Chapter 3
UNDER A BLACK FLAG
Execution by hanging was a gruesome affair in the days of Captain
Kidd, and for the convicted pirate there was no reprieve. In the
city in which Kidd had lived while attempting to secure his privateering commission, he undoubtedly passed the execution dock at Wapping
numerous times. Had he ever thought his own neck might end up in a
noose?
Public executions were fascinating to the people of seventeenth and eighteenth-century England. In order to have the opportunity to see the law exercise its ultimate power over man, the power to take life, people would flock in from all over London. The poor arrived on foot and the wealthy by carriage to see the wretched plead for their lives. No pains were taken to spare the public the crudeness of the death penalty. A particularly barbaric highlight was having the executioner, most likely a large specimen of a man, actually carry the condemned up a ladder to the noose. There the hooded figure would place the neck of the condemned in the noose. The victim might be given an opportunity to speak his last words, to plead for his life, or to ask forgiveness. Or he might simply have the rope tightened around his neck and be dropped to his death.1
If he was lucky, the convicted felon's neck would break immediately and he would be spared the horror of suffering a slow choking demise. If the convicted was able to manage it, he might tip his executioner beforehand, ensuring that the executioner would use a longer rope and thus hasten the death. If the condemned didn't have any money, he might have family or friends present who could rush in to pull on his hanging legs so that his suffering would end faster.
In all, hanging was wonderful entertainment. At Tyburn the weekly hangings drew two hundred thousand spectators. They would gather the night before outside Newgate Prison to drink, dance, and fornicate in the streets. In the morning the crowd followed the condemned in a parade through the streets of London, all the while cheering or jeering at the unfortunate criminals. The wealthy would pay as much as ten pounds sterling to sit ringside and eat and drink during the execution. This event, which might be the ancestor of the modern tailgate party, was so popular it became known as the Tyburn Fair, and the rulers made a very unpopular decision in finally ending such spectacles in the mid-nineteenth century.
A pirate could expect treatment worse than that of the common criminal. On occasion the executioner quickly cut down the hanging pirate and disemboweled him while he was still alive. His entrails would be burned before his eyes, and if he survived any longer, he could be drawn and quartered. Women were spared from this indecency because they were considered the "fair" sex. Instead they were burned to death.
On Friday, May 23, 1701, it was William Kidd's turn to provide the entertainment; the stairs at Wapping would be his place of justice. The body could be displayed for all those who traveled the Thames to see. Kidd had no plans to repent and no plans to ask for mercy. To the end he told all who would listen that he was a pawn of wealthy men. Members of the elite ruling class on both sides of the Atlantic had outfitted his ship and helped him get a commission, and they were due a share in his gains. But none of his wealthy backers was called before the judge. None of his elite partners stood before the executioner. All were at home in landed estates, breathing a sigh of relief that they would not be tarnished by their role in Kidd's crimes.2
Kidd himself was once a man of property, an owner of real estate on what would become the financial capital of the world, Wall Street. He was not a career criminal, although he was certainly not without blame. He simply thought his ties to the men who pulled the strings of colonial New York government allowed him to get away with murder. But the political tide had turned. Piracy against the Muslim trading partners of the East India Company caused trouble for many who had been shareholders. While Kidd plied the seas for booty, a power play in London put the interests of the East India Company above those of other would-be adventurers. Pressure was applied to those who interfered. Kidd was the scapegoat. The ties he relied on to protect him instead cut him loose. To his surprise, Kidd was separated from those who commissioned him. Now a convicted pirate, Kidd was at the dock in Wapping.
Those who came for a show were not disappointed. Kidd arrived drunk and unrepentant. His last words were a speech against the liars who testified against him. He was carried to the hangman's noose and dropped. The rope broke. Dazed by the fall but still alive, Kidd was quickly carried up the ladder again by his executioner. This time the fall killed him.
The legend of Captain Kidd has grown out of proportion with its reality. Kidd was no swashbuckler; he was a businessman pursuing wealth in the fashion of the day.
New York City in the 1690s could be equated with the Wild West.
The governor, Benjamin Fletcher, was appointed to office by the military. He arrived in New York in August 1692. As befitting a fat, greedy,
minor tyrant, Fletcher attained his wealth by being corrupt. He controlled the exchange of real estate, and real estate was the first source of
wealth in the colony. In a short period of time citizens understood that
to favor the governor with a bribe earned them his favor. Fletcher allied
himself with Stephen van Cortlandt, William Nicoll, and Frederick
Philipse by giving them large pieces of land.
Fletcher soon turned his attention to another opportunity. In 1696 England passed the first of a series of ill-conceived laws limiting the colonies' ability to engage in commerce. Defying such laws built some of America's greatest fortunes and started a tradition of giving the wealthy the right to be above the law. Smuggling quickly became an Under a Black Flag 51 accepted way to earning a living. With the European countries at war and all shipping in danger of encountering an enemy, smuggling was scarcely more dangerous than honest shipping.
Pirates and smugglers were always at risk when landing in a foreign port. Their cargoes were subject to seizure and the pirates and smugglers were subject to arrest. Governor Fletcher provided a safe haven for all who were willing to pay his personal tax. This bribery greased the wheel of commerce, and New Yorkers were able to get imported goods from anywhere in the world. Local shops in the small port city offered goods from exotic places around the world. Items such as teak furniture, Oriental carpets, and Madeira wine could be found beside the simple homespun goods of colonial New York. Currencies of European and Asian countries were exchanged by the English, Dutch, French, Jewish, Irish, and Scottish settlers in the city, which was already a melting pot. Elsewhere the British, French, and Dutch men-of-war preyed on the smuggler and legitimate shipper alike; in New York City, all who paid Fletcher's fees were safe.
Fletcher, who "undertook to mine all the known veins of gubernatorial graft, and to stake claims on some new ones," 3 backed all forms of crime at sea. Fletcher found a way to profit from all aspects of pirate commerce. The pirate captains dined at his table while their crews swaggered around town spending their ill-gotten money. The pirate Edward Taylor is on record as having paid Fletcher £1,700 to be allowed to land in New York City and sell his wares. (In modern purchasing power, £1,700 would be about $250,000.) The privateer who applied to Fletcher for a commission to attack enemy shipping would then attack anything he could defeat. Such a commission could be procured for five hundred pounds; the pirate John Hoar is on record as having bought one of these commissions. The merchants who supplied New York's shops with exotic goods bought from pirates and often had a stake in their voyages as well.
An example of Fletcher's liberal interpretation of his powers is in his relationship with Thomas Tew. The legendary pirate was from an English Quaker family that had settled in Rhode Island. His history has not been recorded before his arrival in Bermuda, a smuggling capital, in 1692. According to sources, Tew was already enriched by piracy. There he bought a share of a ship called the Amity with gold he carried in his pockets. Other shareholders were Thomas Hall, Richard Gilbert, John Dickinson, and William Outerbridge, who was a member of the governor's council. Tew received a privateering commission from Governor Ritchier and headed for French West Africa to attack slave ships. On the way, Tew "turned pirate," with the backing of his crew. They headed for the Red Sea and attacked Arab shippers before settling in the kingdom of pirates, Madagascar. After several adventures, Tew returned home. He sold his Indian textiles in New York City and then headed to Newport, sent for his partners, and divided the spoils—some of which was buried near Newport and the rest in Boston.
Tew's Bermuda backers reportedly received fourteen times their investment.4 Tew's share amounted to eight thousand pounds, enough to provide a high-style retirement. For a while Tew took part in the good life in Rhode Island, untainted by the same crimes that would see Kidd hanged. But the governor of Massachusetts denied Tew another privateering commission, so he applied to the governor of Rhode Island and for five hundred pounds received his papers.
The first order of business was sailing to New York to meet with the Philipse family. Frederick Philipse was the seventeenth-century equivalent of a venture capitalist. He provided the equipment needed for a pirate voyage, and in turn was entitled to a share of the gains. His only risk was monetary and he hedged his bets by making numerous investments. Those who came to him risked life and liberty. With Frederick Philipse's backing, Tew outfitted his second pirate expedition, one that would immensely benefit his patron.
Tew's second adventure found him capturing ships of the Great Moghul and keeping one hundred unmarried girls as well as treasure. After a sojourn in Madagascar, Tew and his crew headed home again for the quiet life. This time his treasure was said to be more than a hundred thousand pounds. Philipse, who risked only money, in comparison to the pirates who risked their lives, would earn more than a hundred thousand pounds backing numerous voyages.
Tew's weakness was that he could not retire. He sought another privateering commission, this time from the new governor of Rhode Island, John Easton, who refused. Tew then applied to Governor Fletcher of New York. Fletcher knew that Tew was a well-known sea rover, but felt justified in commissioning him to sail against the French. When later defending his actions, Fletcher claimed he did not know of Tew's reputation, but that the "stranger" had planned to attack the French at the mouth of the Canada River. Such commissions against the French were nothing unusual. But Tew saw the situation differently.
Tew outfitted his ship and then sailed between New York and Boston recruiting fellow pirates and adventurers for his fleet. Fletcher claimed the commission was for attacking the French in Canada, but Tew openly acknowledged there was more money to be gained in the Indian Ocean and that this area was his destination.
Thomas Tew made his final voyage to the Indian Ocean, where he reportedly had some early success against Indian trading ships. But he may have pushed his luck. He was never again seen in New England.
On occasion, Fletcher had to make a token charge against a pirate or smuggler to confuse his enemies. In 1694 he seized a ship that had returned from a Caribbean voyage. The ship was owned in part by one of New York's wealthiest men, Robert Livingston. Livingston not only beat the charges, but also sought a way to get rid of Fletcher at the same time. It would take four years and the efforts of two partners. It was into this early version of the "world trade center" that Captain Kidd sailed.
As Templar soldiers and their descendants remained in the military service as mercenaries, Templar sailors and their descendants spawned a culture of both legal privateering and illegal piracy. In the seventeenth century, many Scottish seamen were commissioned to battle Dutch attackers who preyed on English and Scottish shipping and fishing. Later, after one more attempt to attain independence, Scottish Jacobites swelled the ranks of the pirates in Europe and the Caribbean. It is little wonder that the best pirate literature was also spawned in Scotland; Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the classic Treasure Island and fellow Scot J. M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan.
Participation in piracy and smuggling was a frequent occurrence in Scotland, despite laws that called for the highest penalties against these offenses. The laws were only sporadically enforced and convictions were nearly impossible to achieve. An underground society prevailed; it was not necessarily hereditary, but it was so prevalent that it was not threatened by a justice system. From the days of the Templar demise until the eighteenth century, the lodges of men dedicated to a specific craft or occupation enforced their own codes and often exercised power that reached to the highest levels of government. These guilds of lawyers, sea captains, craftsmen, and soldiers were individual cells, or lodges in Masonic parlance, that operated independently yet assisted one another in ways that those outside the brotherhood would never suspect.
Freemasonry was not yet public. Before 1717 it was truly a secret society in which it was a violation of oath to admit membership or discuss anything that went on in a Masonic meeting. A major event took place less than twenty years later, when four of England's lodges met at the Apple Tree Tavern in Covent Garden in London to form the Grand Lodge. Shortly afterward the Irish, French, and Scottish lodges emerged as public societies. There is no satisfactory reason why Masonry came out of the closet, but the most plausible explanation is that the distrust those in power had for the secret organizations encouraged the orders to reveal themselves. Scotland's Masons hid a vast underground of smugglers, pirates, and revolutionaries. Rather than risk being accused of plotting against the king of England, the English lodges welcomed royalty and toasted the health of their kings and queens. Scottish Masonry was the preserve of such people as Andrew Ramsay, the tutor of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Ramsay publicly spoke of the former Crusaders setting up Masonic lodges upon returning from the wars. The lodges survived the persecution of the Templars by remaining underground. And the Bonnie Prince led a revolt by the Scottish against their English overlords.
The Scottish version of the Masons had strong political overtones, while the English version, which had distanced itself from politics, did not present such a threat. Because of this threat, the Scottish secret organization needed to remain underground.
Kidd was a Scotsman and was partnered with fellow Scotsman Livingston, and both men became Masons as well. After a few short years, Livingston was very public with his membership in the guild. His family is still known as active proponents of the Masons. Kidd, of course, did not have even a few short years.
The massive immigration of Scots to America and Canada was resented by the earlier colonists. This Scottish "invasion" of America was a direct result of constant war with England, and it increased dramatically after the failure of the Jacobite Rebellion. A prejudice against Scots existed from Massachusetts to Virginia, although these immigrants still had a significant role in the formation of the new country. In 1776 a play produced in Philadelphia was dedicated to "Lord Kidnaper . . . Pirates and Buccaneers, and the innumerable clans of Macs and Donalds upon Donalds in America."5 The dedication was in jest but the sentiment was real, and the Scots-as-pirates stereotype was not helped by the prominence of Captain Kidd in pirate lore.
In August 1689 Kidd had been on the island of Nevis in command of a sixteen-gun privateer he had taken from the French. Two years later, in another English expedition, his men—mostly former pirates had left him ashore, and he lost command of a ship. Later that year he received another command to take on the French.
By the time Kidd arrived in New York, his reputation had preceded him. He helped build the first Trinity Church and bought a lot on Wall Street. William Kidd, man-about-town, then married a well-to-do Dutch widow, Sarah Bradley Cox Oort.6 It was his wife's third marriage; in fact, the marriage license was received just days after John Oort, her second husband, died. Sarah Oort brought a nice dowry to the new marriage, including a house on Wall Street and another on Pearl Street. Kidd must have felt that he was a worthy catch, and titled himself "Gentleman" on their application. Oort and Kidd lived in the fashionable part of town, their home complete with furniture and carpets that were imported from Asia. Kidd could have remained simply a gentleman, but he didn't.
As luck would have it, the acts of piracy committed around the emerging British empire were bringing complaints to the ears of King William III. Especially irritating to the court was the role that Governor Fletcher was playing in North America. King William met with his Privy Council and Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellomont.They decided that Lord Bellomont would be sent to New York to replace Fletcher as governor and stamp out the pirate haven he had created.
Piracy was a worldwide problem for empire-building Britain. In Asia the same countries that England was trying to trade with were complaining about American pirates attacking their shipping, and they held the British responsible. All the legitimate trade was carried on through a royal-sponsored monopoly called the British East India Company.
At the end of the seventeenth century, the British East India Company was trying to further establish itself in Asia. The company had been doing well and had the favor of James II until his death. With a royal monopoly, the average dividend was 25 percent in the last ten years of the century. But this monopoly inspired jealousy. Other European traders, American merchants, and even pirates were hindrances to business. In the new market the British East India Company was trying to develop, it also did not help that the company had little the customer wanted. It introduced cheap opium, and tried to hold its own against invaders and pirates.
Ironically, in this newly declared war against piracy Kidd was enlisted to fight for the cause of the British. While visiting England with New York's most respected merchant, Robert Livingston, Kidd was introduced to Lord Bellomont, who desired the job of New York's governor. Livingston, Kidd, and Bellomont plotted to get rid of Fletcher. For his part in the deal, Kidd was commissioned to fight against the pirates.
Pirates sailing out of New York, commissioned by Fletcher, frequently attacked the Moghuls' ships. John Hoar actually attacked the British East India fleet and captured and burned two company ships. Tew's attacks on the Indian fleet caused rioting in the streets. The account of Henry Every's pirate crew kidnapping and raping Indian women, some of whom committed suicide rather than submit, caused the offices of the East India Company in Surat to be attacked by mobs. Several key employees were imprisoned, where they received harsh treatment during the six months of negotiation between the Moghuls and the British East India Company. Several did not survive.
Whatever the real intentions of Kidd, Livingston, and Bellomont, the plan was first to capture the pirate Tew. Kidd, Bellomont, and Livingston would be entitled to whatever goods were taken in the process.
Robert Livingston built a dynasty as fast as he could and in any way he
could. He was a Scot who had lived in Rotterdam for a time and
learned the Dutch language. He sailed to America in 1674. At that time
the Dutch still controlled New York, and the largest patroonship was
owned by Nicholas Van Rensselaer, who had joined another very
wealthy Dutch family through an arranged marriage to Alida Schuyler.
Van Rensselaer was the son and namesake of the man who had actually
received the grants of land and built the family wealth. Like many sons of ambitious men, Van Rensselaer had no interest in the business or his
upstate lands; instead he fancied himself a mystic. He hired Livingston,
an obvious go-getter, to run his empire.
A trader by profession, Livingston caught on quickly and acquired the ability to speak the Iroquois language—an ability many traders didn't have. He also helped build the Van Rensselaer fortune.
In 1678 Nicholas was only in his early forties, but he began aging rapidly. He took to his sickbed with an illness that could not be diagnosed. One day he decided the end was near and called for a servant to bring a pen and paper for his will. Instead Livingston appeared. "No, no, send him away; he's going to marry my widow," cried Van Rensselaer, just before he died.7 If ever a will was composed, it was never found. But some have suggested that "if you believe a Van Rensselaer rumor, still circulated to this day, Nicholas was poisoned."8
Nicholas the mystic had been right: Within eight months Alida and Robert Livingston were married. Livingston acquired his boss's widow and became the wealthy man he had designed to become. When he met Kidd, Livingston was the wealthiest man in New York. As a Scot, Livingston was embroiled in the religious wars that raged back home and that spilled over into the colonies. His relatives in Scotland, the Earls of Callendar and Linlithgow, had fought on the wrong side of what became the Glorious Revolution. It was a precarious time because of the religious upheaval, and many Scots and French Huguenots were forced to leave the country. The hostilities did not end once the immigrants reached America.
In New York the war was between Jacob Leisler and the Catholics.9 In his frantic effort to keep the pope from controlling New York, Leisler seized the city. When Britain later sent a new governor, Leisler attempted to defend New York against him. His rabid anti-Catholic sentiment ended with his trial and that of five confederates. The same evidence admitted in trial freed four and sentenced two to hanging. Jacob Leisler was hanged on the land where the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge would be built.
