How Woodes Rogers Defeated the Pirates of the Caribbean
A real tragic story of a British hero
Jean Leon Gerome Ferris, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons
An unlikely man to end piracy
The second half of the 17th and the early decades of the 18th centuries are now considered to have been the Golden Age of Piracy, a period where cutlass-wielding sea robbers in unparalleled numbers looted their way through the high seas.
As with every other historical period, this age eventually came to an end also. The man who is today credited to have made the most contribution to the defeat of the pirates is Governor Woodes Rogers.
Born into a rich merchant seafarer family, Rogers was part of the elite of English society throughout his life. In some regards, especially by the standards of our age, he was a horrible human being, as he made quite a lot of money from the slave trade. In other regards, however, one simply cannot miss the more admirable qualities of Rogers, qualities which helped him to eradicate piracy in the West Indies.
This was an age where colonial governors were notoriously corrupt, and many of them even openly befriended pirates. One good example of this would have been Governor Fletcher of New York, who became very good friends with Captain Thomas Tew, who became a celebrity in the colonies after he ransacked, totally illegally, a rich…
