Arab coins from 1600 could solve mystery of ferocious Henry Every, the most wanted ghost pirate

A handful of coins unearthed in a fruit orchard in a rural area of Rhode Isle and other random corners of New England they can help resolve one of the oldest unsolved cases on the planet.

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, then escaped capture by posing as a slave trader.

“It’s a new story of an almost perfect crime“, He said Jim Bailey, an amateur historian and metal detector who found the first arabic coin intact from the 17th century in a meadow Middletown.

This old pocket change, the oldest ever North America, could you explain how the pirate captain Henry each gone in the wind.

On September 7, 1695, the pirate ship Fancy, ordered by All 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 only the faithful returning from their pilgrimage, but also tens of millions of dollars of gold and silver. What followed was one of the most lucrative and heinous thefts of all time.

Historical accounts say that his gang tortured and killed the men aboard the Indian ship and raped the women before escaping to the Bahamas, a pirate haven.

But word of his crimes spread quickly, and the English king William III -under enormous pressure from a India scandalized and the commercial giant East India Company– offered a big bounty on their heads.

“If you are looking for the ‘first world pursuit ‘, appears as Every“, He said Bailey. “Everyone was looking for these guys“.

Until now, historians only knew that All finally sailed to Ireland in 1696, where the trail turned cold. But Bailey say that coins that he and others have found they are proof that the famous pirate visited the American colonies for the first time, where he and his crew used the loot for daily expenses during their escape.

The first full piece appeared in 2014 in Berry farm in Middletown, a place that aroused the curiosity of Bailey two years earlier, after finding old colonial coins, a shoe buckle XVIII century and a few musket balls.

Waving a metal detector above the ground, he received a signal, dug and literally hit the trash can: a blackened silver coin the size of a penny he initially assumed to be Spanish or money struck by the Massachusetts Bay Colony.

Upon closer inspection, the Arabic text on the coin quickened his pulse. “I thought, ‘my god’“, He said.

An investigation confirmed that the exotic coin was minted in 1693 in Yemen. This immediately raised questions, he said. Baileybecause there is no evidence that the American settlers who struggled for a living in the New World would have traveled to any part of the Half is to trade up to decades later.

Since then, other trackers unearthed 15 additional Arabic coins of the same period: 10 ” Massachusetts, Three in Rhode Isle and two in Connecticut. Another was found in North Carolina, where records show that some of the men from All they came ashore for the first time.

“It seems that part of his team was able to settle in New England and integrate “, He said Sarah Sportman, state archaeologist of Connecticut, where one of the pieces was found in 2018 during ongoing excavations of a 17th century farmhouse.

“It was almost like a money laundering scheme“, He said.

Although it seems unthinkable now, All was able to hide in plain sight by posing as a slave trader, an emerging profession in 1690 in New England. On the path of Bahamas, even arrested on the French island of Meeting to get black captives so that it is well said Bailey.

Dark records show a ship named Sea flower, used by hackers after leaving the Fancy, sailed along the east coast. He arrived with nearly four dozen slaves in 1696 to Newport, Rhode Isle, which became an important center of the slave trade in North America in the 18th century.

“There is abundant documentation from primary sources showing that the American colonies were bases of operations for pirates.“, He said Bailey, 53 years old, graduated in anthropology from University of Rhode Island and worked as an archaeological assistant on pirate ship explorations Wydah gally who wrecked Cap Cod, at the end of the 1980s.

Bailey, whose daily job is to analyze security in the state prison complex, published his findings in a research journal of the American Numismatic Society, an organization dedicated to the study of coins and medals.

Archaeologists and historians familiar with the work of Baileybut not involved, they say they are intrigued and believe that this sheds new light on one of the world’s most enduring criminal mysteries.

“Jim’s search is flawless“, He said Kevin McBride, professor of archeology at the University of Connecticut. “It’s cool. It’s really quite an interesting story“.

to mark Hanna, associate professor of history at the University of California-San Diego and hacking expert in the first State joinedHe said when he saw the pictures of Bailey’s play for the first time: “I missed the Head“.

“Finding these parts, for me, was a huge thing“, He said Hanna, author of the 2015 book, “Pirate 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 that“.

All of these feats inspired a 2020 book by Steven Johnson, “Enemy of all mankind“; the popular video game series “Unexplored“of Playstation; and a film version of Sony Pictures of “Unexplored“, Protagonized by To M Holland, to mark Wahlberg and Antonio Banderas, which will be released in early 2022.

Bailey, who keeps his most valuable finds not at home but in a safe, says he will continue to investigate.

“For me it’s always been the thrill of the chase, not the money“, He said. “The only thing better than finding these items are the stories lost behind them. “.

(C) The Associated Press.

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