Calico Jack Rackham

Today we will meet Calico Jack (born John) Rackham, Anne Bonny’s lover then husband (assuming she actually divorced James Bonny which is uncertain). Jack was born around 1682 in England. Little is known of his early life. He first shows up as the Quartermaster on Charles Vane’s brigantine Ranger operating out of the Pirates Republic of Nassau in 1718. The ship found a French man of war that was twice its size off New York City. Vane ordered a retreat but Rackham stepped up and advocated for taking the ship. It would provide great riches and they’d have a ship twice as big as Ranger. Despite an overwhelming vote in Rackham’s favor, Vane declared that he had final say and they would retreat which they did. On Nov. 24 that year, Rackham called Vane a coward. After a vote, Vane was out as captain and Rackham was in.

Rackham’s ship went after smaller vessels close to shore. In 1719, Rackham accepted the King’s pardon but within sight of Port Royal, captured the Kingston and its riches, to the outrage of the merchants watching onshore. Rackham made Kingston his flag ship and headed out for Cuba where the merchants’ bounty hunters found her. Rackham and crew were mostly onshore and escaped capture by hiding in the woods but the ship was taken back. One story in Capt. Charles Johnson’s book “A General History of the Robberies and murders of the most notorious Pyrates” tells of Calico Jack and crew refitting on shore when a Spanish warship that was patrolling the shore and protecting a small English sloop found their ship. The warship was too big to get to them at low tide so they waited, blocking the harbor. Jack and his crew rowed over to the English sloop and killed the Spanish guards. In the morning, the warship started firing on Jack’s vessel as he and the crew calmly sailed the sloop out beside them.

They went back to Nassau where they told Woodes Rogers that Vane had forced them to be pirates. Rogers hated Vane so he decided to believe and pardon them. In Nassau, he met Anne Bonny and the pair fled together. The rest is history – up to Anne’s imprisonment. Jack and the crew were convicted and immediately hanged. On November 18, 1720, they were killed. Jack’s body was set in a gibbet – a sort of cage – and hung on a very small inlet known to this day as Rackham’s Cay.