The Daring Exploits of Pirate Black Sam Bellamy: An interview with author Jamie Goodall Pt. 2

EPISODE 2

Benjamin Morris (51:02):

Jamie, let's turn to really the kind of most important aspect of Bellamy's life.

Benjamin Morris (51:10):

Which is, you write that in all his months traveling around the Caribbean, he had been amassing his fleet. He'd been plundering, looting. And one day he comes across what you call the biggest prize of all.

Benjamin Morris (51:29):

And this ship, your description of it. I mean, it was like something out of, I don't know, the Lord of the Rings. It almost was too fanciful to be true. And yet, not only did it exist, it was as ornate as the records indicate. And we know that because well, I'm not going to spoil what happened with Barry Clifford.

Benjamin Morris (51:56):

But tell us about this ship and tell us what Sam Bellamy did when he saw it.

Jamie Goodall (52:06):

So, this was a ship that was much larger than any of the ships in his little fleet. As you mentioned, it was ornate. But the size is what really drew Bellamy to it, because in his mind, there's greater capacity for storage.

Jamie Goodall (52:29):

Because a lot of times pirates preferred smaller vessels. They're faster, easier to maneuver, all of that. But that means limited cargo holds, and that required frequent stops to ports to then fence your loot.

Jamie Goodall (52:43):

And so, this would give Bellamy an opportunity to spend more time at sea as opposed to having to stop frequently at ports.

Jamie Goodall (52:52):

And it ends up being this just like wildly successful slaving ship. The Whydah, as it was called, that was its purpose. And so, once Bellamy realized that, it made it even more attractive in the sense that slaving ship cargo holds are, I don't say built differently, but they are arranged differently.

Jamie Goodall (53:29):

And so, they're designed to fit as many human bodies in it as possible, which is absolutely terrible. But that was their purpose. And this created more open space in a way that you don't see in a lot of traditional cargo holds.

Jamie Goodall (53:47):

And this just was sort of the crowning jewel of his fleet at this point. This is the biggest ship. It's got a prominent name. I mean, there was news articles that went out when the Whydah left England, and discussing its voyages. It was a really important and big deal in England.

Benjamin Morris (54:15):

And you had a captain named Prince who I mean, history judges him very, very differently now, but at the time, (I really hate to say this, this is just so repulsive) he was a very accomplished slaver. I mean, he had made a lot of money in the slave trade already.

Benjamin Morris (54:37):

And so, here you had someone who was basically looking to profit even more, and had had, when Bellamy encounters him … this is a sort of 1716, 1717. He had actually just made a run. I mean, he had actually just delivered some (God help us all) cargo.

Benjamin Morris (55:02):

And so, when he's coming back, he's looking to sail back to England and refit his ship there.

Benjamin Morris (55:11):

And what was interesting about this in your account is that you describe the fact that Prince, the captain of the Whydah at the time, he knew he was a target, and he had to get very specific advice from the port masters in the various islands on his route.

Benjamin Morris (55:34):

To say you have a bullseye on your back. And you have a narrow window of time with weather patterns and so forth to kind of get from here to here. And then once you get past the certain point, you're in the clear, you're out of their range, you're safe to cross back over the Atlantic back to London.

Benjamin Morris (55:55):

And he didn't make it. And he very definitely did not. And I mean, there's just some sort of poetic justice there.

Benjamin Morris (56:05):

But what was interesting about that point in your narrative is that you do describe that it was not a done deal. It's not just like Bellamy saw the ship, lusted after it said, "I'll have that." Takes it and it's just sort of cut and dried. There was actually quite a difficult pursuit involved, wasn't there?

Jamie Goodall (56:28):

Yeah. And I think that this is pretty typical actually of pirate ventures, which is why so many pirates only did one or two ventures before retiring. Well, retiring, so to speak. Because it is tricky to attack larger ships.

