February 26 - Two pirate ships commanded by Bartholomew Roberts and
Montigny la Palisse are attacked near Barbados by local ships and driven away with heavy casualties.
March - Two sloops sent from
Martinique to capture Roberts and his men arrive too late to capture the pirates, who have sailed northward. Roberts adopts a new flag threatening death to the inhabitants of Barbados and Martinique.
September - Rackham and his pirates loot several fishing boats in the
Bahamas. They then raid French
Hispaniola for cattle and capture two
sloops.
Roberts returns to the Caribbean, bombards
Saint Kitts and burns two ships in the harbor. Some weeks later, Roberts captures a French ship near
Carriacou and commandeers it, renaming it the Royal Fortune.
October - Pirates under Rackham's leadership ransack several vessels off northern Jamaica.
October - Rackham and his crew are captured by a commissioned sloop commanded by
Jonathan Barnet. After the William's boom is damaged, the surprised pirates make no resistance.
November - Rackham and his crew are tried, sentenced and hanged.[1] Rackham and two others are gibbetted. Read and Bonny are tried and sentenced (execution delayed due to pregnancy).[2]
Indian Ocean
Undated -
Edward England ravages the
Malabar Coastal shipping, taking one Dutch vessel and an unknown number of Indian hulls.
October - Captain
Condent captures an Arab ship off
Bombay, stealing approximately £150,000 worth of cash and cargo.[3]
November 20, 1720 - Captain England in the Fancy and Captain
Olivier Levasseur alias "la Buse" attack Captain
James Macrae in the
East IndiamanCassandra near
Anjouan in the
Comoros. Macrae is ultimately forced aground after a bloody battle.
November–December - Captain England and some of his friends are marooned by their pirate crew, who elect
John Taylor to replace him.
North America
June 21 - Bartholomew Roberts invades the harbor of
Trepassey,
Newfoundland, plundering 22 vessels and burning all but one.
July - Roberts captures nine or ten French vessels off the
Grand Banks and commandeers a new ship, the 26-gun Fortune. Aboard the Fortune, Roberts proceeds to take ten English vessels, then sails back toward the Caribbean.
West Africa
October–November - Roberts in the Royal Fortune tries to reach the
Cape Verde Islands, but misses his landfall and is forced back to the
West Indies by the
trade wind. A shortage of water kills many of his pirates.
Deaths
November 17 -
Calico Jack Rackham hanged for piracy at Gallows Point, Port Royal, Jamaica (born December 21, 1682).[1]
References
^
abGrosse, Philip (1924). The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars of the Lives & Deaths of the Pirates & Buccaneers. New York: Burt Franklin.
^Johnson, Charles (1724). A general history of the robberies and murders of the most notorious pyrates, and also their policies, discipline and government, from their first rise and settlement in the island of Providence, in 1717, to the present Year 1724. London. p. 126.
^Defoe, Daniel (1852). The History of the Lives and Bloody Exploits of the Most Noted Pirates. Hartford: Silas Andrus & Son. pp. 122–126.