đ´ââ ď¸ WEEK 2: Our Thoughts On Captain Avery
Captain Avery was a rare example of a pirate who escaped with his loot without going to prison. He was also the target of the first worldwide manhunt.
Ideally, folks will have finished the Captain Avery section over the weekend, and are ready to begin discussing A General History of the Pirates by Captain Charles Johnson.
Mathematically, weâre about 14% of the way through the book, and weâre reading over about 10 weeks, so it should be a bit easier going from here on out.
Hopefully, whether youâre still reading or already finished up, youâre able to share what you found most memorable about Captain Avery.
A week after reading, here were my takeaways about Captain Avery:
Led a fairly clever mutiny, apparently because the previous Captain was a useless drunk?
Gave the former Captain a chance to straighten up or leave, and the Captain chose to leave.
Went to Madagascar, caused some trouble with wealthy, powerful Muslims.
Hooked up with a couple of small boat crews, plundered some ships, and betrayed the small boat crews.
The pirates on the main ship, after some conflict, retired to the Americas, with Avery taking most of his loot in diamonds.
Ended up penniless because he got betrayed by his money launderers.
My main takeaway was that Captain Avery and his fellow pirates handled internal disputes surprisingly bloodlessly. Even the mutiny was almost gentlemanly.
Other than that, Avery didnât pique my curiosity much beyond wondering who exactly which âgreat mogulâ they robbed. Who were the âgreatest personsâ of whose court, whose daughters were on their way to Mecca?
After reading, I looked that up, and it was wild how much more interesting the Wikipedia entry was compared to this chapter. This was, I think, at least partly because the biography is focused tightly on Averyâs point of view: it isnât talking about how the raid on the Grand Mughalâs pilgrimage to Mecca upended British diplomatic relations with the Mughal Empire, or how the British put out a huge bounty on their heads⌠because those facts would have been largely irrelevant to Avery. At a certain point, I suppose, how much money you have and how many people are chasing you stops mattering because you have A LOT of money and A LOT of people are chasing you.
And yet, the author devotes a decent chunk of this chapter to the small-boat guys Avery betrayed. And their lives were very interesting. It was a pretty clear indication that â Nassau and its implications for the American government not withstanding â pirates make pretty awful kings:
these sudden great men, had used their power like tyrants, for they grew wanton in cruelty, and nothing was more common, than upon the slightest displeasure, to cause one of their dependents to be tied to a tree and shot throâ the heart, let the crime be what it would, whether little or great, this was always the punishment;
But thanks largely (I think) to gunpowder, they âreignedâ in Madagascar for decades, and those who survived gave rise to large, powerful families. A cursory internet search tells me that Madagascar was a popular location for âpirate kingdomsâ and that weâll be learning more about them in future chapters, and I, for one, am much more intrigued by that than the brief career of Captain Avery himself, for all that he was responsible for such a large theft. But Iâve always loved colonization stories, Robinson Crusoe style adventures, and infrastructure more than tales of derring-do as such.
So Iâm curious: which parts of Captain Averyâs biography did you find most interesting?
Remember: the goal is to finish thru Chapter III (Martel & Blackbeard) by June 23. Thatâs about the 20% mark, so itâs roughly half as much reading as last week.
You've already mentioned the lack of violence (except for that toward the end on Madagascar). The other thing that struck me as I read was the frequency of almost casual betrayals. Few people display either personal loyalty to their immediate leaders or a sense of obedience to the law or morality. I'm sure I will miss a few examples, but I'll sketch out a list:
1. On being assigned to his ship as first mate, Avery immediately begins to scheme to take over. He has no trouble finding several crew members willing to join his conspiracy.
2. When the conspirators execute their plan, the captain's only concern appears to be for his own personal safety, not to any higher duty.
3. It is not clear to me from the text why the Dutch captain Mynheer doesn't care to pursue them. So this may or may not belong on the list.
4. Only a handful of the crew decline the invitation to join the pirate band and get put ashore with the captain.
5. Avery tricks the crews of the two sloops out of their share of the Mughal treasure.
6. When the crew of Avery's final ship disperse in America, Avery conceals from them the bulk of the remaining treasure. (But in doing this he outwits himself, because he is left with jewels he can't easily convert to cash.)
7. Avery is cheated by the merchants who agree to fence his jewels.
8. Captain Tew appears to drift from privateer to outright pirate in a single paragraph.
9. Then we get into the remaining crew setting themselves up as petty kings in Madagascar (with emphasis on the "petty" part).
Except for the incident where the captain and loyal crew members are sent off in a boat (rather than killed), ever character seems completely amoral, looking only after his own immediate advantage. I get the impression that even the parties who were cheated would have done the same in reverse if they had had the cleverness or opportunity to do so.
I was struck over and over again how it seemed that betraying your fellows was to be met with ⌠meh. Even in the end Avery mostly just sends nasty letters to those whoâve swindled him. Granted he was older at that point and out of his element on land, but more force feels like it would have helped.
Even the pirates who form the Kingdoms are fickle mates first turning on each other and then banding back together.
It feels like the prerequisite to pirate hood is a love or tolerance for toxic relationships.