VIDEO — Researchers: First Shipwrecks from ‘Golden Age of Piracy’ Found in the Bahamas
Researchers said they have discovered the first shipwrecks linked to pirates in Nassau, The Bahamas, an area considered a pirate hub in the late 17th century.
The New Providence Pirates Expedition and Wreckwatch TV said they found six shipwrecks in the ocean, Fox News reported Thursday.
The researchers uncovered iron cannons, lead musket balls, a sword sharpener, hull planks, rigging, and cargo remains at one site, while another had clay tobacco pipes with the royal crest of England.
Three of the wrecks were linked to what is known as the Golden Age of Piracy, which lasted from the late 1600s through the 1730s.
The World History Encyclopedia’s website describes the time:
The Golden Age of Piracy (1690-1730) refers to a period when robbery on the high seas and at colonial ports reached an unprecedented level. Although not all historians agree on the precise time frame, it is generally applied to those pirates who operated in the Caribbean, the east coast of America, the eastern Atlantic, and the Indian Ocean.
Infamous names associated with the period include Captain Kidd (d. 1701), Blackbeard (d. 1718), and Bartholomew Roberts (d. 1722). These men, and some women like Anne Bonny and Mary Read, targeted merchant shipping and, much more rarely, well-armed treasure ships. The period ended when the Royal Navy, the British East India Company, and colonial governors took a much more active and aggressive stance against piracy, resulting in the capture and public hanging of hundreds of pirates from London to the Carolinas.
WreckWatch TV will feature the finds in an upcoming documentary series. Researchers said their main focus was to locate Henry Avery’s ship, the Fancy.
A large burned wooden hull divers found in Nassau Harbor may be connected to Avery’s vessel, and Sean Kingsley, a marine archaeologist who co-directed the expedition, told Fox, “All we can say for sure is right place, right date, right size. The ship needs a lot more science before we can prove that.”
“Since the 1960s, much of Nassau Harbour’s submerged heritage has been destroyed by dredging to make room for cruise ships. Diving there is restricted because of heavy maritime traffic. The New Providence Pirates Expedition,” the Art Newspaper reported, “organised by the London-based not-for-profit Wreckwatch in partnership with the Bahamas’ Antiquities, Monuments and Museum Corporation, received the first official permit to investigate whether traces of piracy remained in the harbour.”
