Captain Kidd: A Mysterious Privateer Dubbed as a ‘Pirate’

The history of pirates has become a mystery in the recent times. These raiders would live across the sea and plunder the treasure ships. Some aspects of their lifestyles attract the people of the western world in the recent times also. A number of people wearing the pirate boots, shirts, pants, skirts and other dresses in various themed events.

We find the existence of two types of raiders in the history. First ones were those whose sole purpose was to loot the ships. On the other hand, other ones were known as privateers, who were authorized by governments to loot the ships of the enemy nations. Among them, there was a raider whose personality is disputed in history. He was Captain William Kidd, who is recognized as a pirate, but some of the researchers claim this position as unjust as he acted as privateer also.

His early life has been researched by locating some records. His place and year of birth were the subjects of dispute some time ago. Researcher Dr. David Dobson proved the fact through Captain Kidd’s baptism documents that he was born in the year 1654 in Dundee. Previous claim that Kidd was born in Greenock in 1645 was dismissed by this research. The first record of his life was traced to the year 1689, when he became the member of a French-English pirate crew. He sailed the Caribbean in that crew and later on became the captain of the ship. The ship of the crew was also renamed to “Bless William”. After some time, Captain Kidd and his ship Blessed William joined small fleet assembled by Codrington, for defending the Nevis from French. A French island of Mariegalante was also attacked by Kidd and his crew, as the governor didn’t want to pay sailor for their defensive services, and he told them to do so. Kidd gathered around 2000 sterling from there. Later on Kidd was also awarded £150 for success privateering after capturing an enemy privateer.

Kidd’s expedition of New York gained popularity in the year 1690. New York was facing rebellion at that time. There, he met a widow named Sarah Bradley Cox Oort, whom he married. Sarah was a rich lady, and Kidd and Sarah lived a respectable married life. For the next five year, Kidd worked as a successful businessman. He also remained active in building Trinity Church, in New York.

But, later he returned to the sea life. He also went for a voyage in the Indian Ocean. According to some evidences, he also attacked the ships of Mughal kings of India. On March 1, 1698, he reached Madagascar, where he found the pirate Robert Culliford in pirate shirt. There are two contradictory accounts about his encounter with Culliford. First account says that he made the peaceful overtures with Culliford, and the second one says that he decided not to shoot him until the reinforcement come. After the arrival of reinforcement, he ordered his crew to shoot him, but many of them refused to do this and left Kidd for Culliford.

While returning to New York, he came to know that now he was a wanted pirate. He was sent to England for questioning of the parliament. Later on he was executed and hanged.