Captain Kidd: A Guilty Scapegoat

If you were asked to list the names of pirates, your mind might go to fictional names like Long John Silver, Captain Jack Sparrow or one of his many adversaries. It might then go to actual pirates, like Blackbeard, Charles Vane or Anne Bonny, all of whom sailed out of Nassau in the late 1710s (and beyond in the cases of Vane and Bonny), as part of the Republic of Pirates. A name that probably won’t go on the list for anyone but the keenest of pirate enthusiasts is Captain William Kidd. However, during the time he was operating, Captain Kidd was probably the most famous pirate on the planet. When he was executed by hanging on 23 May 1701 at Execution Dock, Wapping, the crowd that formed to see Kidd get his comeuppance was huge. Captain Kidd’s end is a story of justice being served through unjust means, dished out by men in curly wigs only interested in protecting profits. While some of the details remain contested, a consensus among many historians of piracy has broadly been found. Here is that consensus.

Kidd’s childhood is largely a mystery. The only absolute certainty is that he was from Scotland. For a long time, it was believed he was born in Greenock, a port town west of Glasgow, but recently discovered documents suggest he could have actually been born in Dundee. Of his mother there is no record, as for his father there are only assumptions that he was a sailor. It’s generally agreed that when William Kidd was 5 years old, he moved to New York following the death of his father. There he probably became a seaman’s apprentice. So began a career that would eventually swallow him whole.

The peak of Captain Kidd’s sailing career coincided with two significant dramas in British history. The first of these dramas was the Nine Years’ War. Fought between 1689-97, the Nine Years’ War saw France, following a period of aggressive expansion into Western Europe, take on the so-called Grand Alliance. This alliance consisted of England, the Dutch Republic, Bavaria, Brandenburg, Saxony, the Holy Roman Empire, Spain and Savoy. As ever, hell of a lot of people to piss off that. The war was mostly fought on mainland Europe, but there was also fighting in the Americas and Asia as the introduction of colonies to European powers saw the first rise in conflicts being fought on an international scale. To meet the manpower requirements these expanding theatres of war demanded, extra hands at sea were needed. The solution was to hire privateers. Privateers were sailors, who preferably had fighting experience, who were independent of their country’s Navy. These sailors were given a letter of marque. This letter gave the sailor royal assent to attack the ships (war or trade) of enemy nations and pirates in a time of conflict. A previously agreed percentage of the plunder would be shared amongst the crew and captain, with the rest of the winnings going to the crown when they returned. In 1695, Captain Kidd received his own letter of marque – but I’ll come back to that.

The second major drama that Kidd’s career coincided with was the turmoil the East India Company found itself in during the entirety of the 1690s. The year 1600 didn’t pass by without incident. On 19 February the Peruvian volcano Huaynaputina erupted, chucking plumes of sulphur into Earth’s atmosphere which, after it had reacted with the water vapour in the air, became sulphuric acid. The presence of sulphuric acid meant less sunlight reached the Earth’s surface, until eventually the acid droplets fell to Earth after a year or two. There were reports of the sun ‘dimming’ from as far away as China. But a slightly darker afternoon was the least of the world’s problems. The year 1601 was one of the coldest in human history. In Russia it saw the beginning of a three-year famine that would result in the overthrow of Tsar Boris Godunov. Back in China, some areas experienced snow in summertime. Agriculture and livestock were decimated due to the cold, which had a devastating impact on trade and harvests the world over; none more so than in Peru and Germany, where wine production completely collapsed. Whilst fear of the fallout from Huaynaputina may have been all-consuming for most farmers, merchants and monarchs of the day, it did not perturb a group of British merchantmen from setting up their own trading company. The British East India Company was incorporated by royal charter on 31 December 1600 and was given a complete monopoly over British trade in the East. By securing this monopoly, it amassed wealth and power on a scale no corporation has managed to replicate. The company was so successful, that resentment grew among those who wanted a slice of the vast profits to be had in and around the Indian Ocean. Eventually, a competitor was also given a royal charter to trade in the region. In 1698 the New East India Company was formed, plunging the old company into a crisis that was only solved in 1708 when the two companies merged.

But that was not the only issue for the Old Company. Between 1686-90, the Company (who set up their own trade outposts in the regions they traded in and had their own army) had been at war with the powerful Mughal Empire. It ended disastrously for the Company, who lost a lot of money under the terms of the peace agreement. Therefore, to say relations between the two entities in the 1690s were as frosty as the Peruvian vineyards in 1601 would be an understatement. So, the rise in piracy in the region brought largely by the Nine Years’ War, did not sit well with the Mughals.

In 1695, the pirate John Avery (aka Henry Avery), who captained the ‘Fancy’, led a pirate squadron to the Red Sea, following the arrival of five American ships to the area.  On 7 September, Avery oversaw the capture of the ‘Fath Mahmamadi’, which belonged to an extremely prominent trader Abd-ul-Ghafur. Ghafur was from Gujarat, a region that was part of the Mughal Empire. The relationship between the East India Company and Ghafur, even before this incident, was not good. In 1691, he lost a ship to pirates and following Ghafur’s demands, the governor of Surat, a port city in the Gujarat region, and the Mughal Emperor, Aurangzeb, both ordered all the English in Surat to be confined to their factories, and the Company’s trade was stopped until £100,000 was paid to Ghafur. The Company refused to pay this, as there was no evidence that the pirates were English. Proof was eventually found that the pirates were Danish, but the Company’s men had already spent five months locked up, to the detriment of the Company’s coffers. The capture of the second ship, the ‘Ganj-i-Sawai’, took place a day later and brought even more resistance to the Company.  Avery took the ship as well as the money that was on board, which equated to £1,000 for each man who was owed a full share. But the loss of money wasn’t the worst thing about the capture, this ship was owned by Aurangzeb. The loss of the ‘Ganj-i-Sawai’ further damaged relations between the Mughals and the company. In retaliation to the attack the company’s men operating in Surat were put in chains. As with the incident in 1691 (which turned out not involve any Englishmen), the Mughals justified this by arguing that all Englishmen were as good or as bad as each other.

