Samuel Bellamy

Bellamy may have been born in 1689 in the parish of Hittisleigh on Dartmoor in Devon, Kingdom of England, the youngest of six known children of Stephen and Elizabeth Bellamy. Alternately, a sailor captured by Bellamy testified in 1716 that Bellamy "declared himself to be an Englishman born in London." Elizabeth died soon after, and was buried on 23 February 1689, three weeks before Samuel's baptism on 18 March. The future pirate became a sailor at a young age; in his late teens, he joined the Royal Navy and fought in several battles. Though it has been speculated that he may have had a wife and child, there is no definite historical proof of this. Bellamy traveled to Cape Cod around 1715, allegedly to seek some of his relatives there. According to an abundance of local lore on the subject, it is believed that he took up an affair with a local beauty, Goody Hallett — the "Witch of Wellfleet". Professor Elizabeth Reynard, in her 1934 book The Narrow Land, gave her the name "Maria", and though there is no evidence of her bearing that name, it has nevertheless become a popular name for her. Other modern authors have called her "Mariah" and "Mary". Her age and marital status remain subjects of much debate. Some stories depict her as a young lady between 16 and 25, while others depict her as a very old woman. In some stories, her parents liked Bellamy, but did not think a poor self-confident sailor was husband material; circumstantial evidence indicates that she may have already been married, confirming some stories that it was Bellamy's intent to seek his fortune and then return, not to marry her, but to take her away. He left Cape Cod in early 1716 with a group of men to seek the vast treasures of the 1715 Spanish Treasure Fleet, which had wrecked the previous summer in a hurricane off the east coast of Florida. Wealthy jeweler Palgraves Williams, son of Rhode Island Attorney General John Williams, joined Bellamy and funded their expedition. After Bellamy left the Cape, Hallett was found to be pregnant by Bellamy. It is said that she gave birth to a son and hid the child in a barn for warmth while she foraged for food, and when she returned she found that the child had choked to death on the straw. Some legends say that it was the barn of the notable Knowles family; others claim it was that of Justice Joseph Doane, who had banished Hallett. In either case, she was arrested for the child's murder and imprisoned in the Old Jail of Barnstable, Massachusetts (the oldest wooden jail house in the United States; said to be haunted by her). Her sentence was relatively short, but she was exiled from the town. Afterwards, she waited for Bellamy in Eastham. ==Career==

The treasure hunters apparently met with little success, as they soon turned to piracy in the crew of pirate captain Benjamin Hornigold, who commanded the Marianne with his first mate, Edward Teach, who would soon gain fame as the pirate "Blackbeard". Bellamy's greatest capture came in the spring of 1717, when he spotted the Whydah Gally (pronounced ) sailing through the Windward Passage between Hispaniola and Cuba. Bellamy chased the Whydah for three days before getting close enough to fire. After a single shot, Captain Lawrence Prince surrendered the Whydah by lowering its flag. True to his reputation for generosity, Bellamy rewarded Prince's lack of resistance by trading the Sultana for the Whydah. They operated at the same time in the same areas and their exploits are often conflated. == Death ==

Whydah Gally in Cape Cod Just two months after acquiring the Whydah, as she and the Marianne approached Cape Cod, Williams told Bellamy that he wished to visit his family in Rhode Island, and the two agreed to meet up again near Maine. Bellamy and the Whydah captured several other small vessels in the area, including the Anne Galley, to which he appointed his quartermaster Richard Noland as captain. If Bellamy intended to revisit his lover Maria Hallett, he failed. 104 bodies were known to have washed ashore and were buried by the town coroner, leaving 42 bodies unaccounted for. The Mary Anne was also wrecked that night several miles south of the Whydah, leaving seven more survivors. All nine survivors from the two ships were captured and prosecuted for piracy in Boston, and six were convicted on 22 October 1717 and hanged on 15 November 1717. (King George's pardon of all pirates, issued on 5 September, supposedly arrived in Boston three weeks too late). Two were set free, the court believing their testimony that they had been forced into piracy. The last, a 16-year-old Miskito from Mosquitia, John Julian, was believed to have been sold into slavery to John Quincy, the great-grandfather of U.S. President John Quincy Adams. Williams waited for Bellamy to rendezvous; when Bellamy never appeared, Williams realized what had happened, and sailed south to Nassau in the Marianne. Noland also searched for Bellamy off Maine; failing to find him, he took the Anne Galley south, raiding ships along the way before accepting a pardon in the Bahamas. ==Reputation==

