In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

239 FOURTEEN The Pirate and the Gallows An Atlantic Theater of Terror and Resistance Marcus Rediker I n the early afternoon of July , , William Fly ascended Boston’s gallows to be hanged for piracy. His body was nimble in manner like a sailor going aloft; his rope-roughened hands carried a nosegay of flowers ; his weather-beaten face had “a Smiling Aspect.” He showed no guilt, no shame, no contrition. Indeed, as Cotton Mather, the presiding prelate, noted, he “look’d about him unconcerned.” But once he stood upon the gallows, he became concerned, although not in the way anyone might have expected. His demeanor quickened and he took charge of the stage of death. He threw the rope over the beam, making it fast, and carefully inspected the noose that would go around his neck. He turned in disappointment to the hangman and reproached him “for not understanding his Trade.” But Fly, who like most sailors knew the art of tying knots, took mercy on the novice. He offered to teach him how to tie a proper noose. Fly then “with his own Hands rectified Matters, to render all things more Convenient and Effectual ,” retying the knot himself as the multitude who had gathered around the gallows looked on in astonishment. He informed the hangman and the crowd that “he was not afraid to die,” that “he had wrong’d no Man.” Mather explained that he was determined to die “a brave fellow.”¹ When the time came for last words on the awful occasion, Mather wanted Fly and his fellow pirates to become preachers—that is, he wanted them to provide examples and warnings to those who assembled to watch the execution.² They all complied. Samuel Cole, Henry Greenville, and George Condick, perhaps hoping for a last-minute pardon, stood penitently before the crowd and warned all to obey their parents and superiors, and not to curse, drink, whore, or profane the Lord’s day. These three pirates acknowledged the justice of the proceedings against them, and they thanked the ministers for their assistance. Fly, on the other hand, did not ask forgiveness , did not praise the authorities, did not affirm the values of Christianity , as he was supposed to do, but he did issue a warning. Addressing the port-city crowd thick with ship captains and sailors, he proclaimed his 240 Marcus Rediker final, fondest wish: that “all Masters of Vessels might take Warning by the Fate of the Captain (meaning Captain Green) that he had murder’d, and to pay Sailors their Wages when due, and to treat them better; saying, that their Barbarity to them made so many turn Pyrates.”³ Fly thus used his last breath to protest the conditions of work at sea, what he called “Bad Usage,” and was launched into eternity with the brash threat of mutiny on his lips. Mather took pleasure in detecting what he thought was a slight tremor in the malefactor’s hands and knees, but Fly died on his own terms, defiantly and courageously. In any case, the ministers and magistrates of Boston had reserved for themselves the last lines of the drama. If Fly would not warn people in the ways they deemed proper, they would do it themselves, and in so doing they would answer his threat. After the execution, they hanged Fly’s body in chains at the entrance of Boston harbor “as a Spectacle for the Warning of others, especially Sea faring Men.”⁴ High drama had surrounded Fly and his crew from the moment they were brought into port as captives on June , . Fly was a twenty-sevenyear -old boatswain, a poor man “of very obscure Parents,” who had signed on in Jamaica in April  to sail with Captain John Green to West Africa in the Elizabeth, a snow (two-masted vessel) of Bristol. Green and Fly soon clashed, and the boatswain began to organize a mutiny against his command . Fly and another sailor, Alexander Mitchell, roused Green from his sleep late one night, forced him upon deck, beat him, and attempted to throw him over the side of the ship. When Green caught hold of the mainsheet , one of the sailors picked up the cooper’s broadaxe and chopped off the captain’s hand at the wrist. Poor Green “was swallowed up by the Sea.” The mutineers then turned the axe on the first mate, Thomas Jenkins, and threw him, still alive, after the captain overboard. They debated...

Share