A bit of jury tampering may have helped the four who were acquitted. One of these possible beneficiaries was Peterse Delanoy. His family subsequently dropped the last letter of their name and become the Delanos.A later alliance through marriage would result in the Delano Roosevelt family.
With Leisler out of the way, the power vacuum allowed Huguenot families such as the Delanoys and their allies among the Dutch power base, including Livingston, to prosper. Livingston was now in prime position to expand his empire. He traded with whomever he could and owned outright or owned shares in several merchant ships. One of these returned 500 percent in one 1694 voyage alone. But success had its downside: Through a customs agent of the mayor of New York City, Livingston was charged with the crime of trading with the French. It is possible that the charge was correct, as not all legitimate voyages yielded such high returns. But the mayor simply wanted a share in the profits. The case was brought before the grand jury, whose chairman was William Kidd. It is not known if this case also involved jury tampering, but Livingston was spared. Jury chairman Kidd refused to indict.
Kidd and his new friend Livingston went to England to increase their fortunes. The deal that was struck with Richard Coote, Lord Bellomont, involved several other figures who moved in commercial and government circles. The list included John Somers, the Lord Chancellor; Edward Russell, the Earl of Orford, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty; Henry Sidney, the Earl of Romney; Charles Talbot, the Duke of Shrewsbury; Edward Harrison, a director of the East India Company; and Richard Blackham, who would later be imprisoned for bribery and currency manipulation. King William III was destined to claim 10 percent of the return in exchange for his blessing of Kidd's pirate-hunting enterprise.10
Livingston and Kidd were the core partners of the agreement, and together they were required to put up six thousand pounds to purchase and refit a ship named Adventure Galley. This was approximately one fifth of the funds needed for the voyage, and in turn the partners would receive one fifth of the prizes captured and get to keep the ship. The men who signed on as crew members were on a no-purchase, no-pay contract. This type of contract was used by whalers and pirate ships, and it stated that if no prizes were obtained, no pay would be given. Therefore, the inducement to capture something was great.
Kidd and crew were commissioned to capture pirate ships. Their papers specifically targeted Thomas Tew of Rhode Island and two New York-based pirates, Thomas Wake and William Maze. For good measure the commission added any and all pirates, freebooters, and sea rovers. Commission in hand, Kidd sailed out of London to New York. Along the way he captured a French fishing ship—not much of a catch, but perhaps practice for his new crew.
In New York, Kidd recruited more men for his adventure and finally started his planned voyage on September 5, 1696. The destination was the Indian Ocean, where the large island of Madagascar was actually a pirate nation.11 The onetime French station Fort Dauphin had become the home base of the pirate Abraham Samuel, who was called King Samuel. The pirate king welcomed other pirates who presented him with gifts. His kingdom and other pirate strongholds, as well as slave ports run by merchants with no national affiliation, made Madagascar a truly wild locale.
Upon reaching the mature age of about thirty, many of the pirates retired to Libertalia. Land was free, exotic Polynesian-African women were plentiful, and the locals were not hostile. Plantations were started and trading posts were established. Even though each man might be able to return to his home port with a small fortune, many chose to live on the island.
It is a mystery just why Kidd sailed into Saint Mary's if by this time he did not intend to "go pirate." As a pirate hunter, he apparently had no intention to attack the pirate port; instead he landed, to repair his ship and recruit new men. But once he landed, his situation grew worse. A greater enemy than the English would attack Kidd's crew: disease. On the small island in the Indian Ocean, one fifth of the crew succumbed. Kidd needed to replace even more men than he originally intended. He took on new members, all of whom were most likely experienced pirates.
The major distinction separating the privateer from the pirate was a piece of paper. The commission that gave the privateer captain the right to take certain prizes made his actions legal, whereas seizing bounty without such a commission was an offense punishable by hanging. Commissions would occasionally be honored, and sometimes would expire because of the end of a war. Unfortunately, the privateer at sea had little way of knowing that hostilities had ended and that a truce voided his commission. Another difference between privateers and pirates was the conditions in which they lived and worked. On a privateer ship the captain was chosen by the owner. He had to be tough and able to make difficult decisions, but he also had to be intelligent. The men on both merchant ships and privateer ships received very little pay, were treated as inferior by the owners and officers, and were subject to physical abuse at the whim of their masters. Such abuse was legal, and more men died of being flogged than died in battle. Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon who served aboard the ships of the Royal African Company, reported that one captain flogged a man to death for losing an oar. Another captain forced men to eat live cockroaches for his entertainment. Falconbridge is quoted extensively for such cruelties to both seamen and slaves in Hugh Thomas's The Slave Trade and Patrick Pringle's Jolly Roger, the Golden Age of Piracy. The slaves aboard such ships often were of more value to the captain than his own crew. The average mortality rate for slaves in the seventeenth century was 25 percent; it was often as high as 40 percent for the crew.
The officers of the British navy treated their own crews just as harshly.
It was no wonder that when a pirate ship attacked a merchant ship, the crew was eager to surrender. The pirates treated them better. Those who came aboard were treated as equals. Many were invited to join, some were simply impressed by their lifestyle, but all were treated better. Four hundred years after the Templar fleet left France, the lodge system spawned in Templar preceptories and Cistercian monasteries was alive aboard the pirate ships. The ship's rules were determined by articles that each man signed. The men voted on such rules in a democratic fashion: one man, one vote. Rules included not taking women aboard, as they could cause friction; not discussing religion, as it too could cause conflict; and spelling out tasks and duties.
On a pirate ship the captain was elected by the entire crew. Like a privateer captain, he had to be tough and intelligent. He had to be well liked, too, as his crew could simply unelect him. Shares were determined, and the job of the captain and the quartermaster was to ensure equal shares to all members of the crew.
The crew on both pirate and privateer ships would sail for a share in the voyage. On the privateer ship the captain's share and that of the high-ranking officers were greater than the crew's. On many pirate ships all bounty was shared in a fairer way. The captain and the quartermaster might get a double share; a highly proficient crew member could get a share and a half. An injured pirate who was unable to return to sea might be given a greater share to aid his retirement. The average sailor on a pirate ship had a better chance of making a windfall profit for the risks and hardships he endured. Some took their shares and went back to the farm. Sometimes an agreement was struck so that all sailors remained together until every man had a certain amount of money.
Life was potentially dangerous for the pirate, but the dangers were not in attacking enemy shipping. Very rarely was a merchant ship willing to mount a defense, and few pirate ships were ever captured outside of ports. One pirate historian reports that brothel casualties were higher than battle casualties. The greatest risk a pirate might endure was expulsion by his fellow sailors. Marooning, or expelling a pirate from a crew, took place on a desert island or sometimes on a sandbar that would disappear at high tide. Pirates were usually marooned only for the worst of offenses, which included abandoning their posts during battle. The term maroon was coined from what the Spanish called Cimarrons, the group of people created from the marriage of escaped black slaves to native Amerindian women.
Life at sea was equally dangerous for the criminal pirate and the legitimate privateer, as the common threats—injury, imprisonment, and death—did not favor one type of sailor. For example, a privateer sailing against Spain was a criminal in the eyes of the Spanish crown, as was a pirate operating anywhere. Both could suffer equally for their offenses, and death was the most common punishment. The difference was that the pirate stood a better chance of making a profit. As a result, pirate ships often had little problem defeating better-armed naval ships, merchant ships, and privateer ships. Many times the crew of the captured ship was happy to join the pirates—and they were often delighted to see a cruel captain subject to his own medicine.
Twice Kidd brought his ship to within threatening distance of British-protected shipping, and twice he was turned away. Finally he captured a lone trading ship from Bombay flying the English colors. Upon meeting the ship's captain, Kidd found out that he was already considered a pirate. Word traveled quickly.
Kidd soon took three more ships, including the valuable Quedah Merchant in January 1698. With his new fleet, he now broke all the rules and attacked an East India Company ship. He left the coast of India with his prizes and headed for Madagascar, where he spent six months before heading back to North America.
It is hard to believe that an experienced captain such as Kidd would
think that he could return to New York and escape punishment because
of his connections, but that appears to have been the case. The Earl of
Bellomont, now the governor of New York, actually came to Kidd's
defense. The governor said he received reports that Kidd was forced by
his men to act as a pirate. But Bellomont was in an awkward position.
Having replaced Fletcher, who had given a commission to the pirate
Thomas Tew, Bellomont had to be careful not to cast himself in the
same light. He also was entitled to a large commission should he issue
a pardon. Kidd, however, had gone too far.
The capture of the Quedah Merchant had caused rioting in the streets of Surat, where the British East India Company maintained its offices. The company was already blamed for any acts of European piracy, but this time the ship belonged to a member of the Indian emperor's court. This news eventually reached New York—well before Kidd.
Bellomont had to distance himself from the situation and cut his losses. The governor of what is now New York and Massachusetts had never seen Boston, and he traveled there on May 26, 1699, for the first time. It appeared to his critics that he was on his way to meet his pirate partner Kidd, who had just reached Delaware Bay and was heading north. Bellomont later explained that he wrote Kidd a letter that purposely did not threaten his arrest, as he didn't want to scare Kidd away.
Joseph Emmot, a New York lawyer whose specialty was admiralty cases, advised Bellomont that Kidd had treasure aboard and had left treasure behind in the Caribbean. Emmot also delivered two passes granted by the French that Kidd had taken from the Moorish ships he captured. These documents were evidence that the act of capturing those ships, at least, was not piracy. Had these passes made it to Kidd's trial, he might have been acquitted. But somehow Bellomont or another backer of the voyage allowed the passes to disappear.12
While he was conspiring to have Kidd convicted, Bellomont sent two men to get a statement from the pirate. They met with Kidd off Block Island. Afterward Kidd seemed confident he could still trust Bellomont. He set sail for a tiny island off the coast of eastern Long Island called Gardiner's Island. He unloaded three or four small boats of booty and then sent for John Gardiner, in whose care Kidd placed a chest for Bellomont.
Gardiner's area of eastern Long Island was one of the two favorite pirate places to anchor in summer; the other was across the mouth of Long Island Sound, on the islands between Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. Both were locales where ships, both pirate and merchant, could rendezvous to trade and exchange cargo and supplies. It was an illegal floating market at times. The mouth of Buzzards Bay was also passed by ships cruising between New York and Boston, but docking a ship there would mean drawing the attention of the navy.
As Kidd sailed around the eastern end of Long Island, he dropped treasure in various places. One stash was delivered to an old pirate by the name of Thomas Paine, who lived on Canonicut Island off Rhode Island. When the governor of Rhode Island got wind of the story, he searched Paine's house, but the gold was not there. It may have already been moved back to Gardiner's Island, but proof against the Gardiner family was not to be found.
Kidd's plan was to hedge his bets. If he hid enough treasure before meeting the authorities, it would be something to use in striking a bargain. As Kidd's real history grew into legend, people would tell tales of him dropping his treasure as far north as Nova Scotia and as far east as the South China Sea. But it's more likely that what he did not leave in the Caribbean he hid around Long Island Sound.
Kidd was also attempting to deftly play the cards he was dealt. He knew after meeting with Emmot that the situation was vastly different since he had left New York. The British were cracking down on piracy, the ships returning to New York were being seized, and the ships' captains and crews were being hunted and arrested. Kidd had put his partners Bellomont and Livingston in a very complicated position. Bellomont, in fact, had much to gain either as Kidd's friend or as the arresting officer of the court. Both scenarios allowed him to be rewarded either financially or in reputation.
Not having all the treasure available for confiscation was one of the strategies Kidd employed; the temptation to have more would serve as an inducement for Kidd's apprehensive partner. Kidd's second play was delivering to Lord Bellomont's wife an enameled box with four jewels; he hoped it might tip the scale and make Bellomont back his partner. But Bellomont did the math. Allowing that Kidd's charges might be false and pardoning him—and thereby keeping his legitimate share— could equal a thousand pounds. But seizing Kidd and claiming his legitimate share as arresting governor gave him thirteen thousand pounds.
Bellomont's advisers warned him not to go against the British East India company and the powers the company represented. Thus Bellomont decided against his onetime partner; Kidd was to be arrested. The other partner, Robert Livingston, was dismayed by Bellomont's decision. He stood to gain all if Kidd was pardoned and nothing if Kidd was arrested. In fact, Livingston had posted a bond guaranteeing Kidd's behavior. Bellomont alleged that Livingston threatened him, saying that Livingston would take reimbursement from Kidd's treasure if Bellomont didn't return the bond. Did Bellomont make up this accusation to distance himself from the crime? Or as Bellomont might have feared, were Kidd and Livingston, brother Scots, involved in a conspiracy against him?
Both Bellomont and Livingston had to bear the weight of public opinion. In America the arrest was an exciting event; in England it was a political event as well. The Tory party, closely tied to the British East India Company, wanted Kidd convicted. The Whigs, several of whom were backers of Kidd's voyage, were in a corner. In the end, all but Kidd got their way. At the trial the book listing the owners of Kidd's ship, his partners, and his instructions was missing. So were the vital passes obtained from the Moorish ships, which might have acquitted him. (The passes were discovered two hundred years later in a London records office.) The letter from Bellomont to Kidd was also missing.
There were only two eyewitnesses against Kidd: Robert Bradinham and Joseph Palmer. Both were military deserters who turned pirate. Today an American lawyer might point out that such criminals may not be credible witnesses, as they are not men of reputation, and they were very obviously testifying against Kidd for their own reprieve. Their pardons came days after Kidd's conviction.
It appears that a deal had been struck, one that was a convenience for all except William Kidd. Kidd was the scapegoat and, as such, was hanged. Livingston was cleared of all charges. Bellomont was enriched for his role in arresting Kidd. The other Whig partners were unsullied by what might have been a scandal, although they lost their stake in the ship and any proceeds they might have expected. For England and the ruling class, the bottom line was that Tory shipping was safe from Whig upstarts.
Livingston made out better than he thought. He received his bond back, although remarkably he was forced to pay off fellow partner Robert Blackham for his stake in the venture. The members of Captain Kidd's crew were mostly pardoned, and some died in jail. Kidd's wife, Sarah Bradley Cox Oort Kidd, was jailed and her house seized on Bellomont's order. Oort was known to have some of Kidd's loot, but it was never found. She was eventually released and married a fourth time.
Those who had received the treasure were targeted by Bellomont, who stood to gain a share of the recovered valuables. The greatest amount of treasure was on Gardiner's part of Long Island. Threatened with an enemy landing on his tiny kingdom, John Gardiner presented Bellomont with bags of gold and silver. Thus, Kidd was killed, and all those associated with him prospered.
The feudal system that gave birth to the Knights Templar gave rise to noble ideals such as liberty, equality, and fraternity. Among those in power, however, corruption ruled. Freemasonry developed from the noble ideals of the Knights Templar, and the lodge system was created— underground—to protect its members. Some lodges became more celebrated than others, and membership in the more prestigious lodges offered greater rewards. While Livingston would survive into days of public Freemasonry, Bellomont would not. Almost twenty years passed after Kidd's body hung over the Thames before Freemasonry went public. From London to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the lodge system separated those who pulled the strings from those who were left hanging. Through the right connections family dynasties could survive and build on fortunes made from nefarious crimes. Profits from piracy became investments in more acceptable enterprises, and fortunes made in seventeenth-century crime were the bedrock for wealth in the twenty-first century.
The progenitor of the family was an Englishman, Lion Gardiner, who was born in 1599. He came to America in 1635 as a soldier, a builder of fortifications, a trader, and a fighter against the Indians. Gardiner's son David was the first white child born in what would become the state of Connecticut. In what is now known as the Pequot War, Gardiner was instrumental in enlisting opposing tribes to join a small English force that sought to exterminate the Pequots. Gardiner's principal ally was Wyandanch, a sachem from Long Island. Gardiner agreed to trade with Wyandanch's group if he would "kill all the Pequots" that came to him and "send . . . their heads." 1 From his new friends the Montaukett tribe, Gardiner bought the self-named Gardiner's Island, a 3,500-acre island kingdom (part of modern-day East Hampton), for cloth, a gun, some gunpowder, and a dog. He added to his Long Island holdings by rescuing Wyandanch's daughter from an enemy tribe; for this feat he was given the land that would become Smithtown, bringing his holdings to a hundred thousand acres.
Rights to Gardiner's kingdom were confirmed by King Charles I. In the seventeenth century and later, Gardiner's eastern holdings provided a great haven for pirates and smugglers, and evidence appears to indicate that the early Gardiner heirs were more than simply willing accomplices.
In 1672 a report indicated that a Massachusetts pirate named Joseph Bradish set sail for Gardiner's Island with his loot. In 1692 the governor of Connecticut reported that pirates were anchored off East Hampton and engaging in trade. In another report, a prominent Connecticut citizen was accused of receiving stolen property and selling it in Boston, and it was noted that the shore of eastern Long Island was the haunt of pirates and smugglers. Still another report stated that a pirate ship called the Sparrow had taken on eighteen passengers under an agreement made in the Caribbean. The master, Richard Narramore, then carried the passengers to Gardiner's Island, where they disembarked, chests and all. As the story spread, the unnamed men, who were suspected to be pirates, were brought before a magistrate. Christopher Goffe was one of the few accused men who appeared. He confessed that, as suspected, he was a pirate, but he was able to obtain a pardon.2
The Gardiner family has maintained its wealth throughout the centuries by the right connections to England prior to the War of Independence and by more secret connections that lasted to the middle of the nineteenth century. While many Whig families were able to avoid losing their lands after the American Revolution, the Gardiners, like their neighbors and often partners who had been Tories, walked a thin line and were not subject to the postwar land grab. Many of these families showed their reluctance to break from mother England, and some of their actions bordered on treason.
The War of 1812 became a second war of independence, as Britain had never ceased treating America as a colony. Her navy regularly impressed American seamen. Her army armed and incited native border tribes against her lost colony. Many families had prospered through their relationships with British firms, and such pro-British Whig families found themselves at odds with President Jefferson. A handful of New England merchant families, who had survived the Revolution and even prospered, proposed that New England leave the Union. Their loyalty was not to their country but to their mercantile interests, which were often shared with British counterparts.
