Geocache Identification Permit Approval Number: AMSP20190907017
Permit Expires on: 09/07/22
Captain Calico Jack Rackam's notoriety as a pirate captain is attributed more to the colorful clothes he wore and the female crewmembers he lead than any notable conquests.
Calico Jack Rackam was quartermaster in Captain Charles Vane's pirate crew when, in November 1718, he challenged Vane's decision to run from a fight with a well-armed French frigate in the Windward Passage. The pirate crew branded Vane a coward and set him aboard an unarmed sloop, thereby electing as captain Calico Jack, who immediately proceeded to plunder several small ships to the crews delight.
Upon inspection of one of his prizes, Calico Jack discovered that a number of convicts were on board in transit from England's Newport Prison to a life of indentured servitude on the plantations of Her Majesty's Caribbean and American colonies. Calico Jack set the prisoners free and offered them an opportunity to sign his Articles of Piracy and become his most ardent crewmembers.
Calico Jack sailed to New Providence and began the final chapter of his short piratical career upon his chance meeting with Anne Bonny. Together they cruised the Caribbean waters of Cuba, Jamaica, and Hispaniola, plundering small merchant and fishing vessels. One such Dutch prize that was easily taken had several skilled crewmembers whom Calico Jack pressed into joining his pirate crew. A youthful sailor who signed the ships Articles of Piracy was later revealed to be a woman named Mary Read. Jack, Anne, and Mary made a terrifying, if unusual, trio.
The bold and adventurous Calico Jack and his pirate queens continued to plunder the waters of the West Indies until his inglorious and disgraceful capture off the west coast of Jamaica by a heavily armed privateer. The pirate crew was put on trial and convicted at the Admiralty Court in Spanish Town, Jamaica. It was presided over by the governor Sir Nicholas Lawes on November 16, 1720. The trial was a spectacular event that drew attention far and wide, for this was the first time that female pirates were discovered roaming the waters of the Caribbean.
All of Calico Jack's male crew pleaded not guilty to the four charges of piracy, but were found guilty as charged and sentenced to death. Calico Jack was hanged the next day at Gallows Point and the remainder of the crew were hanged the following day in Kingston. Calico Jack's body was tarred, secured in an iron cage, and hung from a gibbet on the islet of Deadman's Cay leading into the harbor of Port Royal. There it hung as a dire warning to all pirates regarding their eventual fate. Today the location is referred to as Rackam's Cay.
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