Character guide

Howel Davis

major

Also known as Captain Davis, Captain Howel Davis, snow Davis, Davis

Davis rises through the pirate ranks by wit and persuasion rather than sheer brutality, holding a crew together along the Guinea coast where discipline frays and fortunes shift. His authority rests on performance as much as force, and the tension between his ambition and the loyalty of his men shadows his command. His career shows how quickly an ordinary seaman could become a captain in the Atlantic pirate world.

Edward Teach

major

Also known as Blackbeard, Captain Teach, Teach

Teach joins forces with the gentleman-pirate Bonnet, then quietly takes over the man's own sloop, exposing the gap between reputation and real power aboard a pirate ship. He is bold, cruel, and calculating, a commander whose fearsome appearance does half his work before a shot is fired. His partnership with Bonnet and his dealings along the Carolina coast anchor the middle of the book, where piracy and colonial politics blur.

Bartholomew Roberts

major

Also known as Roberts, Captain Roberts, the said Roberts, Commodore Roberts

Roberts dominates the History as its longest and most consequential life, a commander whose success at sea forced the author to organize the whole narrative around him. His story carries the tension between a disciplined pirate code and the violence it licenses, and his notoriety becomes the standard for judging the rest. Readers meet him as the figure who gave the golden age of piracy its most sustained and troubling shape.

Edward Low

major

Also known as Captain Low, Low, Captain Edward Low, Ned, Ned Low, Mr. Low

Low commands in the Caribbean and Atlantic with a reputation for savagery that outstrips his tactical skill, ruling through fear rather than the rough consent that holds most pirate crews together. His brutality creates tension with his own men and with the wider pirate network, marking him as the extreme case of what the trade could produce. His career shows how the same liberties that made pirate ships attractive could curdle into tyranny.

Charles Vane

major

Also known as Vane, Captain Vane, Charles

Vane commands with a stubborn independence that sets him against both the Royal Navy and any compromise with authority, making him a test case for what piracy actually demanded of its leaders. His refusal to accept the pardon puts him at odds with more pragmatic captains and exposes the fault lines within the pirate community. His story carries the middle of the book's argument about whether defiance is courage or self-destruction.

John Rackam

major

Also known as Rackam, Captain John Rackam, Captain Rackam

Rackam sails the Caribbean with a crew that includes two women disguised as men, a fact that scandalized and fascinated the public and made his ship a curiosity in its own right. His command is shaped by his relationship with Anne Bonny and by the uneasy balance of a crew that knows more about its captain than he would like. His fate at trial gives the book one of its most vivid courtroom scenes and ties the pirate story to the machinery of English justice.

Mary Read

major

Also known as Mary

Mary Read moves through the pirate world as a man, earning trust and friendship before revealing herself to a chosen few. Her love for a fellow pirate inspires one of the most generous acts in the book: she deliberately picks a quarrel with a rival so she can fight him in his place. Her story matters because it shows how completely the pirate code could be bent by courage and devotion, and how a woman could outfight the men who thought they knew her.

Anne Bonny

major

Also known as Ann Bonny, Anne

Anne Bonny enters the world as an attorney's bastard daughter, a beginning that seems to set her outside ordinary rules from the start. She takes to piracy with a ferocity that surprises even hardened crewmates, and her bond with Mary Read becomes one of the book's most striking partnerships. Her presence forces the reader to reckon with how the pirate world both punished and depended on women who refused its limits.

Stede Bonnet

major

Also known as Bonnet, Major Bonnet, Major Stede Bonnet, The Major

Stede Bonnet gives up a settled estate and respectable marriage to command a pirate ship, a decision that puzzles his crew and delights the reading public. He lacks the brutal instincts of his peers, yet his stubbornness and sense of honor keep him in the game long after wiser men would have retired. His story matters because it tests whether courage and breeding can substitute for seamanship in a world that respects only results.

George Lowther

major

Also known as Lowther, Captain George Lowther, Admiral Lowther, Captain Lowther

George Lowther builds his reputation through a mix of bold captures and careful alliances, operating in the Caribbean and South American waters where Spanish treasure and English merchants both offered targets. He is a leader who must balance the democratic instincts of his crew against his own desire for profit and survival. His career illustrates how quickly a man of ordinary background could rise in the pirate world, and how precarious that rise remained.

John Massey

supporting

Also known as Captain Massey, Massey, Captain John Massey

John Massey learns the pirate trade under Howel Davis, absorbing lessons about leadership, discipline, and the fine line between courage and recklessness. When he eventually leads his own crew, he must decide whether to imitate his mentor or chart a different course. His story matters because it shows the pirate world as a network of apprenticeships and rivalries, where today's lieutenant becomes tomorrow's captain.

