If I was to name one pirate that struck fear into the hearts of sailors in the early 1700s, it would be a man by the name of Charles Vane. Now don’t mistake that for a compliment, this dude was a massive prick. In fact, he was such a prick that when he was eventually tried and executed – spoiler alert – there was a line out the door of witnesses willing to testify against him. He was barbaric, and his treatment of prisoners left many with horrifying tales that shook even hardened sailors to the core. This reputation, along with his poor relations with his crew would eventually lead to his downfall at the end of a long rope, as is the theme with many pirates of the era.
So… who was Charles Vane?
Another theme you may notice when learning about pirates is that most of them didn’t come from wealth – shocking – so there aren’t a ton of records from their pre-piracy days. What is known about Vane’s early life is that he was born in England around 1680. Eventually, he joined a privateering crew during the Spanish War of Succession under the fantastically named Lord Archibald Hamilton, governor of Jamaica. By the end of the war Vane, like many others, had discovered that he was pretty good at this whole raiding thing, and would join up with another pirate named Henry Jennings to turn to piracy in 1716.
The Urca
Jennings and Vane began their careers with a pirate’s wet dream, a sparsely defended sunken Spanish treasure ship, the Urca de Lima. If you’ve ever watched ‘Black Flags’, which I absolutely recommend, you will know what ship I am talking about. If not, the Urca was part of the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet. This fleet sank in a hurricane off the coast of Florida while hauling 14 million pesos worth of silver and jewels back to Spain. Jennings and Vane learned about the sinking of the Urca and the ongoing retrieval operations after capturing a mail ship. With this information, the pirates were able to locate the sparsely defended salvage camp and plundered 87,500 pounds worth of treasure. Jennings and Vane then returned to their port of call, Nassau, to spend their spoils.
Remember the Name
Vane would continue to serve under Jennings for the next two years until becoming the captain of his own ship in the summer of 1717. As a new captain, he was quick to make a name for himself and built a small fleet by capturing ships from the Bahamas to New York. He also gained a barbaric reputation for his treatment of captured sailors. Vane seemed to enjoy torturing his captives and employed brutal methods like keelhauling. Word to the wise, if you don’t know what keelhauling is, I recommend you keep it that way. Let’s just say not even Davy Jones would approve of that kind of torture. Vane was also not the best at maintaining relations with his crew – what a surprise. He was often suspected of unfairly dividing plunder after raids, something that would eventually spark the end of his career.
Escape from Nassau
In 1718 Woodes Rogers arrived in Nassau to deliver the King’s Pardon. Charles Vane, being the unstable murderous sociopath he was, wanted to keep raiding ships and killing people. If he accepted the pardon, that would be the end of his illustrious career as a pirate. After less than a day of contemplation, Vane did what any good sailor trying to avoid detection and slip out of a port would do. He set one of his own ships on fire and sailed it directly at Rogers’ fleet blockading Nassau’s harbor. In the confusion, he took his flagship and was able to slip by the blockade during the panic. Vane escaped Nassau as one of the few pirates in the republic to reject the pardon.
Vane would soon be back on the coast of North America, harassing trade and capturing ships as he went. The pirate set his eyes on raiding shipping around Charleston in September of 1718, something that the infamous pirate Blackbeard had done a couple of months earlier. The city would send the notorious pirate hunter William Rhett after Vane, but Vane was able to avoid capture and sailed up the Carolina coast. He would meet up with Blackbeard on Ocracoke Island in September, where they had the most drunken pirate party imaginable which lasted almost a month.
End of the Line
In March of the following year, Charles Vane’s poor relations with his crew finally came back to bite him. While sailing off the coast of Hispaniola, Vane attacked a ship expecting a quick score. He would quickly learn however that this ‘quick score’ was actually a French warship that severely outgunned his pirates. After realizing this, Vane ordered a retreat from the battle and was quickly accused of cowardice by his own men. This accusation, combined with whispers of hoarding gold for himself, put Vane in hot water. His quartermaster Calico Jack Rackham took over control of his ship and Vane was banished to a small sloop with a few of his loyal followers. Vane was quick to begin rebuilding his pirate fleet and with his small sloop was able to capture several vessels around the Caribbean. However, a hurricane would sink his entire fleet off the coast of Honduras and a majority of his crew drowned. Vane himself was marooned on a small island with a few of his surviving crew and tried to gain passage on a passing ship under a false name. This didn’t work out for him though as he was a famous pirate and was almost immediately recognized and arrested.
Charles Vane would spend almost a year in prison before being sentenced to death in Port Royal, Jamaica. His trial was short, and many former pirates would testify against him. During his long stint in prison, Vane never appeared to regret his piracy, something which at this point surprised no one. He was hung in March 1721 at Gallows Point, and his corpse was put on display in Gun Cay as a warning to other pirates.