In the decades before the Civil War, America was again threatened with secession, this time from several southern states. One great secret of American history is that the same New England merchant families who had tried to leave the Union earlier were joined by New York merchant families in aiding the breakup of the Union. Despite this treasonous activity, few of the powerful families were held accountable. The Gardiner family was one such family that straddled the two sides of the Civil War.
The Gardiner family, while always flying under the radar of public comment, was a power base in New York and part of the Cotton Whigs. The Whig party was divided on many issues, and the so-called Cotton Whigs allied themselves with the powerful families of Virginia and the Carolinas who by the nature of their business, cotton, remained close to English banks and merchants. When Gardiner interests merged with the interests of the planting families of Virginia and South Carolina, the Gardiner family itself merged with the Tyler family of Virginia.
While American politics has evolved over the centuries, in the nineteenth century it was not unusual for a president to be at odds with his vice president. As the result of compromise within the Whig party, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler ended up on the same ticket. Harrison was regarded as a politician in the mold of loyal Virginia leaders such as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, and so was against the divisive politics of South Carolina, which was first to threaten leaving the Union. Tyler was part of the secessionist movement in Virginia that was based at the College of William and Mary. Although he was a member of the Whig party, he had no inclination to support Whig policy. He agreed with admitting Texas as a slave state, and he was against abolition. Harrison and Tyler still managed to take the White House, using the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"; this motto referred to one of Harrison's triumphs over the Indians.
Harrison assumed the presidency on March 4, 1841, and one month later he died. His death was attributed first to intestinal illness and later to pneumonia, though no autopsy was performed. Described as robust, the war hero and sturdy farmer was somehow brought down by a head cold. After his long inaugural speech, which was given in the rain, the apparently healthy president became ill; many believe that his cold turned into pneumonia.
In Victorian times it was not uncommon for doctors to misdiagnose arsenic poisoning as "gastric poisoning," as the symptoms of arsenic poisoning usually started with gastrointestinal disorders including abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. But both of the president's physicians were suspected of pro-British sentiment. Dr. Frederick May was trained by the Freemason Dr. John Warren. May's son was an outspoken Tory and close friends with Benedict Arnold. The other physician, Dr. William Eustis, was also trained by Warren. He had been fired by President Madison because of his actions in the War of 1812. Dr. Eustis helped plan the defense of Detroit with General William Hull. On the way to Detroit, Hull was ambushed. His supplies gone and morale low, he surrendered Detroit as soon as he reached it. Madison believed the British had been tipped off. When the War Department conceived a plan to attack England's supply base in Nova Scotia, Eustis would not allow it to happen. With Harrison dead, the pro-secessionist Tyler was elevated to the presidency in 1841; John Tyler was the first president of the United States to get to his post without election.3
Harrison was the first president to die in office. His suspicious death started what was later called the "Twenty-year Curse" or the "Zero Curse," which postulated that every president elected in a year ending with a zero would die in office. The "curse" lasted 160 years before it was broken by Ronald Reagan. Reagan, however, barely missed being assassinated by the mentally disturbed son of a friend of the vice president. Some said the curse was put on Harrison by Tecumseh, the Indian warrior whom the president had defeated. But it is more likely that the death was engineered.
Caleb Cushing, whose political leanings were influenced by profit potential, was no stranger to political manipulation and subtle bribery. He was a thirty-third-degree Mason, the highest level to which a Mason could rise, and an opium smuggler. His fortunes were tied to the pro-British mercantile smugglers, slave traders, and drug traffickers. Cushing wanted to hold a government office.
Tyler claimed he was not a party man and had accepted his nomination reluctantly. But after Harrison's death, Tyler immediately repudiated most of the Whig platform that had brought Harrison to the White House. As a result, the new president was not popular; in fact, he was derided as "his accidency."
Tyler's first order of business was pushing for Caleb Cushing to become Secretary of the Treasury. The Senate rejected his nomination three times, with the third ballot securing only three votes for Cushing. Tyler then proposed sending Cushing to China. This move was greeted heartily, possibly because it was the farthest place from the seat of government that the devious politico could be sent.
Harrison's death was the first of three during Tyler's stay in Washington. The second death was that of Tyler's wife, Laetitia. Tyler did not spend too much time grieving; instead he opted to unite his Virginia plantation family with a northern merchant family. Julia Gardiner, the spoiled daughter of the wealthy and prominent David Gardiner, was Tyler's target.
After returning from a grand tour of Europe, Julia Gardiner became part of the Washington social whirl, dating several congressmen, including the future president James Buchanan, two Supreme Court Justices, and a naval officer. She met President Tyler at a White House party, and he invited her to return. Although she was thirty years younger than the president, their first date ended with him chasing her around the White House. He wasted no time in proposing to Gardiner, but her mother stood in the way of the marriage. She was concerned that the president was not a good enough catch for a Gardiner. The Virginia farmer and plantation owner simply had no money when compared with the Gardiner fortune.4
Tyler was not one to give up. The deaths of "Old Tippecanoe" and Tyler's wife had paved the way down his new path, and a third death would allow Tyler to get what he wanted.
The stage was set aboard the USS Princeton, where the navy wanted to display a new cannon, which was dubbed the Peacemaker because of its size. Several important personages were aboard and the gun was fired numerous times. David Gardiner, a friend of Tyler's and the New York State senator at the time, brought his attractive daughter, Julia, to witness the scene. She quickly became bored and invited the enamored president below decks for a glass of champagne. The overheated gun was to be fired one more time as a salute to George Washington as it passed his Mount Vernon home, but it instead exploded and killed Secretary of State Abel Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas W. Gilmer, and Julia's father, Senator David Gardiner.5
The fifty-four-year-old president and the twenty-four-year-old Julia Gardiner became secretly engaged shortly after her father's death. They later married privately. The huge difference in age presented more fodder for public opinion and the media, but Julia Gardiner Tyler won the hearts of the public even as her husband was the butt of their jokes.6
During Gardiner's "reign" as First Lady, as she called it, she revived the formality of White House receptions, which had gone out of style. She welcomed guests with plumes in her hair and surrounded by twelve maids of honor dressed in white. She also instituted the playing of "Hail to the Chief." Gardiner bore several children with the president: David Gardiner Tyler, John Alexander Tyler, Julia Gardiner Tyler, Lachlan Tyler, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Robert Tyler, and Pearl Tyler.
As president, Tyler's major accomplishment was repaying the favors of his chief promoter, Caleb Cushing, among the Cotton Whigs. He managed to make Cushing an ambassador of sorts, sending him to China to reap the rewards of the British Opium War. The signing of a treaty with China kept the American opium traders in business—a trade that benefited a handful of New England and New York families. Tyler was booted out of his own Whig party and had all but one member of his cabinet resign. The remaining cabinet member was Daniel Webster, who was deeply in debt to Caleb Cushing and at his beck and call. Tyler was even impeached for not signing a tariff bill, although the impeachment was eventually defeated. His lack of favor in Washington went so deep that he didn't attend the succeeding president's inauguration. Tyler left American politics to join the Confederate government, making Tyler the first American president to bear arms against the federal government. After his death in 1862, Julia returned to New York and worked to promote the Confederate cause.
The Gardiners survived prosecution for assisting pirates, had survived pro-British sympathies after the Revolution, and survived pro rebel sentiment during the Civil War. Today the sixteenth lord of the manor still defends his preserve from more modern dangers, such as taxes and disrepair. Gardiner's Island is the oldest family-owned estate of its kind in America. The Gardiner estate is now in the hands of eighty-eight-year-old Robert David Lion Gardiner, who divides his time between estates in Palm Beach and East Hampton. With the exception of having to comply with taxation, he is the lord of his manor, just as a lord from another century. He regularly invites guests to take part in a hunt to reduce the island's deer population.
For the first time in the Gardiner family history there is no direct heir. Robert Gardiner's niece, Alexandra Creel, married into another of America's first families, the Goelets, and will inherit the island. The Goelets have been in America since 1676, and they built their fortune in real estate, along with the Philipse and Roosevelt families. One of the Goelets founded Chemical Bank with a grandfather of Theodore Roosevelt. The Goelets and the Gardiners have been rivals for years, and the last lord of the Gardiner manor has recently been quoted as saying he is not happy to see his ancestral lands end up in Goelets province. The bitter Gardiner-Goelet feud was covered extensively in Steven Gains's Philistines at the Hedgerow, and some very colorful anti-Goelet quotes are on peconic.net, the local newspaper covering the longstanding feud.
While both families maintain a high degree of secrecy, Robert Gardiner recently opened up his life and his struggle to the prying eyes of the media. Historians and reporters alike were treated to a rare glimpse of the island, visiting it aboard a Gardiner estate boat, the Captain Kidd III.
Just as Robert Livingston was breathing a sigh of relief that Kidd was in the noose, Livingston's daughter Margaret married a Scotsman, her cousin Samuel Vetch. The new son-in-law brought more notoriety to the family, which apparently was not a concern for the Livingston clan as long as the notoriety was matched by enterprise. The Vetch family and the Livingston family had already been connected by marriage in Scotland. Reverend John Livingston brought Samuel Vetch's father into the Presbyterian Church. William Livingston, the older brother of Robert, had also married a Vetch. Samuel Vetch was despised by many in Scotland, and it is unlikely that the Livingstons and anyone else in Scotland were unaware of his criminal activities.7
In Scotland a project had been created to found a new colony in America. The Scotland Company Trading to Africa and the Indies was formed in June 1695 with the goal of bringing to Scotland what the British East India Company brought to England. The subscription books, which allowed anyone with money to buy stock in the company, were rapidly filled with the names of merchants, shipowners, and wealthy individuals from physicians to widows. The plan was to buy ships and bring Scottish settlers to their own colony, which would be in Darien, on the coast of Panama. Little attention was given to the fact that the land was claimed by Spain, and the company was not really in the favor of England.
The project was plagued with disaster after disaster. Ships packed with soldiers and colonists were provisioned poorly and would see forty dead before reaching the New World. When the colonists reached Panama they were nearly starving, as their worm-ridden food could barely be tolerated. More were sick than healthy, and few had the ability, the desire, or the knowledge to build a settlement. One ship hit a rock in harbor, sank, and took with it half its crew. Crew members on other ships attempted mutiny and many simply deserted. By the end of the first rainy season, there were no plantations planted, no fortifications erected, no trade established, and a government of five quarreling men.8 There were, however, two hundred graves in New Edinburgh.
After ten months the colonists were ready to give up their settlement. Over one third had died. Two ships left the colony to sail to New York City in order to sell goods and buy provisions. Samuel Vetch was on one of the ships. In the East River he tried to seize another ship, an act of piracy that he would explain was his right by charter. Two friends of Robert Livingston came to Vetch's aid. Stephen Delancey and Thomas Wenham were Livingston associates who had built fortunes financing the pirates of Madagascar. Livingston had to maintain a low profile, however, as he was already under suspicion from his partnership with Kidd.
Vetch, like his cousin Robert Livingston, was not likely to pass up a lucrative opportunity. He decided to keep the shipload of goods that was meant to buy provisions for the starving colonists in Darien. Livingston helped him sell the stolen goods.
Of course, Vetch could not return to Darien or to Scotland; the news of the fiasco would cause riots in Edinburgh. Hardly a family below the Highland line would not have the loss of a family member or friend to haunt them as a result of the ill-conceived expedition.
A second voyage saw three hundred of 1,300 dead before reaching the devastated colony. Few made it back to Scotland. Because Vetch would likely be hanged on the sands of Leith along with several other criminals related to Darien, he decided to stay in New York. He married Livingston's daughter, and the magnanimous Livingston gave the young couple as a wedding present a house that was once the property of Captain Kidd.
Samuel Vetch and John Livingston went into the smuggling business together. They bought a ship and named it Mary, then sailed to Canada to import French brandies and wines. On their second trip they were smuggling cargo onto eastern Long Island, not far from Gardiner's island kingdom, when they encountered problems. This early version of the gang that couldn't shoot straight" left their ship beached without anchoring it and then took off, presumably to find assistance. The ship was swept away by the tide to Montauk, where it was seized—complete with cargo, logs, and all the evidence required to bring charges against the pair.
No one was hanged; all were let off simply with the loss of a ship and its cargo. The incident did, however, bring unwanted attention to Robert Livingston, who was still hoping the Kidd affair would blow over. Livingston called in his markers, and Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, who took over for Governor Bellomont, had the charges against the younger Livingston and Vetch dropped. He also repealed the Bill of Confiscation, enabling Livingston and Vetch to keep their cargo. Not coincidentally, Cornbury's six-year rule was highlighted by accusations of bribery, mismanagement, and even attending parties dressed in women's clothing.9
Samuel Vetch learned from his cousin and soon become a wealthy merchant. Unlike his new in-laws, however, his luck did not last. Fortune caught up with him and he died in debtor's prison in London.
Robert Livingston would do much better.
Livingston's life took an odd turn when he traveled to London to plead the case of the Iroquois tribes in New York. On the way his ship was accosted by French privateers, who had no idea they held at their mercy the backer of the world's most infamous pirate. Their advantage was short-lived, as the sudden appearance of a British man-of-war turned the tables.
The immense amount of land held by the Livingston family was of little value if it could not provide an income. In 1710 the opportunity to change the idle lands to profitable lands came with a new governor. While Robert Hunter was reputed to be honest, he may not have been too smart. He had been warned on both sides of the Atlantic about dealing with Robert Livingston. It mattered little to Hunter, whose task was to provide a place to settle German refugees. After the first winter, the starving palatines were in open rebellion against their landlord. The English government refused them permission to leave, and Robert Livingston admonished his wife, Alida, for wishing to give them bread. A second freezing winter found the settlers fleeing across the Hudson in the hope of escaping their feudal lord.
The eighteenth century was marked by wars between the British and the French and ultimately between the colonists and the British. For the Livingstons the century was marked by uprisings by their tenant families. They used the French and Indian Wars to increase their wealth after being appointed to the lucrative position of provisioning the British troops. When the American Revolution came, the family straddled the fence for as long as possible. Then some members went home to Scotland and others fortuitously gambled on the side of the Revolutionaries.
One of the great-grandsons of Robert Livingston was Robert R. Livingston. He played a pivotal role in politics and in the Freemasons, of which he was the grand master for the New York branch. On April 30, 1789, he swore in the country's first president, George Washington. Livingston had hoped for an appointment to Washington's new government but none was forthcoming; it was possible Washington recognized the Livingston clan as playing both sides. Several Livingstons had left New York for the West Indies. Alida Livingston Gardiner, who was married to Valentine Gardiner, had left for England. 10 Robert R. Livingston kept his own power base behind the scenes. The Livingstons' power grew by dynastic marriages, as one Livingston married John Jay, another married an Astor, and another wed a Roosevelt. But Masonic ties were at least as important.
New York State's most influential and powerful lodge was the Holland No. 8. Jacob Astor was aware of the power wielded by the Masonic lodges in both his home in Germany and in London. When he reached New York City, he used his marriage to a member of the Brevoort family to gain entrance to the Holland No. 8 Lodge. There he made connections with New York's governor, George Clinton, his nephew and later mayor of New York City, De Witt Clinton, land baron Stephen Van Rensselaer, and the Livingston family.11 De Witt Clinton, in particular, was an ardent Mason, and among the offices he held were lodge grand master, high priest of the Grand Chapter, a grand master of the Great Encampment of New York, and grand master of the Knights Templar of the United States. Clinton's power base, however, would remain the Holland No. 8 Lodge.
When Robert Livingston was grand master of the Holland No. 8 Lodge he founded ten other lodges; still the Holland lodge remained the most powerful. The old guard of New York was firmly in control as the Masonic order and the Holland lodge grew in power. Many would advance their careers through Masonic connections, including Charles King, former president of Columbia University; Cadwallader Colden, grandson of the provincial governor; and John Pintard, the secretary of the Mutual Insurance Company. Masonry rewarded the Livingston family well, and the family did not turn away from the craft even during its unpopular years. Today the Livingston Masonic Library is maintained on West Twenty-third Street in New York City.
New York was a power center for the Livingston clan, but its influence was not limited to that state. Robert R. Livingston was disappointed because he did not receive an appointment in Washington's administration, but during Thomas Jefferson's administration he did join James Monroe on a mission to France. They went to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans, and they were reportedly surprised when Talleyrand, Napoleon's minister, asked, "What will you give for the whole?"—meaning the 825,000 square miles offered for sale.12 Without permission and without the time to contact Washington, the two men offered fifteen million dollars. Livingston later assumed full credit for the purchase, altering his journal entries to say he was given the offer three days earlier, before Monroe reached France. The government issued a vigorous denial and published Livingston's real itinerary, and the disgrace cost him whatever credit might have been due.
The area that was open thanks to the Louisiana Purchase was an early equivalent of the Wild West. New Orleans was the gateway. Very close to the city was a pirate kingdom second only to the one in Madagascar a hundred years before. The new Libertalia was called Barataria, and Jean Lafitte controlled the territory like a king. From India to the Caribbean, Lafitte's career stood out among pirates. Since his navy was so large it could not sail into any port, his kingdom, with protective estuaries, became his home base. At Barataria the pirate created a marketplace where pirates, smugglers, and legitimate traders could buy and sell silks, wines, spices, furniture, and slaves, all of which had been taken at sea. The pirate market at Barataria became so large it threatened the merchants of New Orleans.
Weeks after the Louisiana Purchase was made official a new governor William Claiborne, was appointed. He rode in with a military escort to assume his office. The city turned out for the occasion: two thousand Americans, French, Spaniards, Italians, blacks from Haiti and Jamaica, Orientals in silks, Hindus in saris—and the brothers Lafitte.13
In a short time the newly appointed governor of the area was goaded into offering a bounty for Lafitte and his brother, Pierre. Lafitte posted his own bounty for Governor Claiborne. When Pierre Lafitte was captured, District Attorney John R. Grymes quit his job. Instead of prosecuting Lafitte he would became the pirate's defense co-counsel. Robert Livingston's brother Edward, an active Mason and the mayor of New York City, left New York to join the defense team. The two defenders were allegedly offered twenty thousand dollars.