File:Samuel Bellamy Flag.svg|thumb|A flag used by Bellamy, described as “A black Ensign, with Death holding an Hour-Glass in one Hand and a [speaking] Trumpet in the other”. Captain Samuel Bellamy was well known to his contemporaries and chroniclers as a distinctive figure, a tall, strong, well-mannered and very tidy man. He liked expensive clothes, especially black coats. His favorite weapons were four duelling pistols that he always carried in his sash: As captain, he led in the democratic style typical of Golden Age pirates. His crew was very fond of him, sometimes even referring to him as "Robin Hood of the Sea" and themselves as "Robin Hood's Men". Captain Bellamy was also a good tactician. Usually, he had two ships under his control. His flagship was powerful with many cannons and the second one was light but fast, which made a good balance. With coordinated attacks, they managed to capture ships easily without harming them. == Legacy ==

In July 1984, Bellamy became famous again when the discovery of the wreckage of his flagship Whydah was announced, and would soon become the first authenticated pirate shipwreck ever discovered in North America. At the time of its sinking, the Whydah was the largest pirate prize ever captured, and the treasure in its hold amassed roughly 4.5 to 5 tons, including huge quantities of indigo, ivory, gold, and 20,000 to 30,000 pounds sterling, divided into 180 sacks of each. The discovery of the wreck was made in 1982 by a diving crew led and funded by underwater explorer Barry Clifford. In 1985, Clifford recovered the ship's bell, upon which were the words "THE WHYDAH GALLY 1716", the first incontrovertible evidence of his find. He subsequently founded The Whydah Pirate Museum on MacMillan Wharf in Provincetown, Massachusetts, which was later moved to West Yarmouth, Massachusetts, dedicated to Bellamy and the Whydah. It houses many artifacts which were brought from the wreck, including a cannon found to be stuffed with precious stones, gold and artifacts. A portion of the some 200,000 artifacts so far recovered went on a six-year tour around the United States under the sponsorship of the National Geographic Society. From May 2017 through 30 July 2017, it was at the Portland Science Center in Portland, Maine. In 2022, Real Pirates opened in Salem, Massachusetts, also displaying information about Bellamy, the Whydah, and artifacts from the wreck. Suspected remains of Bellamy were found near the wreck of his ship, in February 2018. The bones were near a pistol thought to be his, and DNA tests were carried out with a living relative to confirm. In May 2018, tests confirmed that the bones were of an Eastern European man, though not Bellamy. In February 2021, Clifford announced six more pirates' bones were discovered in concretements of debris, and will be tested for DNA matches once they are extracted. == In popular culture ==

• In the manga One Piece, the pirate character Bellamy the Hyena is named after Samuel Bellamy. • He appears in ''Assassin's Creed: Pirates'' as one of the most notorious and colorful pirates of the era. • The Netflix docudrama series The Lost Pirate Kingdom features his pirate career prominently, though with some historical inaccuracies. • De Chastelaine, Alexander (2022), Black Sam - The Pirate Tale of Sam Bellamy and Mehitable Brown ISBN 9798322095491 • The historical novel If The Tide Turns by Rachel Rueckert explores the relationship between Sam Bellamy and Goody Hallett. • The musical The Royal Pyrate by Jason Landon Marcus and Chas Libretto, based loosely on the exploits of Sam Bellamy and his relationship with Goody Hallet, premiered in August 2025 at the Waterfront Barge Museum in Red Hook, Brooklyn. ==Notes==