The pirates who terrorized the Atlantic in the 1720s were a rebellious group, defiantly rejecting the traditions and authority figures of their time, unleashing their greatest fury on the sea captains they captured. But on several occasions there were rebellions within a pirate crew, as well. Members of Edward Low’s crew eventually abandoned him because they grew tired of his excruciating torture of captives. My trip to Martha’s Vineyard this summer provided another reminder of an attempted rebellion aboard a pirate ship, one under the command of John Phillips in 1724.
“Phillips was completely despotic,” wrote John Fillmore, one of the captives aboard the ship at the time, “and there was no such thing as evading his commands.” Even members of Phillips’ own crew hated their captain, and when the pirates captured a snow in early February 1724, the men sent over to take control of the vessel tried to desert Phillips’ in the dark of the night. They planned to head north to what at the time was called Holmes’ Hole — the protected harbor of Vineyard Haven on Martha’s Vineyard.
The pirate captain Phillips refused to be beat, however, and after a three-day chase at sea, he came within firing range of the deserters aboard the snow. As soon as the rebellious pirates surrendered and came back aboard Phillips’ ship, the captain immediately shot them in the head. It was not until two months later that Fillmore and several other captives were able to stage a successful uprising against Phillips, kill him, and bring their vessel safely back to Boston.
