Charles Vane: the pirate who would not give up

Who was Charles Vane?

Charles Vane was a real pirate captain of the Golden Age of Piracy. Nobody knows where or when he was born, and almost nothing is known of his early life, except that he was living around Port Royal, Jamaica, before he turned pirate.

In 1716 he sailed with Henry Jennings, whose crews raided the Spanish camps where salvagers were recovering silver from the treasure fleet wrecked off Florida in July 1715. A 1724 book, A General History of the Pyrates, says Vane had a share of that silver. By 1717 he commanded his own vessel and was one of the leading captains at Nassau in the Bahamas, the pirates’ main base.

Did Charles Vane accept the King’s pardon?

Probably, at first. In late February 1718 the Royal Navy ship HMS Phoenix, under Captain Vincent Pearse, reached Nassau with the King’s offer of a pardon for pirates who surrendered. According to the historian Colin Woodard, Pearse seized Vane’s sloop, the Lark, gave it back after other pirates pleaded for him, and listed Vane among the men who had accepted the pardon. Letters written in Bermuda at the time do not name any of the men who surrendered, so this is not completely certain. Either way, by about 21 March Vane was a pirate again, and in early April he left Nassau.

His sloop was now called the Ranger. Sworn statements sent to London by Bermuda’s lieutenant governor describe Vane, with six guns and about 60 men, robbing vessel after vessel around the Bahamas in April 1718. The same statements say his men beat captured sailors, threatened one sailor with a loaded pistol to make him say what money was on board, and badly hurt others. Officials saw this as unusually cruel.

How did Charles Vane escape Woodes Rogers?

On 26 July 1718 Woodes Rogers, the new royal governor of the Bahamas, arrived off Nassau with naval ships and a fresh offer of pardon. (Some modern books give 22 July; Rogers’ own letter says 26 July.) Vane would not surrender.

Rogers found a captured French ship of 22 guns burning in the harbour, and he was told it had been set alight to drive off HMS Rose, one of his escorts. As Rogers’ ships came in, Vane and about 90 men fled in a sloop flying the black flag, firing guns in defiance as they outran the two vessels Rogers sent after them. Rogers came ashore on 27 July. Most of the other pirates at Nassau accepted the pardon.

What did Charles Vane do after leaving Nassau?

According to the 1724 book, two days after his escape Vane captured a sloop from Barbados and gave command of it to Charles Yeats. In late summer 1718, off Charles Town (today’s Charleston, South Carolina), the two pirate vessels took several ships. One was a brigantine (a two-masted ship) from West Africa carrying about 90 enslaved Africans. The captives were moved to Yeats’ sloop. Soon afterwards Yeats slipped away into the North Edisto River and surrendered for a pardon, and the Africans were handed back to the slave ship’s owners. The records treat these people only as cargo throughout: they give none of their names, and nothing is known of what happened to them afterwards.

South Carolina sent Colonel William Rhett to hunt Vane. The 1724 book says Vane had spread a false story about where he would clean his ship. Rhett missed him, but at Cape Fear he caught another pirate, Stede Bonnet, instead. In September Benjamin Hornigold, now hunting pirates for Rogers, found Vane at Green Turtle Cay near Abaco with two ships and a brigantine. The partners who owned the Bahamas later reported that Vane and the pirates who escaped with him destroyed about 38 vessels sailing to or from the island over about eight months.

Did Charles Vane meet Blackbeard?

The 1724 book says he did. In late September 1718 Vane found Blackbeard at “an inlet to the northward”, which historians identify as Ocracoke, an inlet on the North Carolina coast. The two crews saluted each other by firing their guns into the air and spent several days together, and Vane sailed away at about the beginning of October. Blackbeard was killed at Ocracoke on 22 November 1718.

Why did Charles Vane’s crew vote him out?

On about 23 November 1718, in the Windward Passage between Cuba and Hispaniola, Vane’s brigantine chased a ship that turned out to be a French warship, which answered with a broadside. Vane chose to run. His quartermaster, John Rackham, later known as Calico Jack, wanted to board and fight.

Pirate crews chose their captains by vote. According to the 1724 book, the next day the crew voted Vane a coward, threw him out and made Rackham captain. Vane, his mate Robert Deal and the men who had voted with him were put into a small sloop with food and ammunition.

How did Charles Vane die?

In February 1719 a storm separated him from Deal and wrecked his sloop on a small, empty island near the Bay of Honduras, and most of his men drowned.

The 1724 book tells what happened next. Vane survived for weeks with help from turtle fishermen. An old buccaneer, Captain Holford, who knew him, refused to take him aboard except as a prisoner, so Vane joined another ship under a false name. When Holford later visited that ship he recognised Vane, had him put in irons and carried him to Jamaica. Nobody recorded the date of the capture, so how long Vane spent in prison is unclear; it was at least several months.

He was tried in Jamaica, on 22 March 1721 according to modern accounts, and hanged at Gallows Point, Port Royal, on 29 March 1721. His body was hung in chains on Gun Cay, a small island off Port Royal, as a warning to passing sailors.