Avery

major

Also known as Mr. Avery, Captain Avery

Avery's name circulates through Europe as a byword for fabulous wealth and royal ambition, with plays written about him and schemes proposed to capture him. The reality is far stranger: he is a former merchant mate from Devon whose legend outgrows his actual achievements. His story matters because it exposes the gap between pirate myth and pirate life, and because it shows how eagerly the world believed in a pirate king.

Edward England

supporting

Also known as England, Captain England, Capt. Edward England

England commands a pirate ship in the Indian Ocean, where his habit of sparing prisoners and treating them humanely sets him apart from the flinty captains around him. That very decency breeds tension aboard his vessel, as crewmen hungry for plunder and blood begin to see his clemency as weakness. His struggle to hold a brutal company to a gentler code makes him a study in whether mercy can survive among men who have chosen piracy.

John Phillips

supporting

Also known as Captain John Phillips, Phillips, Captain Phillips

Phillips commands a small pirate sloop largely manned by men pressed into service against their will, ruling through threats and violence rather than loyalty. When he boards a Virginia vessel and its master, Captain Mortimer, seizes a chance to fight back, Phillips is wounded and his authority nearly broken in the chaos. His story exposes how fragile pirate command really was, held together by a few hardened wretches while honest men aboard waited for any opening to revolt.

Spriggs

supporting

Also known as Captain Spriggs, Mr. Spriggs

Spriggs belongs to the second generation of Atlantic pirates, learning the trade under George Lowther before striking out with a ship and crew of his own. His career unfolds alongside the great names of the era, and the narrator treats his exploits as part of the same sprawling account that covers Roberts and the female pirates. He matters as a representative of how piracy reproduced itself, with lieutenants stepping into command and carrying the same articles and customs across the sea.

Worley

supporting

Also known as Captain Worley

Worley operates in the waters off the American colonies, where pirate crews preyed on merchant shipping and risked the gallows at every port. His story belongs to the broader pattern the narrator traces, of bold adventurers whose rise is sudden and whose end is often the scaffold. His fate in Virginia shows the colonies' growing determination to hang pirates rather than tolerate them, closing one of the many doors the sea rovers had counted on.

Anstis

supporting

Also known as Captain Anstis, Thomas Anstis

Anstis sailed under the formidable Bartholomew Roberts before breaking away with a faction of the crew to command his own ship. His career illustrates the constant fracturing of pirate companies, where ambition and disagreement split even the most successful crews. His eventual death closes a life spent in the shadow of a greater captain, showing how even able lieutenants rarely escaped the fate that piracy invited.

John Evans

supporting

Also known as Capt. John Evans, Evans, Captain Evans

Evans commands a pirate vessel in the same turbulent Atlantic world as Roberts and Lowther, chasing prizes and recruiting reluctant men. His death in a drunken brawl with his own crew captures the volatile, alcohol-soaked culture aboard pirate ships, where discipline was thin and tempers ran hot. He stands as a reminder that many pirate captains fell not to the navy or the gallows but to the very men they led.

Philip Roche

supporting

Also known as Roche, Captain Roche

Roche begins as an ordinary seaman who, with his confederates, murders a ship's company, drinks their rum, and elects himself captain over a vessel he rechristens the Mary Snow. His cunning runs to forgery and disguise — erasing the dead master's name from the papers, tearing down St. Peter's image for a lion, and inventing a storm that never drowned anyone. What makes him chilling is the calm practicality of his violence, and how long he manages to pass as a legitimate merchant before the law catches up.

Kennedy

supporting

Also known as Captain Kennedy, Walter Kennedy

Kennedy belongs to the crowded ranks of men who learned their trade under Roberts, the most prolific pirate of the age, and then struck out for themselves. His story sits within the book's larger argument that these were not romantic outlaws but robbers whose brief commonwealth might have become a nation had fortune favored them. He matters as one of the many lieutenants whose ambitions and quarrels show how pirate crews were held together — and how easily they came apart.

Mackra

supporting

Also known as Captain Mackra

Mackra commands a Company ship in the Indian Ocean, where the line between merchant, privateer, and pirate was often a matter of paperwork. His account places him inside the violent economy of the East Indies, where a captain's authority rested on guns, cargo, and the loyalty of frightened men. He matters because his encounters show the book's central truth: piracy was not a distant myth but a daily hazard for anyone who sailed with valuable goods.

