Tempers flared and tensions ran high, but not because of the detour.
You see, the crew despised their captain. Bligh seemed to find fault in everything they did, often in the most condescending ways. He took delight in humiliating his men, the officers in particular. By the time they reached Tahiti in October of seventeen eight seven, the men were overjoyed to leave the ship. It would be five months before the rainy season ended, delaying their journey to the West Indies.
While they indulged in relationships with the female population, Captain Bligh worked on trading with the indigenous people, picked out breadfruit saplings, and made extensive lists complaining about his men. So when the crew set sail for the West Indies on April fifth, seventeen eighty nine, the ten between captain and crew hovered as thick and dark as any storm cloud. Bli took the shouting insults at everyone, even young Fletcher Christian.
Something had to give. That time came when Bli accused Christian of stealing coconuts simply because the pile appeared smaller than he recalled. Christian denied the theft, and Bli promptly punished the entire crew. And while it's not clear what instance of Bligh's abuse led to the mutiny, his journal states that Christian and a few other men entered his cabin early on April. They tied his hands and set him and a few men adrift in a boat loaded
with provisions. Bli eventually reached a Dutch settlement and informed the British Navy of the mutiny. He wrote to his wife, telling her that he was innocent of all wrongdoing and that he had acted with valor. Eleven months later, Bli returned to England, where locals hailed him as a hero. Christian and the others didn't fare so well. Eighteen years later, in eighteen oh eight, a each team discovered one of Bligh's old crew members in a small community on Pitcairn Island.
As the lone survivor of Bligh's crew, he explained his fellow crewman's fate. Without a chain of command, everything had fallen apart. Mutiny had led to anarchy and eventually to death. I'm Aaron Manky and welcome two pirates. We've probably all heard the expression before to run a tight ship. Roughly, it means keeping an organization or company well organized or controlled. And although BLI ran a well disciplined ship, he might
have been a little too tight. Contrary to the belief at the time that pirates were lawless, they did have rules. Those who have seen the Pirates of the Caribbean films will recall the Pirate Code. The Code, as the movie refers to it, was a book containing laws for pirates by pirates that they must all adhere to well. Mostly, the consequence for breaking the code was death, unless it
was interpreted as a guideline. In real life, lawlessness and chaos in a pirate's line of work would surely get them killed, either by their own crew, their targets, or by a sudden drop and stop at the end of a rope. While no single book existed, pirate captains and communities did have written rules that every new member read before joining. Now, aside from the rules governing members right to vote, the ratio of pay and equality, there were
other laws to job. Duties were often spelled out, hierarchies were explained, and a form of a judicial system was put in place. Captains didn't create these rules solely from the goodness of their buccaneer hearts. Though pirating was a business and operations had to run smoothly, less the consequences be death no guidelines about it, and while pirate rules seem much more reasonable and afforded sailors better pay than those aboard navy and merchant ships, they were practical too.
