Turn Joe (

fl. ''Floruit'' (; abbreviated fl. or occasionally flor.; from Latin for "they 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 indicatin ...

1718) was an Irish pirate and

privateer A privateer is a private person or ship that engages in maritime warfare under a commission of war. Since robbery under arms was a common aspect of seaborne trade, until the early 19th century all merchant ships carried arms. A sovereign or deleg ...

who left English service and sailed for Spain instead as a ''guarda costa'' privateer in the Caribbean.

History

Turn Joe, “a bold enterprising Fellow,” commanded a trio of ships under commission from a Spanish Governor in the Caribbean. Off Long Island in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the archi ...

in late 1718 his ships were attacked by three pirates led by John Auger and Phineas Bunce, who mistook the Spanish vessels for salt-trading sloops. The pirate vessel commanded by Bunce approached and demanded the Spanish ships surrender but was met with a hail of small arms fire, killing or wounding many of the pirates. The survivors leapt overboard and swam ashore. The second pirate ship mistook the gunfire as Bunce’s and approached the anchored ships, only to be met with gunfire. Again many of them were wounded and the remainder swam ashore. The third pirate ship repeated the mistakes of the first two and was captured immediately afterward. Turn Joe’s Spanish ships suffered no casualties. After questioning his prisoners, Turn Joe put the wounded men and those he’d determined to have been forced into piracy aboard a spare boat and released them to sail back to

New Providence New Providence is the most populous island in the Bahamas, containing more than 70% of the total population. It is the location of the national capital city of Nassau, whose boundaries are coincident with the island; it had a population of 24 ...

. Bunce died of his wounds soon after arriving.

Woodes Rogers Woodes Rogers ( 1679 – 15 July 1732) was an English sea captain, privateer, slave trader and, from 1718, the first Royal Governor of the Bahamas. He is known as the captain of the vessel that rescued marooned Alexander Selkirk, whose ...

had been tasked with pacifying the pirates plaguing the Bahamas. When word reached New Providence that a number of pirates were nearby and likely vulnerable, Rogers sent pardoned pirate

Benjamin Hornigold Captain Benjamin Hornigold (1680–1719) was an English pirate who operated during the tail end of the Golden Age of Piracy. Born in England in the late 17th century, Hornigold began his pirate career in 1713, attacking merchant ships in the Bah ...

to retrieve them. Hornigold returned with John Auger and the surviving pirates; they were tried in November 1718 and hanged shortly after. Turn Joe himself was eventually hunted down and killed by privateer John Bonnevie, who would later assist

Jonathan Barnet Jonathan Barnet (1677/78 – 1745)"Jonathan Barnet", ''Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slavery'' https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lbs/person/view/2146662203 Retrieved 1 January 2022. was an English privateer in the Caribbean, best known fo ...

in capturing

Calico Jack John Rackham (26 December 168218 November 1720), 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, whil ...

References

18th-century pirates Year of birth missing Year of death missing British pirates Caribbean pirates British privateers Irish pirates {{Pirate-stub

History

See also

References