The Spanish had little interest in the New World other than looting it. To this end they systematically and ruthlessly hunted down, enslaved and dragged into slavery the 40,000 Lukku-Cairi that had populated the Bahamas archipelago in 1492. When Ponce de Leon arrived in the Bahamas in 1514 he found them uninhabited. Since the islands were infertile and without mineral wealth to be looted, this ended Spanish interest in the Bahamas. The Bahamas were not resettled for over 100 years.
Ultimately the Bahamas felt under the domination of the English who declared the Bahamas a possession of the Crown
in 1629. Since the English had been nearly completely cut out of those portions of the New World which produced
gold and silver, the only way the English could partake in the huge New World bounty was for them to steal from
the Spanish the treasure that the Spanish had stolen from the native peoples. Thus, for the English, the route
to New World riches lead through the Bahamas.
During the late 1600's and the early 1700's the Bahamian Islands were home to an assortment of Pirates and Privateers who preyed on the passing Spanish treasure ships. Although to the Spanish view there was little difference between pirate and privateer, there was a technical difference between pirate and privateer. Unlike the pirate, the privateer worked within the confines of British law, taking license under British Letters of Marque which gave them legal authority to plunder the Spanish. Unsurprisingly, many of the privateers morphed into pirates when they realized that British ships could be just as fat as Spanish ships. By 1700 the pirates had driven off most of the upstanding citizens of Grand Bahama and they ruled in Nassau. In 1718 a thoroughly fed-up British government had had enough and appointed the former privateer Woodes Rogers as Royal Governor of the colony with instructions to put the pirates down. Amnesty was offered to those who would behave. The rest were hunted down. That most infamous of pirates, Edward Teach (aka Blackbeard), left Nassau to maraud the coastal villages of Virginia and the Carolinas, but was killed on November 22, 1718 at Ocracoke Inlet, North Carolina in a pitch battle with Lt. Robert Maynard in which Teach received "5 pistol balls and 20 cutlass wounds" before he collapsed. Teach was beheaded and his head was mounted on the bowsprit of Mayard's ship, the Pearl.
Nassau Pirate Charles Vane was hung after being rescued from a ship wreck. Additionally each of eight other pirates who escaped from Nassau were captured and hung.
The Bahamian Islands were the ideal home for pirates, set as they were abreast the major shipping lanes for Spanish treasure galleons. There, amongst the hundreds of tiny islands ("cays" pronounced kees), the pirates lay in wait.
Not only did the pirates sail from Watling Island, but they may have practiced "wracking". At night Wrackers would place lights on the reefs and sandbars in such a manner that they enticed passing ships into coming into what they believed to be a safe harbor, only to endup aground and murdered.
Interestingly enough, piracy was one of the first democratic institutions. Captains were elected, and removed, by majority vote. Shares were also established by consensus, as was the code of conduct under which the pirates marauded. See here for an example of the rules on the Revenge under John Phillips.
Watling Island was home to the infamous English buccaneer Captain Watling, otherwise known as the "Pious Pirate". Although known to be a particularly bloodthirsty pirate, Watling was notorious for allowing his crew to neither play cards nor plunder on the Sabbath. In about 1680 the pious Captain Watling, (alternately referred to as John Watling or George Watling), sailing his ship, the Most Holly Trinity, took the island as his headquarters and riotously named it after himself. Local tradition holds that Captain Watling built his stronghold at Watling's Castle above French Bay at the southwestern tip of the island. The ruins remain to this day one of the islands greatest tourist attractions.
This takeover by the pious Captain Watling was said to have been most upsetting to that infamous and wonderfully colorful lady pirate, Anne Bonney, who until the arrival of Watling had been well entrenched on the island. Anne Bonney and Mary Read were two colorful ladies who often buckaneered together. One particularly colorful tale tells of the two ladies being the only crew members who put up a fight when their ship was taken off Jamaica. One of the two, likely Bonney, was said to have fired her pistol into the hold which was full of quivering men hiding from their attackers. Legend tells us that Bonney demanded of her fainthearted mates that they come out and "fight like men." Thereafter when the captain of the ship, Calico Jack Rackham, asked to see Bonny immediately prior to his hanging, all she had to say to him was: "Had you fought like a man, you'd need not have been hang’d like a dog." (See here and here for more about Bonney and Read.)
Names of Pirates: http://www.sevenoceans.com/Pirates/PiratesbyName.htm
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