Given the working conditions for the government or working aboard a pirate ship, captains understood the value of creating loyalty among the crew. Naval captains like Bly often ruled with an iron fist. With such poor treatment and pay, merchant ships had to create horrific punishments to prevent theft among the already disillusion crew. Those impressed or forced into service aboard British naval ships weren't paid at all. It was
a horrible, horrible life. All that neglect and abuse aboard legitimate ships only encouraged solidarity among those on pirate vessels. Their code adapted over the years, starting from laws that were cherry picked from those on land and altered to best fit life at sea. Rolls aboard pirate ships were clearly defined due to the danger of the job. Experience mattered over race or status when placing a crew member. However, the crew voted captains and other high ranking officers into position,
and they could vote them out as well. Every crew member, regardless of nationality, had equal suffrage. While higher ranks meant a larger share of the plunder. The officers earned that extra by effectively leading the crew and managing the risks. The amounts and benefits varied from ship to ship. For some, the captain and officers received extra portions, while others thought equal portions kept egos in check and speaking of officers of all the kinds on board, the captain and crew
trusted the quartermaster the most. The crew elected someone who would do the job best at balancing out the captain's power, ensuring that every member of the crew received fair treatment, and enforced the ship's rules. Every action the captain took had to pass through the quartermaster first. The role also entailed selecting new crew members, dividing the booty, and dispersing food and drink. The quartermaster's motto could easily have been
equal pay for equal prey. Many who held the position, like Calico Jack Rackham, went on to become captains with the rules or codes in fighting was severely curtailed. Crew Members who didn't adhere to the rules or stole or hid bounty found themselves marooned or worse. Pirating was dangerous work, sometimes resulting in death or dismemberment. To encourage the crew to embark on raids, captains made provisions for those who
became injured. Many offered disability pay or allowed the men to stay on board the ship for as long as they liked, and still gave them a part of the booty pirate. Jeremiah Huggins received gold pistols, gold dust, silver, and other treasure after he became injured. John Fenn, who lost an arm, became a captain, and, perhaps most famously, Blackbeard delayed taking a pardon, opting for one last raid
on ships in Charleston Harbor. He didn't do it out of greed, though he risked everything to get his sick crew medicine. It's a unique perspective on the legendary pirate. In the end, it was his devotion to his crew that set in motion the events that led to his own death. Blackbeard wasn't alone. Although Edward teaches selfless act seems more widely known. We would be remiss if we left out the story of Sam Bellamy, otherwise known as
Black Sam, and the loyalty he inspired in his crew. Tall, dark haired, and charismatic, Bellamy became one of the most well known pirates of his day. Although his looks won over the love of his life, and his charm and expertise made him popular with his crew, it was his own unjust treatment that turned the small town boy into a well loved pirate. Captain Sam Bellamy was born in England on March eighteenth of six eighty nine. One of five children. He became the only son to survive to adulthood,
making him the sole heir to his father's estate. At the time, only the eldest son of a male landowner could inherit the family wealth. The family estate wasn't much, just a parcel of farmland in a town consisting of a few cottages. The Bellamy family struggled to survive planting crops of potatoes, but over time English lords drove off the peasants who had lived on the land for generations, taking the property for themselves. Bellamy soon found work on
a naval ship in seventeen o two. The promise of a warm bed and free food sounded far better than poverty and starvation. What he found, though, at the tender age of thirteen, was hard labor and beatings. After four years and surviving the War of Spanish Secession, seventeen year old Bellamy made a break from the navy. He set out for the New World, hoping to make a better life for himself. He settled in Cape Cod finding two things,
work as a sailor and Mary Hallett. On a spring night in seventeen fifteen, he met the sixteen year old at a local tap room and fell in love at first sight. He charmed her with his adventures at sea, and Mary, impressed with his looks and story, was equally infatuated. While his fellow sailors were more of a love him and leave him type, Bellamy doated on Mary mean more smitten with her. As their relationship continued. The two soon
began talking about marriage and their life together. Her wealthy parents were less than thrilled with the prospect of a penniless sailor for a son in law, and quickly forbade Mary from seeing him again. Angry and humiliated, Bellamy left Cape Cod, promising Mary that he would return for her once he made his fortune. Soon after, he connected with a silver smith by the name of Paul's Grave Williams. He was the son of an influential Rhode Island family.