Four years later, as piracy continued to impinge on trade in the region, Aurangzeb forced the companies (e.g. the Dutch East Indian Company) working in the region to sign a bond to actively suppress piracy and pay compensation for any damages caused by the pirates. Each of the companies were given a region to actively protect and the East India Company were charged with protecting the south coast of India. In order to maintain a working relationship with the Mughal’s and as a result protect their own trade routes, the Company accepted this latest demand. Despite taking up this new responsibility for future shipping safety, the capture of the ‘Ganj-i-Sawai’ four years ago was still an issue that needed resolving. Efforts had been made to try to bring the perpetrator, John Avery, to justice for years but none of those efforts proved successful. In July 1696 a royal proclamation was given for the arrest of Avery and his men, with a reward of £500 available which was put forward by the company. The fact that the company themselves offered the money for the reward despite this warrant being produced by the crown indicates the level of personal interest the company had in catching Avery. An arrest was crucial to restore some of the Mughal’s trust, so if they could not find the right man, the next best option was to provide a suitable scapegoat. Kidd was chosen. They had not given up on catching Avery either. A government declaration in 1698 offered a pardon to all those who had committed piracy between the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Comorin – the Southern tip of India, if they surrendered voluntarily. Only two pirates were exempt from this pardon: Avery and Kidd.

Captain Kidd received his letter of marque shortly after it was written on 26 January 1695, which granted him privateer privileges to attack French vessels, but most importantly, to attack pirates in the area. These privileges came into effect from 11 December 1695. On 26 February 1696, on board his vessel ‘Adventure Galley’, he sailed from Deptford to New York to pick up supplies and more men. Once that was done he headed to the Comoros Islands of the coast of East Africa, arriving in February 1697. The eagle-eyed among you would have notice that Kidd’s arrival to the region was a year and a half after the capture of the ‘Ganj-i-Sawai’. Indeed, the paperwork existed which could provide the concrete proof to exonerate Kidd from any involvement. Conveniently, this paperwork could not be found when Kidd was on trial. One piece of paperwork that was present was Kidd’s own letter of marque, but that was dismissed as inadequate. It was probably at this point the penny dropped for Kidd. He was found guilty of a crime nobody believed he was guilty of, because the profits of the East India Company were worth more than his life. Before you feel too sorry for Kidd though, let me tell you he was also charged for crimes he actually did commit.

Under pressure from his crew, who were growing ever restless at the lack of action and financial reward, Kidd decided it was time to take a more casual approach to which ships constituted as fair game and started to attack the pilgrim fleet sailing to Mecca from India. In 1697, Kidd raided three small vessels. One of these was the ‘Rupparell’, a Dutch vessel. After taking the ship, Kidd sold the cargo to an East India Company employee Gillam Gandaman, whose involvement did not help with the rumours that the company were promoting piracy in order to benefit over local merchants. The most damaging of Kidd’s endeavours to the Company’s authority occurred in early 1698 when he captured the ‘Quedagh Merchant’, who’s cargo price was estimated at between 200,000 to 400,000 rupees.  Much of the cloth that was on board the ship belonged to Muklis Khan, who was effectively the Mughals secretary of state, which added to what was already a cause for further rift between the between the Mughals and the Company, and ensured the Company would feel little sympathy for the miscarriage of justice they were planning on performing. Kidd rejected an offer from an Armenian merchant on board the ship, Coji Babba, of 20,000 rupees to set the ship free. Babba would later appear at Kidd’s trial to testify against him and claimed compensation when Kidd’s treasure was found. Our Kidd was also convicted of murder, after he threw an iron bucket at the ship’s gunner, a man named William Moore. The bucket broke Moore’s neck, and whilst Kidd’s rage had been instigated by Moore’s attempt to organise a mutiny, murder is still murder.

Kidd was executed, and his body displayed at Tilbury Point to warn other pirates of the fate that may befall them. The legend of Kidd grew after his death though. The connection between pirates and buried treasure is thought to have originated with Kidd. His treasure would have been used as compensation to those who were owed it, but it could not be found. Kidd either could not or would not tell anyone where it was. This led to rumours he had hidden it, thus starting the fascination with buried treasure. Some of Kidd’s treasure was found, but a lot remains unaccounted for and has been the target for many treasure hunters ever since. Perhaps there may be a discovery one day. There’s also a decent chance there is no treasure to find at all.

The case of Captain Kidd is an odd story. It’s a story of corporate greed and financial interests coming ahead of a fair judiciary. It’s a story about an awful man, guilty of numerous offences, but who only became one of the world’s most wanted men because he was to be scapegoated for a crime he and everybody else knew he had no involvement in. Had Avery been caught, Kidd – guilty though he was, may well have escaped justice. As it was they through the books at him, most factual, but the biggest of all was a complete work of fiction.

Sources:

https://www.historytoday.com/archive/months-past/execution-captain-kidd

Captain Kidd 1695 (piratedocuments.com)

In defence of Captain Kidd | The Scotsman

William Kidd | Biography, Ship, Treasure, Death, & Facts | Britannica

Podcast: History Today – The real life of Captain Kidd (with Tom Wareham)

Cover Image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:William_Kidd.jpg

Credit: James Thornhill, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons