Early American Crime

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As soon as Joseph Andrews read the newspaper article in the St. Christopher’s Gazette, which reproduced the deposition William Harris gave to the authorities, he knew he had to leave the Caribbean island of St. Eustatia immediately.

The decision was a wise one, because as soon as Governor John De Windt read the same story in the same newspaper, he issued a proclamation that anyone caught assisting Andrews or his partner, Nicholas Johnson, in leaving the island of St. Eustatia would have to pay a penalty of 50,000 pieces of eight. But the governor’s action came too late. Andrews had already left the island on board a coasting sloop bound for Casco Bay under the name of Joseph Saunders.

De Windt quickly wrote Governor Francis Bernard of Massachusetts Bay to inform him of Andrews’s pending arrival. Bernard responded by issuing his own proclamation on December 2, 1766 that ordered all justices of the peace, sheriffs, and civil officers to use their “utmost Diligence” in locating and capturing Andrews.

What was in the newspaper article that initiated the manhunt for Andrews and Johnson?

William Harris’s Deposition

In August 1766, Joseph Andrews left New York and headed to the West Indies in the sloop Polly. He observed that the captain and the passengers had a lot of money with them, so he and Nicholas Johnson devised a plan to take possession of it.

With William Harris at the helm on the night before the ship was due to arrive at the island of St. Christophers (now Saint Kitts), Johnson walked over to the captain, who was sleeping up on deck, and with one blow of an ax killed him “without a Groan or Struggle.” Andrews and Johnson then turned on the rest of the passengers and crew and killed them in similar fashion. They even struck the young mate with an ax and threw him overboard while he was still alive. (Andrews later gave the excuse that the boy was mortally wounded, so he figured that it would be best to finish him off then and there rather than make him suffer over the course of weeks.)

When Harris saw what was happening, he cried out, “For God Almighty’s sake, Andrews, what are you about?” With ax in hand, Andrews then chased after Harris, who ran to the end of the bowsprit with a knife as his only defense. Andrews figured that they might need Harris to help with navigation, so Andrews told him that with everyone else on board dead, the ship was now in their possession. But if Harris joined them and swore to keep what happened a secret, they would not harm him and would share the plunder. Harris realized that he had little choice, so he agreed to the proposal.

The three men broke open the chests and lockers of the captain and crew and toasted their success with a bottle of wine. They also found a Bible, and the two instigators made Harris swear upon it never to betray them. After a few days of sailing, they spotted land, so they transferred their booty into a smaller boat and abandoned the ship. They let Harris steer the boat towards land, but along the way Andrews and Johnson fell asleep. Harris quickly stripped down, slipped off the boat, and swam to safety. Good thing, too, because the other two had concocted a plan to kill Harris just before they reached land.

When Harris arrived on St. Christophers, he consulted with a minister, who assured him that the oath he took on the Bible was not binding, and, more than that, that it would be criminal for him to keep the oath. So Harris went straight to the Judge Surrogate of the Admiralty and gave a deposition that detailed everything that had happened on the Polly, which was subsequently printed in the Gazette.

Nicholas Johnson’s Crucial Error

Nicholas Johnson apparently made the crucial error of not reading the same newspaper article that Andrews and Governor De Windt did, because he was quickly captured on St. Eustatia. According to the law of the island, no one could be put to death without first confessing his crime, no matter how much evidence is accumulated or how many witnesses step forward to testify. To get around this legal obstacle, the suspect was normally put on “the Rack” (although in this case, it is also known as the Breaking Wheel) and tortured “more or less in proportion to the Appearances or Evidence against him” until he finally declared his guilt. Most suspects confessed right away rather than face the torture, and in so doing limited the need to accumulate evidence against them.

Such was the case with Johnson, who, in fear of the rack, gave a full confession and made bringing Harris in from the island of St. Christopher to testify against him unnecessary. Johnson was sentenced to be publicly executed on November 15, 1766–by means of the rack.

At 9 a.m., Johnson was brought out of the fort that held him and was secured with cords to a wooden cross lying parallel to the ground. The executioner surveyed the scene, then held aloft a heavy iron bar, and brought it down on Johnson’s right leg. In the same way, he then proceeded to break Johnson’s other leg and two arms. Up until this point, Johnson took the punishment without so much as a groan, but when the executioner hammered away on Johnson’s thighs, the condemned criminal screamed out in pain. With Johnson’s limbs now “mangled and shattered,” the executioner began to strike Johnson’s stomach. After twenty-two blows to his middle, Johnson finally expired.

