Killed before trial
1716–1719 · North Carolina
Blackbeard
Edward Teach held Charles Town to ransom for a chest of medicine, took a royal pardon, went back to sea and died on a sloop's deck at Ocracoke in 1718.
Era
The eighteenth century (1700s)
5 cases from 1700s.
5 cases5 solved0 unsolved1716–1739
Killed before trial
Executed
1717–1718 · South Carolina
Stede Bonnet
A rich Barbados planter bought a ship, hired a crew and went pirating in 1717. Eighteen months later Charles Town hanged him, despite his pleas.
Killed before trial
1719–1722 · Gabon
Bartholomew Roberts
A Welsh mate forced into piracy took hundreds of ships in under three years. A broadside off Gabon in 1722 ended him, and 52 of his men were hanged.
Convicted
1720–1721 · Jamaica
Anne Bonny and Mary Read
Two women sailed with John Rackham for barely two months in 1720. Their trial in Jamaica is the solid record; almost everything else is later legend.
Executed
1734–1739 · United Kingdom
Dick Turpin
No night ride to York, no Black Bess: the real Dick Turpin was an Essex gang robber and killer, hanged at York in 1739 for stealing horses.