Edward Cheeseman

minor

Also known as Cheeseman

A pirate who served under Bartholomew Roberts and was killed in action.

James Skyrm

minor

Also known as Captain James, one Skyrm, Captain James Skyrm, this Skyrm

A pirate captain who served under Howel Davis and later commanded his own ship.

William Rhet

supporting

Also known as Colonel William Rhet, the aforesaid Colonel Rhet, Colonel Rhet, the Colonel

Rhet sails out of Carolina with a commission to hunt Stede Bonnet, only to have his pursuit thrown off course by speaking a ship that sends him the wrong way. The narrator calls this the most unlucky thing that could have happened, since it cost him a meeting with Vane as well. He matters because his expedition shows how piracy was fought not only with cannon but with guesswork, weather, and the sheer contingency of the sea.

Woodes Rogers

supporting

Also known as Captain Rogers, Captain Woodes Rogers, Rogers, Governor Rogers

Rogers arrives in the West Indies with royal authority and a pardon in hand, tasked with clearing the islands of the men who had made them a pirate haven. The book's preface defends its own truthfulness by invoking the testimony of those who took pirates and heard their confessions, a world Rogers helped police. He matters because he represents the turning of the tide: the moment when the pirate commonwealth the author imagines might have been was instead broken by law.

Peter Scudamore

minor

Also known as Peter Scudamore Harry Glasby, Scudamore, Harry Glasby, Glasby, Pet. Scudamore

A pirate who served under Bartholomew Roberts and was executed.

Holford

minor

Also known as Captain Holford

A pirate captain who captured and executed other pirates.

Robert Maynard

supporting

Also known as Mr. Robert Maynard, Mr. Maynard, Maynard, Lieutenant Maynard

Maynard commands a small force dispatched specifically to run down Edward Teach, a mission that required patience, nerve, and a willingness to close with a man others fled. His pursuit belongs to the book's later chapters, where the great pirates are one by one brought down by officers who refuse to be intimidated. He matters because he is the instrument of the law's revenge, the ordinary sailor whose name survives because of the extraordinary man he killed.

George Yeats

minor

Also known as Yeats

A pirate who betrayed his captain and escaped with a ship.

Thomas Tew

supporting

Also known as Captain Thomas Tew, Tew, Captain Thomas, Thomas

Tew belongs to the first wave of pirates whose successes made the trade look less like crime and more like a career. His story carries the tension between the pirate's dream of easy riches and the violent end that waits when the luck runs out. For readers moving through the early lives, Tew sets the template: a captain who sails far, strikes hard, and becomes the measure against which later pirates are judged.

Rowry

minor

Also known as Mr. Rowry

A pirate who served under Bartholomew Roberts.

Taylor

minor

Also known as Captain Taylor, William Taylor

A pirate captain who operated in the Indian Ocean.

Skinner

minor

Also known as Skinner Master, Captain Skinner

A pirate captain who was executed.

Benjamin Hornigold

supporting

Also known as Hornigold, Captain Hornigold, Captain Benjamin Hornigold

Hornigold moves through the pirate world as both a leader of men and, later, a servant of the very authority he once defied. His career exposes the tension between loyalty to the brethren and the pardon that buys survival. In the book's middle arc, he matters because he shows how the pirate community could be turned against itself—and how the line between pirate and pirate hunter was thinner than anyone liked to admit.

Barnet

minor

Also known as Captain Barnet

A captain who captured the pirate John Rackam.

Richards

minor

Also known as Captain Richards

A pirate captain who operated in the Caribbean.

Martel

minor

Also known as Captain Martel

A pirate captain who operated in the Caribbean.

Chaloner Ogle

supporting

Also known as Captain Ogle, Captain Chaloner Ogle

Ogle stands on the side of law and empire, a naval officer whose duty places him directly in the path of the pirates readers have followed for hundreds of pages. His presence sharpens the stakes: the hunters are not faceless, and the chase has a name and a captain. In the later arc, he matters as the instrument of reckoning, the man whose guns close the story on Roberts and his crew.

Charles Harris

minor

Also known as Harris

A pirate who served under Edward Low and was executed.

John Filmore

minor

Also known as Filmore

A pirate who was executed for piracy.

Thomas Armstrong

minor

Also known as Armstrong

A pirate executed for his crimes in the Caribbean.

Robert Hays

minor

Also known as Robert Hays Thomas Roberts Charlton Capt, Roberts, Robert, Thomas, one Thomas

A pirate executed for his involvement in piracy.