The Williams ran an unregulated business and needed an experienced sailor. The pair planned on using a family owned ship to smuggle goods from the West Indies. Of course, that was before a better opportunity presented itself. On July thirteenth, seventeen fifteen, a Spanish treasure ship set sail from Havana, flanked by ten other vessels. Six days into the trip, the ships
found themselves in the midst of a fatal hurricane. The next day, their treasures of gold, silver, jewels, and other valuables glitter in the relatively shallow water among the many corpses ships descended on the area like vultures. Williams and Bellamy arrived in January of seventeen sixteen, but they were too late. Pirate Henry Jennings had managed to run off with a hefty amount of the treasure, leaving the pair to scrounge for the leftovers along with hordes of other
treasure seekers. What Bellamy wasn't aware of was that back home, Mary had given birth to their stillborn child alone in her parents barn. Neighbors heard her screams, and, upon discovering the deceased child, accused her of murder. Mary was publicly whipped for her loose morals, they said. Afterwards, she roamed
the cliffs along the coastline, waiting for Bellamy's return. She would be waiting for some time, though, having yet to fulfill his promise, Bellamy was still at sea seeking his fortune. He and Williams headed to South America that March. They worked with a handful of pirates, but not from a mighty ship. They operated from a pair of small sailing canoes. Still,
they successfully looted and stole a Dutch vessel. After recruiting a larger crew for the ship, they seized an English vessel, and when they returned to Cuba, that came across Jennings and a French ship right for the picking. Late that night, Jennings watched in total amazement the smaller pirate fleet beat them to the target. Bellamy's men all naked and howling like madmen and waving cutlasses and brandishing pistols, boarded and
attacked the ship. The Jennings astonishment, the French captain surrendered without a single shot fired. Out Numbered, all Bellamy and Williams could do was wait while Jennings crew divided the booty. One of the men called out, pointing to an approaching ship flying a pirate flag. Jennings recognized the ten guns sloop as one belonging to Benjamin horne Goold. To say that Jennings and Hornegold where enemies would be an understatement. Bellamy couldn't help but wonder what this meant for his
share of the bounty. Once Jennings and a small crew left to intercept Hornegald, Bellamy and his crew ransacked the French ship and rode off in canoes loaded with pieces of eight. By the time Jennings returned, Bellamy, Williams and the treasure were long gone. The pair didn't get far before running into Hornegal though. However, instead of relieving them of their treasure, Hornegald welcomed the brash young pirate who had fleeced his enemy. He even made Bellamy captain of
the Marianne, a recently acquired ship. Later During a hunt off the western edge of Cuba, Hornegald, Bellamy, and another pirate ally named Olivier le Bouse spotted an English merchant ship. Being the eternal patriot, Hornegald refused to attack, although Bellamy and Leboos had no such reservations. The crew under Hornegal's command voted this time in favor of the raid. The attack was successful, and the trio moved on to an even more prosperous ship carrying cocoa. Hornegald left for Nassau
and May of seventeen sixteen. Meanwhile, Williams Bellamy and Laboos set sail for Hispaniola. In the hopes of securing cannons. They rated English ships, which didn't go over well with Hornigold. Upon their return, tensions among the three men and their crew continued to rise. When horn and Goold refused to attack on another English ship, his crew voted to relieve him of his command and replaced him with Bellamy. A crew member sewed their new flag, the infamous skull and
crossbones we know as the Jolly Roger. Bellamy allegedly told his men the flag represented resurrection, not death. They were free men who raided any ship regardless of nationality, but especially those who had treated them poorly. Laboose and Bellamy left Hornigold and decided they should move on. The crew agreed, and by November nine, the pirates captured an English passenger sloop traveling to Antigua. Bellamy and Laboose took the sloop to an island and used it to make repairs to
their own ships. Bellamy made sure that none of the ship's crew or the exceptionally wealthy passengers were hurt, except for one man who tried to escape. Joseph King, a boy of about ten or eleven years old, asked to join the crew. Bellamy obliged, taking him on as his ship's boy. Then he released the sloop, taking only some fine clothing. Before he and the crew set sail, they came upon a ship that was a step up from
the Mary Anne. He asked his crew to vote on taking over the Sultana, equipped with twenty six guns, and they all agreed. Again. Bellamy now commanded three ships. They're growing numbers emboldened them to take on even larger ships, like the Widow, an English merchant ship with four and a half tons of gold and silver on board. Bellamy's tactic of wild behavior worked yet again. Captain Lawrence Prince fired two rounds before surrendering. Once the pirates boarded, he
found their behavior had been a ruse. Bellamy and his men treated him and his crew fairly. Bellamy, having realized that he had just become exceedingly wealthy from the raid, offered the cow another sultana twenty pounds in gold and silver as a gesture of goodwill. With the approval of his crew. One last time, he suggested that they make one more trip. For Bellamy, it was time to go home. Mary would be waiting, and soon enough he was almost home.