Jamie Goodall (56:48):

Now, you might have a faster ship, your ship might be more maneuverable, which allows you to catch up to your prey. But you also, typically aren't nearly as well armed, at least ship wise. You have far fewer guns. And so, you have to sort of be wary of how this goes.

Jamie Goodall (57:13):

And you just also, don't know what you're going to encounter along the way. Foul weather can really impact your pursuit.

Jamie Goodall (57:26):

And so, I think this particular instance, Bellamy really got a taste for just how difficult things could be because he hadn't really experienced that yet. And it's kind of, I don't want to say sad, but it's kind of odd that that was sort of his last real venture.

Benjamin Morris (57:54):

Yeah, there's this interesting moment and you describe it based on the sources that we have, which is the boarding of the Whydah. And in your account, it has to be described very quickly because it doesn't seem as though we know exactly what happened in that particular moment.

Benjamin Morris (58:15):

And I was just wondering from your experience as a researcher and having studied what the process looks like in other contexts, can you describe what it is like when, say a smaller faster ship sends out a boarding party to a much larger, more sort of resilient ship.

Benjamin Morris (58:36):

When David goes up against Goliath like this, you've already spoken about kind of the sense of reputation and the anticipation of violence and maybe the larger ship doesn't necessarily want to engage with full cannon just yet.

Benjamin Morris (58:52):

But can you give us a sense of what is the strategy? What are the tactics, when is the battle fought for real, or when is it won before it's even engaged in some cases? Like help us just to see that.

Jamie Goodall (59:06):

It's really tricky because we don't have a lot of very specific accounts of ships being boarded by the pirates. We do get sort of some fantastical recollections later of people who were allegedly board by pirates.

Jamie Goodall (59:24):

But essentially, I think that one of the tricks is to try to catch your prey off guard. If you send a boarding party out, you want to do it in such a way that it's not just this giant ship, like watching your boarding party come to them, because at that point you just start shooting cannibals at them. That wouldn't make a lot of sense.

Jamie Goodall (59:57):

And so, you have to be really careful in your planning process. And you also, have to think first, what would you do when you got on board? Like what is your first thing going to be that you do?

Jamie Goodall (01:00:15):

Are you going to immediately have all of your men tie up the crew? Are you going to have them just come on calluses blazing. And then, what are you going to do with the stuff that's on the ship? How are you going to get it from that ship to your ship?

Jamie Goodall (01:00:37):

And so, it's not like the movies where they just pull up beside, throw over some planks and like swing on the ropes and just drop down and all of that.

Jamie Goodall (01:00:51):

Because pirate ships, one of the things that would be terrible for them is to open fire on their prey because you're trying to get the stuff. Where you're shooting is going to be destroying this stuff.

Benjamin Morris (01:01:09):

It doesn't make any sense to send those pieces of eight and that bullion down to the briny depths if that's what you're trying to carry back to market. Right, exactly.

Jamie Goodall (01:01:22):

Yeah. And so, I think that that's where strategy is really important. And some captains were really good at it, and some not so much.

Jamie Goodall (01:01:33):

But I think a lot too, depends on who it is that's on board. If you have somebody, for example, with naval background, maybe they were in the Royal Navy, they might be more prone to fighting the pirates as opposed to relinquishing their lot.

Jamie Goodall (01:02:00):

But one of the most fascinating things that came out of this process of boarding and seizing cargo to me, was during the chases, we have so many records of those ships that were being chased tossing stuff overboard to make their ship faster because they were more willing to get rid of whoever's cargo that was, because it's not theirs than they were to lose their lives.

Jamie Goodall (01:02:33):

And so, we see maritime insurance rates skyrocket essentially because it becomes so expensive to underwrite these voyages.

Benjamin Morris (01:02:44):

It's a fascinating moment and partly because we can't see it in full, and we are left to conjecture and to some degree.