Edward Livingston had several reasons for leaving New York, all of which had something to do with money, specifically his lack of it. Livingston's land speculations and other ventures had left him in debt. His position as mayor was not as lucrative for him as it was for past mayors. New Orleans would be the start of a new life. He quickly married a nineteen-year-old French widow, Louise D'Avezac de Castera Moreau de Lassy, whose family was the owner of plantations in Haiti and had been driven out by the slave insurrection. As grand master of New York's grand lodge, Robert Livingston had influence that spread far beyond the state borders. Edward Livingston became grand master of the Louisiana lodge upon arrival.
Jean Lafitte was no ordinary pirate. Said to be a French nobleman whose parents lost their lives under the blade of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror,14 the swashbuckler was also an educated man who could speak four languages. Called "the gentleman pirate," Lafitte was described as tall, black-haired, and sporting a black mustache. He left France aboard a privateer ship that he would later take from its captain, and he began indiscriminately to raid ships of all nations. Lafitte started in the Seychelles, where he bought a boatload of slaves for trade. On the way to sell them in India he was chased by a British frigate. In desperate need of supplies, he captured other British ships, including one of the East India Company's. The privateer soon had a fleet.
Lafitte's reputation grew to gigantic proportions after he used one of his ships and forty of his men to battle a very large, forty-gun British ship manned by four hundred sailors. Lafitte's forty men, with daggers in mouths and bandanna-clad heads, boarded the ship in a frenzy. Lafitte commandeered a cannon and aimed at the men who remained on deck, threatening them with certain death. They all surrendered.
From the Indian Ocean, Lafitte and his navy sailed to the Spanish port of Cartegena, where he was given a commission. The city had just rebelled and authorized him to attack Spanish shipping. At one point Lafitte's navy had fifty ships and one thousand pirate sailors. From there he built his kingdom in Barataria. Derived from the Spanish word barato, the name refers to the part of the winnings a gambler gives to the poor for luck. Lafitte's pirate city had a cafe, a bordello, a gambling house, and warehouses. He would widen waterways to facilitate ships, dig canals, and even build barges that would sail to the port of New Orleans to sell their merchandise.
Lafitte survived the prosecutions of the governor and went on to join the Americans in the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. Besides having the legal protection of lawyer and Mason Edward Livingston, another noted Mason would come to the pirate's aid. Andrew Jackson rewarded Lafitte's crew with citizenship, and Lafitte tried to settle down. When his crew could not give up their old ways, Lafitte sailed to Mexico and was not heard from again.
The Livingstons, of course, would be heard from again. Today the Livingston dynasty is remembered in the names of locations in New York, New Jersey, and Louisiana. And the family is still active in politics. During the Clinton administration, for instance, Robert L. Livingston, the sixty-third man named Robert in the Livingston family tree, was a candidate for the job of Speaker of the House. He is part of the tenth generation, descended from the first lord of the manor in Skeletons in the Closet 83 New York. Other members of the Livingston clan still own vast tracts of land in New York. Modern-day relations of the Livingstons include the Bush family and Thomas Kean, the former governor of New Jersey, who makes his home in Livingston township, New Jersey.
Lewis Morris was a pirate who had a king's commission that allowed him to prey on shipping in the colonies and split his prizes with the crown. His nephew, also named Lewis Morris, was involved in the triangle trade. Between running sugar plantations in Barbados and using the labor of imported slaves to create end products like rum, Morris's lucrative trade gave him an estate back in the colonies. The younger Morris would later be a signer of the Constitution.15
The younger Lewis Morris was also part of an unusual rivalry that developed into an important American historical landmark. In the early 1730s Morris served as the chief justice of the three-man Supreme Court in New York. A fellow wealthy merchant named Rip van Dam had become governor and then retired his post. The new governor, Colonel William Cosby, was as corrupt as they come. He demanded that van Dam return his salary as governor and give it to Cosby. The case made it to Morris's court, where he cast the one vote in three denying Cosby his claim.
Cosby, in control of the state publication, the New York Gazette, relentlessly went after both van Dam and Morris. Friends of the pair backed a rival newspaper and hired John Peter Zenger as editor to retaliate in print. Cosby didn't like playing the role of editorial victim and threw Zenger in jail. After a lengthy and much publicized trial, Zenger's acquittal started the process that later developed into the freedom of the press. Coincidentally, one of the other two men on the Morris court was merchant and financier Frederick Philipse.
Philipse was well acquainted with Kidd and hired Samuel Burgess, who had sailed with Kidd as a privateer. Burgess was recruited out of retirement to sail to Madagascar with goods for the pirates. Clothing, liquor, naval supplies, and ammunition were the imports of choice on Saint Mary's. These goods were in turn exchanged for slaves, one of Madagascar's only exports.
Another employee of Philipse was the pirate Adam Baldridge, who was for a while one of the pirate kings of Saint Mary's. While his title did not entitle Baldridge to rule in a monarchal way, it did make him the number one fence for items stolen by pirates—a very lucrative position. Baldridge bought goods at attractive prices and put them aboard ships to Frederick Philipse. He would also serve as a travel agent, assisting retiring pirates in making their return passage to England or the North American colonies.
With the pirate king Baldridge on Saint Mary's and Burgess sailing back and forth to New York, the aristocratic Philipse had his own trading empire. The pirate Thomas Tew was also in his employ, and Philipse did little to hide his role in piracy. One of his ships that sailed the Indian Ocean for slaves and contraband and to engage in piracy was named the Frederick.17
But life would not always stay simple for Philipse. After Kidd's arrest, Bellomont was on the prowl for pirates, and he was not above turning on acquaintances like Philipse. When Bellomont became aware that two hundred pirates were being given passage to New York from Madagascar on a Frederick Philipse—owned ship,18 he decided money was thicker than friendship. The fee charged to each ex-pirate was an expensive fifty pounds, but presumably that was the tip of the iceberg of their personal wealth; the men were most likely loaded with booty intended to provide for them in their retirement years. Luckily for both Philipse and his cargo, Bellomont would not survive long enough to intercept it.
Next Philipse's number one captain, Burgess, was captured at sea. It was the second time for Burgess, who had previously survived arrest being pardoned by Bellomont. But that was before the backlash against piracy started by the British East India Company and the arrest of Kidd. This time Burgess was brought to London, where he was condemned to death. To his credit, Philipse sent to London his son Adolph, who worked for three years to save Burgess from suffering the same fate as Kidd. Burgess returned to sea, and later lived out his retirement years in London as a consultant for the British East India Company.
Unlike the Livingstons and the Gardiners, the Philipse family's power and wealth was divided after the Revolution. They had started in the colonies as part of the landed aristocracy of the Hudson Valley, which entitled them to the patroon system that granted lands to favorites of the royalty back in England: Pelham Manor for Thomas Pell, Philipsborough to the Philipses, Morrisania to Lewis Morris, Cortlandt Manor to the Van Cortlandts.The families in control of these extremely large tracts leased farmland to tenant farmers, who were often kept in poverty and indebted to their land.
In 1766 the Philipse tenant William Prendergast started mob actions along the Hudson that would affect both the Livingston clan and the other patroon families' holdings. At his trial Prendergast said that he was charged more for his small farm than were all the other Philipse tenants. It didn't matter. He was found guilty of treason and ordered hanged, drawn, and quartered in the feudal fashion of the lords of the Hudson manors. When no one would come forward to perform the execution, Prendergast received a stay and finally a pardon from King George III.
King George disappointed the Philipse family a second time by losing the War of Independence. The Philipses were part of a New York contingent that declared their loyalty to the king and signed the Declaration of Dependence. Frederick Philipse III was arrested by Washington's troops and so he fled his home. Washington confiscated the lands. The Morris family somehow ended up with one third of the original grant. Tenant farmers were allowed to buy the farms on the other two thirds after the Revolution.
Some of the Philipse heirs fared better than Frederick. Like the Livingstons, some fled to England after the war, while others managed to avoid being branded as Tories and stayed in the colonies. Also like the Livingstons, at least one Philipse heir would marry into the Roosevelt family. Another Philipse heir, Jacobus Goelet, started his own landed dynasty that eventually united with the Gardiner family's.
Jacobus Goelet had been raised by Frederick Philipse, the lord of the manor. Peter Goelet, the grandson of Jacobus, established himself in business and in politics during the Revolution. Instead of being arrested or deported, Peter Goelet used his close relationship with those in power to remain in New York and prosper. Goelet's relationship with the city controller, Benjamin Romaine, allowed the Goelet clan to acquire real estate as favorably as had the Astors and other large-scale investors like the Rhinelanders, Schermerhorns, and Lorillards.
Romaine was a failed schoolteacher who found his true calling as an early member of the Tammany Society, which was founded as a fraternal charity for Revolutionary War veterans in 1789 shortly after Washington was inaugurated. Washington's Society of the Cincinnati was for officers only and later for those with aristocratic family lines. The Tammany Society was meant to be for men of all classes, although it quickly emerged as a corrupt organization that helped only a handful to loot government coffers. While the history of New York points the finger at Boss Tweed and others who were the most corrupt, the major beneficiaries, such as New York's first families, emerged with larger fortunes, little criticism, and no criminal or civil penalty for their roles.
Goelet's two sons married daughters of the Scottish merchant Thomas Buchanan and furthered the family's rise. The younger Goelets founded the Chemical Bank of New York at a time when there was an anti banking sentiment in New York. It was nearly impossible to get a charter for a bank, so several companies got a charter for a certain type of business and then later amended the original charter. New York Chemical Manufacturing Company was a small company formed to produce dyes, paints, and drugs. One year after getting a charter for this business it became a bank. Chemical Bank counted several generations of Goelets on the board of directors.
The next Goelet generation would collect fortunes topping the $100 million mark when their lands, including Union Square and Fifth Avenue, appreciated. Families like the Goelets, Astors, and Rhinelanders became "Old New York," as they owned so much property. And their fortune grew with the population of the city.
When Newport, Rhode Island, began to attract the likes of the Astors and the Vanderbilts, the Goelets too built their own mansion. Goelet daughters married well, including the marriage of Hannah Goelet to Thomas Russell Gerry. Goelet-Gerry descendants made ties to the Livingstons, Harrimans, and Gallatins, as well as to British royalty. Robert Goelet's yacht rivaled the yachts of the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and the J. P. Morgans.
In 1870 J. Pierpont Morgan founded his own elite society, which he called the Zodiac Club. Membership, like that in the private clubs to which Morgan's father belonged, was limited to twelve Anglo-Christian white men. Pierpont, J. P. Morgan's father, had claimed the family tree included the pirate Morgan, and to drive home the point he called his yacht the Corsair and flew the Jolly Roger. One hundred years after the Zodiac Club was founded, Robert Goelet shared one of the coveted chairs with eleven of the mid-Atlantic's most powerful businessmen.19
Despite the dilution caused by marriages, the wealth of the secretive Goelet clan is far-reaching. They have been involved with Guaranty Trust, Equitable Trust, the Illinois Central Railroad, and the Union Pacific Railroad and institutions like the Metropolitan Opera and the Museum of Natural History in New York. Through the Goelet Corporation the family has interests in mining, oil, and gas.
The Knickerbocker Club once represented the highest level of wealth in the city of New York. Because New York is a financial capital of the world, entrance to this club is no longer simply for pillars of New York society such as the Goelets and the Astors. In 1965 the ranks of the Knickerbocker included the Aga Khan, Giovanni Agnelli, C. Douglas Dillon, the du Ponts, the Goulds, the Huttons, the Ingersolls, the Rockefellers, Alfred Sloan, and William Vanderbilt.20
As there had been a handful of core families behind the Templars, there would be a handful of core families behind the ex-Templars. The best known is the Sinclair family of Scotland. The network of lodges created in the aftermath of the Templar downfall emerged as Freemasonry and the Sinclair family was named its hereditary guardians. Former Templars were employed on land by the Sinclair family as construction workers and on the sea as sailors on the massive Sinclair fleet. The same men who sailed under the skull-and-crossbones flag as Templars continued to ply the seas.
The Reformation played a harmful role in dividing the Catholic Stuarts of Scotland, England, and other elite families who had backed the Templars in France. After a century of displacement and massive warfare, Europe experienced a breakdown in morality. America was populated alternately by whatever religious group was out of favor in Europe. The French Protestants known as Huguenots, the Catholic and Protestant Scots, and Englishmen would meet in America and in some cases continue the wars started at home. Masonry, however, would serve to breach the religious divide.
Masonic lodges provided a refuge for many and were places where the ideas of tolerance and brotherhood prevailed amid an intolerant world. For many the lodge system offered the possibility of breaking out of the caste system. The pirate community went a step further: Democracy in its pure form, brotherhood, mutual protection, and equality existed among the pirates in a way that was rarely seen elsewhere. The Kingdom of Libertalia might have served as a model society if it had not been colored by pirate fiction and tainted by its prosperity being linked to stolen goods. In Libertalia all men had a vote, wealth was held individually, and all provided for the community. The old and infirm were provided for by all. Crime against fellow pirates was rare; not only was each man armed and dangerous, but also each had signed articles that did not allow for such activity. The presence of any man who caused disruption in the community was not tolerated in law or in practice.
At the same time both the Masonic lodge and the pirate life were gripped by the same evils that pervade the human condition. Pride and greed guaranteed that some were at a higher level than others. While equality might exist within an individual lodge, the lodges soon separated, with the sea captains and shipowners belonging to one and the dockworkers and ship's crews belonging to another.
As in the earliest days of the Knights Templar, some core families were able to use and discard the rank and file at will. The pirates who sailed under the same flag as the Templars needed to rely on the elite few who could walk in both worlds. Like the Sinclairs in the Old World, the Livingstons, Gardiners, and Philipses in the New World could operate and profit through their connection to the underworld. At the same time they could retreat to their manor houses while the Kidds and the de Molays bore the blame.
Although the seed of a democratic society had formed aboard the pirate ships and among the Templar fighting units, the remnants of a feudal society remained. Ex-Templars and elite families continued their symbiotic relationship in America in the years to come. Family wealth would be built through secret societies. Profits would be made from smuggling, the slave trade, and even the opium-trafficking business, where the fleets of the China traders would still sail under the skull and crossbones. As in the fourteenth century, the risks were often borne by the many, while the gains were enjoyed only by the few who could exist in both worlds.
next
part2
The Lodge and the Revolution
notes
Chapter 3
1. Patrick Pringle, Jolly Roger: The Story of the Great Age of Piracy (New York: WW. Norton, 1953), p. 22.
2. Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 203-227.
3. Clare Brandt, An American Aristocracy: The Livingstons (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1986), p. 38.
4. Jan Rogozinski, Honor among Thieves: Captain Kidd, Henry Every, and the Pirate Democracy in the Indian Ocean (Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2000), pp. 69-76.
5. Ritchie, p. 36.
6. Ibid.
7. Brandt, p. 21.
8. Stephen Birmingham, America's Secret Aristocracy (New York: Berkley Books, 1987), pp. 33-4.
9. Brandt, pp. 30-6.
10. Edward Robb Ellis, The Epic of New York City (New York: Kondansha, 1997), p. 107.
11. Ritchie, p. 26.
12. George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730 (New York: Dover Publications, 1996), p. 77.
Chapter 4
1. Steve Wick, The Settler and the Sachem, from the Web site www.Lihistory.com. Also see Bernie Bookbinder, Long Island: People and Places, Past and Present (New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1998).
2. Robert Ellis Cahill, Pirates and Lost Treasures (Peabody, Mass.: Chandler Smith Publishing, 1987), p. 84.
3. David M. Fletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973), p. 71.
4. Edwin P. Hoyt, John Tyler (New York: Abelard Schuman, 1969), p. 72.
5. Fletcher, p. 135.
6. Hoyt, p. 132.
7. John Prebble, Darien: The Scottish Dream of Empire (Edinburgh: Berlinn Limited, 2000), p. 185.
8. Brandt, p. 55.
9. Ibid., p. 105.
10. Ibid., 103-8.
11. Axel Madsen, John Jacob Astor: America's First Millionaire (New York: John Wiley, 2001), p. 32.
12. David Leon Chandler, The Jefferson Conspiracies (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1994), p. 151.
13. Ibid., p. 100.
14. Louis B. Davidson and Eddie Doherty, Strange Crimes at Sea (Binghamton, N.Y.: Vail-Ballou Press, 1954), p. 105.
15. Birmingham, pp. 100-2.
16. Dow and Edmonds, p. 89.
17. Ibid., p. 42.
18. Ritchie, pp. 113-6.
19. Birmingham, p. 203.
20. Stephen Hess, America's Political Dynasties (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 191.
Public executions were fascinating to the people of seventeenth and eighteenth-century England. In order to have the opportunity to see the law exercise its ultimate power over man, the power to take life, people would flock in from all over London. The poor arrived on foot and the wealthy by carriage to see the wretched plead for their lives. No pains were taken to spare the public the crudeness of the death penalty. A particularly barbaric highlight was having the executioner, most likely a large specimen of a man, actually carry the condemned up a ladder to the noose. There the hooded figure would place the neck of the condemned in the noose. The victim might be given an opportunity to speak his last words, to plead for his life, or to ask forgiveness. Or he might simply have the rope tightened around his neck and be dropped to his death.1
If he was lucky, the convicted felon's neck would break immediately and he would be spared the horror of suffering a slow choking demise. If the convicted was able to manage it, he might tip his executioner beforehand, ensuring that the executioner would use a longer rope and thus hasten the death. If the condemned didn't have any money, he might have family or friends present who could rush in to pull on his hanging legs so that his suffering would end faster.
In all, hanging was wonderful entertainment. At Tyburn the weekly hangings drew two hundred thousand spectators. They would gather the night before outside Newgate Prison to drink, dance, and fornicate in the streets. In the morning the crowd followed the condemned in a parade through the streets of London, all the while cheering or jeering at the unfortunate criminals. The wealthy would pay as much as ten pounds sterling to sit ringside and eat and drink during the execution. This event, which might be the ancestor of the modern tailgate party, was so popular it became known as the Tyburn Fair, and the rulers made a very unpopular decision in finally ending such spectacles in the mid-nineteenth century.
