Ahoy, landlubbers: Pirates in the port

Charleston a cove of buccaneer history and lore

Mic Smith

Gary Dow, owner of The Tavern Wine and Spirits in downtown Charleston, talks about the history of his store being frequented by pirates in the 1700s, while a bottle of French wine is held up by a pirate wine stand.

Gunshots echoed across Sullivan's Island that day as Stede Bonnet found himself in a most ungentlemanly fight for his life.

In the city, a group of men who had sailed with Blackbeard stood trial for their crimes while a ragged pirate contingent just offshore tried to fend off a surprisingly strong fleet from Charles Towne Harbor.

That November day in 1718 was a violent, suspenseful and eventful end to the golden age of piracy, an era that had flourished here for nearly 40 years.

The tall ships sailing into Charleston this week for the Maritime Festival evoke the city's most colorful past, a time 300 years ago when things were very different in this English colony — sort of like a

Disney movie but with hangings.

Charles Towne of the 18th century was home to the greatest female pirate of all time, the place where Blackbeard made his name and where the "Gentleman Pirate" faced his endgame.

It was a natural place for the privateers run amok to congregate, this southernmost of the English colonies. They would saunter into town, occasionally wearing colorful silks hijacked off other ships, and make their way to Chalmers Street for a bit of grog.

The locals loved to see them coming. England would not waste its navy on protecting the colonies, says Charleston Museum curator of history J. Grahame Long, so the pirates were a form of defense, they robbed any Spanish ship that came close enough.

The South Carolina coast, with its numerous inlets and barrier islands, made a perfect spot from which to pounce.

"It was the classic predator method of attack," Long said.

Pirates brought cut-rate bounty into town for trade, giving locals a far better source of supplies than trans-Atlantic ships from the motherland.

One of those pirates coming to town, James Bonny, took to the daughter of Irishman William Cormac. Anne, as a child, was more than Cormac could handle; as a teenager married to a pirate, she was banished.

Legend suggests that she burned the family plantation on her way to the Bahamas and piracy fame.

Not long after Anne Bonny sailed out of port, Charles Towne's love of pirates faded, as any relationship built on interstate hijacking is bound to do.

In May of 1718, Edward Teach — more commonly known as Blackbeard — blockaded Charleston Harbor with a fleet of ships, including his Queen Anne's Revenge and the ship of Stede Bonnet, the so-called "Gentleman Pirate."

"This was his biggest feat," said Michael Brown, who guides a daily pirate tour through Charleston. "He commanded an entire fleet and brought an entire city to its knees."

Blackbeard and Bonnet plundered five merchant ships, including one that carried several prominent residents of the city, including Samuel Wragg. With Wragg and other locals as his prisoners, Blackbeard demanded the city give him ... medicine.

"They may have been after quinine," Long said. "All that treasure stuff was a luxury. Usually pirates wanted food, water, medicine, supplies to refit their ships."

In other words, don't waste your time looking for buried treasure. They most likely, Long says, spent it as quickly as they stole it. Pirates weren't much for savings accounts.

Charles Towne eventually handed over the supplies Blackbeard demanded, but the city got a measure of revenge a few months later.

On the authority of South Carolina's governor, Col. William Rhett and 130 men overtook Bonnet near the mouth of the Cape Fear River in North Carolina. The pirate captain and much of his crew were brought back to Charleston for trial.

Bonnet was kept not in a jail but in a home on Tradd Street, from which he escaped dressed as a woman.

Rhett was sent, once again, to track him down. He caught Bonnet on Sullivan's Island after a gunfight that ended in the death of at least one of Bonnet's cohorts.

Not long after that, Blackbeard was killed at Ocracoke Island, N.C. And on Dec. 10, 1718, Bonnet was hanged for his crimes. Locally, some say it wasn't his pirating that did him in, it was his audacity to try and escape.

Although a monument to Bonnet stands in White Point Gardens, Brown says the hanging site was closer to the corner of Meeting and Water streets.

"After they hung him, they cut him down and threw him in Vanderhorst Creek," Long said. That creek was where Water Street now is.

The killing of Blackbeard, Bonnet and several of their crew marked the end of the pirates' heyday. Most historians agree that they never had such good times again.

But what of Anne Bonny? She eventually dumped her husband, took up with two other pirates, one another female, Mary Read.

For years, they were true pirates of the Caribbean, until their capture by forces commissioned by the governor of Jamaica.

When the troops overtook the pirates, most of the men cowered below deck, hungover, while Bonny and Read tried to fight them off.

During their trial, Bonny and Read both claimed to be pregnant, a move that spared them both the hangman's noose.

Read died shortly after in prison, presumably in childbirth, and Bonny disappeared.

Some say her father bribed officials to release her, and she moved back to America, married well and settled down.

Others claim she took to the sea again, only to disappear in the Bermuda Triangle.

Whatever happened, Anne Bonny, like the rest of the pirates, did not return to Charleston waters.

Reach Brian Hicks at 937-5561 or bhicks@postandcourier.com.