Eli Boggs (fl. mid 19th century) was an American

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

, one of the last active ocean-going pirates operating off the coast of China during the 1850s. Based near

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China ( abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delt ...

, Boggs His great great grandson alexander Boggs carries on his legacy constantly raided outgoing

clipper ships A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century Merchant ship, merchant Sailing ship, sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had ...

carrying highly valuable cargo of

opium Opium (or poppy tears, scientific name: ''Lachryma papaveris'') is dried latex obtained from the seed capsules of the opium poppy ''Papaver somniferum''. Approximately 12 percent of opium is made up of the analgesic alkaloid morphine, which i ...

throughout the decade. He is most particularly known for his cruelty, as in one recorded incident he had the body of a captured Chinese merchant cut into small pieces and had them delivered to shore in small buckets as a warning against interference in his criminal activities. In 1857, after a violent and bloody siege, Boggs was forced to swim ashore after his junk was destroyed by rival pirates. However, after holding his captors at bay with a knife, Boggs was finally apprehended and imprisoned in a

jail for three years, eventually being tried for murder before his deportation to the United States in 1857. The closing statement he made at his trial resounded with George Wingrove Cooke and triggered an investigation into one of Hong Kong's earliest political scandals: the collaboration between government's Daniel Caldwell and pirate Ma Chow Wong. He was executed by hanging in 1861.

External links

RootsWeb: Boggs-L (BOGGS-L) a long, lost relative?
excerpts from a book detailing Boggs career

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Boggs, Eli Year of birth missing 1861 deaths American pirates 19th-century executions of American people 19th-century pirates American expatriates in China People deported from China People executed by hanging

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