One night, while off the coast of Cape Cod, Bellamy stood on the deck deciding what to do next. Lightning illuminated the cliffs they had sailed into. A northeaster rains pummeled the Widow, and the storm tossed the ship around in the high waves. The anchors were all that stood between them and the jagged rocks, but if they stayed, the waves would also tear the ship apart, so he asked his men to vote on cutting the anchors and
to try to steer the ship to shore. He'd been fair and honest, always adhering to the rules that he had written and adjusted to match his own kinder values and morals. They lived by the code, and if they were wrong, they would die by the code. The men believed in their captain, and so they cut the anchor hopes. If Mary still walked the cliffs, her weight had finally ended. The next day. Only two survivors were found, Sam Bellamy was not among them. Scholars who study pirates are faced
with a problem. Items aboard sunken vessels are difficult enough to identify, and even worse when they are documents written on paper. Perhaps this is why so much of what we know of pirate life almost reads like legend. When the news hit about Bellamy and the widow, treasure hunters descended upon Cape Cod just as Bellamy and Williams had done after the Spanish vessel met a similar fate years before.
None of the fortune seekers were successful, though, until October of Barry Clifford ignored everything else in his life, his job, his marriage, and his family. Over the years, he poured over records, talked with treasure hunters, and recovered scraps of iron he believed had once belonged to the Widdaw In two he went as far as the U. S. District Court to secure all rights to any treasure he might find.
With his request granted, he anchored his boat in the area that he believed the Widow had anchored That night in seventeen seventy one, after moving sand on the ocean floor, his team uncovered millions of dollars worth of treasure. They had a problem, though they couldn't prove the ship was the Widow. Without proof, he had no claim to the treasure, at least until his crew uncovered the ship's bell after
archaeologists cleaned it. Clifford had his proof. The inscription on the bell read the Widdah Galley seventeen sixteen, with millions of dollars in treasure at stake. The state of Massachusetts sued for joint ownership for three years, the case remained in litigation. In night, Clifford won his case, saved by his earlier grant handed to him from the U. S. District Court. His team can in you to extract artifacts
and treasure over the years, making a monumental discovery. In two thousand six, they uncovered bones and a shoe Forensic evidence suggests the skeleton belonged to a ten or eleven year old boy, most likely that of Joseph King. Last year, in one Clifford's team recovered the remains of six more men. They tested the DNA taken from a leg bone against the DNA of a Bellamy family descendant. Unfortunately, that particular
femur was not a match to the famous pirate. The site is still active, though, and there may be more to find among the wreckage. Until then, just as Mary did all those years ago, all we can do is wait. Pirates and mutiny go hand in hand like an ocean born chocolate and peanut butter. Everywhere you look, stories of the High Seas and the criminals who sailed them never semed to be without a bit of well organizational restructuring, which is why it should be no surprise that we
have one more tale to tell. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, my crewmates Alie Steed will tell you all about it. She had what might be the worst midlife crisis in history, and he wasn't even thirty. It was August and most of the pirate community and NASA still mourned the loss of Sam bellamy. When a strange boat arrived, morning turned to curiosity. Usually few civilians ventured to the island. After all, the captain, a plump, soft looking man, appeared on deck wearing a
nice dressing gown. Steve Bonnet might have been unusual, but the pirates in Nasa hardly considered him threat. Bonnet was an aristocrat, born into wealth and had grown up in rather a charmed life. His family owned over four hundred acres of sugarcane fields, ninety four enslaved peoples, and three household servants. He had the very best education money could buy, while serving as a major in the local militia, a requirement rather than a preference. Bonnet courted Mary allenby, the
daughter of another plantation owner. The two married in seventeen o nine and settled into a comfortable life together in a house just south of Bridgetown Harbor. It seemed he led the perfect fairytale life, but nothing good lasts forever. The couple's first child died, and although they had three more, the loss haunted Bonnet for the rest of his life.
