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Major Stede Bonnet

The story of the career of Major Stede Bonnet is indeed a strange one. He had less cause than most to become a pirate. His background was much more respectable than that of the average sea rover. His had not been the rough-and‑tumble life usually bred by poverty and hunger which had led so many men to turn pirate. Even more astonishing, he had never even been a sailor!

In England, his family was held in high esteem, and his education was good for the age in which he lived. As an army officer, he had reached the rank of major, but after reaching middle age he had settled down to enjoy the good things of life. He enjoyed the company of the best society of Bridgetown, on the West Indian Island of Barbados. His sugar plantation brought him wealth, and he held the respect of his friends and neighbors.

Then, for some undetermined reason, Stede Bonnet suddenly cast aside everything smacking of respectability and as a pirate began the search for adventure. His former neighbors were scandalized when they discovered this most likable person had suddenly gone “a pyrating.” They searched for an explanation for his unusual behavior. Publicly, they vowed the major was suffering from “a Disorder in his Mind.” There were whispers that the real reason for his about-face was the sharp tongue of a nagging wife. At the time, some openly stated that Bonnet’s troubles could be traced to “some discomforts he found in the married state.”

Not only was Stede Bonnet not familiar with the ways of the sea, but he was unaware of the ways of pirates. The beginning of his piratical career was much milder than that of the ordinary buccaneer. In the first place, he made no attempt to capture or steal a ship with which to begin his operations. In early 1717 he did the almost unheard of thing of buying a vessel. This was a fast little sloop, with ten cannons lashed to her single gun deck. He renamed his ship the Revenge, a favorite name among pirates. In selecting his crew, his course was equally startling. Instead of signing on a crew and promising them regular shares of the booty, Bonnet hired his sailors, paying them wages out of his own pocket. From the taverns and grog-shops of Bridgetown, he recruited some 70 derelict seamen to man his ship.

For a rank amateur, Bonnet was extremely successful. Within a very few days, he had taken the Anne of Glasgow, the Endeavor of Bristol, the Young from Leeds, and the Turbes from Barbados. After plundering the cargoes, the crews were set ashore, to be picked up by some passing vessel. The Turbes was burned, more than likely because she was from Barbados. This seemed to set a pattern, for every ship from the Barbados that Bonnet later captured was put to the torch, probably to keep the news of his new profession from reaching his former home.

Governor Johnson stood steadfast in his resolution that the pirate was to hang. On the day appointed for the execution, Bonnet was brought from his place of confinement in a state near collapse. One observer noted that “he was scarce sensible when he came to the place of execution.” A few minutes later, holding a cluster of flowers in his manacled hands, Stede Bonnet was “swung off” the cart beneath the gallows. When his body was cut down, it was taken down to the edge of the marsh and there buried below the low water mark, near the graves of the former members of his crew.

So ended the life of Major Stede Bonnet, gentleman pirate. No stone marked his grave, and the sea waters on which he had won his reputation soon washed away all traces of his final resting place.