[ad_1]
WARWICK, RI (AP) – A handful of coins unearthed in a fruit-picking orchard in rural Rhode Island and other random corners of New England may help solve one of the oldest cases of common cold.
The villain of this story: a murderous English pirate who became the world’s most wanted criminal after he looted a ship carrying Muslim pilgrims to India from Mecca and then escaped capture by posing as a merchant of slaves.
“This is a new story of an almost perfect crime,” said Jim Bailey, an amateur historian and metal detector who found the first 17th century Arabic coin intact in a meadow in Middletown.
This ancient pocket change – the oldest ever found in North America – might explain how Pirate Captain Henry Every vanished in the wind.
On September 7, 1695, the pirate ship Fancy, commanded by Every, ambushed and captured the Ganj-i-Sawai, a royal ship owned by the Indian Emperor Aurangzeb, then one of the most powerful men in the world. On board were not just the faithful returning from their pilgrimage, but tens of millions of dollars in gold and silver.
What followed was one of the most lucrative and heinous thefts of all time.
Historical accounts say his group tortured and killed the men aboard the Indian ship and raped the women before fleeing to the Bahamas, a pirate haven. But word of their crimes quickly spread and English King William III – under tremendous pressure from scandalized India and the trading giant of the East India Company – put a big bounty on them.
“If you google the world’s first manhunt, it comes back like Every,” Bailey said. “Everyone was looking for these guys.”
Until now, historians only knew that Every finally sailed to Ireland in 1696, where the trail turned cold. But Bailey says the pieces he and others found are proof that the notorious pirate first visited the American Colonies, where he and his crew used the looting for daily expenses during their trips. travel.
The first complete piece surfaced in 2014 at Sweet Berry Farm in Middletown, a location that had piqued Bailey’s curiosity two years earlier after finding old colonial pieces, an 18th-century shoe buckle and musket balls.
Waving a metal detector above the ground, he received a signal, dug and struck a literal paydirt: a dark silver coin the size of a dime he initially assumed was either Spanish, or money minted by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Upon closer inspection, the Arabic text on the coin quickened his pulse. “I thought, ‘Oh my God,’ he said.
Research has confirmed that the exotic coin was minted in 1693 in Yemen. This immediately raised questions, Bailey said, as there is no evidence that American settlers struggling for a living in the New World traveled anywhere in the Middle East to trade until decades later.
Since then, other detectors have unearthed 15 more Arabic coins from the same era – 10 in Massachusetts, three in Rhode Island and two in Connecticut. Another was found in North Carolina, where records show some of Everyone’s men made it ashore for the first time.
“It looks like some of his crew may have settled in New England and integrated,” said Sarah Sportman, a Connecticut state archaeologist, where one of the pieces was found in 2018 during excavations. in progress on a 17th century agricultural site.
“It was almost like a money laundering scheme,” she said.
Although it seems unthinkable now, Every was able to hide in plain sight by posing as a slave trader – an emerging profession in New England in the 1690s. En route to the Bahamas, he set off. even stopped on the French island of Reunion to get black captives to watch the role, Bailey said.
Obscure records show a ship called Sea Flower, used by pirates after abandoning the Fancy, sailing along the east coast. He arrived with nearly four dozen slaves in 1696 in Newport, Rhode Island, which became a major slave trade hub in North America. in the 18th century.
“There is extensive primary source documentation to show that the American colonies were bases of operations for pirates,” said Bailey, 53, a graduate in anthropology from the University of Rhode Island and working as archaeological assistant on the explorations of the pirate ship Wydah Gally. wreck off Cape Cod in the late 1980s.
Bailey, whose day job is to analyze security in the state prison compound, published his findings in a research journal of the American Numismatic Society, an organization dedicated to the study of coins and coins. medals.
Archaeologists and historians familiar but not involved in Bailey’s work say they are intrigued and believe it sheds new light on one of the world’s most enduring criminal mysteries.
“Jim’s research is impeccable,” said Kevin McBride, professor of archeology at the University of Connecticut. “These are cool things. It really is quite an interesting story.
Mark Hanna, associate professor of history at the University of California at San Diego and early America hacking expert, said that when he first saw pictures of Bailey’s play, “j ‘I’ve lost my mind’.
“Finding these coins, for me, was a huge thing,” said Hanna, author of the 2015 book, “Pirate’s Nests and the Rise of the British Empire”. “The story of Captain Every is of global significance. This material object – this little thing – can help me explain it.
Every’s exploits inspired a 2020 book by Steven Johnson, “Enemy of All Mankind”; PlayStation’s popular “Uncharted” video game series; and a Sony Pictures film version of “Uncharted” starring Tom Holland, Mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas due for release in early 2022.
Bailey, who keeps his most valuable finds not at home but in a safe, says he will keep digging.
“For me, it was always about the thrill of the hunt, not the money,” he said. “The only thing better than finding these items are the long lost stories behind them.”
[ad_2]
Source link