Bartholomew Sharp (c. 1650 – 29 October 1702) was an English

buccaneer Buccaneers were a kind of privateers or free sailors particular to the Caribbean Sea during the 17th and 18th centuries. First established on northern Hispaniola as early as 1625, their heyday was from the Restoration in 1660 until about 168 ...

and

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

. His career of

piracy 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 ...

lasted seven years (1675–1682). 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 ...

he took several ships, and raided the

Gulf of Honduras The Gulf or Bay of Honduras is a large inlet of the Caribbean Sea, indenting the coasts of Belize, Guatemala, and Honduras. From north to south, it runs for approximately 200 km (125 miles) from Dangriga, Belize, to La Ceiba, Honduras. ...

and Portobelo. He took command of an expedition into the Pacific and spent months raiding settlements on the Pacific Coast of South America including La Serena which he torched in 1680. His

flagship A flagship is a vessel used by the commanding officer of a group of naval ships, characteristically a flag officer entitled by custom to fly a distinguishing flag. Used more loosely, it is the lead ship in a fleet of vessels, typically the ...

, taken at Panama, was the ''

Trinity The Christian doctrine of the Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the central dogma concerning the nature of God in most Christian churches, which defines one God existing in three coequal, coeternal, consubstantial divine persons: God th ...

''.

Early life

Bartholomew Sharp is believed to have been born in the parish of

Stepney Stepney is a district in the East End of London in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. The district is no longer officially defined, and is usually used to refer to a relatively small area. However, for much of its history the place name appli ...

, London, England, around 1650. He served on a privateer vessel during the

Third Anglo-Dutch War The Third Anglo-Dutch War ( nl, Derde Engels-Nederlandse Oorlog), 27 March 1672 to 19 February 1674, was a naval conflict between the Dutch Republic and England, in alliance with France. It is considered a subsidiary of the wider 1672 to 1678 ...

. He rose to command his own vessel in the West Indies and attacked Dutch ships in the Leeward Islands. When the war ended and his commission expired, Bartholomew Sharp turned to piracy. The natural scientist and Buccaneer

William Dampier William Dampier (baptised 5 September 1651; died March 1715) was an English explorer, pirate, privateer, navigator, and naturalist who became the first Englishman to explore parts of what is today Australia, and the first person to circumnav ...

suggested his first major raid was on the Central American town of Segovia. In 1679 a fleet of buccaneer vessels sailed for the Bay of Honduras, and on September 26 they took a Spanish merchantman. According to the governor of Jamaica, from the Calendar of State Papers: "There has been lately taken from the Spaniards by Coxon, Bartholomew Sharpe, Bothing, and Hawkins with their crew, 500 chests of indigo, a great quantity of cacao, cochineal, tortoiseshell, money and plate. Much is brought into this country already, and the rest expected." In December of that year the fleet reassembled at Port Morant, Jamaica. There Captains John Coxon, Robert Allison, Cornelius Essex, and Thomas Magott agreed to attack Portobelo on the

Spanish Main During the Spanish colonization of America, the Spanish Main was the collective term for the parts of the Spanish Empire that were on the mainland of the Americas and had coastlines on the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico. The term was used to ...

and voted John Coxon their admiral. They were joined at sea by the French pirate Jean Rose. The fleet attacked Portobelo on January 17, 1680, and raided the city. Then the pirates moved to Bastimentos, 10 km to the north east, with their booty and prisoners, to distribute the booty. They then blockaded the port for two weeks, taking several unsuspecting merchant ships.

The Pacific Adventure

The fleet was joined by Captains Richard Sawkins, Edmund Cooke, and Peter Harris. Jean Rose chose to leave the voyage, and the remaining pirates voted to attack the city of Panama, once again under John Coxon. They sailed for Golden Island and left their ships in the hands of skeleton crews off the coast of Darién. Three hundred and fifty pirates went ashore to march across the Isthmus of Panama. They included

, Welsh surgeon and naturalist Lionel Wafer and ship's doctor Basil Ringrose. All three men would write accounts of their voyage to be published later in England. The pirates marched overland to meet with the 'Emperor of Darien' King Goldecap of the

Kuna people The Guna, are an Indigenous people of Panama and Colombia. In the Guna language, they call themselves ''Dule'' or ''Tule'', meaning "people", and the name of the language is ''Dulegaya'', literally "people-mouth". The term was in the language ...

. He agreed to send guides and warriors with the buccaneers, including his eldest son, if they agreed to rescue his daughter from the nearby Spanish garrison at Santa Maria. The pirates rowed downriver in canoes provided by the Kuna until they were outside the walls of Santa Maria. Fifty men charged the breastworks and breached the walls; after a mêlée within the fort, the Spanish surrendered. The pirates rescued the King's daughter, who was pregnant with her Spanish captor's child, and returned her to the King. The Kuna guides led the pirates downriver to the Bay of San Miguel in the

Gulf of Panama The Gulf of Panama ( es, Golfo de Panamá) is a gulf of the Pacific Ocean off the southern coast of Panama, where most of eastern Panama's southern shores adjoin it. The Gulf has a maximum width of , a maximum depth of and the size of . The Pana ...