A pirate could expect treatment worse than that of the common criminal. On occasion the executioner quickly cut down the hanging pirate and disemboweled him while he was still alive. His entrails would be burned before his eyes, and if he survived any longer, he could be drawn and quartered. Women were spared from this indecency because they were considered the "fair" sex. Instead they were burned to death.
On Friday, May 23, 1701, it was William Kidd's turn to provide the entertainment; the stairs at Wapping would be his place of justice. The body could be displayed for all those who traveled the Thames to see. Kidd had no plans to repent and no plans to ask for mercy. To the end he told all who would listen that he was a pawn of wealthy men. Members of the elite ruling class on both sides of the Atlantic had outfitted his ship and helped him get a commission, and they were due a share in his gains. But none of his wealthy backers was called before the judge. None of his elite partners stood before the executioner. All were at home in landed estates, breathing a sigh of relief that they would not be tarnished by their role in Kidd's crimes.2
Kidd himself was once a man of property, an owner of real estate on what would become the financial capital of the world, Wall Street. He was not a career criminal, although he was certainly not without blame. He simply thought his ties to the men who pulled the strings of colonial New York government allowed him to get away with murder. But the political tide had turned. Piracy against the Muslim trading partners of the East India Company caused trouble for many who had been shareholders. While Kidd plied the seas for booty, a power play in London put the interests of the East India Company above those of other would-be adventurers. Pressure was applied to those who interfered. Kidd was the scapegoat. The ties he relied on to protect him instead cut him loose. To his surprise, Kidd was separated from those who commissioned him. Now a convicted pirate, Kidd was at the dock in Wapping.
Those who came for a show were not disappointed. Kidd arrived drunk and unrepentant. His last words were a speech against the liars who testified against him. He was carried to the hangman's noose and dropped. The rope broke. Dazed by the fall but still alive, Kidd was quickly carried up the ladder again by his executioner. This time the fall killed him.
The legend of Captain Kidd has grown out of proportion with its reality. Kidd was no swashbuckler; he was a businessman pursuing wealth in the fashion of the day.
Fletcher soon turned his attention to another opportunity. In 1696 England passed the first of a series of ill-conceived laws limiting the colonies' ability to engage in commerce. Defying such laws built some of America's greatest fortunes and started a tradition of giving the wealthy the right to be above the law. Smuggling quickly became an Under a Black Flag 51 accepted way to earning a living. With the European countries at war and all shipping in danger of encountering an enemy, smuggling was scarcely more dangerous than honest shipping.
Pirates and smugglers were always at risk when landing in a foreign port. Their cargoes were subject to seizure and the pirates and smugglers were subject to arrest. Governor Fletcher provided a safe haven for all who were willing to pay his personal tax. This bribery greased the wheel of commerce, and New Yorkers were able to get imported goods from anywhere in the world. Local shops in the small port city offered goods from exotic places around the world. Items such as teak furniture, Oriental carpets, and Madeira wine could be found beside the simple homespun goods of colonial New York. Currencies of European and Asian countries were exchanged by the English, Dutch, French, Jewish, Irish, and Scottish settlers in the city, which was already a melting pot. Elsewhere the British, French, and Dutch men-of-war preyed on the smuggler and legitimate shipper alike; in New York City, all who paid Fletcher's fees were safe.
Fletcher, who "undertook to mine all the known veins of gubernatorial graft, and to stake claims on some new ones," 3 backed all forms of crime at sea. Fletcher found a way to profit from all aspects of pirate commerce. The pirate captains dined at his table while their crews swaggered around town spending their ill-gotten money. The pirate Edward Taylor is on record as having paid Fletcher £1,700 to be allowed to land in New York City and sell his wares. (In modern purchasing power, £1,700 would be about $250,000.) The privateer who applied to Fletcher for a commission to attack enemy shipping would then attack anything he could defeat. Such a commission could be procured for five hundred pounds; the pirate John Hoar is on record as having bought one of these commissions. The merchants who supplied New York's shops with exotic goods bought from pirates and often had a stake in their voyages as well.
An example of Fletcher's liberal interpretation of his powers is in his relationship with Thomas Tew. The legendary pirate was from an English Quaker family that had settled in Rhode Island. His history has not been recorded before his arrival in Bermuda, a smuggling capital, in 1692. According to sources, Tew was already enriched by piracy. There he bought a share of a ship called the Amity with gold he carried in his pockets. Other shareholders were Thomas Hall, Richard Gilbert, John Dickinson, and William Outerbridge, who was a member of the governor's council. Tew received a privateering commission from Governor Ritchier and headed for French West Africa to attack slave ships. On the way, Tew "turned pirate," with the backing of his crew. They headed for the Red Sea and attacked Arab shippers before settling in the kingdom of pirates, Madagascar. After several adventures, Tew returned home. He sold his Indian textiles in New York City and then headed to Newport, sent for his partners, and divided the spoils—some of which was buried near Newport and the rest in Boston.
Tew's Bermuda backers reportedly received fourteen times their investment.4 Tew's share amounted to eight thousand pounds, enough to provide a high-style retirement. For a while Tew took part in the good life in Rhode Island, untainted by the same crimes that would see Kidd hanged. But the governor of Massachusetts denied Tew another privateering commission, so he applied to the governor of Rhode Island and for five hundred pounds received his papers.
The first order of business was sailing to New York to meet with the Philipse family. Frederick Philipse was the seventeenth-century equivalent of a venture capitalist. He provided the equipment needed for a pirate voyage, and in turn was entitled to a share of the gains. His only risk was monetary and he hedged his bets by making numerous investments. Those who came to him risked life and liberty. With Frederick Philipse's backing, Tew outfitted his second pirate expedition, one that would immensely benefit his patron.
Tew's second adventure found him capturing ships of the Great Moghul and keeping one hundred unmarried girls as well as treasure. After a sojourn in Madagascar, Tew and his crew headed home again for the quiet life. This time his treasure was said to be more than a hundred thousand pounds. Philipse, who risked only money, in comparison to the pirates who risked their lives, would earn more than a hundred thousand pounds backing numerous voyages.
Tew's weakness was that he could not retire. He sought another privateering commission, this time from the new governor of Rhode Island, John Easton, who refused. Tew then applied to Governor Fletcher of New York. Fletcher knew that Tew was a well-known sea rover, but felt justified in commissioning him to sail against the French. When later defending his actions, Fletcher claimed he did not know of Tew's reputation, but that the "stranger" had planned to attack the French at the mouth of the Canada River. Such commissions against the French were nothing unusual. But Tew saw the situation differently.
Tew outfitted his ship and then sailed between New York and Boston recruiting fellow pirates and adventurers for his fleet. Fletcher claimed the commission was for attacking the French in Canada, but Tew openly acknowledged there was more money to be gained in the Indian Ocean and that this area was his destination.
Thomas Tew made his final voyage to the Indian Ocean, where he reportedly had some early success against Indian trading ships. But he may have pushed his luck. He was never again seen in New England.
On occasion, Fletcher had to make a token charge against a pirate or smuggler to confuse his enemies. In 1694 he seized a ship that had returned from a Caribbean voyage. The ship was owned in part by one of New York's wealthiest men, Robert Livingston. Livingston not only beat the charges, but also sought a way to get rid of Fletcher at the same time. It would take four years and the efforts of two partners. It was into this early version of the "world trade center" that Captain Kidd sailed.
THE WORLD OF CAPTAIN KIDD
Born in Greenock, Scotland, in 1645, William Kidd climbed up the
career ranks as a seaman and finally a captain. Scotland was pirate central after the Templar fleet had sought shelter there centuries before, and
the country, along with Ireland, would be regarded as a pirate haven for
another two centuries. Before the so-called Golden Age of Piracy,
pirates were more likely to be found capturing ships loaded with wool
or fish—but certainly not capturing the Spanish treasure fleet, plundering the ports of the Golden Main, or chasing the fleet of the
Moghul of India. But piracy, like smuggling, was a living. As Templar soldiers and their descendants remained in the military service as mercenaries, Templar sailors and their descendants spawned a culture of both legal privateering and illegal piracy. In the seventeenth century, many Scottish seamen were commissioned to battle Dutch attackers who preyed on English and Scottish shipping and fishing. Later, after one more attempt to attain independence, Scottish Jacobites swelled the ranks of the pirates in Europe and the Caribbean. It is little wonder that the best pirate literature was also spawned in Scotland; Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the classic Treasure Island and fellow Scot J. M. Barrie wrote Peter Pan.
Participation in piracy and smuggling was a frequent occurrence in Scotland, despite laws that called for the highest penalties against these offenses. The laws were only sporadically enforced and convictions were nearly impossible to achieve. An underground society prevailed; it was not necessarily hereditary, but it was so prevalent that it was not threatened by a justice system. From the days of the Templar demise until the eighteenth century, the lodges of men dedicated to a specific craft or occupation enforced their own codes and often exercised power that reached to the highest levels of government. These guilds of lawyers, sea captains, craftsmen, and soldiers were individual cells, or lodges in Masonic parlance, that operated independently yet assisted one another in ways that those outside the brotherhood would never suspect.
Freemasonry was not yet public. Before 1717 it was truly a secret society in which it was a violation of oath to admit membership or discuss anything that went on in a Masonic meeting. A major event took place less than twenty years later, when four of England's lodges met at the Apple Tree Tavern in Covent Garden in London to form the Grand Lodge. Shortly afterward the Irish, French, and Scottish lodges emerged as public societies. There is no satisfactory reason why Masonry came out of the closet, but the most plausible explanation is that the distrust those in power had for the secret organizations encouraged the orders to reveal themselves. Scotland's Masons hid a vast underground of smugglers, pirates, and revolutionaries. Rather than risk being accused of plotting against the king of England, the English lodges welcomed royalty and toasted the health of their kings and queens. Scottish Masonry was the preserve of such people as Andrew Ramsay, the tutor of Bonnie Prince Charlie. Ramsay publicly spoke of the former Crusaders setting up Masonic lodges upon returning from the wars. The lodges survived the persecution of the Templars by remaining underground. And the Bonnie Prince led a revolt by the Scottish against their English overlords.
The Scottish version of the Masons had strong political overtones, while the English version, which had distanced itself from politics, did not present such a threat. Because of this threat, the Scottish secret organization needed to remain underground.
Kidd was a Scotsman and was partnered with fellow Scotsman Livingston, and both men became Masons as well. After a few short years, Livingston was very public with his membership in the guild. His family is still known as active proponents of the Masons. Kidd, of course, did not have even a few short years.
The massive immigration of Scots to America and Canada was resented by the earlier colonists. This Scottish "invasion" of America was a direct result of constant war with England, and it increased dramatically after the failure of the Jacobite Rebellion. A prejudice against Scots existed from Massachusetts to Virginia, although these immigrants still had a significant role in the formation of the new country. In 1776 a play produced in Philadelphia was dedicated to "Lord Kidnaper . . . Pirates and Buccaneers, and the innumerable clans of Macs and Donalds upon Donalds in America."5 The dedication was in jest but the sentiment was real, and the Scots-as-pirates stereotype was not helped by the prominence of Captain Kidd in pirate lore.
In August 1689 Kidd had been on the island of Nevis in command of a sixteen-gun privateer he had taken from the French. Two years later, in another English expedition, his men—mostly former pirates had left him ashore, and he lost command of a ship. Later that year he received another command to take on the French.
By the time Kidd arrived in New York, his reputation had preceded him. He helped build the first Trinity Church and bought a lot on Wall Street. William Kidd, man-about-town, then married a well-to-do Dutch widow, Sarah Bradley Cox Oort.6 It was his wife's third marriage; in fact, the marriage license was received just days after John Oort, her second husband, died. Sarah Oort brought a nice dowry to the new marriage, including a house on Wall Street and another on Pearl Street. Kidd must have felt that he was a worthy catch, and titled himself "Gentleman" on their application. Oort and Kidd lived in the fashionable part of town, their home complete with furniture and carpets that were imported from Asia. Kidd could have remained simply a gentleman, but he didn't.
As luck would have it, the acts of piracy committed around the emerging British empire were bringing complaints to the ears of King William III. Especially irritating to the court was the role that Governor Fletcher was playing in North America. King William met with his Privy Council and Richard Coote, the Earl of Bellomont.They decided that Lord Bellomont would be sent to New York to replace Fletcher as governor and stamp out the pirate haven he had created.
Piracy was a worldwide problem for empire-building Britain. In Asia the same countries that England was trying to trade with were complaining about American pirates attacking their shipping, and they held the British responsible. All the legitimate trade was carried on through a royal-sponsored monopoly called the British East India Company.
At the end of the seventeenth century, the British East India Company was trying to further establish itself in Asia. The company had been doing well and had the favor of James II until his death. With a royal monopoly, the average dividend was 25 percent in the last ten years of the century. But this monopoly inspired jealousy. Other European traders, American merchants, and even pirates were hindrances to business. In the new market the British East India Company was trying to develop, it also did not help that the company had little the customer wanted. It introduced cheap opium, and tried to hold its own against invaders and pirates.
Ironically, in this newly declared war against piracy Kidd was enlisted to fight for the cause of the British. While visiting England with New York's most respected merchant, Robert Livingston, Kidd was introduced to Lord Bellomont, who desired the job of New York's governor. Livingston, Kidd, and Bellomont plotted to get rid of Fletcher. For his part in the deal, Kidd was commissioned to fight against the pirates.
Pirates sailing out of New York, commissioned by Fletcher, frequently attacked the Moghuls' ships. John Hoar actually attacked the British East India fleet and captured and burned two company ships. Tew's attacks on the Indian fleet caused rioting in the streets. The account of Henry Every's pirate crew kidnapping and raping Indian women, some of whom committed suicide rather than submit, caused the offices of the East India Company in Surat to be attacked by mobs. Several key employees were imprisoned, where they received harsh treatment during the six months of negotiation between the Moghuls and the British East India Company. Several did not survive.
Whatever the real intentions of Kidd, Livingston, and Bellomont, the plan was first to capture the pirate Tew. Kidd, Bellomont, and Livingston would be entitled to whatever goods were taken in the process.
THE BIRTH OF AN
AMERICAN DYNASTY
A trader by profession, Livingston caught on quickly and acquired the ability to speak the Iroquois language—an ability many traders didn't have. He also helped build the Van Rensselaer fortune.
In 1678 Nicholas was only in his early forties, but he began aging rapidly. He took to his sickbed with an illness that could not be diagnosed. One day he decided the end was near and called for a servant to bring a pen and paper for his will. Instead Livingston appeared. "No, no, send him away; he's going to marry my widow," cried Van Rensselaer, just before he died.7 If ever a will was composed, it was never found. But some have suggested that "if you believe a Van Rensselaer rumor, still circulated to this day, Nicholas was poisoned."8
Nicholas the mystic had been right: Within eight months Alida and Robert Livingston were married. Livingston acquired his boss's widow and became the wealthy man he had designed to become. When he met Kidd, Livingston was the wealthiest man in New York. As a Scot, Livingston was embroiled in the religious wars that raged back home and that spilled over into the colonies. His relatives in Scotland, the Earls of Callendar and Linlithgow, had fought on the wrong side of what became the Glorious Revolution. It was a precarious time because of the religious upheaval, and many Scots and French Huguenots were forced to leave the country. The hostilities did not end once the immigrants reached America.
In New York the war was between Jacob Leisler and the Catholics.9 In his frantic effort to keep the pope from controlling New York, Leisler seized the city. When Britain later sent a new governor, Leisler attempted to defend New York against him. His rabid anti-Catholic sentiment ended with his trial and that of five confederates. The same evidence admitted in trial freed four and sentenced two to hanging. Jacob Leisler was hanged on the land where the Manhattan side of the Brooklyn Bridge would be built.
A bit of jury tampering may have helped the four who were acquitted. One of these possible beneficiaries was Peterse Delanoy. His family subsequently dropped the last letter of their name and become the Delanos.A later alliance through marriage would result in the Delano Roosevelt family.
With Leisler out of the way, the power vacuum allowed Huguenot families such as the Delanoys and their allies among the Dutch power base, including Livingston, to prosper. Livingston was now in prime position to expand his empire. He traded with whomever he could and owned outright or owned shares in several merchant ships. One of these returned 500 percent in one 1694 voyage alone. But success had its downside: Through a customs agent of the mayor of New York City, Livingston was charged with the crime of trading with the French. It is possible that the charge was correct, as not all legitimate voyages yielded such high returns. But the mayor simply wanted a share in the profits. The case was brought before the grand jury, whose chairman was William Kidd. It is not known if this case also involved jury tampering, but Livingston was spared. Jury chairman Kidd refused to indict.
Kidd and his new friend Livingston went to England to increase their fortunes. The deal that was struck with Richard Coote, Lord Bellomont, involved several other figures who moved in commercial and government circles. The list included John Somers, the Lord Chancellor; Edward Russell, the Earl of Orford, who was the First Lord of the Admiralty; Henry Sidney, the Earl of Romney; Charles Talbot, the Duke of Shrewsbury; Edward Harrison, a director of the East India Company; and Richard Blackham, who would later be imprisoned for bribery and currency manipulation. King William III was destined to claim 10 percent of the return in exchange for his blessing of Kidd's pirate-hunting enterprise.10
Livingston and Kidd were the core partners of the agreement, and together they were required to put up six thousand pounds to purchase and refit a ship named Adventure Galley. This was approximately one fifth of the funds needed for the voyage, and in turn the partners would receive one fifth of the prizes captured and get to keep the ship. The men who signed on as crew members were on a no-purchase, no-pay contract. This type of contract was used by whalers and pirate ships, and it stated that if no prizes were obtained, no pay would be given. Therefore, the inducement to capture something was great.
Kidd and crew were commissioned to capture pirate ships. Their papers specifically targeted Thomas Tew of Rhode Island and two New York-based pirates, Thomas Wake and William Maze. For good measure the commission added any and all pirates, freebooters, and sea rovers. Commission in hand, Kidd sailed out of London to New York. Along the way he captured a French fishing ship—not much of a catch, but perhaps practice for his new crew.
