Pirates: Captain Woodes Rogers

Issued 1987
Captain Woodes Rogers

Woodes Rogers was a successful privateer who served the United Kingdom during the War of Spanish Succession (called Queen Anne’s War in North America). A skilled seaman and excellent commander, Rogers circumnavigated the globe in 1708–1711, capturing many Spanish ships and holding Guayaquil, Ecuador, for ransom. After the United Kingdom and Spain made peace in 1714, Rogers captained slave ships for several years until he was named the governor of the Bahamas. The island served as a haven for English pirates, privateers who had grown accustomed to attacking merchant ships and continued to do so despite the end of the war. Backed by a small Royal Navy fleet, Rogers forced many pirates to accept pardon from the king in return for ending their attacks. Rogers’s most visible act in bringing the pirates to heel was a mass hanging in 1718 in which dozens of pirates “danced the jig.”