Fall, 1715:
Inspired by tales of sunken treasure from a retired pirate, Samuel Bellamy and his partner, a onetime goldsmith named Palgrave Williams (black-sheep son of a former Rhode Island Attorney-General), are believed to have sailed from Cape Cod to search for treasure on a sunken Spanish shipwreck. According to legend, Bellamy leaves behind his lover, a beautiful Cape Cod girl named “Goody Hallet”, but treasure- hunting is easier said than done…
February 1716:
Bellamy is reported as a pirate operating from two “periaguas” (a type of large sailing canoe) off the coast of Central America–possibly from an island-base off the coast of Belize known as “Banister’s Key”.
March 1716:
Bellamy and his periaguas work their way south along the Central American coast and raid near Portobello, Panama.
April 1716:
In a spectacular boarding action worthy of the big screen, Bellamy and his followers assist the pirate Henry Jennings in taking a large French frigate, the Ste. Marie, with 30,000 “pieces of eight”, at Baya Honda on the northwest coast of Cuba.
Late April 1716:
Bellamy and his periaguas then desert Jennings, and assist pirate Ben Hornigold in taking a six-gun French sloop, the Marianne at Puerto Mariel near Havana. Hornigold gives Bellamy and his men the Marianne. Together, they rob a series of ships near Cape Corrientes and the Isle of Pines off the coast of Cuba.
May 1716:
As partners, Hornigold and Bellamy move eastward along the south shore of Cuba. At the eastern tip of Cuba they meet a French pirate known as “La Buze” (“the Buzzard”). The pirates agree to operate together.
June-August 1716:
Hornigold, La Buze and Bellamy refit their vessels at a secret pirate base on the north coast of Hispaniola. Bellamy persuades the pirates to vote out Hornigold as commodore of the pirate flotilla, together with some of his followers (including one known to history as “Blackbeard”!). Bellamy is elected in Hornigold’s place, and moves eastward along the coast of Hispaniola in company with La Buze.
September 1716:
Bellamy attacks a forty-four gun French ship off Porto Rico with his small sloop Marianne. He wisely withdraws after a hour-long fight.
October 1716:
Bellamy and La Buze attack and capture a variety of English and French vessels along the northeast coast of the modern Dominican Republic.
November-December 1716:
Basing out of St. Croix, Bellamy and La Buze take a dozen or more vessels in the vicinity of the Virgin Islands and the Leewards. One of these, the Sultana, is converted to a pirate ship–of which Bellamy is elected commander. His partner, the sometime- goldsmith Palgrave Williams, is elected captain of their old sloop, the Marianne.January 1717: Bellamy and Williams part company with La Buze at Blanquilla off the coast of Venezuela. After refitting at Los Testigos, they return to St. Croix in the Virgin Islands where they rescue a number of French pirates whose ship was sunk by a Royal Navy vessel.
February 1717:
Bellamy and Williams take The Whydah Galley off Long Key in the central Bahamas after a three-day chase. On the homeward leg of her triangular slave-trading voyage, the Whydah is carrying 30,000 lbs. sterling–a pirate’s dream come true! The pirates commandeer the vessel, giving the merchant captain and crew their ship, the Sultana.
March 1717:
The newly-refitted pirate flagship Whydah takes the richly-laden Tanner Frigate near the coast of Haiti. The pirates turn northward, moving back up the Gulf Stream.
Mid-April 1717:
Bellamy and his pirates raid shipping off the Delaware Capes taking a half-dozen inward-bound vessels, and Bellamy reportedly delivers his famed “Free Prince” speech to Simon Beer, a captured merchant captain.
April 26, 1717:
Enroute to Cape Elisabeth on the coast of Maine, Bellamy and the Whydah are caught off Cape Cod by a raging storm. The vessel hits a sand bar and capsizes with–legend has it—Goody Hallett witnessing the tragedy from the clifftops. With 144 men aboard, only two are known to have made it ashore alive from the stricken ship. Other vessels in Bellamy’s pirate fleet are likewise wrecked or seriously damaged. A total of nine pirates are apprehended.
October 1717:
Eight survivors of Bellamy’s fleet are put on trial for piracy. Two are acquitted; six are found guilty and sentenced to hang on November 15, 1717. The ninth man, an afro- amerindian named John Julian, is believed to have been sold into slavery.