Around the same time, residents were worried about pirates. Stories of teach born a gold and Bellamy struck fear in everyone's hearts, except for Bonnet, who was delighted with the tales. He began to see pirate life as a means of escaping the loss of his child and the discomfort he felt in his marriage. He bought a warship, telling authorities he planned to hunt pirates. He christened the ship the Revenge, though he had nothing to get revenge against, and hired
a crew. One night in late spring of seventeen seventeen, he bid farewell to his family and set sail for South Carolina. His wife and children would never see him again. Johnston's harbor made it a popular destination, like a sandbox for pirates in training lots of easy targets. On August, Bonnet rated his first ship there, though the bounty was barely worth the effort. Other raids followed with minimal successes.
Feeling more confident, he sailed into Spanish territory. This proved to be a mistake, however, Experienced pirates new to steer clear of more powerful ships and could tell the difference between a merchant ship and a man of war. Bonnet did not. He took on a warship, and either was sheer luck or because the Revenge was smaller and faster. They managed to escape with their lives, but the fighting cost him half his crew, and he himself suffered a
serious injury. The ship lumbered into Nassau, where at first pirates soon granted Bonnet refuge and Blackbeard spotted an opportunity. While Bonnet recovered from his injuries, Blackbeard prepared the sloop and added two additional cannons to make future battles a little more of a fair fight. Afterwards, Blackbeard put his most trusted crewmen in charge. Quartermaster William Howard took control of the Revenge, and Bonnet joined teach on Queen Anne's Revenge.
In return for the swap, Bonnet would learn from Blackbeard, one of the most feared and experienced pirates operating in the Caribbean. They sailed together for a time, but it isn't clear why the two separated. In early sevent eighteen, now captaining the Revenge and with his original crew, Bonnet
took to hunting ships near Honduras. They spotted a large ship four times the size of the Revenge, and despite the odds and his previous disasters, Bonnet decided to risk an attack, Bonnet shouted to the captain on the other ship that his crew would give no quarter the plumb captain and the smaller vessel did little to intimidate the larger ship's captain. The resulting battle lasted three hours before
Bonnet ordered a retreat. Exhausted with Bonnet and his antics, the crew voted to return to Turnip in Central America to meet with Edward Teach. Their captain had clearly learned nothing while acting as his apprentice. When they arrived, black Beard listened to their grievances and ordered a vote. A distraught Bonnet could do nothing while his men chose to replace him with one of teachers men. They even chose to evict him from his own ship, though black Beard
allowed him to live aboard the Queen Anne's revenge. He tried to cheer Bonnet, assuring him that he could spend his time aboard his ship, where he would be free of all duties. Though once they reached North Carolina, Blackbeard to Bonnet and twenty five of his men behind when he decided to take the pardon. Undeterred and hungry for
revenge against Blackbeard, Bonnet set sail once more. His new stint as captain didn't last long, and he was captured on September seventeen eighteen and put on trial in South Carolina for piracy. Bonnet tried to leverage his status as a gentleman rather than a pirate and blamed everything on Blackbeard. He escaped briefly, but was recaptured after a storm forced him ashore at Sullivan Island. The trial came to a swift conclusion, and Steed Bonnet, the gentleman pirate, hung on
December eighteen. Pirates was executive produced by Aaron Manky and narrated by Aaron Manky and Alexander Steid. Writing for this season was provided by Michelle Mudo, with research by Alexander Steed and Sam Alberty. Production assistance was provided by Josh Thayne, Jesse Funk, Alec Williams, and Matt Frederick. To learn more about this and other shows from Grimm and Mild and I Heart Radio, visit Grimm and Mild dot com MHM