Benjamin Morris (01:02:54):

And I would still nevertheless urge our listeners who are interested in this age of piracy, your account of the chase itself is every bit as gripping as one of my all-time favorite films, which is Master and Commander, which I'm now, going to have to go and watch for like the ninth time after having read your book.

Benjamin Morris (01:03:17):

But there's that sense of just every decision that you make on the open water is just fraught with tension and just laden with consequence. And the slightest little slip in the rigging or the slightest shift in the wind, anything could happen to make you and your vessel suddenly vulnerable.

Benjamin Morris (01:03:40):

And you really get a sense of that as we're sort of seeing Bellamy tracked down and eventually seize the Whydah.

Benjamin Morris (01:03:49):

Now, we need to skip forward a little bit because there is a sort of a fun narrative diversion that happens that I had to ask you about. I just had to ask you, Jamie.

Benjamin Morris (01:04:02):

They seize the Whydah. There's a ton of treasure on board. They let Prince and some of the other crew go, they keep some of the crew as sort of standard practice. A little bit of an exchange there. And Bellamy heads back up to Cape Cod.

Benjamin Morris (01:04:21):

And along the way, of course, you can take the tiger out of the jungle, but we know what happens to the jungle and to tiger, he sees more ships and the Whydah is not enough for him at this point. He starts kind of going after even more ships as he's headed back up to his lady love and to his future fortunes in the Massachusetts Bay area.

Benjamin Morris (01:04:47):

Well, they encounter a ship called the Marianne. And there is this amazing section that you have in your book where I don't even know how to sugarcoat this. Basically, some pirates take the Marianne, some of Bellamy's screw, they take the Marianne and they get drunk and they run it aground.

Benjamin Morris (01:05:15):

So, what were they thinking? Oh, wait, they were pirates. Of course, they were just going to get drunk. Help us to see that moment.

Jamie Goodall (01:05:23):

Yeah. Well, I mean, you got to celebrate, right?

Benjamin Morris (01:05:27):

There you go.

Jamie Goodall (01:05:27):

It's kind of like you're the hundredth customer. Well, this is our whatever number ship, let's celebrate. And those men didn't necessarily know the Massachusetts Bay area waters as well as Bellamy.

Benjamin Morris (01:05:43):

But they had just seized the ship with 5,000 gallons of wine on board.

Jamie Goodall (01:05:50):

I mean, when in Rome.

Benjamin Morris (01:05:53):

There you go.

Jamie Goodall (01:05:54):

If it's there, you got to drink it, right?

Benjamin Morris (01:05:57):

Yep. So, they actually get-

Jamie Goodall (01:05:58):

Can't let it go bad.

Benjamin Morris (01:05:58):

They get left, don't they? I mean, they just kind of stranded on shore where the Marianne is. They just fall out of the picture entirely. I mean, I guess they've got things to occupy their time if you got 5,000 gallons.

Benjamin Morris (01:06:11):

But do we ever get a sense of what happened to them afterwards? Did they ever show back up in the historical record?

Jamie Goodall (01:06:21):

So, a few of the survivors, there wasn't man his name has escaped me now, but he had a small little boat that once he heard about there being some wreckage in the area ... the Massachusetts Bay area, anybody on the coast, they heard about wreckage, they were very interested in going to see what it was and fish it.

Jamie Goodall (01:06:47):

And so, he decides to go inspect. He finds a few of these survivors and brings them back with as much of the wine as they can take. And from that point, it becomes a little difficult to track.

Jamie Goodall (01:07:03):

I think maybe one or two of them were ultimately arrested as part of the later situation. But for the most part, they just kind of disappear. We don't see them again. So, it's unclear. It's really unclear who was saved too because their names aren't given.

Benjamin Morris (01:07:26):

Which is the same exact thing that happened with the Whydah itself, is that there's much more information that was lost than there was that was retained.