Johnson suffered this gruesome end because he happened to be caught on an island that did not fall under English rule and consequently was not governed by English law.

Who Was Joseph Andrews?

Joseph Andrews was captured in Boston shortly after he arrived in New England. He denied being involved in the murders on the Polly, but several items with the captain’s name on them were later found in his possession, along with large sums of money and gold. When he was discovered, Andrews had cut off his black, curly hair and was wearing a wig. But his disguise failed to keep his identity a secret. What remained a secret, however, were the biographical details of his life.

Conflicting accounts of Andrews’s background circulated in the colonial American media, to the point where it is impossible to know which story is the correct one. The Last Dying Speech and Confession of Joseph Andrews, which is written in the first person, claims that Andrews was born to Portuguese parents. His father was a Mendicant friar who renounced his vows to marry Andrews’s mother, and, in order to escape judgment and shame, the two moved from Lisbon to Vigo, Spain. Andrews’s mother died while in childbirth, and his father later died of dysentery when the boy was 13.

Free of supervision, Andrews moved to Lisbon and worked on the docks. After he married the older widow of an acquaintance who had died, Andrews started to drink to excess and eventually left his wife after he became intoxicated and beat her “in a most shocking Manner.” He briefly joined a group of banditti and committed “Sundry excesses, and depredations upon innocent People who had never injured me” before leaving the country on board a ship headed for Brazil. He traveled around South America and the West Indies, all the while “meditating Schemes to get suddenly Rich.”

The Last Dying Speech lists several murders that Andrews supposedly committed, including one in which he murdered the captain of a French schooner and his crew, and then set a wife, child, and a “Negro Wench” who were on board off in a canoe without any food or drink. But other accounts accuse Johnson of having committed some of these very same crimes, and it is not clear if they carried any of them out together.

An Account of the Trial of Joseph Andrews for Piracy and Murder gives an entirely different account of Andrews’s life. It claims that Andrews was born in Wales in the town of Swansea to poor, but honest, Protestant parents. He traveled to Boston as an indentured servant and was apprenticed to a captain. But he deserted his master when they were at port in Lisbon, and his ability to speak Portuguese is attributed to the time he spent there afterward. He later lived in New York, where he married–and later abandoned–a widow.

Newspapers give varying accounts of Andrews’s background as well. Some insist that he was Welsh, while others say that he was Portuguese and was always trying to pass himself off as a Welshman, which was the case when he was apprehended in Boston.

Punishment

When Governor Henry Moore of New York learned that Andrews was being held in Massachusetts, he requested that he be transferred to his province to receive trial. Before Andrews could be moved, however, he tried to kill himself by slitting his throat, but the knife was too small to accomplish its end.

Under the guard of two men, Andrews sailed to New York along with the evidence that was found on him–that is, except for the money and gold, which remained in Boston until “further Order.” When Andrews arrived, a crowd of spectators gathered to see him transferred from the ship to the gaol.

Andrews remained in prison for almost two years before he was tried. Finally, after a long trial, Andrews was found guilty of piracy and murder on May 18, 1769 and was sentenced to be executed with his body to be afterwards hung in chains, as was the custom for pirates.

The night before he was executed, Andrews tried to use his life story as a means of blackmail. He said that he would “give a particular account of the Transactions of his Life” if the authorities agreed not to hang his body in chains after this death. But if they could not meet his demand, “the World should have little Satisfaction from him.”

Andrews was executed on May 23 by hanging on the east side of the Hudson River, near Domini’s Hook. His body was afterward hung in chains “on the most conspicuous Part of the Pest or Bedlow’s-Island, in New York Bay, as a Spectacle to deter all Persons from the like atrocious Crimes”–which is perhaps why we will never know the true story of Joseph Andrews.

Sources

• An Account of the Trial of Joseph Andrews for Piracy and Murder. [New York], 1769. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.
• Andrews, Joseph. The Last Dying Speech and Confession of Joseph Andrews. [New York]: Swiney & Stewart, [1769]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, April 6.” New-York Journal, April 16, 1767, issue 1267, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, December 22.” Boston Gazette, December 22, 1766, issue 612, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, December 22.” New-Hampshire Gazette, December 26, 1766, issue 534, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “Boston, December 29.” Boston Evening-Post, December 29, 1766, issue 1632, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “By His Excellency Francis Bernard, Esq. . . . a Proclamation.” Boston Evening-Post, December 8, 1766, issue 1629, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “The Deposition of William Harris.” New-York Journal, November 13, 1766, issue 1245, p. 1. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “The English Prints . . .” New-York Mercury, June 6, 1767, issue 813, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• A Narrative of Part of the Life and Adventures of Joseph Andrews. [New York, 1769]. Database: America’s Historical Imprints: Readex/Newsbank.
• “New-York, May 18.” New-York Journal, May 18, 1769, issue 1376, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “New-York, May 29.” New-York Gazette, May 29, 1769, issue 918, p. 3. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “St. Christophers, November 19.” Boston News-Letter, December 12, 1767, issue 3306, p., Supplement [1]. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.
• “St. Eustatia, November 12, 1766.” New-York Gazette, From Monday December 8, to Monday December 15, 1766, issue 401, p. 2. Database: America’s Historical Newspapers: Readex/Newsbank.

