1717 in piracy

Events

January – HMS Scarborough bombards and destroys several pirate vessels careening on St. Croix, stranding the pirate crew.
Late February – Black Sam Bellamy in the Sultana takes the Whydah Gally near Jamaica and keeps it for his own use.
April 1 – Benjamin Hornigold and a pirate named Napping capture a large armed sloop, the Bennet, out of Jamaica.^[1]
April 4 – At Bluefield's Bay in Jamaica, Hornigold and Napping capture the sloop Revenge carrying a load of Spanish gold.
September 29 – "Gentleman Pirate" Stede Bonnet, who has traded plantation life for a pirate ship, transfers command of his sloop, the Revenge, to Blackbeard.
November 28 – Blackbeard captures the French slave ship La Concorde near Martinique, equips her with 40 guns, and renames her the Queen Anne's Revenge.
December 10 – Blackbeard overtakes and ransacks the merchant sloop Margaret off the coast of Anguilla near Crab Island.^[2]

Spring – Edward Teach and Benjamin Hornigold take two sloops to Virginia, robbing three vessels en route, then return to Nassau, Bahamas.
April – Bellamy seizes a merchant vessel off South Carolina.
April 26 – The Whydah Gally wrecks in a nor'easter off Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Bellamy and 143 men are drowned. Over 4 tons of treasure is lost under just 14 feet (4.3 m) of water – it would elude discovery for over 260 years.
July – Stede Bonnet's pirates in the Revenge plunder the Anne, Turbet, Endeavour, and Young off the coast of Virginia, burning the Turbet.
August – Bonnet raids two vessels off South Carolina, firing one.
October – Edward Teach and Stede Bonnet raid shipping in the mouth of Delaware Bay.
October 12 – Blackbeard captures a Captain Codd and his vessel off the Delaware capes. He later captures and loots the Spofford and Sea Nymph.
October 22 – Blackbeard, on the Revenge, stops and plunders the Robert and Good Intent of their cargo.

September 5 – King George I of Great Britain issues a royal decree, known as the Act of Grace, pardoning all pirates who surrender to the appointed authorities by 5 September 1718.^[3]

April 27 – Black Sam Bellamy, pirate commander captain (born February 23, 1689, aged 28), along with 143 of his crew.^[4]

^ Wombwell, James (2010). The Long War Against Piracy: historical trends. Fort Leavenworth, Kansas: Combat Studies Institute Press, US Army Combined Arms Center. p. 42.
^ Bialuschewski, Arne (2012). "Blackbeard: The Creation of a Legend". Topic: The Washington & Jefferson College Review. 58: 39–54 – via EBSCO.
^ "No. 5573". The London Gazette. 14 September 1717.
^ Gosse, Philip (1924). The Pirates' Who's Who: Giving Particulars of the Lives & Deaths of the Pirates & Buccaneers. New York: Burt Franklin. p. 49.