OTK
Families of Legend
The Order of the Kraken is made up of descendants of the now ancient and most infamous Pirate families.
The origin and history of these families, in what we have managed to salvage from Davy Jones’s Locker, is now recorded in the OTK archives.
Anne Bonny
Bonny, one of the most notorious female pirates was born in Ireland around 1700 and moved to London and then to the Province of Carolina when she was about 10 years old.
Around 1718 she married sailor James Bonny, assumed his last name, and moved with him to Nassau in the Bahamas, a sanctuary for pirates. It was there that she met Calico Jack Rackham and became his pirate partner and lover.
It is recorded that Bonny had red hair and was considered a “good catch” but may have had a fiery temper and was a formidable foe.
John Rackham
John Rackham, commonly known as Calico Jack, was an English pirate captain operating in the Bahamas and in Cuba during the early 18th century. His nickname was derived from the calico clothing that he wore, while Jack is a nickname for “John“. He is most remembered for having two female crew members:
Mary Read and his lover, Anne Bonny and the flag commonly associated with Rackham depicts a white skull above crossed swords on a black background, and Rackham is thought to be the father of the Jolly Roger design.
Edward Low
Edward “Ned” Low was a notorious pirate of English origin, in the early 18th century. Low captained a number of ships, usually maintaining a small fleet of three or four. His crews captured at least a hundred ships during their tenure, burning most of them. Recounted as being one of the most vicious pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy with a reputation to match his ruthlessness.
The circumstances of Low’s “death” which took place around 1724, has been the subject of much speculation, and there have many recorded sightings long after his ship was apparently lost at sea.
Bartholomew Roberts
Bartholomew Roberts, was a Welsh pirate and the most successful pirate of the Golden Age of Piracy taking over 400 prizes in his career.
Roberts raided ships off the Americas and the West African coast; he is also noted for creating his own Pirata Codex, and adopting an early variant of the Skull and Crossbones flag. Roberts’ infamy and success saw him become known as The Great Pyrate and eventually as Black Bart.
Benjamin Hornigold
Benjamin Hornigold was an English pirate who operated during the tail end of the Golden Age of Piracy. Hornigold began his pirate career in 1713, attacking merchant ships in the Bahamas.
He helped to establish the “Republic of Pirates” in Nassau and was the captain of one of the most heavily armed ships in the region, named the Ranger.
Edward Teach
Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, was an English pirate who operated around the West Indies and the eastern coast of Britain’s North American colonies. Teach is most infamous for capturing a French slave ship known as La Concorde, renamed her Queen Anne’s Revenge, equipped her with 40 guns, and crewed her with over 300 men.
He became a renowned pirate, his nickname derived from his thick black beard and fearsome appearance; he was reported to have tied lit fuses (slow matches) under his hat to frighten his enemies.
Mary Read
Mary Read was an English pirate. Read and Anne Bonny would become known as the two most infamous female pirates from the 18th century, and among the few women known to have been convicted of piracy at the height of the “Golden Age of Piracy“.
In 1720 Read met Jack Rackham and joined his crew, dressing as a man alongside Anne Bonny. Their reign as some of the most infamous pirates was swift but legendary.
Emanuel Wynn
Wynn was a French pirate and began his career raiding English merchantmen off the coast of the Province of Carolina near the end of the 17th century. He later moved to the more profitable waters in the Caribbean, attacking both English and Spanish ships. Records show a 32-gun fifth-rate frigate commanded by British Captain John Cranby, engaged Wynn’s ship and chased Wynn into a cove at Brava Island where Wynn was able to hold out and slipped out of the harbour and escaped.
The Wynn flag showing the distinctive skull and crossbones motif, was augmented with another common pirate symbol: an hourglass, meant to signify to his prey that their time was running out and only by timely surrender could they evade death.
William Kidd
Captain William Kidd was a Scottish sea captain who was commissioned as a privateer and had experience as a pirate. Legend has it that he was tried and executed in London in 1701 for murder and piracy. Kidd had captured a French ship, commanded by an English captain, as a prize.
He had been commissioned by the Crown as a privateer for this expedition, but the political climate of England turned against him in this case. The belief that Kidd had left buried treasure contributed greatly to the growth of his legend.
Thomas Tew
Tew, also known as the Rhode Island Pirate, was a 17th-century English privateer-turned-pirate. He embarked on two major pirate voyages and met a bloody death on the second, and he pioneered the route which became known as the Pirate Round.
It has been claimed that Tew was one of the founders of the mysterious pirate colony of Libertatia and his personal standard is often depicted as a flag with a white arm holding a short sword on a black field.
Charles Vane
Vane was an English pirate who operated in the Bahamas during the end of the Golden Age of Piracy and infamously Vane commanded a number of ships as one of the leaders of the Republic of Pirates in Nassau. Vane was known for his cruelty, often beating, torturing and killing sailors from ships he captured.
In February 1719, Vane was caught in a storm in the Bay Islands and was marooned on an uncharted island and reports of his capture by a passing British ship are vague as he was rounded for slipping the noose!
Stede Bonnet
A Barbadian pirate, also known as the Gentleman Pirate, born into a moderately wealthy land-owner family before turning to a life on the high seas.
Once Bonnet decided to become a pirate, despite having no knowledge of shipboard life, contracted a local shipyard to build him a sixty-ton sloop, which he equipped with 10 guns and named her the Revenge. This was unusual, as most pirates seized their ships by mutiny or by boarding them or by converting a privateer vessel to a pirate ship.
Later in his career Bonnet met up with Blackbeard and together they unleashed a campaign of terror during what was commonly known as the Golden Age of Piracy.