PRIMARY SOURCE ANALYSIS: CAPTAIN AVERY

Jilly DiMartino
HST 270: The Golden Age of Piracy
September 22, 2023
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Captain John Avery is one of the greatest pirates ever known. He was a bit of a

contradiction to Captain Charles Johnson. As one of the most notorious pirates I expected

somewhat admiration from Captain Johnson, but it seems that he has mixed feelings. Captain

Avery was a bold man who became a legendary pirate known to all. His history is filled with

such exhilarating stories, it makes you wonder if all of them are real or not. Rumor has it,

Captain Avery was on his way to leading his own monarchy. According to Captain Johnson

(1725) in A General History of the Pyrates, Avery was not completely truthful when it came to

his adventures. Avery created some stories to make himself seem unstoppable, but a large

amount of those stories had been from other people. Gossiping is something that has been

happening since the beginning of time. In Captain Avery’s time, rumors would get blown out of

proportion resulting in him becoming a sort of celebrity.

He is originally from England and grew up working as a first mate on numerous trading

voyages. Not all of them necessarily legal but at that time there was other things to worry

about. Avery was working as a first mate on a ship that was hired to protect and safely

transport some Spaniards and anything else aboard. Avery didn’t let the fact that he was a first

mate hold him back. He managed to strike up conversation with the higher ups on the ship

know as “fellows.” His confidence is truly what set him apart from other pirates. He was lowest

on the totem pole when proposing to the fellows that they abandon the job they were hired to

do, and instead take everything for themselves. Avery was a man with a plan; he kept track of

the captains’ daily habits so he would know when the best time to take over was. Avery waited

until the captain fell asleep to get the sixteen other fellows arriving on a separate boat safely

aboard theirs. Somehow Avery and his fellows managed to silently pull up their anchor and
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start to drift out to sea with no one the wiser. Except for the Captain aboard a nearby ship who

purposely turned a blind eye to Avery sailing away.

At this point, Avery had already made the captain aware that he, being Avery, is captain

of the ship now and the men aboard are now his. Avery to my surprise gave the captain and

crew a choice to join him and have a chance at the treasure or he will send them to land on a

little boat. The previous captain and several others took the chance and went back to land. That

leaves Avery and his new crew of fellows on the ship; now known as, Captain John Avery. They

sailed to Madagascar, reaching ashore the crew let down the hatches and a bunch of sloops

began to run off the ship on the island. Avery was unaware that the ship he has stolen was

holding people below deck to trade. After a long process of convincing, they accepted and

trusted Avery’s offer of safety for them because he saw it as a great opportunity to grow his

crew.

One of Captain Avery’s most significant endeavors was when he stole a ship from the

Great Mogul. Avery spotted the Great Mogul’s colors from afar and decided they were his next

target. Little did he know the ship was filled with slaves, servants, gold, jewels and most

importantly the Great Mogul’s daughter. The treasure was enough to make him happy and

additionally enough to split with his crew. The daughter was of no use to him, so Captain Avery

released her. She returned and told the Great Mogul what had happened. Enraged with anger

that the pirate was an Englishmen he threatened to get rid of the English settlements in the

indies. The English were able to convince the Mogul that they will find Captain Avery and

deliver him.
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Still on the move, Captain Avery and his crew sailed to Madagascar to unload all of the

stolen treasures onto shore. They planned to build a fortress of some kind for the treasure and

keep a few people there at all times to guard it. Avery was able to convince the Sloops to keep

all three chests of treasure aboard his ship and put the sloops on a separate ship. Obviously,

Avery selfishly abandoned them at night taking all the treasure for him and his crew. At this

point, Avery is a wanted man so him and his men must disappear if they want to live. He and his

crew dispersed along the Americas under new names. Only some were able to hide their true

identity, others were discovered, captured, and killed.

