Chui A-poo (; died 1851) was a 19th-century

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speak ...

Chinese

pirate Piracy is an act of robbery or criminal violence by ship or boat-borne attackers upon another ship or a coastal area, typically with the goal of stealing cargo and other valuable goods. Those who conduct acts of piracy are called pirates, v ...

who commanded a fleet of more than 50 junks in the

South China Sea The South China Sea is a marginal sea of the Western Pacific Ocean. It is bounded in the north by the shores of South China (hence the name), in the west by the Indochinese Peninsula, in the east by the islands of Taiwan and northwestern Phil ...

. He was one of the two most notorious South China Sea pirates of the era, along with Shap Ng-tsai.Martin Booth. ''Opium: A History''. New York: Thomas Dunne, 1996. p. 143. In September 1849, his fleet, which was based in Bias Bay east of

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

, was defeated by British and Chinese warships. More than 400 pirates were killed and Chui was seriously wounded. Although he managed initially to escape, he was betrayed by his own crew and handed over to the British authorities. He was wanted with a bounty of £500 for the murder of two British officers. His punishment was lifelong exile to

Van Diemen's Land Van Diemen's Land was the colonial name of the island of Tasmania used by the British during the European exploration of Australia in the 19th century. A British settlement was established in Van Diemen's Land in 1803 before it became a sep ...

(now Tasmania), but he hanged himself in his cell before it could be carried out.

Notes and references

*May be the namesake of the ''

One Piece ''One Piece'' (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Eiichiro Oda. It has been serialized in Shueisha's ''shōnen'' manga magazine ''Weekly Shōnen Jump'' since July 1997, with its individual chapte ...

'' character Scratchmen Apoo.

See also

Notes and references

Further reading