Edward Welch (died 1708) was best known for leading a pirate settlement and trading post at
Madagascar
Madagascar (; mg, Madagasikara, ), officially the Republic of Madagascar ( mg, Repoblikan'i Madagasikara, links=no, ; french: République de Madagascar), is an island country in the Indian Ocean, approximately off the coast of East Africa ...
.
History
Adam Baldridge ran a well-known trading post on
St. Mary’s Island off Madagascar in the 1690s, supplied by merchants such as New York’s
Frederick Philipse
Frederick Philipse (born Frederick Flypsen;Appleton, W.S. ''The Heraldic Journal, Recording the Amorial Bearings and Genealogies of American Families'', Wiggen & Lunt, Boston, 1867 1626 in Bolsward, Netherlands – December 23, 1702), first Lord ...
. He escaped a slaughter in 1697 when Malagasy natives, angered by Baldridge’s slave-trading, attacked his settlement and killed many of the pirates who had been lodging there.
Welch has been living on the island since 1691 and soon took over the trading post, adding prostitutes to the services he offered visiting pirates.
Welch was known as “Little King;” a captured sailor described the fort as “inhabited by negroes under the command of Edward Welch, who came from New England thither when he was a boy.” Welch had “6 guns at his house, which have no command of the place where the shipping lie.”
William Kidd
William Kidd, also known as Captain William Kidd or simply Captain Kidd ( – 23 May 1701), was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and had experience as a pirate. He was tried and executed in London in 1701 for murder a ...
arrived in mid-1698 to find
Robert Culliford
Robert Culliford (c. 1666 - ?, last name occasionally Collover) was a pirate from Cornwall who is best remembered for repeatedly ''checking the designs'' of Captain William Kidd.
Early career and capture
Culliford and Kidd first met as shipmates ...
in residence. Kidd’s crew
mutinied
Mutiny is a revolt among a group of people (typically of a military, of a crew or of a crew of pirates) to oppose, change, or overthrow an organization to which they were previously loyal. The term is commonly used for a rebellion among members ...
and joined Culliford, and without enough men to crew his ships, Kidd and his remaining loyalists transferred to the captured ''
Quedagh Merchant
''Quedagh Merchant'' (; hy, Քեդահյան վաճառական '' Qedahyan Waćařakan''), also known as the ''Cara Merchant'' and the ''Adventure Prize'',Zacks, p. 266 was an Indian merchant vessel famously captured by Scottish privateer Wil ...
'' to return to New York. Kidd had been storing his treasure chest at Welch’s house; Culliford’s men ransacked the chest anyway.
Smuggler
Tempest Rogers
Tempest Rogers (1672 or 1675–1704) was a pirate trader active in the Caribbean and off Madagascar. He is best known for his association with William Kidd.
History
Tempest Rogers was born in 1672 or 1675, and by 1693 had married Johanna Little ...
bought some of the goods looted from Kidd’s ships. Rogers left ex-pirate
Edward Davis behind; Welch helped Davis try to signal Rogers to return but to no avail, so Davis sailed back with Kidd.
Welch traded liquor to the mutineers in exchange for Kidd’s bales of textiles.
Pirate-trader
Giles Shelley
Giles Shelley (born May 1645 (?), died 1710, last name occasionally Shelly) was a pirate trader active between New York and Madagascar.
History
Shelley commanded the 4-gun or 6-gun vessel ''Nassau'' on supply runs between New York and the pirate ...
also visited in 1698 and loaded his ship with “
muslins and
callicoes, spoilt by salt water, from one Edward Welsh, who hath lived for seven years in that island. The stuffs came from a wrecked ship, cast away at that place.” Shelley reported no sign of Kidd.
By Christmas 1698 Culliford and
Dirk Chivers had returned and were living at Welch’s settlement along with
John Swann. The stripped and partially sunken remains of Kidd’s ''Rouparelle'' (aka ''November'') and ''Adventure Galley'' were still visible.
The following year Chivers and others left the island with trader
Samuel Burgess. Philipse had advised Burgess to ply Welch for good deals, “especially with liquor.”
Welch’s trading depot was never as successful as Baldridges’s. After being injured in a skirmish
he served in the court of the
Saklava King as a representative handling trade with Westerners. Illness and age took their toll and he died in 1708.
The pirate trading post at St. Mary’s was revived by
James Plantain in 1720.
See also
*
John Pro,
Thomas Collins, and
Abraham Samuel - Other pirate traders who ran trading posts on and near Madagascar.
Notes
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Welch, Edward
18th-century pirates
17th-century pirates
Year of birth missing
English pirates
1708 deaths
Piracy in the Indian Ocean