Edward Woodman (

fl. ''Floruit'' ( ; usually abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for 'flourished') denotes a date or period during which a person was known to have been alive or active. In English, the unabbreviated word may also be used as a noun indic ...

1694-1706) was a pirate active in the

Indian Ocean The Indian Ocean is the third-largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, covering or approximately 20% of the water area of Earth#Surface, Earth's surface. It is bounded by Asia to the north, Africa to the west and Australia (continent), ...

and the

Caribbean The Caribbean ( , ; ; ; ) is a region in the middle of the Americas centered around the Caribbean Sea in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic Ocean, mostly overlapping with the West Indies. Bordered by North America to the north, Central America ...

History

Thomas Tew Thomas Tew (died September 1695), 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 ...

sailed from

Rhode Island Rhode Island ( ) is a state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It borders Connecticut to its west; Massachusetts to its north and east; and the Atlantic Ocean to its south via Rhode Island Sound and Block Is ...

in 1692 on his first “

pirate round The Pirate Round was a sailing route followed by certain, mainly English, pirates, during the late 17th century and early 18th century. The course led from the western Atlantic, parallel to the Cape Route around the southern tip of Africa, stopp ...

” voyage, which took him around the coast of Africa, to

Madagascar Madagascar, officially the Republic of Madagascar, is an island country that includes the island of Madagascar and numerous smaller peripheral islands. Lying off the southeastern coast of Africa, it is the world's List of islands by area, f ...

, and into the

Red Sea The Red Sea is a sea inlet of the Indian Ocean, lying between Africa and Asia. Its connection to the ocean is in the south, through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait and the Gulf of Aden. To its north lie the Sinai Peninsula, the Gulf of Aqaba, and th ...

. There they captured a Muslim pilgrim ship carrying fantastic wealth, which they looted and shared. They returned to

New England New England is a region consisting of six states in the Northeastern United States: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. It is bordered by the state of New York (state), New York to the west and by the ...

in 1694 with their riches, where Tew prepared to make a second voyage. Edward Woodman appears as a signatory to Tew’s Articles, or

pirate code Pirate articles, or articles of agreement were a code of conduct for governing ships of pirates, notably between the 17th century, 17th and 18th century, 18th centuries, during the so-called "Golden Age of Piracy". The typical pirate crew was an u ...

. The 200-ton, 40-gun slave ship ''Prophet Daniel'' sailed from England to Madagascar in 1698; the voyage’s cargo master was John Cruger, future New York alderman and mayor. They put into

Abraham Samuel Abraham Samuel (died 1705), also known as "Deaan Tuley-Noro" or "Tolinar Rex", was a mulatto pirate of the Indian Ocean in the days of the Pirate Round in the late 1690s. He was said to be born in Martinique or Jamaica, or possibly in Anosy, Mad ...

’s pirate trading post at

Fort Dauphin Fort Dauphin may refer to: ;Canada * Fort Dauphin (Manitoba), in Manitoba * Fort Dauphin (Nova Scotia), in Nova Scotia ;Haiti * Fort-Liberté Fort-Liberté (; ) is a List of communes of Haiti, commune and administrative capital of the Nord-Est ...

on Madagascar in early 1699 to collect slaves and were soon drinking with the crew of another ship at anchor in the harbour. The second ship was the ''Beckford Galley'' of pirate Evan Jones; that night his men seized the ''Prophet Daniel'' after conspiring with some of its disgruntled crew. Cruger tried to retake the ship but was prevented by Samuel after Jones promised to give the ''Prophet'' and its slaves to Samuel. Jones sailed away, and Cruger took passage back to New York aboard a visiting merchantman. Samuel then sold the looted ''Prophet Daniel'' to Woodman and three other pirates who had been ashore at Madagascar (Isaac Ruff, Thomas Wells, and Edmond Conklin). He gave the four pirates a written bill of sale for the Prophet, which he sold for 1400 pieces of eight. They returned to America the year after: Conklin’s name appears on a Rhode Island will in 1700, stating that he owned one-quarter of a captured ship called ''Greyhound''. This might have been the ''Prophet'' with a new name, and Woodman and the others might have jointly owned the ship. In a letter to Secretary of State

Charles Hedges Sir Charles Hedges (1649/50 – 10 June 1714), of Compton Bassett, Wiltshire, an English lawyer and politician, was Judge of the High Court of Admiralty from 1689 to 1714, and also served as one of Queen Anne's Secretaries of State. Life He ...

in January 1706, Woodman was named as one of several pirates based out of the Dutch colony at St. Thomas.

References

Year of birth missing Year of death missing 18th-century pirates English pirates 17th-century pirates Caribbean pirates Piracy in the Indian Ocean {{Pirate-stub

History

See also

References