Portal:Piracy/Selected article/11

The Pirate Round was a sailing route followed by certain Anglo-American pirates, and was most active from about 1693 to 1700 and then again from 1719 to 1721. The course led from the western Atlantic, around the southern tip of Africa, stopping at Madagascar, then on to targets such as the coast of Yemen and India. Pirates who followed the route are sometimes called "Roundsmen" and "Red Sea Men." Some the most famous Roundsmen include Thomas Tew, Henry Every, Edward England, John Taylor, Olivier Levasseur, and Christopher Condent.

The Pirate Round was largely co-extensive with the routes of the East India Company ships, of Britain and other nations. From 1700 to 1718, the Pirate Round went into decline. The end of British participation in the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) led to an explosive increase in piracy in the Caribbean, but did not yet revive the Pirate Round. However, in 1718 Woodes Rogers pacified Nassau, while colonial Virginia and South Carolina prosecuted aggressive anti-pirate campaigns, destroying Blackbeard, Stede Bonnet, and Richard Worley. Caribbean and Atlantic pirates began to seek safer hunting grounds, leading to a brief resurgence in the Pirate Round that lasted from 1719 to 1721. (more...)