Benjamin Morris (01:07:39):

So, we have to spoil the story a little bit, but it's not actually spoiling it at all because this is so important to our contemporary understanding of pirate history. Tell us about the shipwreck of the Whydah.

Jamie Goodall (01:07:56):

Oh, the Whydah. So, they are making their way towards Wellfleet and just this out of nowhere fog is rolling in. And so, they develop a system where they try to like link the boats and have lights at the bow of each boat so they can see each other in this dense fog.

Jamie Goodall (01:08:23):

But ultimately, they start to get separated. And because it's so foggy, they're not quite capable of discerning depth. So, their depth perception, they don't know how close they are to the coastline versus how close they are to being out towards the sea.

Jamie Goodall (01:08:43):

And as the nor'easter moves in. So, they're dealing with wind, rain, like it's just chaos essentially. It was enough to take this boat and just toss it up against the coastline, the shoals there.

Jamie Goodall (01:09:03):

And ultimately, the Whydah was basically destroyed within, I don't know, a very short amount of time. Almost all of the individuals onboard died. Whether that was from drowning or whether that was from just exposure while they were out.

Benjamin Morris (01:09:30):

Hypothermia from icy water, yeah.

Jamie Goodall (01:09:32):

Yeah. And so, what little we do know about everything that happened comes from these select few survivors who managed to somehow get to shore and get aid in some way.

Benjamin Morris (01:09:49):

You write that it was only about 500 feet to shore. And I think we have the luxury in this moment of thinking, "Oh, 500 feet. That's not bad."

Benjamin Morris (01:10:00):

But not only are you probably malnourished because you're a pirate. You're probably drunk, the temperatures are freezing, you can't orient yourself. It's night, it's misty, it's foggy, the storm is raging. You're in the middle of basically a northern Atlantic hurricane, the nor'easter. Like it's about as bad as it can get. It's actually a miracle that anybody survived, isn't it?

Jamie Goodall (01:10:24):

Right, yeah. I kind of liken it to an avalanche, because if you get swept up in an avalanche, you don't know which way is up. You might end up digging yourself further down into the snow. And that's one of the dangers.

Jamie Goodall (01:10:41):

And so, when they wreck, they might be swimming further out to sea as opposed to swimming towards the coast. Or they might just be swimming parallel.

Benjamin Morris (01:11:07):

Let me ask you this. There is a paragraph in your book that I would love for you to read for us. And one of the reasons that I'd like you to do that is because as you said at the very beginning of this interview, you do not romanticize this life at all.

Benjamin Morris (01:11:30):

I mean, we can have fun talking about drunk pirates, quite literally shipwrecking themselves because they are drunk. And that is fun. That is objectively hilarious.

Benjamin Morris (01:11:40):

But tied into that of course is the recognition of the risks of that particular type of life and the oftentimes, really savage level of violence. Not just that you might have to inflict on somebody else, but which was also, inflicted on you.

Benjamin Morris (01:12:06):

And so, on page 116 of your book, there is a paragraph which describes the aftermath of the Whydah. And it does so in a way which — I'm not a fatalist, Jamie, but when I read it, I mean, it made me sort of take stock of some of those preconceptions that I might have about what the kinds of lives that we sign up for and what ends they might meet.

Benjamin Morris (01:12:51):

So, I was just wondering, in order to ground us in some realism here, which is very necessary, the paragraph just begins, “Early the next morning.” Would you read that to us, please?

Jamie Goodall (01:13:04):

Yes, absolutely. "Early the next morning, residents of the Cape Cod coast awoke to a gruesome site as the waves ebbed and flowed, bloated, mangled corpses slowly piled onto the shore. Reports from Cyprian Southack, a naval veteran and Massachusetts local began arriving quickly."

Jamie Goodall (01:15:12):

"One on May 5th, 1717 noted that at least 54 white men and four Africans had come ashore dead from the wreck. Another report on May 8th described how the coroner Samuel Freeman demanded payment of 83 pounds for the burial of 72 wreck victims."