He continued his travels, changing his name again and going back to Europe. He was too

much of a wanted man to even try and sell his diamonds because if anyone heard he was alive,

he would have been dead within minutes. Avery had a friend that connected him to merchants

to sell the diamonds to, who wouldn’t snitch of him for being a pirate. The merchants gave him

a small amount of money in exchange for the diamonds and agreed to continue giving him

installments of the money. The merchants gave Avery a few more very small installments and

Avery tracked them down to confront them. They threated to out Avery if he were to notify

anyone that they were in possession of the stolen items. He was essentially outdone by land

pirates. Living under a false name in Biddiford, Captain Avery grew ill and died. Stealing from

powerful people can have scary consequences. Captain Johnson claims Captain John Avery died

a poor man and a beggar.

Captain Johnson’s book was very interesting to read. The way he would talk about each

pirate made it seem as if he was the judge in deciding whether a pirate was a real pirate or not.

He made it clear if he admired a pirate or not and would say enough evidence to convince you
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of it. Johnson claimed that Captain Avery was a noise maker in the sense that drama would

follow him wherever he would go. Obviously of his own making, but it was never hard to find

him you just had to follow the “noise.” Despite all of this, Captain Avery was looked at as a

potential leader by everyone else. They all thought that Avery was living the dream, and he was

the most magnificent pirate who is feared and admired at the same time. But this reaction was

all due to the rumors created about him once England found out about the theft of the Mogul’s

daughter. In reality. Captain Johnson knew the truth, of the sad life Avery lived until his death.

There was then a play written about him called “The Successful Pyrate” (2). This seemed to

bother Captain Johnson because he knew in a way Avery was somewhat of a fraud. I think

Captain Johnson did not favor Captain Avery, but he had hidden admiration for him.

According to Captain Johnson, Captain Avery married the Great Mogul’s daughter. She

was taken in an Indian ship that supposedly fell into Captain Avery’s hands. Captain Johnson

implied that Captain Avery had nothing to do with the Great Moguls daughter being on that

ship. It was “by chance” that the ship ended up in Captain Averys hands. Upon further research

I read, “He sails this ship to the ‘Indian Sea’, where he captures and plunders the Mughal ship,

and sails for Madagascar” says Stephanie Jones (2012). The choice of words between the two

authors is noticeably different. Johnson carefully used his words to describe how Avery and the

Mogul’s daughter amicably married. Stephanie Jones on the other hand used the term

“captured” to describe the unwilling marriage (1). This might seem like a minor detail but to me

this illustrates the inequality of sexes during that era. A woman's life was so easily disregarded
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1
and traded between whoever came into ownership of the ship she was prisoner on. Sexism

was more prevalent than it is today unfortunately. Johnson unintentionally proved that.

New writings were created that provide an inaccurate depiction of who Avery was. “I

will attempt to show that the song’s earliest variants gave the first hints of legendary figure,

‘Captain John Avery’, an invincible criminal imagined to rule the sea lanes to India and to have

founded a utopian pirate commonwealth on Madagascar” said Baer (1995). The author of this

piece gave the impression that Avery is this high and mighty pirate who is undefeated. When in

reality, a couple of merchants were able to pull one over on Avery and take all the diamonds he

planned to sell for riches. Many historical artifacts related to Captain Avery have many biases

which made researching him very difficult. Johnson although not completely accurate was able

to provide a rough history of Avery’s adventures.

References
1
1 Stephanie Jones, “Literature, Geography, Law the Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery (circa 1709),” Cultural
Geographies 19, no. 1 (2012): 71–86, https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474011427362.
2 Daniel Defoe and Charles Johnson, A General History of Pyrates: (Dublin: Printed by J. Watts ..., 1725).
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Defoe, Daniel, and Charles Johnson. A general history of pyrates: . Dublin: Printed by J. Watts ...,
1725.

Joel H. Baer. “Bold Captain Avery in the Privy Council: Early Variants of a Broadside Ballad from
the Pepys Collection.” Folk Music Journal 7, no. 1 (1995): 4–26.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4522500.

Jones, Stephanie. “Literature, Geography, Law the Life and Adventures of Capt. John Avery (circa
1709).” cultural geographies 19, no. 1 (2012): 71–86.
https://doi.org/10.1177/1474474011427362.