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The merchants and planters in and around Bath, North Carolina had had enough of Edward Teach, a.k.a. Blackbeard. The pirate had been living–and carousing–in town, and had been pillaging ships up and down the inlets and rivers of the colony. But the citizens knew that they could not complain to Governor Charles Eden of North Carolina, because he tacitly approved Blackbeard’s actions.

Earlier in the summer of 1718, Blackbeard secretly met with Eden, who was eager to bring money into his backwater colony. The Governor agreed to issue pardons for past actions to Blackbeard and his pirate crew, and Blackbeard and his closest allies would then settle down in North Carolina to lead what would appear to be normal lives. With the pardon serving as cover and with government officials looking the other way, Blackbeard could then freely attack vessels along the coast. In exchange, Eden would receive a cut of Blackbeard’s spoils and serve as a fence for the rest.

Since the merchants and planters of North Carolina could not rely on their own governor, they instead looked north to Governor Alexander Spotswood of Virginia. Spotswood was no saint, either. He nurtured a culture of corruption in his colony by building a lavish Governor’s mansion for himself and using his position to take private possession of 85,000 acres of public land. With political opposition to his administration mounting, Spotswood saw the pursuit of Blackbeard as an opportunity to shift attention away from his own misdeeds, so he agreed to help out.

The Most Powerful Pirate in the Atlantic

Blackbeard was born around 1680 in Bristol, England’s second largest port at the time. He was educated to read and write, and he went out to sea at a young age. He was tall, thin, and–true to his nickname–sported a long beard.

Starting in the early 1700’s, Blackbeard served on privateer ships, which attacked and plundered Spanish merchant vessels in the Caribbean under English sponsorship during the War of the Spanish Succession. But when peace with Spain brought an end to privateering in 1713, Blackbeard joined Benjamin Hornigold to embark on a new profession: piracy.

In the fall of 1716, Hornigold captured a ship that could be outfitted perfectly for piracy, so he rewarded Blackbeard’s loyal service by placing him in command of it. Blackbeard outfitted the ship with 40 guns and renamed her the Queen Anne’s Revenge. By the spring, Blackbeard had 70 men under his leadership. He was the fourth most powerful pirate in Nassau and was well on his way to becoming the most powerful pirate in all of the Atlantic.

Blackbeard enhanced his ferocious reputation as a pirate through his appearance. He braided pigtails in his hair and beard, and when he attacked a ship, he would dangle lit fuses out from under his hat and around his face. This fiery display, along with his “fierce and wild” eyes, made him look like he was a demon from Hell. Yet, despite coming off as a madman, there is no evidence that he ever killed outright anyone on board a seized ship, and he won public support with his kind treatment of captured crewmembers and the return of cargo that he did not need. His look and act was specifically designed to scare ships into submission rather than to provoke a fight, since avoiding violence ultimately benefitted both sides.

Pirates like Blackbeard created a crisis in the Atlantic trade system with their attacks on merchant ships. Indeed, in the spring of 1717, Blackbeard completely disrupted trade and produced terror throughout the city of Charleston, South Carolina when he blockaded the sea route to the city in order to procure medicine to treat his wounded crew. The devastating effect that piracy had on trade is why pirates were harshly treated if they were ever caught. Captured pirates were quickly brought to trial and hanged in chains if found guilty, with their decaying bodies serving as notice to other seamen who might think about following a similar path.

When Blackbeard learned in April 1717 that the Whydah sank in a storm taking pirate captain Samuel Bellamy down with her and that the survivors were to be hanged in Boston, he was incensed and changed tactics. From now on, Blackbeard vowed to disrupt and destroy as much British shipping as he could. He still respectfully treated passengers and crew who submitted to him, but the cargo was another story. He now dumped into the ocean any goods that he did not need. And when he captured a Boston merchant vessel, he exacted revenge for the executions of the Whydah’s crew by setting it on fire. The mid-Atlantic coast now seemed to be at his mercy.

