9. Captain Kidd Traditional Cache

Captain Kidd (left) was perhaps one of the unluckiest pirates in history. He was done in not by a cutlass or pistol shot, but indecision, bad judgment and politics. Ironically, many historians believe he wasn't even really a pirate.

Kidd was born in Scotland around 1655. By 1689 he was in command of a vessel named the Blessed William which was operating as a privateer in the West Indies (A privateer ship is a warship that is privately owned, but has government permission to attack enemy ships. The privateer must split any spoils with the government). He was successful, but in 1691 his crew mutinied and left him stranded on the island of Antigua.

Kidd went to New York where he married well and became a merchant. Kidd might have spent the rest of his life on Wall Street, but apparently the sea was still in his blood. In 1695 he traveled to London to ask to be put in command of a privateer again. He got the Adventure Galley, a 237-ton vessel with 34 cannon. His primary backer on this venture was Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellamont, but other nobles (including the King) also had a stake in the voyage.

Kidd sailed out of the Chatham dockyard and immediately was boarded by the Royal Navy, who took many of his best sailors for their own ships. Kidd was forced to replace them with disreputable sailors with pirate leanings. In New York he added more crew, then set off for the Indian Ocean. Kidd's public mission was to clear the sea there of pirates, but it was probably understood by his backers that he would also take every opportunity to capture any enemy ships that had valuable cargo.

Months went by and no acceptable victims were found. The crew pressured Kidd to turn pirate and attack anything. Kidd got into a fight and killed a gunner after refusing to plunder an English ship they'd sighted.

Finally, in February 1698, a Indian-owned ship, The Quedah Merchant, was spotted and Kidd captured her easily. She carried a cargo worth some 710,000 pounds. Best of all she had French papers which made her a legal target for Kidd under his privateer commission.

Meanwhile, back in London, politics were turning against Kidd. Exaggerated reports of his adventures were coming in from the Indian Ocean and the enemies of his backers were using them to denounce the Whig party to which many of Kidd's powerful friends belonged. Kidd's friends finally distanced themselves from him labeling him an "obnoxious pirate" and a price was set on his head.

Kidd got wind of this and abandoned the damaged Adventure Galley, transferred the Quedah Merchant treasure to a small sloop, and ran for New York where he thought his patron Governor Bellamont could help him.

Outside New York, Kidd buried the bulk of the treasure on Gardiner's Island (one of the few verified instances of a pirate actually burying a treasure) and attempted to use it as a bargaining chip for a pardon. It didn't work. Kidd was arrested and imprisoned and the treasure recovered.

Despite his protests that he was only a privateer, Kidd was tried in London and executed in 1701. The papers that might have proved his innocence disappeared in Bellamont's hands and his logbook was burned. His corpse was displayed in an iron cage on the dock at Thames Estuary for several years as a warning to other would-be pirates.

Kidd's name is still associated with a supposed buried treasure on Oak Island, Nova Scotia, but it is doubtful that he is responsible for whatever is located there.