In New York, Kidd recruited more men for his adventure and finally started his planned voyage on September 5, 1696. The destination was the Indian Ocean, where the large island of Madagascar was actually a pirate nation.11 The onetime French station Fort Dauphin had become the home base of the pirate Abraham Samuel, who was called King Samuel. The pirate king welcomed other pirates who presented him with gifts. His kingdom and other pirate strongholds, as well as slave ports run by merchants with no national affiliation, made Madagascar a truly wild locale.
LIBERTALIA
Saint Mary's was a small island off the coast of Madagascar where the
pirates formed a democratic nation called Libertalia. It may have been
the world's first true democracy, in which each man had an equal vote.
It just happened to be a pirate nation. Upon reaching the mature age of about thirty, many of the pirates retired to Libertalia. Land was free, exotic Polynesian-African women were plentiful, and the locals were not hostile. Plantations were started and trading posts were established. Even though each man might be able to return to his home port with a small fortune, many chose to live on the island.
It is a mystery just why Kidd sailed into Saint Mary's if by this time he did not intend to "go pirate." As a pirate hunter, he apparently had no intention to attack the pirate port; instead he landed, to repair his ship and recruit new men. But once he landed, his situation grew worse. A greater enemy than the English would attack Kidd's crew: disease. On the small island in the Indian Ocean, one fifth of the crew succumbed. Kidd needed to replace even more men than he originally intended. He took on new members, all of whom were most likely experienced pirates.
The major distinction separating the privateer from the pirate was a piece of paper. The commission that gave the privateer captain the right to take certain prizes made his actions legal, whereas seizing bounty without such a commission was an offense punishable by hanging. Commissions would occasionally be honored, and sometimes would expire because of the end of a war. Unfortunately, the privateer at sea had little way of knowing that hostilities had ended and that a truce voided his commission. Another difference between privateers and pirates was the conditions in which they lived and worked. On a privateer ship the captain was chosen by the owner. He had to be tough and able to make difficult decisions, but he also had to be intelligent. The men on both merchant ships and privateer ships received very little pay, were treated as inferior by the owners and officers, and were subject to physical abuse at the whim of their masters. Such abuse was legal, and more men died of being flogged than died in battle. Alexander Falconbridge, a surgeon who served aboard the ships of the Royal African Company, reported that one captain flogged a man to death for losing an oar. Another captain forced men to eat live cockroaches for his entertainment. Falconbridge is quoted extensively for such cruelties to both seamen and slaves in Hugh Thomas's The Slave Trade and Patrick Pringle's Jolly Roger, the Golden Age of Piracy. The slaves aboard such ships often were of more value to the captain than his own crew. The average mortality rate for slaves in the seventeenth century was 25 percent; it was often as high as 40 percent for the crew.
The officers of the British navy treated their own crews just as harshly.
It was no wonder that when a pirate ship attacked a merchant ship, the crew was eager to surrender. The pirates treated them better. Those who came aboard were treated as equals. Many were invited to join, some were simply impressed by their lifestyle, but all were treated better. Four hundred years after the Templar fleet left France, the lodge system spawned in Templar preceptories and Cistercian monasteries was alive aboard the pirate ships. The ship's rules were determined by articles that each man signed. The men voted on such rules in a democratic fashion: one man, one vote. Rules included not taking women aboard, as they could cause friction; not discussing religion, as it too could cause conflict; and spelling out tasks and duties.
On a pirate ship the captain was elected by the entire crew. Like a privateer captain, he had to be tough and intelligent. He had to be well liked, too, as his crew could simply unelect him. Shares were determined, and the job of the captain and the quartermaster was to ensure equal shares to all members of the crew.
The crew on both pirate and privateer ships would sail for a share in the voyage. On the privateer ship the captain's share and that of the high-ranking officers were greater than the crew's. On many pirate ships all bounty was shared in a fairer way. The captain and the quartermaster might get a double share; a highly proficient crew member could get a share and a half. An injured pirate who was unable to return to sea might be given a greater share to aid his retirement. The average sailor on a pirate ship had a better chance of making a windfall profit for the risks and hardships he endured. Some took their shares and went back to the farm. Sometimes an agreement was struck so that all sailors remained together until every man had a certain amount of money.
Life was potentially dangerous for the pirate, but the dangers were not in attacking enemy shipping. Very rarely was a merchant ship willing to mount a defense, and few pirate ships were ever captured outside of ports. One pirate historian reports that brothel casualties were higher than battle casualties. The greatest risk a pirate might endure was expulsion by his fellow sailors. Marooning, or expelling a pirate from a crew, took place on a desert island or sometimes on a sandbar that would disappear at high tide. Pirates were usually marooned only for the worst of offenses, which included abandoning their posts during battle. The term maroon was coined from what the Spanish called Cimarrons, the group of people created from the marriage of escaped black slaves to native Amerindian women.
Life at sea was equally dangerous for the criminal pirate and the legitimate privateer, as the common threats—injury, imprisonment, and death—did not favor one type of sailor. For example, a privateer sailing against Spain was a criminal in the eyes of the Spanish crown, as was a pirate operating anywhere. Both could suffer equally for their offenses, and death was the most common punishment. The difference was that the pirate stood a better chance of making a profit. As a result, pirate ships often had little problem defeating better-armed naval ships, merchant ships, and privateer ships. Many times the crew of the captured ship was happy to join the pirates—and they were often delighted to see a cruel captain subject to his own medicine.
CAPTAIN KIDD AND THE PIRATES
Kidd knew the risks and the rewards of piracy. What happened aboard
the Adventure Galley to induce the captain and crew to "go pirate" will
probably never be known. But Kidd was low on supplies, had little to
trade, and had a crew that was most likely unhappy with the long
months at sea and his harsh leadership and lack of profit. With his leadership and judgment in question and his reward system poor, it is surprising that he was able to recruit veteran pirates. However he did it, he
set out from Saint Mary's as a pirate. Twice Kidd brought his ship to within threatening distance of British-protected shipping, and twice he was turned away. Finally he captured a lone trading ship from Bombay flying the English colors. Upon meeting the ship's captain, Kidd found out that he was already considered a pirate. Word traveled quickly.
Kidd soon took three more ships, including the valuable Quedah Merchant in January 1698. With his new fleet, he now broke all the rules and attacked an East India Company ship. He left the coast of India with his prizes and headed for Madagascar, where he spent six months before heading back to North America.
The capture of the Quedah Merchant had caused rioting in the streets of Surat, where the British East India Company maintained its offices. The company was already blamed for any acts of European piracy, but this time the ship belonged to a member of the Indian emperor's court. This news eventually reached New York—well before Kidd.
Bellomont had to distance himself from the situation and cut his losses. The governor of what is now New York and Massachusetts had never seen Boston, and he traveled there on May 26, 1699, for the first time. It appeared to his critics that he was on his way to meet his pirate partner Kidd, who had just reached Delaware Bay and was heading north. Bellomont later explained that he wrote Kidd a letter that purposely did not threaten his arrest, as he didn't want to scare Kidd away.
Joseph Emmot, a New York lawyer whose specialty was admiralty cases, advised Bellomont that Kidd had treasure aboard and had left treasure behind in the Caribbean. Emmot also delivered two passes granted by the French that Kidd had taken from the Moorish ships he captured. These documents were evidence that the act of capturing those ships, at least, was not piracy. Had these passes made it to Kidd's trial, he might have been acquitted. But somehow Bellomont or another backer of the voyage allowed the passes to disappear.12
While he was conspiring to have Kidd convicted, Bellomont sent two men to get a statement from the pirate. They met with Kidd off Block Island. Afterward Kidd seemed confident he could still trust Bellomont. He set sail for a tiny island off the coast of eastern Long Island called Gardiner's Island. He unloaded three or four small boats of booty and then sent for John Gardiner, in whose care Kidd placed a chest for Bellomont.
Gardiner's area of eastern Long Island was one of the two favorite pirate places to anchor in summer; the other was across the mouth of Long Island Sound, on the islands between Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard. Both were locales where ships, both pirate and merchant, could rendezvous to trade and exchange cargo and supplies. It was an illegal floating market at times. The mouth of Buzzards Bay was also passed by ships cruising between New York and Boston, but docking a ship there would mean drawing the attention of the navy.
As Kidd sailed around the eastern end of Long Island, he dropped treasure in various places. One stash was delivered to an old pirate by the name of Thomas Paine, who lived on Canonicut Island off Rhode Island. When the governor of Rhode Island got wind of the story, he searched Paine's house, but the gold was not there. It may have already been moved back to Gardiner's Island, but proof against the Gardiner family was not to be found.
Kidd's plan was to hedge his bets. If he hid enough treasure before meeting the authorities, it would be something to use in striking a bargain. As Kidd's real history grew into legend, people would tell tales of him dropping his treasure as far north as Nova Scotia and as far east as the South China Sea. But it's more likely that what he did not leave in the Caribbean he hid around Long Island Sound.
Kidd was also attempting to deftly play the cards he was dealt. He knew after meeting with Emmot that the situation was vastly different since he had left New York. The British were cracking down on piracy, the ships returning to New York were being seized, and the ships' captains and crews were being hunted and arrested. Kidd had put his partners Bellomont and Livingston in a very complicated position. Bellomont, in fact, had much to gain either as Kidd's friend or as the arresting officer of the court. Both scenarios allowed him to be rewarded either financially or in reputation.
Not having all the treasure available for confiscation was one of the strategies Kidd employed; the temptation to have more would serve as an inducement for Kidd's apprehensive partner. Kidd's second play was delivering to Lord Bellomont's wife an enameled box with four jewels; he hoped it might tip the scale and make Bellomont back his partner. But Bellomont did the math. Allowing that Kidd's charges might be false and pardoning him—and thereby keeping his legitimate share— could equal a thousand pounds. But seizing Kidd and claiming his legitimate share as arresting governor gave him thirteen thousand pounds.
Bellomont's advisers warned him not to go against the British East India company and the powers the company represented. Thus Bellomont decided against his onetime partner; Kidd was to be arrested. The other partner, Robert Livingston, was dismayed by Bellomont's decision. He stood to gain all if Kidd was pardoned and nothing if Kidd was arrested. In fact, Livingston had posted a bond guaranteeing Kidd's behavior. Bellomont alleged that Livingston threatened him, saying that Livingston would take reimbursement from Kidd's treasure if Bellomont didn't return the bond. Did Bellomont make up this accusation to distance himself from the crime? Or as Bellomont might have feared, were Kidd and Livingston, brother Scots, involved in a conspiracy against him?
Both Bellomont and Livingston had to bear the weight of public opinion. In America the arrest was an exciting event; in England it was a political event as well. The Tory party, closely tied to the British East India Company, wanted Kidd convicted. The Whigs, several of whom were backers of Kidd's voyage, were in a corner. In the end, all but Kidd got their way. At the trial the book listing the owners of Kidd's ship, his partners, and his instructions was missing. So were the vital passes obtained from the Moorish ships, which might have acquitted him. (The passes were discovered two hundred years later in a London records office.) The letter from Bellomont to Kidd was also missing.
There were only two eyewitnesses against Kidd: Robert Bradinham and Joseph Palmer. Both were military deserters who turned pirate. Today an American lawyer might point out that such criminals may not be credible witnesses, as they are not men of reputation, and they were very obviously testifying against Kidd for their own reprieve. Their pardons came days after Kidd's conviction.
It appears that a deal had been struck, one that was a convenience for all except William Kidd. Kidd was the scapegoat and, as such, was hanged. Livingston was cleared of all charges. Bellomont was enriched for his role in arresting Kidd. The other Whig partners were unsullied by what might have been a scandal, although they lost their stake in the ship and any proceeds they might have expected. For England and the ruling class, the bottom line was that Tory shipping was safe from Whig upstarts.
Livingston made out better than he thought. He received his bond back, although remarkably he was forced to pay off fellow partner Robert Blackham for his stake in the venture. The members of Captain Kidd's crew were mostly pardoned, and some died in jail. Kidd's wife, Sarah Bradley Cox Oort Kidd, was jailed and her house seized on Bellomont's order. Oort was known to have some of Kidd's loot, but it was never found. She was eventually released and married a fourth time.
Those who had received the treasure were targeted by Bellomont, who stood to gain a share of the recovered valuables. The greatest amount of treasure was on Gardiner's part of Long Island. Threatened with an enemy landing on his tiny kingdom, John Gardiner presented Bellomont with bags of gold and silver. Thus, Kidd was killed, and all those associated with him prospered.
Chapter 4
SKELETONS
IN THE CLOSET
The lifeless body of Captain William Kidd would join the bodies of
other captured and convicted pirates left to greet those who sailed
into London's port. The hanging criminals served as a warning for
prospective sea rovers that crime did not pay. The real message, however,
was that crime did pay, and it rewarded those who could pay others to
do their bidding. The feudal system that gave birth to the Knights Templar gave rise to noble ideals such as liberty, equality, and fraternity. Among those in power, however, corruption ruled. Freemasonry developed from the noble ideals of the Knights Templar, and the lodge system was created— underground—to protect its members. Some lodges became more celebrated than others, and membership in the more prestigious lodges offered greater rewards. While Livingston would survive into days of public Freemasonry, Bellomont would not. Almost twenty years passed after Kidd's body hung over the Thames before Freemasonry went public. From London to Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, the lodge system separated those who pulled the strings from those who were left hanging. Through the right connections family dynasties could survive and build on fortunes made from nefarious crimes. Profits from piracy became investments in more acceptable enterprises, and fortunes made in seventeenth-century crime were the bedrock for wealth in the twenty-first century.
THE GARDINER DYNASTY
Among those who benefited from the criminal activities of the
"expendable" was the Gardiner family. It is hard not to suspect the
Gardiners of running a sort of pirate bank on their tiny kingdom. They
owned Gardiner's Island itself and larger tracts of land stretching from
East Hampton to Smithtown on Long Island. The progenitor of the family was an Englishman, Lion Gardiner, who was born in 1599. He came to America in 1635 as a soldier, a builder of fortifications, a trader, and a fighter against the Indians. Gardiner's son David was the first white child born in what would become the state of Connecticut. In what is now known as the Pequot War, Gardiner was instrumental in enlisting opposing tribes to join a small English force that sought to exterminate the Pequots. Gardiner's principal ally was Wyandanch, a sachem from Long Island. Gardiner agreed to trade with Wyandanch's group if he would "kill all the Pequots" that came to him and "send . . . their heads." 1 From his new friends the Montaukett tribe, Gardiner bought the self-named Gardiner's Island, a 3,500-acre island kingdom (part of modern-day East Hampton), for cloth, a gun, some gunpowder, and a dog. He added to his Long Island holdings by rescuing Wyandanch's daughter from an enemy tribe; for this feat he was given the land that would become Smithtown, bringing his holdings to a hundred thousand acres.
Rights to Gardiner's kingdom were confirmed by King Charles I. In the seventeenth century and later, Gardiner's eastern holdings provided a great haven for pirates and smugglers, and evidence appears to indicate that the early Gardiner heirs were more than simply willing accomplices.
In 1672 a report indicated that a Massachusetts pirate named Joseph Bradish set sail for Gardiner's Island with his loot. In 1692 the governor of Connecticut reported that pirates were anchored off East Hampton and engaging in trade. In another report, a prominent Connecticut citizen was accused of receiving stolen property and selling it in Boston, and it was noted that the shore of eastern Long Island was the haunt of pirates and smugglers. Still another report stated that a pirate ship called the Sparrow had taken on eighteen passengers under an agreement made in the Caribbean. The master, Richard Narramore, then carried the passengers to Gardiner's Island, where they disembarked, chests and all. As the story spread, the unnamed men, who were suspected to be pirates, were brought before a magistrate. Christopher Goffe was one of the few accused men who appeared. He confessed that, as suspected, he was a pirate, but he was able to obtain a pardon.2
The Gardiner family has maintained its wealth throughout the centuries by the right connections to England prior to the War of Independence and by more secret connections that lasted to the middle of the nineteenth century. While many Whig families were able to avoid losing their lands after the American Revolution, the Gardiners, like their neighbors and often partners who had been Tories, walked a thin line and were not subject to the postwar land grab. Many of these families showed their reluctance to break from mother England, and some of their actions bordered on treason.
The War of 1812 became a second war of independence, as Britain had never ceased treating America as a colony. Her navy regularly impressed American seamen. Her army armed and incited native border tribes against her lost colony. Many families had prospered through their relationships with British firms, and such pro-British Whig families found themselves at odds with President Jefferson. A handful of New England merchant families, who had survived the Revolution and even prospered, proposed that New England leave the Union. Their loyalty was not to their country but to their mercantile interests, which were often shared with British counterparts.
In the decades before the Civil War, America was again threatened with secession, this time from several southern states. One great secret of American history is that the same New England merchant families who had tried to leave the Union earlier were joined by New York merchant families in aiding the breakup of the Union. Despite this treasonous activity, few of the powerful families were held accountable. The Gardiner family was one such family that straddled the two sides of the Civil War.
The Gardiner family, while always flying under the radar of public comment, was a power base in New York and part of the Cotton Whigs. The Whig party was divided on many issues, and the so-called Cotton Whigs allied themselves with the powerful families of Virginia and the Carolinas who by the nature of their business, cotton, remained close to English banks and merchants. When Gardiner interests merged with the interests of the planting families of Virginia and South Carolina, the Gardiner family itself merged with the Tyler family of Virginia.
While American politics has evolved over the centuries, in the nineteenth century it was not unusual for a president to be at odds with his vice president. As the result of compromise within the Whig party, William Henry Harrison and John Tyler ended up on the same ticket. Harrison was regarded as a politician in the mold of loyal Virginia leaders such as Washington, Jefferson, and Madison, and so was against the divisive politics of South Carolina, which was first to threaten leaving the Union. Tyler was part of the secessionist movement in Virginia that was based at the College of William and Mary. Although he was a member of the Whig party, he had no inclination to support Whig policy. He agreed with admitting Texas as a slave state, and he was against abolition. Harrison and Tyler still managed to take the White House, using the slogan "Tippecanoe and Tyler too"; this motto referred to one of Harrison's triumphs over the Indians.
