Captain William Kidd (c. 1645-1701) was one of the most notorious pirates in history. He sailed the coast of North America, the Caribbean, and the Indian Ocean, plundering ships. To this day, rumors persist that he left behind a great treasure.
Not much is known about Kidd's origins or early life, which is not unusual, since few records were made of people of common birth in the 17th century. Even after he became famous, no one thought to write down any information about his youth or his parentage. At the time of Kidd's execution, the pastor of the prison where he was held noted that the prisoner was a Scot about 56 years of age. Other than that, no verifiable facts are known, but a long-standing tradition holds that Kidd was the son of a Presbyterian minister and that he was born in Greenock, Scotland, about 1645.
Greenock is a port town, and anyone raised there would have seen ships come and go from the docks. Kidd evidently found the life of a sailor more interesting than following in his father's footsteps. The first records of his life date from 1689, when he was about 44 years old and was a member of a French-English pirate crew that sailed in the Caribbean. Kidd and other members of the crew had mutinied, ousted the captain of the ship, and sailed to the English colony of Nevis. There they renamed the ship the Blessed William. Kidd became captain, either the result of an election of the ship's crew or appointment by Christopher Codrington, governor of the island of Nevis. Kidd and the Blessed William became part of a small fleet assembled by Codrington to defend Nevis from the French, with whom the English were at war. In either case, he must have been an experienced leader and sailor by that time. As the governor did not want to pay the sailors for their defensive services, he told them they could take their pay from the French. Kidd and his men attacked the French island of Mariegalante, destroyed the only town, and looted the area to the tune of 2,000 pounds Sterling.
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