The Hunt for Blackbeard

When Spotswood ordered the hunt for Blackbeard, he shrouded the plan in the greatest of secrecy in fear that it would be leaked to Blackbeard in some way. He did not even share the plan with British government officials. Spotswood enlisted Lieutenant Robert Maynard to head the covert mission into North Carolina. In the meantime, he pushed a proclamation through the Virginia Assembly that offered a reward for the capture or destruction of any pirate within the year and specifically set the reward for capturing Blackbeard at one hundred pounds.

Maynard arrived in the neighboring colony with two ships on November 21, 1718 and soon spotted Blackbeard’s ship hiding in shallow waters. The next day, he sent an exploratory boat, which received fire once it got close enough to Blackbeard’s ship. Maynard immediately raised the British flag and sailed after the pirate. Eventually, both Blackbeard’s and Maynard’s ships ran aground, but Maynard removed all of his ship’s ballast and began to close in on Blackbeard.

Blackbeard shouted, “Damn for you Villains, who are you? And, from whence came you?” Maynard responded, “You may see by our Colours we are no Pyrates.”

Blackbeard fired a broadside that took out twenty men on Maynard’s ship and nine on the other. Maynard ordered his men below deck and told them to ready themselves for close combat. Blackbeard’s men then lobbed several grenades–bottles filled with powder, shot, lead, and iron with a quick match inserted into their mouth–at Maynard’s ship as it approached, but since almost everyone was below deck by this time, they did little damage.

In the belief that only a handful of men were left on Maynard’s ship, Blackbeard cried, “Let’s jump on Board, and cut them to Pieces.” As soon as Maynard spotted Blackbeard through the smoke of the grenades, he signaled to his men, who rose and attacked the pirates. Maynard and Blackbeard each fired a pistol at one another, and each was wounded by the shot. The two then attacked each other with swords. In the middle of the fight, Maynard’s sword broke, and as he stepped back to cock another pistol, Blackbeard moved to strike him with his cutlass. But one of Maynard’s men at that same instant wounded Blackbeard’s neck and throat, so Maynard came away from the blow with just a small cut on his fingers.

Blackbeard received another shot from Maynard’s pistol, yet he continued to stand and fight. In the course of the mêlée, Blackbeard received twenty-five wounds, five from pistol shots, but as he cocked another pistol, Blackbeard fell down dead. Without their leader, the pirate crew quickly surrendered.

But Maynard’s crew was not out of danger yet. A black pirate named Caesar was hidden away, waiting to carry out orders to blow up the ship if Blackbeard was taken or killed. Africans and African-Americans, both enslaved and free, served on pirate ships in significant numbers. In fact, before Blackbeard “retired” to North Carolina, 60 out of 100 of his crewmembers were black. Luckily, two prisoners prevented Caesar from carrying out the plan. Otherwise, the ship and everyone on it would have been blown to pieces, as would have papers and letters between Blackbeard, Governor Eden, and some New York traders that were found on the ship after it was searched.

Maynard had Blackbeard’s head severed from his body and in triumph dangled it from the front of his ship as he traveled back to Virginia to collect his reward. He brought fifteen of Blackbeard’s crew with him, and all but two of them were executed by hanging.

Even though Maynard’s crew valiantly fought against Blackbeard, the experience was not enough to dissuade them from later becoming pirates themselves. The fact that government officials cheated these sailors out of the prize money that was owed them for their role in killing Blackbeard perhaps had something to do with their shift in loyalty.

The defeat of Blackbeard did not clear the way for free and safe trade throughout the Atlantic. In 1724, when Governor Spotswood planned a trip to London, he needed a well-armed man-of-war to protect him on his voyage. Otherwise, if he ran into a pirate on his journey, he most certainly would have received retribution for his role in killing Blackbeard and executing his crew, much like the Boston merchant ship received when Blackbeard exacted revenge for the execution of the Whydah’s crew.

Sources

• Defoe, Daniel. A General History of the Robberies and Murders of the Most Notorious Pirates. New York: Carroll & Graf, 1999.
• Johnson, Capt. Charles. The History of Black-Beard and Roche. Salem, MA: Cushing, 1802. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
• Rediker, Marcus. Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age. Boston: Beacon Press, 2004.
• Wilkinson, S. The Voyages and Adventures of Edward Teach, Commonly Called Black Beard, the Notrious Pirate. Boston: Book Printing Office, 1808. Database: America’s Historical Imprints, Readex/Newsbank.
• Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them Down. New York: Harcourt, 2007.