. They took two small

barque A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts having the fore- and mainmasts rigged square and only the mizzen (the aftmost mast) rigged fore and aft. Sometimes, the mizzen is only partly fore-and-aft rigged, b ...

s and sailed for Panama. There they encountered three Spanish

galleon Galleons were large, multi-decked sailing ships first used as armed cargo carriers by European states from the 16th to 18th centuries during the age of sail and were the principal vessels drafted for use as warships until the Anglo-Dutch ...

s on patrol supported by five large warships in the harbour at Perico. The pirates fought from canoes and took command of one of the barques commanded by Don Jacinto de Barahona. Another of the Spanish ships escaped while the third caught fire and her magazine exploded. During the engagement the pirates reported losing only two men and another eleven injured. Captain Peter Harris was wounded in the fight and would die two days later. Captain Coxon took command of the captured vessel and the Spanish were taken prisoner. The five warships were empty, and the pirates soon commandeered three of those, sinking the other two. The largest of these, '' La Santísima Trinidad'', was renamed ''The Trinity'' and given over to Captain Richard Sawkins. John Coxon was relieved of command for cowardice, and he left with 75 men to return to the Caribbean. The men voted Sawkins their new admiral. The pirates left Panama for a nearby fishing village to await a ransom for the captured soldiers and to try to capture Spanish ships unaware of their presence. They captured a galleon carrying 60,000

pieces of eight The Spanish dollar, also known as the piece of eight ( es, Real de a ocho, , , or ), is a silver coin of approximately diameter worth eight Spanish reales. It was minted in the Spanish Empire following a monetary reform in 1497 with content ...

intended for the pay of Panama's soldiers. The governor of Panama refused their ransom and inquired after who gave the buccaneers a commission to attack Spanish cities in a time of peace. Admiral Sawkins replied: "As yet all his company were not come together; but that when they were come up we would come and visit him at Panama, and bring our commissions on the muzzles of our guns, at which time he should read them as plain as the flame of gunpowder could make them." Less than a week later Richard Sawkins would be killed in battle outside Puebla Nueva and 75 of his men would leave the expedition. Command fell to Bartholomew Sharp. Under Admiral Sharp the fleet sailed south along the coast of South America. They failed to take many prizes, however. Word of their presence had spread, and Spanish settlements were all prepared for them. After weeks at sea the pirates finally captured a Spanish galleon out patrolling for the English. Sharp tortured their prisoners and killed a Spanish friar on deck in front of all the men. Many among the crew began to question his fitness for command. After a series of disappointments, the crews finally voted to remove Bartholomew Sharp from command in January 1681. They installed

John Watling John, or George, Watling (died 1681) was a 17th-century English buccaneer. It was said that he would never plunder on the Sabbath and refused to allow his crew to play cards on this holy day. John Watling is best known for making his headquar ...

as captain. Watling led an attack on the rich city of

Arica Arica ( ; ) is a commune and a port city with a population of 222,619 in the Arica Province of northern Chile's Arica y Parinacota Region. It is Chile's northernmost city, being located only south of the border with Peru. The city is the capita ...

only to be repelled and killed. Reluctantly the men reinstated Bartholomew Sharp to command. Sharpe suspected former captain and fellow buccaneer Edmund Cooke of involvement in his ouster and had him imprisoned, ostensibly over charges of buggery. Shortly thereafter fifty more men left the voyage, including William Dampier and Lionel Wafer. The buccaneers continued around South America and up to the

, taking 25 Spanish ships and plundering numerous Spanish towns. Captain Sharp is credited as being the first Englishman ever to travel eastwards around

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramí ...

. Sharp had planned to return to England via the

Strait of Magellan The Strait of Magellan (), also called the Straits of Magellan, is a navigable sea route in southern Chile separating mainland South America to the north and Tierra del Fuego to the south. The strait is considered the most important natural ...

, but a storm pushed the ''Trinity'' too far south, forcing him to navigate the Cape. An eyewitness account of Sharp's adventures was published in ''The Dangerous Voyage And Bold Assaults of Captain Bartholomew Sharp and Others'', by Basil Ringrose (London, 1684). William Dampier gave a brief account of his time with Captain Sharp and the buccaneers in ''A New Voyage Round the World'' (1697). Lionel Wafer also gives an account of his departure from the voyage in ''A New Voyage and Description of the Isthmus of America'' (1695). John Cox (not to be confused with John Coxon) wrote an account of his time with the buccaneers, and Bartholomew Sharp wrote his own account, and a detailed atlas intended for the Admiralty.

Pardon

Because England and Spain were not at war, the Spanish demanded Sharp's prosecution for piracy. Sharp was arrested and brought before the High Court of Admiralty. However, he presented the authorities with a book of maps taken from the Spanish ship ''El Santo Rosario'' in July 1681; their value to English seafarers was such that Sharp received a full pardon from Charles II.

Prison and death

In 1696, Sharp established himself on the island of St. Thomas in the

Danish West Indies The Danish West Indies ( da, Dansk Vestindien) or Danish Antilles or Danish Virgin Islands were a Danish colony in the Caribbean, consisting of the islands of Saint Thomas with ; Saint John ( da, St. Jan) with ; and Saint Croix with . The ...

. By 1700, due to his debt, he tried to flee the island and the Danish colonial authorities. The attempt failed, and Sharp was confined to prison, where he died on 29 October 1702.Poul Olsen "Sørøvere i Vestindien", Siden Saxo, Nr. 3, 2003, page 6-8.

References

External links

Bonaventure.org.uk

Piratesoul.com
* http://www.british-history.ac.uk/search/series/cal-state-papers--colonial--america-west-indies {{DEFAULTSORT:Sharp, Bartholomew 1650s births 1702 deaths English pirates English privateers Recipients of English royal pardons People imprisoned for debt English people imprisoned abroad English people who died in prison custody Prisoners who died in Danish detention Pardoned pirates 17th-century pirates