James Fife (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they flourished") denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indicatin ...

1718, occasionally spelled Fyff) was a pirate active in the

Caribbean The Caribbean (, ) ( es, El Caribe; french: la Caraïbe; ht, Karayib; nl, De Caraïben) is a region of the Americas that consists of the Caribbean Sea, its islands (some surrounded by the Caribbean Sea and some bordering both the Caribbean Se ...

. He accepted the British pardon offered to pirates in 1718 but was killed by his own men.

History

Little is known of Fife's early life. Public records show that he was active in early 1718, capturing the

sloop A sloop is a sailboat with a single mast typically having only one headsail in front of the mast and one mainsail aft of (behind) the mast. Such an arrangement is called a fore-and-aft rig, and can be rigged as a Bermuda rig with triangular sa ...

s ''Portsmouth'' and ''Elizabeth'' and two others between February and April near the

Turks Islands The Turks and Caicos Islands (abbreviated TCI; and ) are a British Overseas Territory consisting of the larger Caicos Islands and smaller Turks Islands, two groups of tropical islands in the Lucayan Archipelago of the Atlantic Ocean and no ...

. Fife took his 4-gun, 10-man sloop to

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

in March to share out money and valuables, including pistols and captured bits of ambergris. Some of his pirates took a small boat to chase down a nearby canoe and Fife sailed away without them:

...On 14th March last in the evening the sloop being att anchor near Portorico (an Island belonging to the Spaniards) a conao was espied near the shoar, whereupon their boat was got ready and all the profest pirates but three went on board and put off and stood for the conao. Upon which Capt. Fife and the rest of the forced men took the opportunity and secured the three pirates and cut the cable with the intention of standing out to sea, but the sloop falling off the wrong way and the pirates in the boat judging what they in the vessel were about turn'd and stood back again, and came soe near the sloop before they could get under sail, that they fired over them with their small arms, but the gale springing up the sloop got away and went to Turks Islands...

In January 1718 Governor Woodes Rogers of the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...

announced a general pardon from King George I for all pirates who surrendered before September 1718. Following the example of

Henry Jennings Henry Jennings (died possibly 1745) was an 18th-century Kingdom of England, English privateer from the colony of Bermuda, who served primarily during the War of the Spanish Succession and later served as leader of the pirate haven or "Pirates' ...

, hundreds of pirates accepted the pardon. Fife and the remaining crew who had left their fellow pirates behind tried to take the pardon as well but were too late and had to await trial. Trial records for members of Fife's crew show that he used a number of forced men aboard his vessel, some of which were acquitted of piracy for that reason. Some time after he accepted the 1718 pardon, Fife was reportedly killed by a group of forced men from his crew.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fife, James Year of birth missing Year of death missing 18th-century pirates British pirates Caribbean pirates Pardoned pirates

History

See also

References