Jamie Goodall (01:15:38):

"In his journal on May 9th, Southack reported 76 had to date, come on shore out of the pirate ship dead. In the meantime, the two Whydah survivors, Thomas Davis and John Julian, a mosquito Indian, were taken to the Boston jail to await trial."

Benjamin Morris (01:15:57):

Thank you. That site of the corpses washing to shore, I think is something that we need to remember did in fact happen. It was not all fun in games. And I really appreciated your reminding us of that as we went forward.

Benjamin Morris (01:16:19):

Now, what's interesting about the Whydah, what is more than interesting, what is absolutely sort of historically significant beyond any expectation that we could have had, was that its story did not end there.

Benjamin Morris (01:16:39):

Sam Bellamy's story ended there. He was among the drowned, but the Whydah itself was after centuries thought to be lost, its story got a new chapter. So, tell us about the discovery of the wreck.

Jamie Goodall (01:16:59):

So, there was a man who was very interested in the story of Bellamy. He'd kind of grown up with this story. And at one point, he is, I don't know at what part of his life he's at, but he's trying to decide what's next for his life. And Barry Clifford decides, "I need to do something meaningful. I need to do something exciting."

Jamie Goodall (01:17:44):

And a very important person, basically after Clifford tells this story to some dinner guests, one of the guests asks, "Well, why don't you go find it? Why don't you go find the ship?" And he's like, "Why don't I?"

Jamie Goodall (01:18:09):

And he starts to put together funding and started putting out feelers for where geographically, which part of the coast it would be close to. And it takes many years, and it takes many expeditions out there and there's a lot of failure along the way.

Jamie Goodall (01:18:35):

But at one point, they find the ship. I think one of the things they found was a bell. And that bell is what enabled them to identify that wreck officially as the Whydah and not just a random shipwreck.

Benjamin Morris (01:18:59):

Now, this is in the early 1980s, I believe.

Jamie Goodall (01:19:03):

Yes.

Benjamin Morris (01:19:03):

And 1983, '84, something like that. And when Clifford finds this, I mean, you write that this is the first authenticated pirate shipwreck whose underwater archeology has ever been conclusively found and established and determined.

Benjamin Morris (01:19:26):

So, what did this mean for the field at the time? I mean, what kind of doors did this blow open as far as our ability to research these things?

Jamie Goodall (01:19:40):

Well, so, in terms of researching piracy, this particular find, I mean, it provides us with a really interesting look at material culture. Using that material culture to better understand pirate's activities and kind of what it was they were doing, and what they found to be valuable.

Jamie Goodall (01:20:04):

But also, it gave us insight into maybe some of the types of people that were on board the Whydah.

Jamie Goodall (01:20:13):

I believe John King, I think was his name, they found what was essentially a small leg bone and a little tiny shoe because he was a child essentially. I think he was 10 years old according to best estimates. The youngest pirate ever recorded or something like that.

Jamie Goodall (01:20:38):

And so, I think that it opened people's minds to the possibility of researching piracy beyond textual evidence.

Benjamin Morris (01:20:49):

It's fascinating.

Jamie Goodall (01:20:50):

Which I think is really important. As somebody who did an archeology degree, material culture, I think is a really interesting way to understand the past.

Benjamin Morris (01:21:02):

Well, it's quite clear that the significance of this wreck is ongoing, and we still have so much more to learn.

Benjamin Morris (01:21:11):

Have you been to the site? I understand that many of these sites are protected in different ways, but have you been either to the coastline nearby or have you had a chance to kind of go in person to the area?

Jamie Goodall (01:21:22):

I haven't yet, unfortunately. But eventually, the plan is to go. There is the Whydah Museum, which I very much want to visit.

Jamie Goodall (01:21:37):

And so, it would be really nice to get to see it in person because I feel like it would be a really good way to visualize what happened since I know the story, being able to see the actual landscape, even though the landscape has changed over the last few hundred years.

