Barthomew Robert’s trip to the Slave Coast
On the 2nd of January, 1722, the pirate Bartholomew Roberts (aka Black Bart after his death) showed his cruelty after arriving at Ouidah’s (Whydah’s) harbor in West Africa (a location noted as the Slave Coast) while sailing the black. He didn’t arrive alone, but instead with a consort of ships, all flying the black flag upon approach.
Horrified, ten out of the eleven slave ships there immediately surrendered, raising white flags. The ships were temporarily taken, but Roberts offered to their owners to ‘buy their own ships back’ with the cost of eight pounds of gold dust per ship. However, the eleventh vessel, the Porcupine, refused to surrender and make a deal with pirates, but did not engage, and could not leave the harbor. Enraged by their unwillingness to cooperate, Roberts sent his crew in small boats to go aboard her stealthily that night after the sun had sank below the horizon and torched the ship. The ship was soon engulfed in flames, with her crew and roughly eighty enslaved Africans in its lower hold perishing in the fire, or by drowning.
