He was one of the most famous figures of the Golden Age of Piracy, yet some maintain that William Kidd was never a pirate at all. Certainly, he went to the gallows protesting his innocence. But in the space of a few short years, he sailed all over the world, first chasing pirates, before crossing the line into piracy himself – or so it was claimed.
Kidd was born in Dundee, Scotland, in 1654. We don’t know much about his early life, but by the 1680s he was living in New York City, which the British had just taken over from the Dutch. In 1689, he joined a French-English pirate crew in the Caribbean. He and other crew members mutinied, took over the ship, and Kidd was made captain.
Over the next few years, Kidd fought for the British against the French and Spanish, capturing several ships. His role was as a privateer, someone engaged in maritime warfare, but a private person rather than a member of the Royal Navy.
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