Jamie Goodall (01:21:58):

Being in historical spaces is something that's really fascinating to me.

Benjamin Morris (01:22:05):

Well, there's nothing quite like that atmosphere of breathing the same salt air and feeling the wind on your face to really transport you back in time.

Benjamin Morris (01:22:17):

Now, Jamie, as if piracy were not enough, you end your book with a ghost story. And I am absolutely not going to spoil that ghost story for our listeners here. For that, they actually have to go and read the book. And it is a doozy of a ghost story.

Benjamin Morris (01:22:37):

In my prior reading on Sam Bellamy and Maria Hallett, I had never encountered this. And when I read it, it was one of those sit up right in your chair kind of moments, like, wow.

Benjamin Morris (01:22:49):

So, anyway, that is a perfect lead in to our next series, which will be on back to paranormal. We're going to go back to spooky season for October. A little tip of the hat there for what's coming up next on Crime Capsule.

Benjamin Morris (01:23:03):

But for now, it is a hell of a story. And I just am so excited that readers of this book will get to experience that for the first time because my goodness, that one might keep you up at night.

Benjamin Morris (01:23:20):

Before we go, I have just two last questions for you, and they are both extremely important, Jamie. The first one is, what, in all of your years as a researcher, a trained historian all of your doctoral work, your three books and your decades in the field.

Benjamin Morris (01:23:43):

With all of this expertise brought to bear upon military history, naval history, pirate history, European commerce, imperialism. There's such a wide range of fields that you have had to study for so long in order to arrive at these conclusions. What is your favorite pirate joke?

Jamie Goodall (01:24:08):

I am glad you asked because I actually do have one.

Jamie Goodall (01:24:14):

What is a pirate's fav letter?

Benjamin Morris (01:24:20):

I mean, I think I have to say R, but I'm wondering if it's something else.

Jamie Goodall (01:24:27):

Nah, it'd be the C.

Benjamin Morris (01:24:30):

Of course. Of course, it is. Oh man.

Benjamin Morris (01:24:38):

Well, I failed that one miserably. My dad, who was in the Navy is probably looking down on me now, just shaking his head.

Benjamin Morris (01:24:47):

Okay. Well, thank you for that. I would recount my own favorite pirate joke. It involves a steering wheel in a particular region of the body, which I'm not actually allowed to tell because, despite all the murders and things we cover on Crime Capsule, it is in fact a family podcast.

Benjamin Morris (01:25:13):

Thank you for that, Jamie. And then secondly, equally as important, where can people find you and your books? If they want to look up your work, what's the best place to get ahold of you?

Jamie Goodall (01:25:27):

The best way to get ahold of me would be to go to my website, jamiegoodall.com. I have information on each of the books, the bookazine, and a lot of random fun stuff, educational materials. But it has quick contact information.

Jamie Goodall (01:25:45):

Also, if you purchase a copy of the book, it has a space for you to request a personalized book plate sticker that you can put in that I would sign. So, that's the best place to reach me.

Jamie Goodall (01:25:58):

And then you can find the books pretty much anywhere. I mean, obviously Amazon and Barnes & Noble. But one of my favorite things to do is to use IndieBound, I think it's .org. You put in the book that you're looking for and your zip code, and it will find the closest local bookstores to you that carry it or who will order it for you.

Benjamin Morris (01:26:26):

Those are all fantastic resources. And of course, we do love our independent books sellers. We are always very proud to support those whenever we can.

Benjamin Morris (01:26:37):

Well, Jamie, let us raise our tankards to your exhaustive work on this particular topic. The sun is over the yard arm, it is five o'clock everywhere as we are finishing this recording. And you have earned a week's ration of rum as far as I am concerned.

Benjamin Morris (01:27:00):

So, ahoy, thank you for joining us and this has been such a pleasure to talk pirates with you.