Joseph Trahern

minor

Also known as Captain Trahern, one Jo, Captain Joseph Trahern, Jo, Captain Jo. Trahern, Trahern

A pirate captain who operated in the Atlantic.

Jones

minor

Also known as Captain Jones, This Jones, John Jones, one Jones

A pirate captain who was killed by his own crew.

Barbarouse

minor

A pirate captain who operated in the Caribbean.

Peter Solgard

minor

Also known as Captain Peter Solgard, the said Captain Solgard, the said Captain Peter Solgard, Captain Solgard

A captain who captured the pirate Charles Vane.

Robert Mortimer

minor

Also known as Captain Robert Mortimer, Captain Mortimer, Mortimer

A pirate captain who was killed by his own crew.

Hawkins

minor

Also known as Captain Hawkins

A pirate captain who operated in the Caribbean.

Knot

minor

Also known as Captain Knot

A pirate captain who was captured and executed.

George Wilson

minor

Also known as George Wilson John Sharp, the said Wilson, Wilson, John Sharp

A pirate executed for his crimes.

Valentine Ashplant

minor

Also known as Ashplant, Val. Ashplant, Val

A pirate who served under Bartholomew Roberts and was executed.

Thomas Tarlton

minor

Also known as Captain Thomas Tarlton, Tarlton, John Tarlton, this John Tarlton

A pirate captain who was killed in action.

Philip Bill

minor

Also known as Phil. Bill, R. Hardy, Hardy

A pirate executed for his crimes.

Samuel Fletcher

minor

Also known as Sam. Fletcher, Wm. Philips, Jacob Johnson, Philips

A pirate who was executed for piracy.

Thompson

minor

Also known as Captain Thompson Master, Captain Thompson

A captain whose ship was captured by pirates.

Graves

minor

Also known as Captain Graves

A pirate captain who was killed by his own crew.

Charles Bunce

minor

Also known as Charles Bunce A Dutch Galley, the Dutch, Bunce

A pirate who commanded a Dutch galley.

Lane

minor

Also known as Solomon, the King Solomon, King, John Lane King Solomon ditto, King Solomon, The King Solomon

A pirate who was executed for his crimes.

Sutton

minor

Also known as Tho. Sutton, Thomas Sutton

A pirate who served under Bartholomew Roberts.

Christopher Moody

minor

Also known as Moody

A pirate who served under Bartholomew Roberts and was executed.

Hume

minor

Also known as Captain Hume

A captain who fought against pirates.

David Sympson

minor

Also known as Sympson, David rice, Lord Sympson

A pirate who was executed for his crimes.

George Fenn

minor

Also known as Fenn, George, Captain Fenn

A pirate who was executed for his crimes.

William Phillips

minor

Also known as M. H. William Phillips, Phillips

A pirate who served under Bartholomew Roberts.

William Davis

minor

Also known as William Davis William Allen, Davis

A pirate executed for his crimes.

Andrew Harradine

minor

Also known as Andrew Harradine Master, Harradine

A pirate who served as a master on a pirate ship.

Hands

minor

Also known as Captain Hands, The aforesaid Hands

A pirate who served under Blackbeard and was later captured.

Peter Manwaring

minor

Also known as Peter Manwaring Commander, the said Peter Manwaring

A captain whose ship was captured by pirates.

John Walden

minor

Also known as John Walden Captain John Trahern, Walden

A pirate who served under Joseph Trahern.

John Atkins

minor

Also known as Mr. Atkins, Mr. John Atkins

A judge who presided over pirate trials.

William Magnes

minor

Also known as Magnes

A pirate who was executed for his crimes.

John Rose Archer

minor

Also known as Archer

A pirate who was executed for piracy.

Dennis Macarty

minor

Also known as Dennis

A pirate who was executed for his crimes.

Owen Roberts

minor

Also known as Boatswain Owen Roberts, Roberts

A boatswain who served under Bartholomew Roberts.

Judge Trot

minor

A judge who presided over pirate trials.

Abraham Harper

minor

Also known as Abraham Harper, Wm. Wood, Harper, Wood

A pirate executed for his crimes.

James White

minor

A pirate who was executed for piracy.

Tho. Roberts

minor

Also known as Roberts

A pirate executed for his crimes.

Henry Jennings

minor

Also known as Captain Henry Jennings, Captain Jennings, Jennings

A pirate captain who raided Spanish wrecks.

Thomas Fern

minor

Also known as Fern

A pirate executed for his crimes.