Harrison assumed the presidency on March 4, 1841, and one month later he died. His death was attributed first to intestinal illness and later to pneumonia, though no autopsy was performed. Described as robust, the war hero and sturdy farmer was somehow brought down by a head cold. After his long inaugural speech, which was given in the rain, the apparently healthy president became ill; many believe that his cold turned into pneumonia.
In Victorian times it was not uncommon for doctors to misdiagnose arsenic poisoning as "gastric poisoning," as the symptoms of arsenic poisoning usually started with gastrointestinal disorders including abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. But both of the president's physicians were suspected of pro-British sentiment. Dr. Frederick May was trained by the Freemason Dr. John Warren. May's son was an outspoken Tory and close friends with Benedict Arnold. The other physician, Dr. William Eustis, was also trained by Warren. He had been fired by President Madison because of his actions in the War of 1812. Dr. Eustis helped plan the defense of Detroit with General William Hull. On the way to Detroit, Hull was ambushed. His supplies gone and morale low, he surrendered Detroit as soon as he reached it. Madison believed the British had been tipped off. When the War Department conceived a plan to attack England's supply base in Nova Scotia, Eustis would not allow it to happen. With Harrison dead, the pro-secessionist Tyler was elevated to the presidency in 1841; John Tyler was the first president of the United States to get to his post without election.3
Harrison was the first president to die in office. His suspicious death started what was later called the "Twenty-year Curse" or the "Zero Curse," which postulated that every president elected in a year ending with a zero would die in office. The "curse" lasted 160 years before it was broken by Ronald Reagan. Reagan, however, barely missed being assassinated by the mentally disturbed son of a friend of the vice president. Some said the curse was put on Harrison by Tecumseh, the Indian warrior whom the president had defeated. But it is more likely that the death was engineered.
Caleb Cushing, whose political leanings were influenced by profit potential, was no stranger to political manipulation and subtle bribery. He was a thirty-third-degree Mason, the highest level to which a Mason could rise, and an opium smuggler. His fortunes were tied to the pro-British mercantile smugglers, slave traders, and drug traffickers. Cushing wanted to hold a government office.
Tyler claimed he was not a party man and had accepted his nomination reluctantly. But after Harrison's death, Tyler immediately repudiated most of the Whig platform that had brought Harrison to the White House. As a result, the new president was not popular; in fact, he was derided as "his accidency."
Tyler's first order of business was pushing for Caleb Cushing to become Secretary of the Treasury. The Senate rejected his nomination three times, with the third ballot securing only three votes for Cushing. Tyler then proposed sending Cushing to China. This move was greeted heartily, possibly because it was the farthest place from the seat of government that the devious politico could be sent.
Harrison's death was the first of three during Tyler's stay in Washington. The second death was that of Tyler's wife, Laetitia. Tyler did not spend too much time grieving; instead he opted to unite his Virginia plantation family with a northern merchant family. Julia Gardiner, the spoiled daughter of the wealthy and prominent David Gardiner, was Tyler's target.
After returning from a grand tour of Europe, Julia Gardiner became part of the Washington social whirl, dating several congressmen, including the future president James Buchanan, two Supreme Court Justices, and a naval officer. She met President Tyler at a White House party, and he invited her to return. Although she was thirty years younger than the president, their first date ended with him chasing her around the White House. He wasted no time in proposing to Gardiner, but her mother stood in the way of the marriage. She was concerned that the president was not a good enough catch for a Gardiner. The Virginia farmer and plantation owner simply had no money when compared with the Gardiner fortune.4
Tyler was not one to give up. The deaths of "Old Tippecanoe" and Tyler's wife had paved the way down his new path, and a third death would allow Tyler to get what he wanted.
The stage was set aboard the USS Princeton, where the navy wanted to display a new cannon, which was dubbed the Peacemaker because of its size. Several important personages were aboard and the gun was fired numerous times. David Gardiner, a friend of Tyler's and the New York State senator at the time, brought his attractive daughter, Julia, to witness the scene. She quickly became bored and invited the enamored president below decks for a glass of champagne. The overheated gun was to be fired one more time as a salute to George Washington as it passed his Mount Vernon home, but it instead exploded and killed Secretary of State Abel Upshur, Secretary of the Navy Thomas W. Gilmer, and Julia's father, Senator David Gardiner.5
The fifty-four-year-old president and the twenty-four-year-old Julia Gardiner became secretly engaged shortly after her father's death. They later married privately. The huge difference in age presented more fodder for public opinion and the media, but Julia Gardiner Tyler won the hearts of the public even as her husband was the butt of their jokes.6
During Gardiner's "reign" as First Lady, as she called it, she revived the formality of White House receptions, which had gone out of style. She welcomed guests with plumes in her hair and surrounded by twelve maids of honor dressed in white. She also instituted the playing of "Hail to the Chief." Gardiner bore several children with the president: David Gardiner Tyler, John Alexander Tyler, Julia Gardiner Tyler, Lachlan Tyler, Lyon Gardiner Tyler, Robert Tyler, and Pearl Tyler.
As president, Tyler's major accomplishment was repaying the favors of his chief promoter, Caleb Cushing, among the Cotton Whigs. He managed to make Cushing an ambassador of sorts, sending him to China to reap the rewards of the British Opium War. The signing of a treaty with China kept the American opium traders in business—a trade that benefited a handful of New England and New York families. Tyler was booted out of his own Whig party and had all but one member of his cabinet resign. The remaining cabinet member was Daniel Webster, who was deeply in debt to Caleb Cushing and at his beck and call. Tyler was even impeached for not signing a tariff bill, although the impeachment was eventually defeated. His lack of favor in Washington went so deep that he didn't attend the succeeding president's inauguration. Tyler left American politics to join the Confederate government, making Tyler the first American president to bear arms against the federal government. After his death in 1862, Julia returned to New York and worked to promote the Confederate cause.
The Gardiners survived prosecution for assisting pirates, had survived pro-British sympathies after the Revolution, and survived pro rebel sentiment during the Civil War. Today the sixteenth lord of the manor still defends his preserve from more modern dangers, such as taxes and disrepair. Gardiner's Island is the oldest family-owned estate of its kind in America. The Gardiner estate is now in the hands of eighty-eight-year-old Robert David Lion Gardiner, who divides his time between estates in Palm Beach and East Hampton. With the exception of having to comply with taxation, he is the lord of his manor, just as a lord from another century. He regularly invites guests to take part in a hunt to reduce the island's deer population.
For the first time in the Gardiner family history there is no direct heir. Robert Gardiner's niece, Alexandra Creel, married into another of America's first families, the Goelets, and will inherit the island. The Goelets have been in America since 1676, and they built their fortune in real estate, along with the Philipse and Roosevelt families. One of the Goelets founded Chemical Bank with a grandfather of Theodore Roosevelt. The Goelets and the Gardiners have been rivals for years, and the last lord of the Gardiner manor has recently been quoted as saying he is not happy to see his ancestral lands end up in Goelets province. The bitter Gardiner-Goelet feud was covered extensively in Steven Gains's Philistines at the Hedgerow, and some very colorful anti-Goelet quotes are on peconic.net, the local newspaper covering the longstanding feud.
While both families maintain a high degree of secrecy, Robert Gardiner recently opened up his life and his struggle to the prying eyes of the media. Historians and reporters alike were treated to a rare glimpse of the island, visiting it aboard a Gardiner estate boat, the Captain Kidd III.
THE LIVINGSTON DYNASTY
Robert Livingston, another of Captain Kidd's partners, was for the most
part unscathed by Kidd's arrest. The Livingston family would go on to
play a major role in the politics of New York and the nation, and its support base was Freemasonry, which allowed members to also operate
from behind the scenes. Several early scandals connected them to
piracy, theft, and smuggling, but their power, which was always just
below the surface, allowed them to grow and prosper to modern times. Just as Robert Livingston was breathing a sigh of relief that Kidd was in the noose, Livingston's daughter Margaret married a Scotsman, her cousin Samuel Vetch. The new son-in-law brought more notoriety to the family, which apparently was not a concern for the Livingston clan as long as the notoriety was matched by enterprise. The Vetch family and the Livingston family had already been connected by marriage in Scotland. Reverend John Livingston brought Samuel Vetch's father into the Presbyterian Church. William Livingston, the older brother of Robert, had also married a Vetch. Samuel Vetch was despised by many in Scotland, and it is unlikely that the Livingstons and anyone else in Scotland were unaware of his criminal activities.7
In Scotland a project had been created to found a new colony in America. The Scotland Company Trading to Africa and the Indies was formed in June 1695 with the goal of bringing to Scotland what the British East India Company brought to England. The subscription books, which allowed anyone with money to buy stock in the company, were rapidly filled with the names of merchants, shipowners, and wealthy individuals from physicians to widows. The plan was to buy ships and bring Scottish settlers to their own colony, which would be in Darien, on the coast of Panama. Little attention was given to the fact that the land was claimed by Spain, and the company was not really in the favor of England.
The project was plagued with disaster after disaster. Ships packed with soldiers and colonists were provisioned poorly and would see forty dead before reaching the New World. When the colonists reached Panama they were nearly starving, as their worm-ridden food could barely be tolerated. More were sick than healthy, and few had the ability, the desire, or the knowledge to build a settlement. One ship hit a rock in harbor, sank, and took with it half its crew. Crew members on other ships attempted mutiny and many simply deserted. By the end of the first rainy season, there were no plantations planted, no fortifications erected, no trade established, and a government of five quarreling men.8 There were, however, two hundred graves in New Edinburgh.
After ten months the colonists were ready to give up their settlement. Over one third had died. Two ships left the colony to sail to New York City in order to sell goods and buy provisions. Samuel Vetch was on one of the ships. In the East River he tried to seize another ship, an act of piracy that he would explain was his right by charter. Two friends of Robert Livingston came to Vetch's aid. Stephen Delancey and Thomas Wenham were Livingston associates who had built fortunes financing the pirates of Madagascar. Livingston had to maintain a low profile, however, as he was already under suspicion from his partnership with Kidd.
Vetch, like his cousin Robert Livingston, was not likely to pass up a lucrative opportunity. He decided to keep the shipload of goods that was meant to buy provisions for the starving colonists in Darien. Livingston helped him sell the stolen goods.
Of course, Vetch could not return to Darien or to Scotland; the news of the fiasco would cause riots in Edinburgh. Hardly a family below the Highland line would not have the loss of a family member or friend to haunt them as a result of the ill-conceived expedition.
A second voyage saw three hundred of 1,300 dead before reaching the devastated colony. Few made it back to Scotland. Because Vetch would likely be hanged on the sands of Leith along with several other criminals related to Darien, he decided to stay in New York. He married Livingston's daughter, and the magnanimous Livingston gave the young couple as a wedding present a house that was once the property of Captain Kidd.
Samuel Vetch and John Livingston went into the smuggling business together. They bought a ship and named it Mary, then sailed to Canada to import French brandies and wines. On their second trip they were smuggling cargo onto eastern Long Island, not far from Gardiner's island kingdom, when they encountered problems. This early version of the gang that couldn't shoot straight" left their ship beached without anchoring it and then took off, presumably to find assistance. The ship was swept away by the tide to Montauk, where it was seized—complete with cargo, logs, and all the evidence required to bring charges against the pair.
No one was hanged; all were let off simply with the loss of a ship and its cargo. The incident did, however, bring unwanted attention to Robert Livingston, who was still hoping the Kidd affair would blow over. Livingston called in his markers, and Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, who took over for Governor Bellomont, had the charges against the younger Livingston and Vetch dropped. He also repealed the Bill of Confiscation, enabling Livingston and Vetch to keep their cargo. Not coincidentally, Cornbury's six-year rule was highlighted by accusations of bribery, mismanagement, and even attending parties dressed in women's clothing.9
Samuel Vetch learned from his cousin and soon become a wealthy merchant. Unlike his new in-laws, however, his luck did not last. Fortune caught up with him and he died in debtor's prison in London.
Robert Livingston would do much better.
Livingston's life took an odd turn when he traveled to London to plead the case of the Iroquois tribes in New York. On the way his ship was accosted by French privateers, who had no idea they held at their mercy the backer of the world's most infamous pirate. Their advantage was short-lived, as the sudden appearance of a British man-of-war turned the tables.
The immense amount of land held by the Livingston family was of little value if it could not provide an income. In 1710 the opportunity to change the idle lands to profitable lands came with a new governor. While Robert Hunter was reputed to be honest, he may not have been too smart. He had been warned on both sides of the Atlantic about dealing with Robert Livingston. It mattered little to Hunter, whose task was to provide a place to settle German refugees. After the first winter, the starving palatines were in open rebellion against their landlord. The English government refused them permission to leave, and Robert Livingston admonished his wife, Alida, for wishing to give them bread. A second freezing winter found the settlers fleeing across the Hudson in the hope of escaping their feudal lord.
The eighteenth century was marked by wars between the British and the French and ultimately between the colonists and the British. For the Livingstons the century was marked by uprisings by their tenant families. They used the French and Indian Wars to increase their wealth after being appointed to the lucrative position of provisioning the British troops. When the American Revolution came, the family straddled the fence for as long as possible. Then some members went home to Scotland and others fortuitously gambled on the side of the Revolutionaries.
One of the great-grandsons of Robert Livingston was Robert R. Livingston. He played a pivotal role in politics and in the Freemasons, of which he was the grand master for the New York branch. On April 30, 1789, he swore in the country's first president, George Washington. Livingston had hoped for an appointment to Washington's new government but none was forthcoming; it was possible Washington recognized the Livingston clan as playing both sides. Several Livingstons had left New York for the West Indies. Alida Livingston Gardiner, who was married to Valentine Gardiner, had left for England. 10 Robert R. Livingston kept his own power base behind the scenes. The Livingstons' power grew by dynastic marriages, as one Livingston married John Jay, another married an Astor, and another wed a Roosevelt. But Masonic ties were at least as important.
New York State's most influential and powerful lodge was the Holland No. 8. Jacob Astor was aware of the power wielded by the Masonic lodges in both his home in Germany and in London. When he reached New York City, he used his marriage to a member of the Brevoort family to gain entrance to the Holland No. 8 Lodge. There he made connections with New York's governor, George Clinton, his nephew and later mayor of New York City, De Witt Clinton, land baron Stephen Van Rensselaer, and the Livingston family.11 De Witt Clinton, in particular, was an ardent Mason, and among the offices he held were lodge grand master, high priest of the Grand Chapter, a grand master of the Great Encampment of New York, and grand master of the Knights Templar of the United States. Clinton's power base, however, would remain the Holland No. 8 Lodge.
When Robert Livingston was grand master of the Holland No. 8 Lodge he founded ten other lodges; still the Holland lodge remained the most powerful. The old guard of New York was firmly in control as the Masonic order and the Holland lodge grew in power. Many would advance their careers through Masonic connections, including Charles King, former president of Columbia University; Cadwallader Colden, grandson of the provincial governor; and John Pintard, the secretary of the Mutual Insurance Company. Masonry rewarded the Livingston family well, and the family did not turn away from the craft even during its unpopular years. Today the Livingston Masonic Library is maintained on West Twenty-third Street in New York City.
New York was a power center for the Livingston clan, but its influence was not limited to that state. Robert R. Livingston was disappointed because he did not receive an appointment in Washington's administration, but during Thomas Jefferson's administration he did join James Monroe on a mission to France. They went to negotiate the purchase of New Orleans, and they were reportedly surprised when Talleyrand, Napoleon's minister, asked, "What will you give for the whole?"—meaning the 825,000 square miles offered for sale.12 Without permission and without the time to contact Washington, the two men offered fifteen million dollars. Livingston later assumed full credit for the purchase, altering his journal entries to say he was given the offer three days earlier, before Monroe reached France. The government issued a vigorous denial and published Livingston's real itinerary, and the disgrace cost him whatever credit might have been due.
The area that was open thanks to the Louisiana Purchase was an early equivalent of the Wild West. New Orleans was the gateway. Very close to the city was a pirate kingdom second only to the one in Madagascar a hundred years before. The new Libertalia was called Barataria, and Jean Lafitte controlled the territory like a king. From India to the Caribbean, Lafitte's career stood out among pirates. Since his navy was so large it could not sail into any port, his kingdom, with protective estuaries, became his home base. At Barataria the pirate created a marketplace where pirates, smugglers, and legitimate traders could buy and sell silks, wines, spices, furniture, and slaves, all of which had been taken at sea. The pirate market at Barataria became so large it threatened the merchants of New Orleans.
Weeks after the Louisiana Purchase was made official a new governor William Claiborne, was appointed. He rode in with a military escort to assume his office. The city turned out for the occasion: two thousand Americans, French, Spaniards, Italians, blacks from Haiti and Jamaica, Orientals in silks, Hindus in saris—and the brothers Lafitte.13
In a short time the newly appointed governor of the area was goaded into offering a bounty for Lafitte and his brother, Pierre. Lafitte posted his own bounty for Governor Claiborne. When Pierre Lafitte was captured, District Attorney John R. Grymes quit his job. Instead of prosecuting Lafitte he would became the pirate's defense co-counsel. Robert Livingston's brother Edward, an active Mason and the mayor of New York City, left New York to join the defense team. The two defenders were allegedly offered twenty thousand dollars.
Edward Livingston had several reasons for leaving New York, all of which had something to do with money, specifically his lack of it. Livingston's land speculations and other ventures had left him in debt. His position as mayor was not as lucrative for him as it was for past mayors. New Orleans would be the start of a new life. He quickly married a nineteen-year-old French widow, Louise D'Avezac de Castera Moreau de Lassy, whose family was the owner of plantations in Haiti and had been driven out by the slave insurrection. As grand master of New York's grand lodge, Robert Livingston had influence that spread far beyond the state borders. Edward Livingston became grand master of the Louisiana lodge upon arrival.
