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Bartholomew Roberts - BuyPirateFlags.com

Interesting Facts:
-Black Bart was perhaps the most successful pirate of the time, with the capture of over 400 ships and over 50 million Pounds of loot. - He encouraged prayer, drank a lot of tea instead of alcohol, and forbid drinking and gambling. - He preferred to wear fancy gentleman's clothes: a rich crimson waistcoat and breeches, a hat with a red feather, and a diamond cross hanging from a golden chain around his neck.

Bartholomew Roberts, pirate

Born John Roberts (Barti Ddu in Welsh) in Little Newcastle, southern Wales about 1682, Bartholomew Roberts (Black Bart) was the last great pirate of the Golden Age and had no equal in his day. While working as a third mate on the British slaver Princess, he was captured to be a slave - forced hand by noted pirate Howell Davis in June 1719 and elected captain when Davis was killed in attack on Principe, off the Guinea coast. Roberts leveled the town in retribution. Robert's Articles

Growing tired of the pickings around Guinea, he sailed to the Brazilian coast, took several good prizes, and in early 1720 went northward for some rest at Devil's Island. His reputation arrived in the Caribbean before him, where he quickly exited and sailed north to New England to sell what he had accumulated.

Summertime 1720 was very successful in Newfoundland with many captures, most notably the plunder and sinking of all but one of 22 merchant ships in the Bay of Treffisi when the crews fled to shore just at his arrival. The spared ship was a French brig he named the Royal Fortune, which he added guns to and sailed to the Caribbean after a failed attempt to sail to Africa.

In the fall of 1720, Captain Bartholomew Roberts began a six-month tear through the West Indies. With the almost unchallenged captures of 100 ships or more, he angered the provincial governors, one of whom he hanged after taking his warship. With shipping coming to a standstill, he went to Africa in the spring of 1721, where he learned to profit from the sale of slaves off the ships that got in his way. After careening and trading for several weeks in Sierra Leone, Roberts headed east in August of 1721 toward Liberia, where the capture of the Royal Africa Company's Onslow became the last Royal Fortune.

A legendary 30-month career came to an end on February 10, 1722, when the warship HMS Swallow captained by Challoner Ogle caught up with Bartholomew Roberts off the coast of Cape Lopez (now Gabon). It is uncertain whether he was trying to escape or size up the opponent, but the grapeshot killed him either way. His crew threw his body overboard as he had always requested, and they eventually stopped their disheartened resistance.

After being thrown into prison under the Cape Coast Castle in West Africa, those who remained were given the largest pirate trial and execution of the time on March 28, 1722. 54 were hanged, 37 received prison or hard time, 70 African pirates were sold into slavery, and the rest were acquitted.

Bartholomew Roberts was one of the most successful pirates in history.