Jean Lafitte was no ordinary pirate. Said to be a French nobleman whose parents lost their lives under the blade of the guillotine during the Reign of Terror,14 the swashbuckler was also an educated man who could speak four languages. Called "the gentleman pirate," Lafitte was described as tall, black-haired, and sporting a black mustache. He left France aboard a privateer ship that he would later take from its captain, and he began indiscriminately to raid ships of all nations. Lafitte started in the Seychelles, where he bought a boatload of slaves for trade. On the way to sell them in India he was chased by a British frigate. In desperate need of supplies, he captured other British ships, including one of the East India Company's. The privateer soon had a fleet.
Lafitte's reputation grew to gigantic proportions after he used one of his ships and forty of his men to battle a very large, forty-gun British ship manned by four hundred sailors. Lafitte's forty men, with daggers in mouths and bandanna-clad heads, boarded the ship in a frenzy. Lafitte commandeered a cannon and aimed at the men who remained on deck, threatening them with certain death. They all surrendered.
From the Indian Ocean, Lafitte and his navy sailed to the Spanish port of Cartegena, where he was given a commission. The city had just rebelled and authorized him to attack Spanish shipping. At one point Lafitte's navy had fifty ships and one thousand pirate sailors. From there he built his kingdom in Barataria. Derived from the Spanish word barato, the name refers to the part of the winnings a gambler gives to the poor for luck. Lafitte's pirate city had a cafe, a bordello, a gambling house, and warehouses. He would widen waterways to facilitate ships, dig canals, and even build barges that would sail to the port of New Orleans to sell their merchandise.
Lafitte survived the prosecutions of the governor and went on to join the Americans in the Battle of New Orleans in 1812. Besides having the legal protection of lawyer and Mason Edward Livingston, another noted Mason would come to the pirate's aid. Andrew Jackson rewarded Lafitte's crew with citizenship, and Lafitte tried to settle down. When his crew could not give up their old ways, Lafitte sailed to Mexico and was not heard from again.
The Livingstons, of course, would be heard from again. Today the Livingston dynasty is remembered in the names of locations in New York, New Jersey, and Louisiana. And the family is still active in politics. During the Clinton administration, for instance, Robert L. Livingston, the sixty-third man named Robert in the Livingston family tree, was a candidate for the job of Speaker of the House. He is part of the tenth generation, descended from the first lord of the manor in Skeletons in the Closet 83 New York. Other members of the Livingston clan still own vast tracts of land in New York. Modern-day relations of the Livingstons include the Bush family and Thomas Kean, the former governor of New Jersey, who makes his home in Livingston township, New Jersey.
THE MORRIS FAMILY
The Livingstons were not the only landed family to have made their
start in piracy. The progenitor of the Morris family also made his fortune capturing ships and used the proceeds to obtain vast tracts of land.
Locale names still exist on the maps of New York and New Jersey that
recall the extent of the Morrises' property. Lewis Morris was a pirate who had a king's commission that allowed him to prey on shipping in the colonies and split his prizes with the crown. His nephew, also named Lewis Morris, was involved in the triangle trade. Between running sugar plantations in Barbados and using the labor of imported slaves to create end products like rum, Morris's lucrative trade gave him an estate back in the colonies. The younger Morris would later be a signer of the Constitution.15
The younger Lewis Morris was also part of an unusual rivalry that developed into an important American historical landmark. In the early 1730s Morris served as the chief justice of the three-man Supreme Court in New York. A fellow wealthy merchant named Rip van Dam had become governor and then retired his post. The new governor, Colonel William Cosby, was as corrupt as they come. He demanded that van Dam return his salary as governor and give it to Cosby. The case made it to Morris's court, where he cast the one vote in three denying Cosby his claim.
Cosby, in control of the state publication, the New York Gazette, relentlessly went after both van Dam and Morris. Friends of the pair backed a rival newspaper and hired John Peter Zenger as editor to retaliate in print. Cosby didn't like playing the role of editorial victim and threw Zenger in jail. After a lengthy and much publicized trial, Zenger's acquittal started the process that later developed into the freedom of the press. Coincidentally, one of the other two men on the Morris court was merchant and financier Frederick Philipse.
THE PHILIPSE DYNASTY
The Philipse family was one of New York's landed aristocracy. Frederick
Philipse was also a pioneer in another way; he built the family fortune
supplying pirates with goods and money. He had already been in the
business before Fletcher assumed the governor's position, but under
Fletcher's rule New York grew as a pirate haven and Philipse profited.
And many knew about Philipse's business. A Salem minister named
Reverend John Higginson once wrote in a letter to his son, "Frederick
Philipse of New York, it is reported, has a pirate trade to Madagascar for
near twenty years." 16 Philipse was well acquainted with Kidd and hired Samuel Burgess, who had sailed with Kidd as a privateer. Burgess was recruited out of retirement to sail to Madagascar with goods for the pirates. Clothing, liquor, naval supplies, and ammunition were the imports of choice on Saint Mary's. These goods were in turn exchanged for slaves, one of Madagascar's only exports.
Another employee of Philipse was the pirate Adam Baldridge, who was for a while one of the pirate kings of Saint Mary's. While his title did not entitle Baldridge to rule in a monarchal way, it did make him the number one fence for items stolen by pirates—a very lucrative position. Baldridge bought goods at attractive prices and put them aboard ships to Frederick Philipse. He would also serve as a travel agent, assisting retiring pirates in making their return passage to England or the North American colonies.
With the pirate king Baldridge on Saint Mary's and Burgess sailing back and forth to New York, the aristocratic Philipse had his own trading empire. The pirate Thomas Tew was also in his employ, and Philipse did little to hide his role in piracy. One of his ships that sailed the Indian Ocean for slaves and contraband and to engage in piracy was named the Frederick.17
But life would not always stay simple for Philipse. After Kidd's arrest, Bellomont was on the prowl for pirates, and he was not above turning on acquaintances like Philipse. When Bellomont became aware that two hundred pirates were being given passage to New York from Madagascar on a Frederick Philipse—owned ship,18 he decided money was thicker than friendship. The fee charged to each ex-pirate was an expensive fifty pounds, but presumably that was the tip of the iceberg of their personal wealth; the men were most likely loaded with booty intended to provide for them in their retirement years. Luckily for both Philipse and his cargo, Bellomont would not survive long enough to intercept it.
Next Philipse's number one captain, Burgess, was captured at sea. It was the second time for Burgess, who had previously survived arrest being pardoned by Bellomont. But that was before the backlash against piracy started by the British East India Company and the arrest of Kidd. This time Burgess was brought to London, where he was condemned to death. To his credit, Philipse sent to London his son Adolph, who worked for three years to save Burgess from suffering the same fate as Kidd. Burgess returned to sea, and later lived out his retirement years in London as a consultant for the British East India Company.
Unlike the Livingstons and the Gardiners, the Philipse family's power and wealth was divided after the Revolution. They had started in the colonies as part of the landed aristocracy of the Hudson Valley, which entitled them to the patroon system that granted lands to favorites of the royalty back in England: Pelham Manor for Thomas Pell, Philipsborough to the Philipses, Morrisania to Lewis Morris, Cortlandt Manor to the Van Cortlandts.The families in control of these extremely large tracts leased farmland to tenant farmers, who were often kept in poverty and indebted to their land.
In 1766 the Philipse tenant William Prendergast started mob actions along the Hudson that would affect both the Livingston clan and the other patroon families' holdings. At his trial Prendergast said that he was charged more for his small farm than were all the other Philipse tenants. It didn't matter. He was found guilty of treason and ordered hanged, drawn, and quartered in the feudal fashion of the lords of the Hudson manors. When no one would come forward to perform the execution, Prendergast received a stay and finally a pardon from King George III.
King George disappointed the Philipse family a second time by losing the War of Independence. The Philipses were part of a New York contingent that declared their loyalty to the king and signed the Declaration of Dependence. Frederick Philipse III was arrested by Washington's troops and so he fled his home. Washington confiscated the lands. The Morris family somehow ended up with one third of the original grant. Tenant farmers were allowed to buy the farms on the other two thirds after the Revolution.
Some of the Philipse heirs fared better than Frederick. Like the Livingstons, some fled to England after the war, while others managed to avoid being branded as Tories and stayed in the colonies. Also like the Livingstons, at least one Philipse heir would marry into the Roosevelt family. Another Philipse heir, Jacobus Goelet, started his own landed dynasty that eventually united with the Gardiner family's.
Jacobus Goelet had been raised by Frederick Philipse, the lord of the manor. Peter Goelet, the grandson of Jacobus, established himself in business and in politics during the Revolution. Instead of being arrested or deported, Peter Goelet used his close relationship with those in power to remain in New York and prosper. Goelet's relationship with the city controller, Benjamin Romaine, allowed the Goelet clan to acquire real estate as favorably as had the Astors and other large-scale investors like the Rhinelanders, Schermerhorns, and Lorillards.
Romaine was a failed schoolteacher who found his true calling as an early member of the Tammany Society, which was founded as a fraternal charity for Revolutionary War veterans in 1789 shortly after Washington was inaugurated. Washington's Society of the Cincinnati was for officers only and later for those with aristocratic family lines. The Tammany Society was meant to be for men of all classes, although it quickly emerged as a corrupt organization that helped only a handful to loot government coffers. While the history of New York points the finger at Boss Tweed and others who were the most corrupt, the major beneficiaries, such as New York's first families, emerged with larger fortunes, little criticism, and no criminal or civil penalty for their roles.
Goelet's two sons married daughters of the Scottish merchant Thomas Buchanan and furthered the family's rise. The younger Goelets founded the Chemical Bank of New York at a time when there was an anti banking sentiment in New York. It was nearly impossible to get a charter for a bank, so several companies got a charter for a certain type of business and then later amended the original charter. New York Chemical Manufacturing Company was a small company formed to produce dyes, paints, and drugs. One year after getting a charter for this business it became a bank. Chemical Bank counted several generations of Goelets on the board of directors.
The next Goelet generation would collect fortunes topping the $100 million mark when their lands, including Union Square and Fifth Avenue, appreciated. Families like the Goelets, Astors, and Rhinelanders became "Old New York," as they owned so much property. And their fortune grew with the population of the city.
When Newport, Rhode Island, began to attract the likes of the Astors and the Vanderbilts, the Goelets too built their own mansion. Goelet daughters married well, including the marriage of Hannah Goelet to Thomas Russell Gerry. Goelet-Gerry descendants made ties to the Livingstons, Harrimans, and Gallatins, as well as to British royalty. Robert Goelet's yacht rivaled the yachts of the Astors, the Vanderbilts, and the J. P. Morgans.
In 1870 J. Pierpont Morgan founded his own elite society, which he called the Zodiac Club. Membership, like that in the private clubs to which Morgan's father belonged, was limited to twelve Anglo-Christian white men. Pierpont, J. P. Morgan's father, had claimed the family tree included the pirate Morgan, and to drive home the point he called his yacht the Corsair and flew the Jolly Roger. One hundred years after the Zodiac Club was founded, Robert Goelet shared one of the coveted chairs with eleven of the mid-Atlantic's most powerful businessmen.19
Despite the dilution caused by marriages, the wealth of the secretive Goelet clan is far-reaching. They have been involved with Guaranty Trust, Equitable Trust, the Illinois Central Railroad, and the Union Pacific Railroad and institutions like the Metropolitan Opera and the Museum of Natural History in New York. Through the Goelet Corporation the family has interests in mining, oil, and gas.
The Knickerbocker Club once represented the highest level of wealth in the city of New York. Because New York is a financial capital of the world, entrance to this club is no longer simply for pillars of New York society such as the Goelets and the Astors. In 1965 the ranks of the Knickerbocker included the Aga Khan, Giovanni Agnelli, C. Douglas Dillon, the du Ponts, the Goulds, the Huttons, the Ingersolls, the Rockefellers, Alfred Sloan, and William Vanderbilt.20
PIRATES TO PATRICIANS
When the Knights Templar were disbanded in the fourteenth century,
they had at their core a handful of wealthy and noble families that had
always acted from behind the scenes. Although the illiterate Jacques de
Molay was burned at the stake, the elite core remained alive and well.
The majority of the rank-and-file Templars also survived—not in their
estates in France but in hiding. They were protected by the heirs of the
Norman families in France that held power in Scotland. And they were
protected by their sworn loyalty to one another. On land some exTemplars found work as mercenaries and others in the building trades.
They established a system of secret passwords and handshakes and a
lodge network that protected them from disclosure and from being
unemployed in a feudal world. They were sworn to feed and shelter
each other until work could be found. As there had been a handful of core families behind the Templars, there would be a handful of core families behind the ex-Templars. The best known is the Sinclair family of Scotland. The network of lodges created in the aftermath of the Templar downfall emerged as Freemasonry and the Sinclair family was named its hereditary guardians. Former Templars were employed on land by the Sinclair family as construction workers and on the sea as sailors on the massive Sinclair fleet. The same men who sailed under the skull-and-crossbones flag as Templars continued to ply the seas.
The Reformation played a harmful role in dividing the Catholic Stuarts of Scotland, England, and other elite families who had backed the Templars in France. After a century of displacement and massive warfare, Europe experienced a breakdown in morality. America was populated alternately by whatever religious group was out of favor in Europe. The French Protestants known as Huguenots, the Catholic and Protestant Scots, and Englishmen would meet in America and in some cases continue the wars started at home. Masonry, however, would serve to breach the religious divide.
Masonic lodges provided a refuge for many and were places where the ideas of tolerance and brotherhood prevailed amid an intolerant world. For many the lodge system offered the possibility of breaking out of the caste system. The pirate community went a step further: Democracy in its pure form, brotherhood, mutual protection, and equality existed among the pirates in a way that was rarely seen elsewhere. The Kingdom of Libertalia might have served as a model society if it had not been colored by pirate fiction and tainted by its prosperity being linked to stolen goods. In Libertalia all men had a vote, wealth was held individually, and all provided for the community. The old and infirm were provided for by all. Crime against fellow pirates was rare; not only was each man armed and dangerous, but also each had signed articles that did not allow for such activity. The presence of any man who caused disruption in the community was not tolerated in law or in practice.
At the same time both the Masonic lodge and the pirate life were gripped by the same evils that pervade the human condition. Pride and greed guaranteed that some were at a higher level than others. While equality might exist within an individual lodge, the lodges soon separated, with the sea captains and shipowners belonging to one and the dockworkers and ship's crews belonging to another.
As in the earliest days of the Knights Templar, some core families were able to use and discard the rank and file at will. The pirates who sailed under the same flag as the Templars needed to rely on the elite few who could walk in both worlds. Like the Sinclairs in the Old World, the Livingstons, Gardiners, and Philipses in the New World could operate and profit through their connection to the underworld. At the same time they could retreat to their manor houses while the Kidds and the de Molays bore the blame.
Although the seed of a democratic society had formed aboard the pirate ships and among the Templar fighting units, the remnants of a feudal society remained. Ex-Templars and elite families continued their symbiotic relationship in America in the years to come. Family wealth would be built through secret societies. Profits would be made from smuggling, the slave trade, and even the opium-trafficking business, where the fleets of the China traders would still sail under the skull and crossbones. As in the fourteenth century, the risks were often borne by the many, while the gains were enjoyed only by the few who could exist in both worlds.
next
part2
The Lodge and the Revolution
notes
Chapter 3
1. Patrick Pringle, Jolly Roger: The Story of the Great Age of Piracy (New York: WW. Norton, 1953), p. 22.
2. Robert C. Ritchie, Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1986), pp. 203-227.
3. Clare Brandt, An American Aristocracy: The Livingstons (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1986), p. 38.
4. Jan Rogozinski, Honor among Thieves: Captain Kidd, Henry Every, and the Pirate Democracy in the Indian Ocean (Mechanicsburg, Penn.: Stackpole Books, 2000), pp. 69-76.
5. Ritchie, p. 36.
6. Ibid.
7. Brandt, p. 21.
8. Stephen Birmingham, America's Secret Aristocracy (New York: Berkley Books, 1987), pp. 33-4.
9. Brandt, pp. 30-6.
10. Edward Robb Ellis, The Epic of New York City (New York: Kondansha, 1997), p. 107.
11. Ritchie, p. 26.
12. George Francis Dow and John Henry Edmonds, The Pirates of the New England Coast 1630-1730 (New York: Dover Publications, 1996), p. 77.
Chapter 4
1. Steve Wick, The Settler and the Sachem, from the Web site www.Lihistory.com. Also see Bernie Bookbinder, Long Island: People and Places, Past and Present (New York: Henry N. Abrams, Inc., 1998).
2. Robert Ellis Cahill, Pirates and Lost Treasures (Peabody, Mass.: Chandler Smith Publishing, 1987), p. 84.
3. David M. Fletcher, The Diplomacy of Annexation (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1973), p. 71.
4. Edwin P. Hoyt, John Tyler (New York: Abelard Schuman, 1969), p. 72.
5. Fletcher, p. 135.
6. Hoyt, p. 132.
7. John Prebble, Darien: The Scottish Dream of Empire (Edinburgh: Berlinn Limited, 2000), p. 185.
8. Brandt, p. 55.
9. Ibid., p. 105.
10. Ibid., 103-8.
11. Axel Madsen, John Jacob Astor: America's First Millionaire (New York: John Wiley, 2001), p. 32.
12. David Leon Chandler, The Jefferson Conspiracies (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1994), p. 151.
13. Ibid., p. 100.
14. Louis B. Davidson and Eddie Doherty, Strange Crimes at Sea (Binghamton, N.Y.: Vail-Ballou Press, 1954), p. 105.
15. Birmingham, pp. 100-2.
16. Dow and Edmonds, p. 89.
17. Ibid., p. 42.
18. Ritchie, pp. 113-6.
19. Birmingham, p. 203.
20. Stephen Hess, America's Political Dynasties (New York: Doubleday, 1966), p. 191.
1 comment:
executions vs. entertainment
We are hearing much talk & writing of executions of late.
Along this line, I find the beginning of this article on history [re: pirating] of our Nation amusing & how it relates to today.
Sorry, I even found myself chuckling, due to fear of how people have not changed!
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